BRANSON MO NEWS: When a donkey becomes an elephant, the whole zoo gets a little spooked.In an already contested primary race for the District 34 Missouri Senate seat, another candidate filed just minutes before the deadline. Scot Van Meter, the current democratic Buchanan County assessor, filed to run for the seat as a Republican against Harry Roberts and Tony Luetkemeyer in the primary.Party members are crying foul.
“It’s a travesty that this would be allowed to happen,” James Rooney, chairman of the Platte County Central Committee for the Missouri GOP, said.The current officeholder, Sen. Rob Schaaf, took to Facebook to denounce Van Meter’s filing and claimed Chairman of the Missouri Republican Party Todd Graves either approved or recruited Van Meter to run. He believes it’s a blatant example of corrupt politics.Rooney doesn’t care who made the call, but does believe an outside actor encouraged Van Meter to run, splitting the Buchanan County vote and paving an easy path to victory for Luetkemeyer – a Platte County Republican. The boundaries of District 34 include all of Platte and Buchanan counties. Races for the seat mean bouncing between the two counties in a hope to woo voters.Van Meter said no one asked him to run and he’s been mulling the idea for a while. As for his change of party, he said the Democrats don’t align with his core values anymore.“Back in the day, a democrat’s core values like mine — you had the John F. Kennedys, the Harry Trumans — they were pro-family, pro-life,” Van Meter said. “The DNC’s line doesn’t correspond with my core values anymore. I don’t agree with the Democrats like Barack Obamas, Hillary Clintons, Nancy Pelosis.”Rooney wants Van Meter off the ballot as a Republican and said there’ …
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