Big Matt Attack

Matt Bartle is not one to gloat.

Bartle is chairman of the Missouri Senate's Judiciary Committee, which has just approved a broad ban on cloning. Bartle introduced the bill, and the committee's 7-2 vote in favor of his measure bodes well for its future.

But rather than celebrate, Bartle, a Republican who lives in Lee's Summit, chooses to play down the bill's chances of becoming law.

"Nobody is standing here tonight thinking that this is end of the road by any stretch of the imagination," he tells the Statehouse reporters who crowd him after the committee meeting adjourns.

Bartle's bill faces formidable opposition because it would ban cloning for research purposes. Research cloning, or therapeutic cloning, is a process in which DNA is implanted in an unfertilized egg for the purpose of growing disease-fighting stem cells. Supporters of therapeutic cloning believe it's a unique opportunity to find cures for Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and spinal-cord injuries.

But the egg manipulation results in the creation -- and destruction -- of a blastocyst. In bedroom-style reproduction, blastocyst is the term for the rapidly dividing fertilized egg once it enters the uterus. Bartle, an evangelical Christian, and his supporters want to ban therapeutic cloning because they believe the blastocyst created in the process is a nascent human life, even if it never leaves a petri dish.

The fight over therapeutic cloning is the most recent skirmish in the abortion wars, which continue to rage more than 30 years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade.

But what's particularly interesting about Missouri's cloning debate is the way it divides the Republican Party's believers in free markets from its believers in God.

Chamber-of-commerce types are terrified that Bartle's cloning ban will stifle the state's multimillion-dollar scientific research operations, such as the Stowers Institute in Kansas City and Washington University in St. Louis.

One business leader working against the bill is Warren Erdman, a well-connected Kansas City Southern executive who served as a regional chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign.

And Erdman is just one example of the muscle that's been amassing against Bartle. "I'd like to have a list of the lobbyists that haven't been employed to fight this bill," Bartle tells the reporters after his committee vote.

Bartle's skillful ability to play the underdog is one reason he has emerged as one of the state's most dynamic lawmakers. He prides himself on making bold proposals, such as his recent call for a toll to pay for Interstate 70 reconstruction. "It's not exactly popular to be a Republican who's proposing a user fee," he tells the Pitch. "But I think we got to tell people the truth: I-70 is broken."

Bartle is most audacious with social issues, however. A few days before the Judiciary Committee voted on his cloning bill, a judge said it was legal for Missouri to limit strip clubs' and sex shops' ability to advertise on roadside billboards. Bartle wrote the bill that became the billboard law. And in the current legislative session, he has introduced new taxes on adult-oriented businesses that would likely force many to close.

Is Bartle just a prude with sharper suits and a better education than most morality tyrants?

He's a Baptist, yes, but also a cum laude graduate of a Big Ten law school. Bartle says members of the media have reached for easy stereotypes -- science vs. fundamentalism -- in their coverage of the cloning debate. He accuses the Stowers Institute and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce of being "thought police," and The Kansas City Star of serving as their deputies.

Certainly Bartle is a rising Republican star -- one whose ascent casts new light on the differences between his party's capitalists and its scolds.

Bartle has just won his Judiciary Committee vote.He is on his way to the Senate floor when he crosses paths with Bill Gamble, a lobbyist who represents the city of Kansas City, Missouri, and business interests opposed to the cloning bill.

Gamble, middle-aged and thickly built, gives the impression of a man comfortable plying his trade over steady rounds of cocktails. Bartle is 40 but could pass for 29. He wears wireless glasses and keeps a neat part in his hair, his scrubbed appearance resembling that of another conservative Midwesterner, the columnist George Will. Bartle even wears bow ties on occasion.

As they pass, Bartle tells Gamble that he'd rather be in Gamble's shoes -- playing defense on the cloning bill instead of offense. Gamble smiles at Bartle the way a teacher might look on a precocious student.

"All the money is against it," Bartle tells the Pitch a few minutes later, speaking of the cloning bill. "Nearly every lobbyist is against it. A lot of powerful people are against it. You get the sense that this is something that is facing overwhelming odds."

Bartle is sensitive to the difficult position the bill forces lawmakers to take.

"This is one of those no-win situations for people in the Legislature, me included," he says. "It doesn't matter which way you go -- somebody is going to be extraordinarily angry with you. And those are the kinds of decisions that obviously try the souls of people in public office."