FREEBURG — Democratic candidates for governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor spoke in front of a local crowd at the recent Truman Day dinner in Freeburg on April 11 hosted by the Democratic committees of Maries and Osage counties.

Governor candidate Crystal Quade was the evening’s first speaker. She currently serves as the Missouri House of Representatives Minority Leader representing Springfield in District 132. She is one of five Democrats in the primary field.

Quade began her address by sharing some of her background growing up as the first person in her family to graduate from high school.

“I grew up in rural southwest Missouri, similar to a town like this, where we had a gravel road, a public school, a gas station and I remember when we got the Dollar General,” she said.

After high school, Quade attended Missouri State University to become a social worker, and she has lived in Springfield since then. Her experience in politics before getting elected included working for former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill and during one of former President Barack Obama’s campaigns. In 2016, she saw an opportunity to run for the Missouri House.

“That year, we were the number one targeted seat in the entire state for the Republicans to take back,” Quade said. “I’m proud to say that we won that election being the only Democrat elected in the southern half of the state in the state House or state Senate.”

Quade said her strategy for winning that election was making people feel heard. Her campaign signs sat in yards next to signs campaigning for former President Donald Trump.

“We knew that there were a lot of things we were going to disagree on,” she said. “But we would agree on the fact that our public schools needed support. That child care is way too expensive. That access to health care is a real problem for so many people.”

Quade said the strategy she used to get elected in 2016 is the strategy needed for the 2024 election. Getting elected as a Democrat was difficult then, and it remains difficult. One of her goals as the party leader in the House has been to strengthen the party and provide support to House candidates in the state. Part of that strategy has included ensuring Democratic candidates have websites and headshots available for their campaign marketing.

“We know out in places like this, even if we can’t flip a seat if we’re running Democrats, sharing our message, making sure they know we don’t have three heads, we can actually make some progress,” she said. “That’s how we flip seats eventually, and I’m proud to say during my time as the Democratic leader, we’ve actually flipped six seats red to blue.”

Quade said “partisan nonsense that isn’t helping anyone anywhere” is what prompted her to get into the race for governor. She pointed to three of the candidates in the Republican primary race to preview what she could run against in November’s general election.

“If you all don’t know, the frontrunner right now is Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft,” she said. “If you all know his dad (former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft), he’s like him on steroids. He’s the guy who completely changed our voter laws in our state that now make it so very hard for college students to vote.”

Next, Quade focused on State Sen. Bill Eigel, another Republican candidate for governor.

“If you all haven’t heard that name, he was on MSNBC for a blowtorch and some books,” she said. “He has proudly said that if he becomes governor he will burn books on the front lawn of the people’s mansion.”

Finally, she turned her attention to Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe.

“Kehoe is infamous really for being so pro-right-to-work that he was writing op-eds back when we were all collecting signatures trying to make sure that our workers had rights to bargain and be able to protect themselves,” Quade said.

Then, Quade contrasted herself against all three prospective opponents.

“After watching, all these years in Jefferson City, them continue to out-extreme each other and say the most outlandish things to try to get these headlines, I knew that we needed somebody to run for this office who not only cares about people and understands what regular folks are going through,” she said.

Quade also mentioned the importance of having someone at the top of the ballot who understands the issues facing candidates across the state. She noted the change in voting patterns of a Republican colleague who later this year will face an opponent for the first time in a few elections as a reason to encourage more Democratic candidates to pursue office.

Many of the candidates who spoke at the dinner emphasized that this year’s election has a lot at stake. Quade shared that position.

“This one is important because not only will we have reproductive health care on the ballot and be able to stop this government overreach attack on our personal freedoms and liberties and take that back,” she said. “We also have minimum wage on the ballot. We have earned sick leave coming up on the ballot. And as I already mentioned, we are only three seats away from breaking the Republican supermajority. So that means when I become governor, and I veto the next time they try to defund our schools, we can actually uphold that veto and say ‘No. Enough.’”

Abortion rights was one of the major topics of the evening. Some people came to the dinner with an initiative petition to put a constitutional amendment restoring those rights on the ballot in November. Quade said she expects the issue will increase voter turnout for the general election. She said that taking action at the ballot box in November could put more national attention on Missouri, which it has lost since transitioning from a toss-up state to a strongly Republican state in the last several elections.

Quade reiterated the importance of the next election by saying that she worries about what Republicans will do if they are elected in the next cycle. She mentioned recent actions in the General Assembly, such as Republicans voting against pay raises for teachers and protections for in vitro fertilization care.

“Just yesterday in the Senate, there was a conversation around whether or not children should be allowed to marry,” she said. “We had a Republican senator vote ‘no,’ defending 12-year-olds being married off. This is a real thing happening in our state.”

Quade said she would much rather talk to the crowd about topics such as infrastructure improvements, improving public schools, rural access to broadband and more, but instead, she had to talk about a senator voting in defense of child marriage because that is what is happening at the Capitol.

“Last year, we had the least amount of bills passed in Missouri’s history, outside the year of COVID,” she said. “Because all they care about is winning their elections and getting those clips on the news.”

In closing, Quade thanked the people in attendance and encouraged them to keep fighting locally for the causes in which they believe.

“I know not everybody is going to want to knock on doors and make phone calls,” she said. “But we need you all to make the brownies for the folks who do. Everybody has a role in this movement.”

Later in the evening, Elad Gross, the only Democrat running for Attorney General, addressed the crowd along with the “secret weapon” of his campaign: his dog Liberty Belle. He said she was a rescue dog from a puppy mill. She appears on many of his campaign materials, and one of his slogans is “End puppy mills: vote Elad.”

Gross began by assessing his likely opponent in the general election, Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

“Our attorney general is absolutely terrible,” he said. “Terrible at so many things. Look at the money that he’s wasted. This is our money that he’s just pouring down the toilet so he can get on Fox News every night.”

Gross mentioned the initiative petition circulating.

“When we get all those signatures, and we put this on the ballot, and we show them what Missouri thinks, and we take back our rights in this state, the last person that we want to be our attorney general at that moment to defend those rights is Andrew Bailey,”  he said.

Gross said one of his priorities as attorney general would be to reinstate the office’s conservation division, which Jay Nixon started during his time in the office and current U.S. Senator Josh Hawley eliminated during his time as attorney general.

“I will protect our land, our air and especially our water so the future generations of Missouri get to live here and drink the water,” he said.

Gross assured the crowd that despite his youthful appearance, he is a real attorney and he has experience suing the government. He has seen firsthand the work, or lack of work, as he characterized it, that the office has done. He asked the crowd if anyone knew the most common complaint the attorney general’s office receives. Someone guessed Sunshine Law violations.

“No, not the Sunshine Law though it should,” Gross said. “The Attorney General’s Office should be enforcing the Sunshine Law. Good luck on that one with the current guy.”

Then, someone correctly guessed that the most common complaint is about spam calls. She won a dog bandanna.

“We used to have such a strong consumer protection division in the state of Missouri, and now we don’t,” Gross said. “But when I win, we sure will again. We’re going to sue the scammers, including those who are in government right now, too.”

State Rep. Richard Brown, one of two Democrats running for lieutenant governor, was the last speaker of the evening. He began by listing off several of the people appearing on ballots this year and referred to himself as “just a guy from the neighborhood.”

Brown shared some of his background in politics. He said he is a “public servant” rather than a “politician.” He retired from Kansas City Public Schools after 23 years. He worked his way up into leadership with the teachers’ union before running for office.

“I got here because Missouri is messed up,” he said. “We’re going to make it change.”

Brown said the thought of Jay Ashcroft becoming governor and state Sen. Holly Rehder becoming lieutenant governor keeps him up at night. He acknowledged that the crowd was probably familiar with Ashcroft, but he reminded them that Rehder is the “senator who picked on the poor transgender girls and wouldn’t let them play sports.”

“I’m a school teacher,” he said. “I don’t stand for bullying.”

Brown said some people outcast transgender children because they are a little bit different. He talked about his daughter, who was the “different” kid because of her cerebral palsy.

“That was my kid and I loved her,” he said. “Same thing with those parents. Those are their kids.”

Brown also challenged Rehder for her position in trying to make Missouri a right-to-work state.

“We don’t need extreme folks like that,” he said. “We need people with good common sense.”

Brown said some of the things he sees happening in Jefferson City concern him. He mentioned a bill proposed by Rep. Bennie Cook, who represents Maries County, that would prohibit the purchase of pornography with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Funds.

“I said ‘Representative, why are you worried about people on welfare using it on pornography?’” he said. “‘Don’t you know how much pornography is free on the internet?’”

Brown reviewed the duties of the lieutenant governor and what qualifies him to fulfill them. One of the responsibilities is serving on the Missouri Tourism Commission. Brown already serves on the commission in his capacity as a representative. The lieutenant governor also interacts with the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and parents as teachers. Brown said his experience as a teacher prepared him for that role. The lieutenant governor is also the official advocate for senior citizens in the state, and as a 60-year-old, Brown said he would be advocating for himself in that position.

At the end of his speech, Brown encouraged the attendees to provide spaces for candidate signage. He also urged them to find spaces for candidates to come to speak in rural areas because that is how they get to know voters and hear their concerns.