The Deacon's Bench
Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, one of the elders of Missouri’s GOP, declared Tuesday that “politics has gone so hideously wrong” and blamed nasty campaign tactics for Missouri gubernatorial candidate Tom Schweich’s suicide last week.
“The death of Tom Schweich is the natural consequence of what politics has become,” said Danforth while delivering Schweich’s eulogy. “I believe deep in my heart that it’s now our duty, yours and mine, to turn politics into something much better than its now so miserable state.”
Speaking to a packed funeral gathering at the Church of St. Michael and St. George in Clayton, Danforth, an Episcopal priest and Schweich’s political mentor, stepped squarely into a fight that has rocked the Missouri GOP and scrambled next year’s gubernatorial race after Schweich’s death last week.
Schweich, newly elected to his second term as state auditor and one of two Republican front-runners for next year’s GOP gubernatorial nomination, died of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on Thursday morning in his home in Clayton.
Danforth, R-Mo., related that when he last spoke to his protégé, on Feb. 24, Schweich was “indignant.” Schweich, who was seeking the GOP nomination for governor in 2016, told Danforth he was hurt by a radio ad that belittled his appearance.
But even more troubling to Schweich, Danforth said, was a top Republican official’s “whispering campaign” that Schweich was Jewish. Schweich, who was Episcopalian but whose grandfather was Jewish, alleged the comments were an anti-Semitic attempt to smear him.
And the full text of Danforth’s eulogy can be found here.
Snip:
There’s a principle of law called the thin skull rule. It says that if you hurt someone who is unusually susceptible to injury, you are liable even for the damages you didn’t anticipate. The person who caused the injury must pay, not the person with the thin skull. A good rule of law should be a good rule of politics. The bully should get the blame not the victim.
We often hear that words can’t hurt you. But that’s simply not true. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said just the opposite. Words for Jesus could be the moral equivalent of murder. He said if we insult a brother or sister we will be liable. He said if we call someone a fool we will be liable to hell. Well how about anti-Semitic whispers? And how about a radio ad that calls someone a “little bug,” and that is run anonymously over and over again?
Words do hurt. Words can kill. That has been proven right here in our home state.
There is no mystery as to why politicians conduct themselves this way. It works. They test how well it works in focus groups and opinion polls. It wins elections, and that is their objective. It’s hard to call holding office public service, because the day after the election it’s off to the next election, and there’s no interlude for service. It’s all about winning, winning at any cost to the opponent or to any sense of common decency.
The campaign that led to the death of Tom Schweich was the low point of politics, and now it’s time to turn this around. So let’s make Tom’s death a turning point here in our state.
Let’s decide that what may have been clever politics last week will work no longer. It will backfire. It will lose elections, not win them.
Let’s pledge that we will not put up with any whisper of anti-Semitism. We will stand against it as Americans and because our own faith demands it. We will take the battle Tom wanted to fight as our own cause.
We will see bullies for who they are. We will no longer let them hide behind their anonymous pseudo-committees. We will not accept their way as the way of politics. We will stand up to them and we will defeat them.
Photo: John Danforth by Robert Cohen / St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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