In recent weeks, Stacey Newman has been hitting Steve Brown in negative – and sometimes, outright false – mailers.

The Brown campaign sent an email to supporters recently, that addresses her negative attacks.  I’ve posted a chunk of that email below.  

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to: Supporters

from: Brown Campaign

Newman’s Cartoon Sideshow

While we have been working to unite the community, my competitor has been trying to distract voters with a cartoon sideshow.  I don’t think most people are buying it, but I want you to know the truth about these attacks so that you can help us dispel the misleading and sometimes outright false characterizations Stacey Newman is putting forward.

For those of you who haven’t seen Stacey’ attack mailers, you can find copies of them on her attack website – http://www.truthaboutbrown.com  

But don’t be fooled by the site’s title, there is little on the site or in Stacey’s negative campaign that is true about me.  If you haven’t seen Newman’s negative attacks, take a look.  It is strange and amazing how much time, energy, and money she has dedicated to transforming me from a lifelong community member who has been in and around public service for decades into a (heavy-set!) 1950s-style cartoon jerk who daydreams about swooping into the 73rd district to steal an election.

One important note on this subject: I have heard from many of you that you do not like these kinds of negative personal attacks from anyone.  Don’t worry.  We will not be responding in kind.  I continue to dedicate my time, energy, and resources to a hard-working, grassroots, issues-based campaign.  If you have any questions about these negative attacks, please call me at (314) 725-4866.  I am more than happy to speak about Newman’s false allegations with anyone.  

In most moments – because the attacks are so blatantly false – I don’t take them too personally.  But then again, I hate the idea that anyone would believe the things she is saying about me.  So, below, one of our campaign aides has catalogued all the mistruths and inaccuracies of this cartoon campaign against me.

-Steve Brown

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from: Campaign Aide

Here is an outline of Newman’s negative attacks, explanations of how they are false or misleading, and some information that you might use should you find yourself in a conversation with someone who has been misled by Newman’s campaign.

1) In her first hit piece –  entitled “Keep on Movin'” – Newman suggests that Steve Brown is a carpetbagger who moved to the 73rd District so that he could run in this very election. Truth is, Steve moved BACK into this district over 5 years ago to raise a family.  The idea that someone would move into a district over five years in advance of an election is kind of silly.  But Newman’s charge is especially ridiculous considering that (while she is a Kansas native and long-time Illinois resident who only became interested in government relatively recently) Steve is a St. Louis County native who went to grade school and spent over 18 years of his life in the boundaries of the 73rd.  And he has lived over 30 years in the county.  All but his college years and a few years working for St. Louis area Congress Members Dick Gephardt and Joan Kelly Horn have been spent in St. Louis County.

2) In her second negative mail piece, Newman attacks Steve for accepting money from legislative committees. Newman refers to this as “Hid[ing] the Money.”  To be completely honest, Newman does have a bit of a point here.  Steve has accepted money from legislative committees.  To be clear, Steve has violated no law or standard of ethical conduct set out by the Missouri Ethics Commission.  Funny thing, though about Newman’s attack… She has done the same thing! (along with the vast majority of Democratic candidates running in the last few election cycles). Her latest finance report shows that she accepted money (in the very way for which she chides Steve) from the 15th Senate District Committee (controlled by one of her supporters), which had received money from the 24th Senatorial Committee (also controlled by one of her supporters). That 24th Committee has not yet filed their reports (in violation of MEC rules), so it is hard to tell who the money actually came from.  (At least Steve’s fundraising documents were completely transparent.)  Pot, meet Kettle.

3) Stacey’s third mailer – which is entirely false – says that Steve “gave himself the title of “Missouri Attorney General’s Deputy Chief Counsel'” for campaign purposes.

This is a clear falsehood as has been demonstrated on The Arch City Chronicle’s blog postings of July 23rd, 24th, and 29th which show Steve’s business card and even Jay Nixon’s original memo promoting Steve to the position of “Deputy Chief Counsel” in the Attorney General’s office.  Newman’s campaign has tried to call their false accusation about Steve an “honest mistake,” but they have made no apologies about it, continue to level the charge on their attack website, and…

4) Newman’s 4th hit piece repeats all three charges above – including the one they know is blatantly false.  But probably the biggest lie of all – the one that is evoked over and over by Newman’s campaign – is also the lowest by far.  It is Newman’s claim that Steve is “really thinking about himself, not our community.”

What kind of thing is that to say about someone who has knocked on the door of every voter in this district multiple times to hear what they think and care about?  A person who has held town hall meetings, coffees, BBQs, sent out surveys, and genuinely listened to voters and their concerns for months?  A person who worked for the people of Missouri for ten years in the Attorney General’s office when he could have chosen a much more lucrative career as a private lawyer?    

This is offensive.  This is wrong.  

Stacey’s final line of (what we hope is) her last negative and divisive attack is “Shouldn’t we look out for our community?”

If anything is threatening the sense of community in the 73rd district, it is the negativity and lies of Newman’s campaign – a campaign that is bent on dividing the thousands of supporters, local elected officials, mayors, school board members, labor unions, environmental groups, public safety organizations, women’s groups, and decent people of this district who have been uniting with Steve to form a vision of how we can move forward on the issues that we all care about.

If you know someone who is supporting Newman because they believe any of her lies about Steve, please set them straight.  If they still want to vote for Newman that’s fine.  This is a matter of principle.  Steve has never been dishonest about his care for this district or his motives for running for State Representative and we hope you will convey that message to anyone who needs to hear it.

Thanks everybody!

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There are also reports from voters that Newman’s campaigners (including her campaign manager) have been telling people in Maplewood that Newman is the only pro-choice candidate in the race.  ALSO NOT TRUE.

Despite all this, the Brown campaign says they are committed to staying positive.  

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( – promoted by Clark)

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( – promoted by Clark)

Following up on dissonentdissodent’s claim that the msm won’t cover negative stories about Rodney Hubbard and Hotflash’s story about the Hubbard/Roos controvery, I’d like to lay out in a little detail why I find the Post-Dispatch’s lack of coverage of this story disturbing.  Basically, I worry that the different standards the Post-Dispatch applies towards coverage of different candidates makes it far too easy for the political agendas of reporters to change the rules of the elections.  Follow me below the flip and I’ll explain why.

On July 17, reporter Jake Wagman posted a story about State Rep. Jamilah Nasheed on the Post-Dispatch’s blog “Poltical Fix”.  The story was an allegation, via a press release, that Nasheed had “bullied and intimidated” and even “physically threatened” workers for her primary opponent Kim Gardner.   Nasheed agreed that she had a heated discussion with Garner supporters she encountered but denied making any threats or using intimidation tactics.  And that was where the story ended.

In my opinion, this was merely a case of she said/she said.  Here is what I wrote in the comment section:

We live in a digital age. Gardner or anyone else who makes accusations like this need to provide evidence for this kind of claim. I personally don’t think “Political Fix” should even post stuff like this because it would so easy to manufacture a story.

At the time, I was thinking that it’s not a good journalistic practice to just print stories from press releases, even if you get quotes from the other side, because we all know that false stories can stick in people’s memories and this would make it far too easy for candidates to make up stories in press releases and expect them to be printed.  As long as you have a situation like this, where there is no way for the accused party to prove their innocence, it seems like it is (from a purely self-interested perspective) always in the interest of a campaign to make up false stories that will find their way to public attention.   But of course, it’s even worse when the standards are applied unevenly, and only one candidate can count on having press releases printed while others can not.  Throw in the fact that Wagman claims that “some would say” that Nasheed is an “agitator”, and you have a situation where’s its really easy for a reporter’s political biases to put restrictions on what some candidates but not others can do.

Anyway, the story is not really over.  A few days later, Wagman, perhaps in the interest of “balance”, put up a new post of one of Nasheed’s press releases claiming that Gardner supporters had tampered with some of her signs.  Now I thought again the language was a bit biased against Nasheed; the title of this post was “Nasheed, accused of bullying, says her signs were roughed-up,” whereas the title of the previous post was “Rough stuff? Rival accuses Nasheed of harassing workers.”  Both seem to me to cast a bad light on Nasheed, but I realize this is nitpicking.  The more important point for me is that this story again is a printing of a press release that basically can not be verified.  Did a Gardner supporter damage the sign?   I’m pretty sure I’ll never know, but that didn’t stop Wagman from printing the story.

OK, so now to the point.  In Hotflash’s article, Hubbard accuses Jim Roos of stealing and defacing Hubbard’s political signs.  Roos replied that Hubbard signs were put up at stores and service stations without getting the owners’ permission, in some cases taking advantage of foreign born owners.  Thus, apparently, Roos is claiming that he merely was taking down (and defacing) signs that the owners already didn’t want.

So is this case like the other two stories about the Nasheed/Gardner controversy?  Kinda, but not really.  Because in this case, unlike the other two, there actually are facts of the matter to be investigated!  Yet this case is the one that the Post-Dispatch decides not to report on!  In both of the other cases, we were left really with a story of two conflicting opinions, with no real way for reporters to decide who was telling the truth.  But in this case, all the reporters need to do is to follow up with Roos and actually go talk to the business owners whose Hubbard signs were removed.  After they get statements from them, the reporters can then check with the Hubbard campaign to see if there are some other stores that perhaps Roos did not show them that now are missing signs.  It really would be a fairly simple investigation, and one that speaks volumes about the credibility of either a candidate running for an important local office or about a prominent community activist.

What bothers me then, is that by reporting on the Nasheed/Gardner dispute, but not the Hubbard/Roos dispute, even though the latter but not the former case actually had facts to investigate, the Post-Dispatch makes it all too easy for the political biases of reporters to affect the elections.  If a reporter has a bias against one political candidate (and I am saying if) and covers unsubstantiated press releases against that candidate, or if a reporter shows favoritism towards a candidate and doesn’t print unsubstantiated press releases about that candidate, then the rules are effectively different for the different candidates.  One candidate will be able to use a dirtier style of politics than the other, because one but not the other can get away with it.  Thus, a reporters biases can pretty easily give an advantage to candidates the reporter likes.  

In my opinion, the Hubbard Roos controversy should have been reported on because there are relevant facts to the matter.  And the Nasheed/Gardner stories should not have been covered because there was no way of substantiating the charges.  But a second best option would be to at least apply an equal standard: if you’re going to print the press releases of one candidate about sign damage & response, then you should do the same for other candidates.  The Post-Dispatch, in my mind, got their reporting priorities exactly wrong in these cases, and I hope they can apply their attention more evenhandedly in the future.  

The Fix and other blogs have recieved this, but are continuing their blackout of any negative press about Rodney.

For Immediate Release

Robin Wright-Jones for State Senate

Contact: Glenn Burleigh 314.258.4149

Sinquefield Digs Deeper for His Candidate, Rodney Hubbard

Sinquefield puts his mouth where his money is – does this signal panic in the Hubbard Campaign?

This weekend 5th district voters received a mailer from “Public Charter Schools for Missouri – East”, which voters are led to believe is actually an association of charter schools.  In actuality “Public Charter Schools for Missouri – East” is one of the 100 Political Action Committees set up by anti-public schools millionaire Rex Sinquefield.  

Over the last several months, Sinquefield has been taking heat for setting up 100 PAC’s in what many consider an attempt to circumvent the voter imposed contribution limits in this primary.  “Public Charter Schools for Missouri – East” had previously given the maximum it could to Mr. Hubbard’s campaign, but has now spent thousands  more dollars on a mailing meant to highlight Hubbard and Sinquefield’s desire to defund, then dismantle the St. Louis Public Schools.

“Having already spent thousands of dollars on funding my opponent’s campaign, and now spending even more in effort outside the campaign seems to signal some concerns that Sinquefield has about his investment in Rodney Hubbard,” said Wright-Jones campaign manager, Glenn Burleigh.

Hubbard disdain for the voter imposed campaign contribution limits was evident when he joined Republicans on voting to eliminate them, twice.  These limitations were placed on contributions by a statewide ballot measure, which passed overwhelmingly, designed to protect voters from the extreme influence of money in Jefferson City.  

“Campaign contributions were imposed by Missouri voters to limit the power of wealthy individuals and corporations, yet Mr. Hubbard believes that the wealthy should be able to spend as much money buying influence over our government as possible.    Mr. Hubbard constantly talks about effectively representing his constituents, but time after time votes against his constituent’s wishes and needs,” said Wright-Jones.

Rep. Wright-Jones has worked in both the St. Louis Public and Archdiocese school districts, and has been a leader in the fight against Mr. Sinquefield’s campaign to destroy Missouri’s public schools.  Rep. Wright-Jones also joins the vast majority of her Democratic colleagues in supporting the voter imposed campaign contributions limits.

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