Democrats Win in Kirkwood!

[liberalpragmatist]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/4E201DBFCAE3065C862570B40018C7EC?OpenDocument

KIRKWOOD

Democrat Jane Bogetto of Kirkwood achieved a stunning upset Tuesday in the 94th District state House race, snagging almost 58 percent of the vote to defeat Republican Moira Byrd.

The special election in the traditionally Republican district had been increasingly touted as a suburban referendum on the GOP leaders running Missouri state government. And the state Democratic Party jubilantly declared that Bogetto's win on such GOP turf was a sign that the Republican days in power were numbered.

"This is a testament to the hard work of Jane Bogetto and a vote against Gov. Matt Blunt," said state Democratic Party spokesman Jack Cardetti. Bogetto is believed to be the first Democrat to represent the district, which also includes parts of Sunset Hills and Des Peres.

[Gloria]

1. GREAT WORK!!!! SWEET!

eom

[cornermouse]

2. Congratulations.

On to 2006.

[nickinSTL]

3. Heard about this on the news this morning

Great!

[AllegroRondo]

4. People are mad at Blunt for the Medicare cuts

lets hope this keeps up next year!

[cornermouse]

5. If the cuts continues unalleviated, people will continue to be mad.

Exception being those who die due to his cuts.

[loyalsister]

6. The best news is

She is the most progressive of the three Democrats running during that cycle! Imagine that!

[Cell Whitman]

7. Congrats this is huge

This is large. Her opponent takes sore looser to a whole new level.

http://www.timesnewspapers.com/stories/20051111/knockout.html

"Secondly, I think a lot of last-minute campaign literature put out by the other side was just extremely negative," added Bogetto. "The hate stuff fired up the people working in my campaign, and it backfired. It just really turned off a lot of moderate Republicans."

Democrat Ellen Wentz, who did some door-to-door campaign work for Bogetto, agreed with the newly-elected Democratic state legislator for the Kirkwood-Des Peres area.

"There obviously had to be a lot of Republican crossover to get this number of votes," said Wentz. "When I went door-to-door, I heard people say they are fed up with Bush, and they are fed up with Blunt. They were especially upset with a letter mailed out by Rick Stream from the Byrd campaign which said Jane was an ultra-liberal promoting abortion and homosexuality. People aren't buying that kind of politics anymore." ........

"I said last night that Tuesday was a sad day for Kirkwood and Des Peres and I meant that," said Byrd on Wednesday. "She (Bogetto) does not represent the family values of the residents who live in the district. She is in for a difficult time in the legislature. She is in the minority and her voice is not going to be heard. .....

"What we found is a lot of people who are convinced the country and the state is going in the wrong direction," said Shufeldt. People know that when you kick 100,000 people off Medicaid in the state, that is going to end up hurting everybody financially in the end -- it's not right and it doesn't help anybody." ......

"I think Byrd had a number of things going against her," said Pohlmann. "It's hard to talk about family values, and then to have your campaign treasurer busted in a drug sting....." ...

"It's going to be so great to have another voice for public education trying to stop this voucher nonsense," said Bray. "It's also great that regular folks are going to have an advocate in Jane Bogetto.