Steve Brown, running against Stacey Newman in HD 73 for the seat Margaret Donnelly is vacating, comes from a political family. And he’s proud of it. His aunt, Sue Shear, represented that district for 26 years, beginning at a time when women in the legislature were rarities. In fact, Steve remembers, as a kid, listening to her discuss with his dad whether or not she should run–a difficult decision back in 1972 for a woman. He asked his dad why people bother running for office and was told, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

Brown was guided in the direction of a political career from the get go. As a child, he ran errands for politicians. When he was eight, he was often sent to collect checks for the Hearnes senatorial campaign, whose office was next to The Fatted Calf in Clayton. Steve’s mother was distressed to learn that he was sometimes entrusted with thousands of dollars in checks.

He never lost any.

As a young man, he spent lots of time knocking on doors with his aunt and with Harriett Woods. Then, after college, he went to D.C. as a staffer in Dick Gephardt’s office. He considers it a privilege to have worked not only with Gephardt, but with Stephanopoulos, Begala, and Carville. He was, he says, traded for a player to be named later when Joan Kelly Horn unexpectedly won the Second District in 1990 and needed an experienced aide. After two years with her, he went on to law school and a long stint in Jay Nixon’s office, from which he’s taken a leave of absence to run his current campaign.

I’ll admit to mentally raising an eyebrow when Brown mentioned his admiration for James Carville, a man who’s been in my doghouse for several years, but especially since he tried to torpedo Howard Dean at the DNC in ’06. But whatever. As I talked to Steve about the issues, he was progressive. For example:

• When it comes to a woman’s reproductive freedom, he’s adamant: “It’s beyond the government’s authority to tell people what to do with their bodies.”
• About education, he says that we can’t expect a strong economy without an educated workforce. We need to spend much more. When people say we can’t afford to spend more, he responds: “It’s too expensive not to, at all levels.”
• In fact, considering how much dropouts cost our society, Brown would work toward universal pre-kindergarten education.
• He’s disgusted about our broken health care system and would, at the very least, want to regulate insurance companies so that they can’t turn down those with pre-existing conditions. But ideally, he’d like us to learn from the experiments in California, Vermont, and Massachusetts and try to craft a workable plan for universal health coverage in Missouri.

Most important, though, far more important than any other issue–and I wholeheartedly agree with him–is the environment. When he starts talking about the environment, Brown gets wound up.

He points out that every car produced lasts an average of 16 years, and we’re still producing too many gas guzzlers. We’re not on the right path, but he has a vision. He wants to see Missouri produce all of its electricity needs through wind and solar power. That needs to replace our addiction to oil, which is crippling our economy and hogtying us to the mess in Iraq. Not to mention ruining the only planet we’ve got. Brown has two small children, so … well, you get the point.

Both Brown and Newman are fine candidates. Either one would make an excellent state representative. It looks like it’s Brown’s race to lose, though. Both have an impressive list of endorsements, but because of his years in Nixon’s office, Brown has plenty of political connections, and the money has followed.

As of April 18, his campaign had collected $133,675.78 to Stacey’s $45,260. Of course, $45,000 means Stacey’s no slouch at fundraising, but Steve has already spent more than she’s collected: $56,834.39.

That’s a serious burn rate. He has seven full time organizers knocking on doors and planning neighborhood coffees. Volunteers will also be knocking on doors. Nor is he just depending on others to do the job for him. He’s already knocked on 3,000 doors himself. That’s work he enjoys.

It’s not that Stacey won’t work hard as well. She’s always been a self-starter. But she spent only $5,000 last quarter of the $45,000 she had. In other words, she doesn’t have the kind of staff to help her that he does.

Finally, Brown’s family history matters in HD 73. Sue Shear, because she served so long in this strongly Democratic district (70/30), was popular, and a lot of her old supporters are still around voting. It won’t be lost on them that her family has endorsed her nephew.

The results of an  April poll of 400 likely primary voters, paid for by Brown’s campaign, reinforce the other indicators that he’s ahead in the race. The poll showed him with a double digit lead, with 36 percent of the voters planning to vote for Brown, while 13 percent plan to vote for Newman.

Like I said, we’ve got two fine candidates–but Brown’s got the edge.