#DraftLucas

This video above will give you an idea of a #DraftLucas ad campaign that Blue America started running across Missouri this morning before dawn. So far, the ads are on Facebook and Instagram. We're primarily asking people in Missouri to join us in calling to #DraftLucas-- and anyone else... please use #DraftLucas on social media.

A reporter, Ryan Krull, from the Riverfront Times, a St. Louis weekly, went through the whole J-6 committee report and came away noting that Missouri’s junior senator, Josh Hawley, “closely associated with the events of that day, as he was photographed raising a fist in support of the election-deniers gathered in D.C. and was also filmed running from them after they breached the Capitol… is only mentioned five times in the committee's 845 page report (we thought it would have been more).”

The report's references to Hawley begin one day before the riot at the Capitol.

On January 5, then-President Donald Trump's executive assistant emailed Hawley, as well as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH). The email (subject line: "from POTUS") was about "Suitcase Gate," which the email referred to as one the “worst fraud incidents” in Georgia, a state Biden narrowly won.

But, despite the former president going to the trouble of putting the word "gate" after another word, the video that formed the basis of "Suitcase Gate" showed neither electoral fraud nor even an actual suitcase. The report does not say if Hawley replied to the email.

The report's next reference to Hawley has to do with events in the early evening on January 6.

Around 6 p.m., with police well on their way to securing the Capitol, the report says that "President Trump’s inner circle was still trying to delay the counting of electoral votes." As evidence of this, the report cites Trump's pal Rudy Giuliani calling members of Congress trying to get them to raise objections to the vote so that it could be delayed until "tomorrow— ideally until the end of tomorrow.”

One of the people America's Mayor called was Hawley.

The report doesn't say what Giuliani and Hawley spoke about, or if Hawley even answered (he may have been too out of breath from all that running to talk).

When the January 6 Committee asked Giuliani what he was so keen to talk to Hawley and other representatives about, the former Saturday Night Live host said that those conversations were protected under attorney-client privilege. It was a bold statement given that Giuliani wasn't a lawyer for Hawley or any of the other senators or congressmen in question.

But we can guess at why Giuliani was keen to talk to Hawley based on a voicemail he left for Alabama Senator and former college football coach Tommy Tuberville around the same time.

In the voicemail for Tuberville, Giuliani said: “Sen. Tuberville? Or I should say Coach Tuberville. This is Rudy Giuliani. I’m calling you because I want to discuss with you how they’re trying to rush this hearing and how we need you, our Republican friends, to try to just slow it down."

In terms of the chronology of that day, Hawley's final mention in the report comes in a section titled "A Coup In Search Of A Legal Theory.”

It notes that even after the insurrection, when the business of the day was able to resume, Hawley still objected to certifying the election results from Pennsylvania and Arizona.

Kansas City is in two states, Kansas and Missouri and the local paper, The Star, covers both states. Yesterday the editors noted that 2 of their 4 senators dishonored Missouri and Kansas by snubbing Zelenskyy’s speech, far right extremists Roger Marshall and Josh Hawley. They wrote that they had watched interviews with Marshall and Hawley, “neither of whom attended. Marshall nonsensically said the speech was ‘disrespectful to the Border Patrol.’ Hawley seemed proud to have skipped it, saying he ‘didn’t want to be part of a photo op.’ It didn’t seem to bother him to have his famous photo op with a fist raised to encourage the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrectionists. I wonder if either senator would be brave enough to put themselves on the front lines for our country. How would they feel seeing their family and friends die or lose everything they had worked for, including their freedom? Both make me ashamed for our states. What I want to call them is not fit to print, and they are not fit to serve.”

Here at Blue America, we agree that Hawley is not fit to serve and note with anticipation that he will face the voters again in 2024. We are urging Lucas Kunce to run against him. In fact, they’re both runners— Hawley will be forever known as someone who runs away. Kunce was a cross country runner for Jefferson City High School in 1998 and 1999 and then for Yale.

In 2016 Trump beat Hillary in Missouri, 1,594,511 (56.4%) to 1,071,068 (37.9%), winning only in St Louis City, St Louis County, Jackson County and Boone County. Hillary wasn’t very popular and had only beaten Bernie by around a thousand votes in the primary— 49.6% to 49.4%. Four years later, not much changed; Trump beat Biden 1,718,736 (56.8%) to 1,253,014 (41.4%). Same 3 counties + St Louis City went blue.

And last year’s Senate election for a rare open seat pitted Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) against Anheuser-Busch heiress, Trudy Busch Valentine. She was a garden variety Democrat running in a state where most voters oppose garden variety Democrats. But she had flooded millions of her own into the primary, enough to win that— and then lose the general. She won the same 3 counties + St Louis City and wound up with 872,694 votes (42.2%), about half the number who had voted for Biden. Had she inspired more Biden voters to turn out, she would be a senator today. But there was absolutely nothing inspiring about her or her platform. During the primary Kunce beat her in St Louis City, and in swing counties like Boone, Greene, Platte, Cole and Jasper counties. Even in red counties like Cape Girardeau and Shelby counties, he pulverized her— 50% to 24% in Cape Girardeau and 50% to 12% in Shelby. She won because she poured millions of dollars into blanketing St Louis, Jackson, St Charles, Clay, Cass and Jefferson counties with false ads. She would up with 43.2% (158,583 votes) to Kunce’s 38.4% (140,953 votes).

Now people know who Lucas Kunce is. If he decides to run, he will easily win the primary and will, unlike any other Democrat in the state, go toe to toe against the heavily damaged Hawley. Lucas’ 2022 ActBlue campaign page is still open (a good sign). If you want to help send him a message that you’d like to see him run again, how about sending him $24. Or even $1. He may not have made up his mind yet, but I think he’s going to do it. He cares too much not to.