Talk about overinflated: Missouri’s own right-wing billionaire and political meddler—Rex Sinquefield—has found a novel way to pump up support for his latest pet project. He’s renting a huge blimp and is flying it around the state.
The 200-foot-long, 60-foot-wide airship is allegedly one of the biggest blimps in the world–and a great excuse for puns. Ostensibly, it’s floating over Missouri cities this fall as a way of supporting a Republican state lawmaker’s “public listening tour.” The cost of renting the blimp is covered by part of a $2.5 million donation Sinquefield made to the “Create a Great State” effort. But the listening tour–which is touted as vehicle for soliciting “great ideas” for Missouri—has been less than public, as it doesn’t publish a schedule, and the media has not been invited. In fact, the most public and visible aspect of the program is the blimp itself–and Sinquefield’s puffed-up ego, of course. The listening tour is somewhat of a joke, actually.
But the biggest joke is the blimp itself. Emblazoned on the side of the blimp is the slogan “Grow Missouri,” and the hashtag #GrowMO.
Unfortunately for Sinquefield and friends, that’s the same hashtag adopted by Grow More, an organization that advocates for legalizing marijuana in Missouri. Oops.