The behavior of the human species, especially when under pressure, is demonstrated with remarkable clarity in both sports and politics. Every day is different; some individuals rise to the occasion; others fail with the misfortune of it being in the public limelight.

Last week I was in Washington, DC watching the Cardinals fail in probably the three most humiliating fashions in baseball: Game 1: blowing a 6-1 lead; Game 2: getting trounced 10-0; and Game 3: losing in extra innings.

However, my spirits brightened when, while there, I came across an on-line article by St. Louis Post-Dispatch political reporter, Jake Wagman, who said:

The Redbirds are in Washington this week, which does more than allow capital Cardinal fans to see their hometown team.

It gives hometown politicians a chance to score some re-election cash.

Ever since the Montreal Expos moved to D.C. and became the Nationals in 2005, Washington’s other players — members of Congress —have watched the team’s schedule for opportunities to bolster their campaign accounts.

In previous years, St. Louis U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay has held a fundraiser at the ballpark when the Cardinals played the Nationals.

On Tuesday night, supporters of U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt paid $1,000 to watch the Cardinals bullpen and defense implode in an 8-6 loss.

Tonight, U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan will ask his fans for the same amount to watch the second game of tonight’s series at Nationals Park.

While Carnahan — a St. Louis Democrat whose district was a casualty of redistricting — doesn’t know what he’ll be running for yet, the Nationals are wise to welcome his party to the game.

Political fund-raising, particularly when the dollars are as high as the event is ostentatious, just does not fit my definition of the people’s democracy. So the fact that 65 months before his next general election, Senator Blunt was shilling for money, and his special event turned into a debacle (at least entertainment-wise), did not sadden me a bit.

But I’m a bi-partisan curmudgeon about political fund-raisers. The fact that those who donated $1,000 each to Russ Carnahan only to see a Cardinal drubbing also seemed to have an element of justice. That’s because they were donating to Russ Carnahan at the same time that he is running for ….. nothing. As is not the case with Blunt, I generally appreciate Russ Carnahan’s voting record. But that doesn’t justify the absurdity of asking supporters to donate $1,000 for him to remain a place-holder to either run in Missouri’s refashioned Second Congressional District or for the esteemed and taxing position of Missouri Lieutenant-Governor. And what happens to that money if Russ Carnahan decides to run for nothing? Well just ask the one-time supporters of Anthony Wiener who funded his five-million- dollar war chest. Wiener could return the money to contributors as an honorable person would do. Or he can hold on to it forever in the hope that, like the Phoenix, he will rise from the ashes and once again run for office.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must acknowledge that, during one game, I sat in the luxury box of a powerful Washington, DC law firm. A good friend from high school is a partner in the firm. I do no business with the firm and would never do so without first reimbursing them for the tickets I used.

Almost every summer, four or five friends from high school in St. Louis get together for two or three days of Cardinals baseball. We all tend to bleed Cardinal red, but with an asterisk. This is the team with which we grew up, but things are not as pure as they once were when the team was owned by a bullying beer baron. We still want to see the team win, but we also get a perverse sense of pleasure out of seeing them fail, because we can’t let recent practices by team management go unnoticed. Primary owner Bill DeWitt (“I like capitalism, if you take the risk and I get the reward”) has legally blackmailed the city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri out of millions of dollars to further line his coffers, already estimated at more than four billion dollars (that’s billion with a ‘b’). The team built a new stadium that at best is the equal of Busch Stadium II, but clearly was unnecessary. Ownership promised a close-by, mixed-use development called Ballpark Village, if they received more tax breaks. The land has moved from barren to now being a largely inaccessible softball field. The only news is the empty quarterly promises by the owners that someday something will happen. Nothing does.

In contrast, Nationals Stadium in Washington has been part of the vital regeneration of the struggling residential and industrial area of Anacostia. I’m sure that there were funny money exchanges in the development of the stadium, but in the end it is value added to the community, something that cannot be said about the current Busch Stadium.

It is no secret that, like all Rust Belt cities, St. Louis is struggling to recover from the near obliteration of manufacturing in the U.S. Poverty gets worse as the direction of income redistribution is from poor to wealthy rather than the other way around.

Our problems are hardly addressed by $1,000 here and $1,000 there going to politicians who will ultimately use the money in a campaign to inflate their own accomplishments and distort the views of their opponents. There seems to be a certain symmetry between Blunt and Carnahan, both of whom profess a commitment to fiscal restraint, entertaining funders by seeing a baseball team that has deprived our region of millions of badly needed tax revenue.

Major League Baseball and politics are not strange bedfellows. For several nights at National Stadium, the ugly game of legalized bribery was a little more visible than usual. Thank you, Jake Wagman, for shedding needed light on the subject.

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There’s been much speculation about possible Republican and Democratic nominees in Missouri’s newly configured 2nd District. Republicans seem to have a beacon  always pointed to the furthest right position possible. Of the three announced Republican candidates, neither Ed Martin nor Jane Cunningham seems vulnerable to letting empathy or logic get in the way of their doctrinaire right-wing positions. The third candidate, Ann Wagner, may be more to the center, or maybe not. In any event, she is more adroit at making it appear that she has some familiarity with mainstream Republicanism that was the hallmark of the 2nd District back as  the Tom Curtis years (1951-1969).

By all rights, Russ Carnahan should be the Democratic nominee. He has served in Congress, has name recognition and needs a district from which to run, because the 3rd District that he currently represents has been dissolved through reapportionment.

Three quick thoughts about Russ:

1. Maybe he’s truly a change agent and recognizes that campaigns are far too long. I have discussed this in other blog postings as well as my own campaign in the 2nd District in 2010. I advocated six-week long campaigns, as in the  British system. I did not meet that goal; mine was six months long. If Russ wants to operate a six-month campaign, that’s still a 75% reduction of the time of most other candidates. Kudos  to him.

2. The redistricting process was obviously frustrating to Russ. He is currently one of three Democratic representatives from Missouri. Both Lacy Clay in St. Louis and Emanuel Cleaver in Kansas City have protection from the Civil Rights Voting Act of 1968 which forbids the elimination of “minority majority” districts. So long as redistricting is political rather than mathematical, this policy should not change. But it puts a non-minority candidate such as Russ in a difficult position. Let’s cut him some slack and understand that he had reason to vent about the whole redistricting process. However, he directed particularly nasty comments toward both Clay and Cleaver. Apologies are in order. To every extent possible, make them both sound and be sincere.

3. There has been talk that Russ wants to run for Missouri Lieutenant-Governor. As Peter Kinder has vividly demonstrated, it’s a job with virtually nothing to do. In a more positive light, it’s a place-holder before running for governor. Maybe that is what Russ wants to do, but right now why not run for Congress in the 2nd District, and if that doesn’t work, then he’d still have six years to figure out a way to succeed Jay Nixon as governor.

If Russ can’t make up his mind or does have it made up but he’s playing coy, then we have a wonderful wild card opportunity.

Welcome to Missouri, Dennis Kucinich. Dennis was squeezed out of his Cleveland district with far less of a chance to find another district in his home state than Russ has in Missouri. Along with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and members of the Black Caucus, Dennis Kucinich has been the finest progressive representative that we have in Congress. He desperately wants to stay in Congress. Even if there is a bit of hubris in his desire, it would be legal for him to move to Missouri and run in the 2nd District. He’s a free agent, eligible to run wherever he likes. St. Louis is owne something from Cleveland. The Cardinals sent bona fide closer Chris Perez to Cleveland for Mark DeRosa, a terrific player and clubhouse presence, but he was injured; in essence damaged goods. So like basketball star LeBron James, Kucinich could “take his talents south from Cleveland.” Let’s take Dennis Kucinich for the 2nd District as compensation.

Could you imagine the fun of an experienced, skilled progressive such as Dennis Kucinich taking on Ed Martin, Jane Cunningham, or Ann Wagner? We’ve learned from the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District that no safe Republican district is really safe if the Democrats field a good candidate and the Republicans try to defend the Paul Ryan budget debacle.

When I ran in 2010, I was the most recent in a string of Democratic candidates with low name recognition. I believe that a Democrat who is a household name would have an excellent chance in the 2nd District, especially as it is reconfigured. Republicans have done a wonderful job convincing most Democrats as well as members of the media that Missouri in general, and the 2nd District in particular, are red.

And how does Dennis win? By being an unapologetic progressive and beating the Republicans at their own game. I’m not talking about dirty tricks. I’m talking about certain policy goals. Republicans want to reduce annual budget deficits and eventually the national debt. Dennis could push for three things: (a) get out of Iraq and Afghanistan post haste, (2) reinstate the taxes for the very wealthy that George Bush and gullible Democrats enacted, (3) support Medicare for All, which drastically cuts health care costs by eliminating parasitic profits by health insurance companies. Bingo, we’re back to responsible budgeting and also have a better quality of life.

He could also get government further out of our lives than Republicans could imagine by enthusiastically and articulately presenting the arguments to keep the government out of our bedrooms and other places where they don’t belong. Dennis could show Ed, Jane, and Ann what a real conservative is like. If he wanted, he could even call himself a conservative and show that the true meaning of conservatism is conserving the advances that we have made through institutionalizing progressive policies in previous decades.

It’s not for either me or  Occasional Planet to endorse candidates. But we can observe and offer advice. In a nutshell, I would advise Russ Carnahan that if that he wants to stay in Congress, he should jump into the race and make amends with others ASAP. If he doesn’t, let’s have Missouri claim Dennis Kucinich on waivers. How refreshing it would be to have the talk of the 2nd District be about Democrats.

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