U.S. senators propose and vote on national legislation. They serve six-year terms. Each of the 50 states has two senators. Candidates for the Senate must be at least 30 years old, a U.S. citizen for a minimum of nine years and a resident of the state they seek to represent. Senators are paid a salary of $165,200, according to the public records office of the U.S. Senate.
Jim Talent. Claire McCaskill.
Ask just about anyone paying attention and they’ll tell you that these are the two people who will square off against each other in the November general election for U.S. Senate. Talent is the Republican incumbent; McCaskill is the Democratic state auditor making a second bid for higher office since losing the Missouri gubernatorial race to Republican Matt Blunt in 2004. Their campaigns are far and away more publicized and better funded than those of their primary opponents.
But Talent and McCaskill aren’t the only people running for the Senate seat. Six lesser-known candidates — four Republicans, one Democrat and an unopposed Libertarian — have officially filed their declaration forms with the Missouri secretary of state and paid the $200 filing fee. While some are doing a little more, others are trying to seize the opportunity to make their voices heard. Voters deserve to know who they are and what they’re saying.
Editor’s note: Repeated attempts by the Missourian to telephone and interview Republican Senate candidate Joyce P. Lea for this report were unsuccessful. Lea, a farmer who lives in Kansas City, has filed no campaign finance forms with the Missouri Ethics Commission, and the Missourian could find no campaign Web site for her. Lea was also on the ballot for U.S. Congress in 2004 and for U.S. Senate in 1998.
Also, Republican candidate Roxie Fausnaught was unable to provide a photograph.
FRANK GILMOUR
Manchester, Libertarian
PERSONAL: Age 50. Married to Rita Gilmour. They have one son and one daughter.
OCCUPATION: Owner of Professional Equipment Mobile Maintenance, a fleet oil change company.
EDUCATION: Attended St. Louis Community College at Meramec
BACKGROUND: He likes to fish and to hunt deer.
Frank Gilmour doesn’t feel like an underdog, but he does feel overlooked.
“I don’t get a whole lot of press as a third-party candidate,” he said. “At this particular point in time, me being an underdog or an unknown shouldn’t be the case. I should be being touted as the only candidate that has a guaranteed spot on the November ballot.”
Gilmour doesn’t consider himself a politician. He’s just looking for a way to affect some change.
“I don’t like the present situation we have in Iraq,” he said. “We went into Iraq for one reason, and now we’re there for a completely different reason. And yes, the troops should come home immediately.”
He’s also concerned about the national debt. He has a national debt ticker on his Web site: www.gilmour2006.lpmo.org, which increases by $1 million every 46.5 seconds and now stands at more than $8 trillion.
“I don’t like the fiscal irresponsibility of both parties,” Gilmour said. “We’re spending more money than we take in, and we’re borrowing money to get that. (It’s) something that needs to be addressed before we can do a whole lot elsewhere.”
Gilmour concedes he primarily voted Republican in the past, but he dislikes what he called the party’s shift to the far right. The Republican Party today, he said, isn’t tolerant of other viewpoints, lifestyles or opinions.
“I think that people have the right to pursue what makes them happy as long as it doesn’t impose on other people,” he said. “It seems to me, we’re being forced to accept the Republican ideology without any regard to how it’s going to affect us. I do think that most people live in the middle, and we need to be more accommodating to everybody as opposed to just a few.”
BILL CLINTON YOUNG
Kansas City, Democrat
PERSONAL: Age 60. He is a widower with five sons and one daughter.
OCCUPATION: Retired from the U.S. Postal Service.
EDUCATION: Has an associate degree in postal management from Longview Community College in Lee’s Summit and an associate degree in liberal arts from Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City. Intends to graduate from the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and another in history in 2007.
BACKGROUND: Member of Young’s Memorial Church of God and Christ. He is an African-American historian who is writing a history of African-American religion.
Bill Clinton Young entered the campaign for U.S. Senate because he thinks today’s senators and candidates ignore important issues such as health care and Social Security, and instead chase after special-interest groups who give them generous donations.
“I’m using this as a mouthpiece,” Young said of the campaign, adding that he has taken no money from special-interest groups. If elected, he said, he would sit down with groups that have worthwhile goals and decide how best to convert their plans into law.
Young is promoting a system of “social medicine” in which health care facilities would be operated by the government so that procedures such as laser-eye surgery could be affordable.
“Health care should be a benevolent institution,” he said. “When the crippled and the people who had all matters of diseases came to Jesus, he did not charge them for an office visit.
“I don’t think they should charge people for medicine,” Young continued. “There’s like 106 elements that God put into the Earth. Pharmaceuticals come from all of those elements.”
Before the 2008 presidential election, Young would like to start a new political party for Christians.
“I’m trying to get all of the Christians to come out of the Democrat and Republican party and come to an independent Christian party,” he said, “and we’ll take on issues like abortion” and same-sex marriage.
“In the Bible it says that the purpose of marriage is to produce and for people to produce you have to be heterosexual,” Young said. “Two homosexuals can’t produce. If everyone was like homosexuals it would kill the (human) race.”
ROXIE FAUSNAUGHT
Granby, Republican
PERSONAL: Age 50. Single. She has one daughter.
OCCUPATION: Homemaker
EDUCATION: High school diploma
BACKGROUND: Member of American Legion Post 163.
Stay-at-home girlfriend Roxie Fausnaught said it wasn’t exactly her decision to put her name on the ballot for U.S. Senate.
“Well, my boyfriend made me,” she said. “I didn’t want to do it, but he made me do it.”
Fausnaught’s boyfriend, Martin Lindstedt, is undergoing a court-ordered evaluation in Fulton State Hospital that prevents him from filing for candidacy. Lindstedt ran for governor in 2004.
“The judge over here in Newton County threw him into Fulton State Hospital, but there ain’t nothing wrong with him,” Fausnaught said. “And he’s really mad, so he wanted me to run for him since he couldn’t run.”
Case files show that Lindstedt is charged with first-degree statutory sodomy with a person younger than 14 and that he was sent to Fulton State Hospital for a court-ordered evaluation that will determine whether he is competent enough to defend himself in court. Lindstedt, who contacted the Missourian from the hospital, said he is innocent of the charge.
Fausnaught has done no campaigning for Senate. “I’ve got a bum knee,” she said. “I’m sitting on a veteran’s income, and I can’t do very much of nothing.”
But campaigning shouldn’t be about money or the amount of time spent speaking to and with voters, Fausnaught said. Rather, it should be about who is the best person for the job.
Asked what issues she is passionate about, Fausnaught paused.
“Well, I’m against abortion, if that helps,” Fausnaught said, adding that women who become pregnant should take responsibility. “I didn’t abort mine.”
SCOTT BABBITT
St. Joseph, Republican
PERSONAL: Age 48. He has a daughter and a son.
OCCUPATION: Advertiser for non-profit organizations.
EDUCATION: Attended several state colleges, including Missouri Western State University, and a professional school for Realtors.
BACKGROUND: Member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but said he is not Mormon. Member of the National Republican Senatorial Committee Task Force, which was founded in 1981 by President Ronald Reagan to advance his work.
Scott Babbitt knows his chances of winning the primary are slim.
“I have no campaign fund to speak of,” he said. “I’m self-funded. I don’t have any mass media behind me. So, do I feel like I’m one guy standing in the face of a storm front or a hurricane? I do. That’s exactly how I feel.”
Babbitt is particularly concerned about the fact that a link to his campaign Web site — www.scottbabbitt4senate06.info — is not listed in the “Filed Candidates” section of the Missouri Secretary of State’s Web site. Babbitt, who also ran for Senate in 2002, believes the reason is personal.
“There was a lot of trickery in that election,” Babbitt said, referring to his 2002 campaign. “And there’s a lot in this one.”
He accused the Secretary of State’s office of tampering with the election by failing to post the link to his Web site.
Mike Seitz, a spokeman for Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, said Babbitt’s site was omitted because it’s offensive.
“Well, I suppose, it depends on your point of view,” Babbitt said. “It’s truthful. It’s maybe, to some, offensive. It’s as truthful as I can make it. It’s sharp. It’s direct. It’s raw, I guess.”
On the site, a rambling haphazard assembly of observations, assertions and accusations, Babbitt poses a question: “How many Lawyers does it take to turn on a Planes auto-pilot?” The question refers to the plane crash that killed former Gov. Mel Carnahan and his son in 2000.
“There were at least two pilots on the plane,” Babbitt said. “I would think between the two that one would think of it (using autopilot), if it weren’t pre-cognitive.”
Babbitt said his name is on the ballot for a reason.
“I’m negative on what some members of our government do,” he said, specifically referring to election fraud. “They use deception ... to achieve their goals, (goals) that don’t match up with the best interest of the American public.”
The war in Iraq also concerns Babbitt.
“It was handled as a U.S. issue only,” Babbitt said. “The world had to stand back and watch us do our thing, and now it’s a mess. The global economy is a mess because of the war. I think this was detrimental ... to a majority of the people. We can see that reflected at the gas pumps.”
ISAIAH HAIR JR.
St. Louis, Republican
PERSONAL: Age 60. Married with two children.
OCCUPATION: Retired beer truck driver/salesman for Lohr Distributing Co.
EDUCATION: Attended Florissant Valley Junior College.
BACKGROUND: Member of Mount Carmel Baptist Church, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Missouri Eminent Domain Citizens Coalition.
Isaiah Hair Jr. felt no one was addressing the political issues important to him, so he decided to take a shot at running his own campaign for Senate.
“I feel there is a lack of representation from the Republican Party in regard to the minority community,” he said. “Our current representation does not address issues that effect the poorest and the neediest of our community. Changing these conditions would mean electing someone who would be willing to play a vital role in the push toward true equality.”
But that’s not the only reason why he decided to run.
“I would also like to be able to share hopes and opportunities with others,” Hair said. “That’s the way I feel about it; that’s the way I look at it.”
Hair, who is black, added that he brings diversity to the Republican Party.
“It’s important to have my name on the ballot,” he said. “I’m not all politician, and (if elected) I wouldn’t be all politician.”
Illegal immigration is another issue important to Hair.
“I don’t have a problem with people coming to this country; everybody is an immigrant,” he said. “If they come correctly and apply like everybody else, they can stay. If you’re illegal, then they should go. The president (in Mexico) should look into opportunity in his own country instead of allowing them to come to the U.S. and take good-paying jobs.”
He also addressed eminent domain.
“Here in the state of Missouri where people are losing their property to economic development, I feel that’s wrong. When you buy your home, that’s the American Dream. No one should have the right to take it away from you.”
Hair proposed a solution to the issue of eminent domain.
“When (developers) come to the table they shouldn’t be in the mood to push anybody out of their house,” Hair said. “If a person says ‘no’ then that’s what it would mean.”
But for Hair, those aren’t the most important issues.
“What matters to me is that God is ahead of my life,” he said, “and whatever direction I’m taking I’m letting him lead the way.”