Missouri Democrats were beginning to savor the possibility of claiming Congressman Ken Hulshof's seat in a special election. Hulshof has been seeking an appointment to President of the University of Missouri. For a week or so it looked as though he may win that appointment. Political people discussed it here and at gatherings in Missouri.
Alas, according to STLToday, the St. Louis Post Dispatch's web-site, Hulshof will not be offered the position. I didn't see any other diaries about this so I thought I'd bring you all up to date.
The sequence of events surrounding this appointment was rather strange today. Early this afternoon, I saw an AP story that reported that the University of Missouri had offered the position to a New Jersey businessman who had turned the University down. This story had a paragraph that said "Congressman Hulshof had been a contender for the job but fell out of favor with the Board of Curators." Hmmm. I was curious so when I finished the project I was working on I went back to the story with the intention of writing a brief diary about it or an Open Thread comment. Lo and behold, the noted paragraph was gone. The story has been updated and reported by other news outlets this evening and doesn't show up anywhere else. So I'm thinking somebody called somebody and yelled.
Tonight there are two blog entries within 3 hours of each other on the Post's web-site. The first entry is titled Hulshof Still In The Mix for MU Post. I'm not going to quote it here because it's only 2 sentences long and I don't know how to do it without violating the rules. Suffice to say that the Post is reporting that their sources tell them that Hulshof is still in the running.
The second blog posting comes along 3 hours later and is entitled Hulshof weighs in on new MU search, hints he’s out, and directly contradicts the earlier post.
Here’s a statement just sent out by U.S. Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Columbia, who had been in the running for president of the four-campus University of Missouri system.
Here’s his statement regarding the curators’ decision to launch a new search:
"I am very disappointed in the curators’ decision. Let me be clear – I did not withdraw my name from consideration. This is the decision of Chairman (Don) Walsworth and the board.
Hulshof concluded his statement by saying:
It continues to be my highest professional honor to represent the people of the 9th Congressional District.
I am humbled by the faith they have continued to put in me. I am anxious to continue fighting for their priorities in Washington, DC."
I think most Democrats in Missouri think Hulshof is popular and would be extremely hard to beat. That's why the potential of his resignation had Democrats stirred. However, it looks like we may not get our chance here very soon.
I do wonder what Hulshof did to piss them off.