Tour of MO "one of the few things Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration actually got right"?

Still, I wouldn’t have missed this year’s race, if only to show my support for Kansas City continuing to be host of an event that brings us international attention.

Likely, some around town were unhappy to find some streets closed. Likewise, a few critics denounce the Tour of Missouri as a boondoggle.

But I happen to think it’s one of the few things Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration actually got right in the past four years.

“Kansas City, do you love the Tour of Missouri or what?” Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder bellowed from a stage near Monday’s finish line.

The cheers that rang out echo favorable reports from spectators and tourism officials alike for Blunt’s idea to put on a “French-style bike race” in Missouri.

“French-style bike race.” That’s the smart-alecky way to which the tour is referred on the Democratic Web site Fired Up! Missouri.

It’s a dig at Blunt’s fellow Republicans for turning into Francophobes when France refused to back the Iraq war.

And it skewers the Boy Governor for subsidizing what some see as something totally frivolous.

Or, as Fired Up! Missouri’s opposites at the conservative Show Me Institute once put it: “… every dollar taken from taxpayers to spend on a bicycle race is a dollar that can’t go toward filling up a gas tank, buying groceries, taking a child to piano lessons or, say, buying a bicycle.”

Forgive me, but isn’t one job of state government to promote tourism? And isn’t that what Blunt and Kinder have done for two years (a third year is under contract) by sponsoring a weeklong bike race featuring some of the world’s best cyclists?

It sure beats some lame ad campaign. Twelve cities and towns get international exposure by playing host to either a start or a finish line during the week.

Whether that was worth the $1.7 million it cost taxpayers last year (and whatever this year’s bill turns out to be) is clearly debatable.

On Monday in KC, Kinder cited a University of Missouri study showing that last year’s Tour of Missouri returned $26.2 million on the state’s investment.

Tour of Missouri News: Tour of MO "one of the few things Gov. Matt Blunt’s administration actually got right"?

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