As Republicans “Wonder Where He Is,” NEW Report Finds Hawley At Gym During Work Hours

Mark Reardon, KMOX: “I’m kind of wondering where he is”

Last week, GOP strategist called Hawley’s campaign “a five-alarm fire”

A new report from the Riverfront Times reveals Josh Hawley makes time to go to the gym during standard working hours – even though it took him nearly a year to take action against Governor Greitens’ misuse of a charity donor list. The report comes as Hawley is facing criticism from Republicans who call his flailing campaign a “a five-alarm fire,” and say he’s so absent from the trail that he’s left conservatives “wondering where he is.”

“Josh Hawley is a terrible Senate candidate but an even worse Attorney General, skipping out on his responsibilities to make it to the gym – it’s no surprise he’s failed on his promise to clean up Jefferson City,” said Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Spokesman David Bergstein. “From his failure to investigate the governor in a timely manner to his invisible campaign, Missourians will see right through Hawley to the self-serving, self-obsessed ladder-climbing politician he is.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Riverfront Times: Josh Hawley Works Out in Columbia While Jefferson City Burns
April 25, 2018
Key Points:

• The state government may be in an uproar, with legislators rallying for impeachment even as Governor Eric Greitens fights for his political life. But Attorney General Josh Hawley is still finding daylight hours for the gym.
• The 38-year-old Republican is party insiders’ candidate of choice to take down Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri). But despite being in the thick of a heated primary race and holding down what’s ostensibly a full-time job as the state’s top law-enforcement officer, Hawley has still surprised his fellow gym rats by showing up for lengthy workouts during peak office hours.
• Perhaps even stranger? He’s visiting the gym in Columbia, Missouri — a 30-minute drive from his office in Jefferson City and his legal residence.
• Adding possible fuel to the fire? Our source says that he has seen Hawley at the Wilson’s Fitness Center at 2902 Forum Boulevard in Columbia a half-dozen times during office hours since January.
• That’s not to say Hawley is living the life of Riley. With insider favorite status comes great responsibility, and some Republicans have been openly dissatisfied with Hawley’s campaign. “If Hawley doesn’t gear it up and get with it, he’ll not beat her,” former Senator Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-Missouri) told USA Today in February. “I think a lot of people who want to see Hawley elected [are] wishing he’d get to work, doing fundraising and getting out and campaigning actively.”
• And once Hawley reported first-quarter fundraising totals showing his campaign was lagging badly behind McCaskill’s, the sniping only increased, with one “prominent Republican strategist” sniping to the New York Times‘ Frank Bruni, “He’s this young guy and he’s allergic to hard work.” Mid-morning workouts won’t help with that impression any more than mid-day wine shopping.

Read the full article here.

The Mark Reardon Show
April 23, 2018
Transcript Key Points:

• Mark Reardon: So, one thing that I’ve noticed here in the past week in particular, and I think it’s by no coincidence because our attorney general got a little bit more directly involved with the situation and the controversy swirling around our governor…
• Josh Kraushaar: Yeah, this has been a self-inflicted set of problems for the Missouri Republican Party. Hawley has been, for a top-tier Senate candidate, has been pretty invisible. He hasn’t defined himself early-on in the campaign and now he’s letting the events define him, in terms of handling the scandal involving Governor Greitens. Now he’s trying to get ahead of the things, trying to show that he’s independent and is prosecuting the legal problems that the governor’s facing, but this is sort of a double-edged sword.
• Reardon: …There’s some risk there because he said he wasn’t going to be one of these guys that just climbs the political ladder. I’m kind of wondering where he is too because he was a regular on this show.
• Kraushaar: Yeah, Mark. Politics 101… If you’re a new face, if you’re a new candidate that a lot of people don’t know about, you want to put ads on TV, you want to get out there and define yourself before your opponent can define you. And Hawley is still sort of invisible, he’s still more of a generic Republican to a lot of voters… He’s also been having some trouble raising a lot of money for what’s going to be a very expensive race. That’s what really concerns a lot of top Washington operatives. They’re looking at this campaign and they’re asking: what are they doing? They need to start getting off the ground and really running a serious race. And it’s already April of 2018 and they’re not seeing a whole lot of signs of life from Hawley’s campaign.

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