Why Eric Greitens is the Better Man for Missouri Governor

By

B.W. Durham

Election Day November 8 is an opportunity for Missourians to reject the tradition of career politicians in state government by voting for Republican gubernatorial candidate Eric Greitens, whose proven leadership will move Missouri government in a positive, new direction.

Greitens is a political outsider and accomplished leader who wants clean up statehouse corruption and revitalize Missouri’s government as government for the people — not for the career politicians.

In his distinguished career as a decorated commander in the Navy Seals, author of best-selling books and loyal humanitarian who founded a commendable non-profit organization for returning military veterans, Greitens, age 41, has shown leadership and integrity in every mission and task he has undertaken.

His initiatives are especially commendable because Greitens has demonstrated that he puts the interests of other people before himself.

But if Greitens’ opponent Attorney General Chris Koster is elected governor, Missourians will get more of the same old “me-first” routine: Government as usual by the self-interested career politician Chris Koster.

If Koster, a democrat and career politician, is elected Koster will assume the job vacated by another career politician — Governor Jay Nixon, who vacates due to term limits.

So, if you want more of the same for Missouri, Koster is your man. Koster will assume Nixon’s role in more ways than one. Here are some facts:

Nixon was Missouri attorney general before elected governor in 2008. Before then Nixon was a member of the Missouri Senate.

Koster has been grooming himself for the governor’s job by following in Nixon’s footprints. He’s been attorney general since Nixon was elected governor and — Guess what? — Before then Koster, like Nixon, was a member of the Missouri Senate.

Unlike Greitens, Koster is simply another career politician — locked into Missouri’s smarmy political system who believes he deserves to be governor because he has paid his dues.

He became Cass County prosecutor in 1994. Then he was elected to the Missouri Senate in 2008 by a narrow margin — 829 votes — amid public claims that his campaign violated Missouri state fundraising laws.

Koster also had worked closely for Missouri Attorney General William L. Webster, whose career and campaign for governor were ruined in 1993 when Webster pled guilty to felony embezzlement charges and was sentenced to two years in prison.

More recently, an audit by the former State Auditor, Thomas Schweich, in 2012 disparaged Koster for allegedly awarding contingency fee contracts to law firms that had donated thousands of dollars to his re-election campaigns.

And then there’s more — In October 2014, The New York Times published an investigative story on its front page evaluating whether corporations and lobbyists had undue influence over state attorneys general. Koster was a major focus of the article.

The Times article detailed how Koster, after being approached by an attorney whose law firm had donated thousands of dollars to Koster’s campaign, canceled his office’s investigation into whether a company marketing the “5-Hour Energy” drink used deceptive advertising. Koster also was accused of settling cases, some involving AT&T and Pfizer, for much lower-than-expected financial settlements.

That story highlighted campaign donations that Koster received from the corporations and lobbyists involved, and it associated a lower-than-expected lawsuit settlement to Koster’s appearance at a Pfizer conference where he met with lobbyists.

Koster’s office denied the story’s allegations and characterizations, but many Missouri voters believe Koster is just another opportunist who has repeatedly violated the public trust.

And here are more insights about the man:

Koster is a definitely a big spender: He disbursed $3.2 million to renovate and decorate his own office, and he oversaw more than a million dollars in raises to his own staff at a time when state services were being cut for Missourians. And he really likes to travel — a lot. He also spent more than $100,000 to fly himself around on the state airplane.

And he has accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from companies bidding for contracts awarded by his office. (Do I hear “Pay to play?”?)

Despite its failures, Koster — like Hillary Clinton — has been a strong supporter of ObamaCare. He has pledged that if elected governor he will support ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion in Missouri.

But where was Koster during the Ferguson crisis? As attorney general, Koster was the chief law enforcement officer in the state, but he passed the Ferguson ball to Governor Nixon, who didn’t want it either.

Many voters and media see Koster as a man who believes that he is entitled to the job of Missouri governor. Why? Over the last 22 years he has worked as a career politician and believes he deserves a promotion within Missouri’s less-than-transparent political system.

Greitens wants to expose the political system

Eric Greitens, in stark contrast, is an accomplished leader who will expose that system, clean up political corruption and revitalize Missouri’s government as a government for the people — not for career politicians.

Greitens was largely an unknown in Missouri until he announced his candidacy for Missouri governor in September 2015.

That has changed as he campaigned across the state before the gubernatorial primary in August as a conservative political outsider who was running for governor “because career politicians and special interests are taking our state in the wrong direction.”

“With the right leadership from outside of the political establishment, Missouri’s best days are yet to come. As a conservative outsider and former Navy SEAL, I am on a mission to turn Missouri around,” Greitens exhorted in speeches to farmers, small town businessmen, corporate executives and people in all walks of life as he crisscrossed the state to build support.

To create awareness, in a campaign TV commercial Greitens fired an automatic assault rifle at targets that exploded into fireballs to underline his promise to aggressively take on corrupt politicians in the state capital of Jefferson City.

His message left no doubt: Greitens is ready to go after politics as usual.

News media statewide — and nationally — lauded Greitens’ heroism as a former U.S. Navy SEAL commander who received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

Columnists made much of the fact that Greitens is, indeed, a political outsider. They noted that the trend among many U.S. voters in this election year is to reject political insiders in favor of youthful new candidates like Greitens with a fresh, anti-corruption outlook who want to replace the current class of political insiders.

When the Missouri primary elections arrived on August 2, Greitens garnered nearly 35 percent of the “split” vote. Although outspent by some opponents, he beat his Republican opponents former Missouri Speaker of the House Catherine Hanaway; Lt. Governor Peter Kinder; and millionaire businessman John Brunner (who reportedly spent $6 million of his own money in addition to millions in donor contributions in losing the primary campaign).

After the primary, many voters interviewed by The Associated Press noted they were drawn to Greitens by his outsider’s call to shake up the political establishment. But many did not know much about him except for his public speeches and campaign commercials.

Yet they now know that Eric Greitens is an extremely intelligent modern-day Renaissance man of integrity and vision.

He is a St. Louis native, married with two young children, who won a scholarship to Duke University and earned a Rhodes scholarship and a Ph.D. at Oxford University. And he is a former U.S. Navy SEAL commander who received the Bronze Star and Purple Heart among other military decorations. Upon military discharge, he was recruited by the George W. Bush administration as a White House Fellow and worked in high levels of government, and he also assisted with rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Greitens has proved that he is an innovative leader — He founded and led a national nonprofit organization, The Mission Continues, to help returning military veterans (including many suffering with PTSD) adjust, find work and become productive members of their communities. The organization now has operations in some 30 U.S. cities.

And Greitens is a New York Times best-selling author of four noteworthy books, including “The Heart and the Fist,” and he has worked in humanitarian relief projects in Rwanda, Bosnia-Croatia and Bolivia. NBC’s Tom Brokaw and Guggenheim Fellow Joe Klein (who wrote a book about Greitens called “Charlie Mike”) are among his many friends.

Today, Greitens is Senior Fellow at the Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri and a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

Clearly, there a big differences between Koster and Greitens. Koster has spent most of his life as a career politician who is part of the problem. Greitens has spent most of his life helping others and creating solutions.

Many Missourians now know that Eric Greitens as an accomplished, highly-educated, tough-minded Republican who wants to reform the often-corrupt and dysfunctional Missouri political system dominated by career politicians who value self-interest above all else. Politicians like his opponent Chris Koster.

Greitens is disgusted and dissatisfied that the state of Missouri ranks 50th in moving people off welfare rolls, 47th in economic growth and 46th in education. And he blames career politicians in Jefferson City for allowing those statistics to become a reality, and he promises to improve those statistics.

In 2013 Time Magazine named Greitens one of the 100 most influential people in the world and, in 2014, Fortune Magazine named Greitens one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders.

By comparison, Chris Koster is a man who has spent more than 20 years working to become part of Missouri’s political machine. He is a poster boy for more of the same for Missourians.

Greitens, on the other hand, is exactly the kind of energetic, new leader with a proven track record and impressive resume that people across Missouri and the United States want: a political outsider…a groundbreaker… a proven leader…and a man of integrity who can get the job and he has a record to prove it.

Greitens wants to create jobs and help build prosperity for every Missourian — but not in the tradition of career politicians and political insiders. He represents a new generation of leaders committed to changing our state government’s direction for the better.

When you go to the polls to vote on November 8, vote for making a positive change in our state’s government that will make it accountable to us Missourians. Vote for the Republican Eric Greitens, the better man for Missouri Governor.

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