Blogged

Matt Blunt cuts, runs

“A great Shadow has departed,” said Gandalf, and then he laughed, and the sound was like music, or like water in a parched land…

Well, perhaps that verges on overkill. Still, it comes as an unexpected pleasure - the shock announcement that one of the most partisan and least popular governors in the nation, Missouri’s own Matt Blunt (Son-of-Blunt), has abandoned his reelection effort.

Blunt claims he realized he’d done everything he set out to do. Fair enough, if “everything” includes throwing nearly a hundred thousand poor people off the Medicare rolls, increasing health care costs for tens of thousands of others, and selling off the state higher education loan authority. Not a surprise that he has consistently trailed his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Jay Nixon, in the polls. You have to wonder if that alone prompted Blunt’s abrupt desire for retirement, or if he was further influenced by the growing spectre of scandal:

Most recently, Blunt was embroiled in a scandal over allegations that his office routinely destroyed e-mail public records that the law requires officeholders to retain. His former deputy legal counsel has sued him and four state officials, alleging that they engaged in a conspiracy to destroy public records in an effort to hide political maneuvering by his staff.

Could be both, I suppose.

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