On Tuesday of this week, “independent” Missouri U.S. Senate candidate John Wood, a senior investigative counsel on the Jan. 6 committee, announced his withdrawal from the race.
The move came as something of a shock to most people as his patron, former Missouri Republican U.S. Sen. John Danforth, had already spent millions on Wood’s campaign.
It did not, however, come as a shock to me. A week before his withdrawal announcement, I had a chance encounter with Wood at a Kansas City diner. The fallout from that breakfast may well have hastened Wood’s departure.
Wood had entered the race in June under the pretext that he could not stand by and watch disgraced former Gov. Eric Greitens represent the party.
“That would have been unacceptable, embarrassing, and dangerous for my party, my state, and my Country,” Wood tweeted on Tuesday as he announced his withdrawal.
But anyone paying attention knew that Greitens had no chance. In a crowded primary field that included two popular sitting members of Congress, Attorney General Eric Schmitt won handily with 46% of the vote. Greitens came in a distant third at 19%.
A week after the Aug. 2 primary, Wood confirmed his real intentions, telling the Kansas City Star: “I think aside from those personal flaws of Greitens, I don’t really see much difference between Schmidt and Greitens. They’re both on embracing the extreme divisive rhetoric and symbolism.”
Among other offenses, from the perspective of both the Star and Wood, Schmitt had joined the lawsuit challenging election results in the four key states that ignored election protocol and, if that were not enough, “Schmitt also defended Trump this week after FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago for classified documents.” OMG!
I had missed all this drama. In July, I had voted absentee for Schmitt and left the country. On returning to Kansas City in mid-August, I went to breakfast with former Kansas City Star reporter Mike Ryan. Ryan wanted to talk to me about a new regional publication he was editing called the Heartlander.
To show me the kind of stories he was working on, he loaded up an article on John Wood that I proceeded to read off his phone. Wood apparently left his $5 million home in the DC swamps to run his sham campaign as a Missourian at the request of RINO-in-chief Danforth.
As I was reading, this plump preppy fellow took a seat right next to us. I looked at the fellow and then looked at the photo on the phone and said, “John?” When he answered in the affirmative, I said, “Aren’t you the guy running for the U.S. Senate.”
He was. Thinking us potential voters, Wood gave us his full attention. That was a mistake. While he waited for his breakfast, we politely pointed out what a carpetbagging saboteur he really was.
“You have no chance,” I told him. “Why are you still in this race?” He repeated the line about Schmitt being an election denier and too close to Trump, but Trump carried Missouri by 15 points.
Opposing Trump was not going to win Wood Republican votes beyond Danforth’s country club pals. “All you can accomplish,” I told him, “was help get the Democrat elected.” Wood insisted he could pull votes from both parties.
Here is what I learned about Wood in our seemingly providential encounter. He had not seen the Dinesh D’Souza movie on election fraud, “2,000 Mules.” I doubt if anyone on the Jan. 6 committee has. Why bother?
Wood thought Michael Byrd, the cop who shot Ashli Babbitt at the Capitol on Jan. 6, totally justified. “A small, unarmed woman, a veteran?” I asked. Yup, justified.
Despite his position as senior investigator, Wood did not know who Rosanne Boyland was. I explained she was the woman who was beaten and gassed while she lay dying in a crowed Capitol tunnel. I thought he might know that.
Wood insisted that the FBI has been acting “in good faith.” Ryan asked then why had its agents lied on successive FISA applications in their quest to nail Trump on bogus Russia collusion charges.
For the record, Wood never asked who we were, and we did not volunteer. I concluded by saying, “You know people like you are turning this country into a banana republic.”
I am speculating here, but Wood may have surmised that Missouri Republicans were a hardier breed – and a tougher sell – than the delusional do-gooders in the Liz Cheney, John Danforth circles.
Ryan followed up by writing an article on the encounter. So did I. So did Deb Heine at American Greatness, and Tony Botello, Kansas City’s leading blogger. The word was getting out.
Missouri, after all, is the Show-Me State. What sounded so righteous in the swamp sounded like pure bull back in a state where people can still distinguish shite from shinola.
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