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Ashcroft, Danforth, Kinder headlining statewide tour for Schweich

Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is leading a host of prominent Missouri Republicans, past and present, who are headlining a Sept. 27 statewide blitz of fundraising events on behalf of GOP state auditor nominee Tom Schweich.

Schweich said today he hopes to raise $500,000 over the day, which includes a breakfast in Kansas City, a lunch in Springfield, Mo., and dinner in St. Louis.

In St. Louis, at least, the big-name lineup is to include: retired Sen. John C. Danforth, former Sen. Jim Talent, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, former state Auditor Margaret Kelly (the last Republican to hold the job). If there are no key congressional votes on Sept. 27, U.S. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., and U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, are also slated to participate.

The St. Louis hosts: William H. T. "Bucky" Bush (uncle and brother of former presidents), top GOP donor Sam Fox and former ambassador to Hungary Bert Walker (Stifel-Nicolaus chief and a Bush relative).

Schweich says the all-day, big-name blitz is to highlight the importance that Republicans are placing on defeating state Auditor Susan Montee, a Democrat. Gov. Jay Nixon has been helping her raise money.

"This shows a real strong effort," Schweich said.

This article originally appeared in the St. Louis Beacon.

Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.

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