Fate moves in mysterious ways.
Just days before State Auditor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Schweich died, Eric Greitens announced an exploratory committee. Greitens wants to test the water of a possible run for Missouri Governor as a Republican.
Greitens would be, perhaps, the most remarkable human being ever to pursue the office of Governor of Missouri. Here’s a sampling of Greitens’s achievements:
- Humanitarian who’s worked in Rwanda, Bosnia, Central America, India and other disaster zones—usually man-made disaster zones
- Boxer who won championships in England
- Rhodes Scholar who completed the program at Oxford
- Navy SEAL who earned the Bronze Star among other accolades in four tours in Iraq
- Founder of The Mission Continues to give wounded veterans a mission and a purpose in life
- Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world
- Forbes’ Magazine’s 50 greatest leaders in the world
Purpose Over Party #
Greitens is no ideologue. He believes in a purpose-driven life. He sees lack of purpose and effortless living as dangerous to individuals and to society. From Bill McMorris of the Washington Free Beacon:
Greitens never brings up taxpayers, the “47 percent,” or redistribution when he talks about entitlements. He focuses solely on the recipients of government largesse because “we have to offer a hopeful alternative based on results, rather than good intentions.”
When he talks about government largesse, he’s not limiting the conversation to welfare. Programs that put wounded veterans on the sidelines of life are hurtful, too.
“They lure you into the system and people get stuck there. Even if you’re only 40 percent disabled, they’ll give you 100 percent disability in some cases,” he says. “You have to think about the incentives of government workers. Guys in the VA don’t get paid to help veterans lead productive lives. Their metrics are on how many people sign up for benefits.”
And he understands how destructive is the practice of inventorying human beings:
“These are motivated individuals who have the best training in the country. We entrusted them with protecting us, but when they come home we treat them like victims instead of leaders,” he says. “Life is richer if it is animated by purpose. I wanted to reinforce that sense of dignity.”
No one like Greitens has run for governor of Missouri in several lifetimes. He has done more good for the world in his 40-plus years than most career politicians could do in 80. He has turned down the chance to be super rich many times, choosing a higher purpose, instead.
If Greitens enters the race, Missouri’s Republican establishment will face a threat to its existence. Greitens can destroy the Wagner-Blunt-Hancock power bloc like no one else.
Boxer, SEAL, humanitarian, scholar, charity founder. The merchants of swill who helped drive Schweich to suicide will face an opponent in Greitens whose strength and character are stuff of Marvel comic books and Hollywood hero movies.
Sure, Hanaway’s minions will start whisper campaigns about Greitens. They’ll whisper about his divorce. They’ll wonder why he doesn’t loudly profess his faith. They’ll ask why he left active duty. They’ll find some veteran with an axe to grind and feed the source to their media puppets. They’ll quietly wonder if Greitens isn’t just using Missouri as a step-stone to the White House.
If none of that works, they’ll just lie and claim he’s a Democrat.
Hope Renewed #
Before Schweich’s suicide, my political fire was little more than a smoldering ember. The circumstances surrounding Tom’s death was like gasoline. I was angry and resentful.
The idea of Governor Eric Greitens quells that anger and replaces it with hope. Hope for myself, for my family, for my state. Hope for the party I once called home and might again.
I am a skeptic about direct divine intervention. I can’t help but wonder, now, if someone saw Schweich’s undoing and moved Eric Greitens to give the story a happy ending.
Now, I have hope. I hope Greitens runs. I hope Missourians recognize the opportunity his candidacy would give our state, our country, and our souls.
I believe Missouri voters will prove smarter than the establishment gives us credit for. We recognize greatness when it walks into the room. How could we miss it in Eric Greitens?
California voters elected a governor who played super heroes in movies. Missouri voters could elect a super hero about whom movies are made.
Missouri needs hope. The state is in decline. Its largest metropolitan area is losing jobs, population, and reputation. One of its two major parties is in disarray, mired in the bogs of absolute corruption and cronyism.
Eric Greitens’s candidacy would give Missouri hope. His leadership could erase the stains left by Ferguson and Hancock. The possibility of Greitens’s candidacy rejuvenated my spirits. I pulled down an angry post to make room for this one, so he’s already making a difference in my life.
Providence and Eric Greitens #
Providence seems to be turning the tables on the cowards behind the infamous Barney Fife ads meant to help Catherine Hanaway by emotionally injuring Tom Schweich. Those ads combined with a cynical whisper campaign that Schweich was Jewish and a team of trackers who relentlessly video taped Schweich everywhere but inside his home achieved their objective: Schweich is gone.
In his place, may come a hero. An honest to God, true-to-life hero.
And the thing that makes Eric Greitens the most fascinating twist in this sordid story?
Eric Greitens is Jewish. No need to whisper.
Continuing Your Mission #
Read The Great Jewish Hope by Bill McMorris: https://freebeacon.com/politics/the-great-jewish-hope/. Read Eric Greitens’s remarkable story in his best-seller, The Heart and the Fist. Read Eric Greitens’s latest book of letters to wounded warriors, Resilience.
UPDATE: Meet Eric Greitens–Get His Latest Book Resilience on March 16.
When Eric Greitens decides to run, won’t you join your mission to his?
Image Source: news.streetroots.org
UPDATE: Thanks to Mark Reardon of KMOX for the kind words about this post.