Someone’s awake.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay [2014 file photo].

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C010201 03/01/2015 SLAY FOR MAYOR Rex Sinquefield 244 Bent Walnut Westphalia MO 65085 Retired 2/28/2015 $100,000.00

[emphasis added]

It’s not like finding a quarter under your pillow.

A question, via Twitter:

Ben Welsh ‏@palewire

@jrosenbaum Has Rex gotten any of these politicians to start pretending they like chess?3:39 PM – 1 Mar 2015

The only difference between politics and chess is that in politics a lot more people get hurt.

Yesterday, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C010201 11/24/2014 SLAY FOR MAYOR Centene Corporation 7700 Forsyth Blvd. St Louis MO 63105 11/24/2014 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

C091061 11/24/2014 SCOTT SIFTON FOR MISSOURI Joe Keaveny for Senate 6219 Westminster St Louis MO 63130 11/24/2014 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Previously:

Sen. Scott Sifton (D): running for Attorney General in 2016 (November 10, 2014)

Campaign Finance: the long road to 2016 (November 12, 2014)

Last Friday the St. Louis Post-Dispatch featured an interesting editorial about creating one administrative entity out of St. Louis city and St. Louis County. It was reasonable and well-thought out, and I’ve got no problem with its content or its intent. I’ve long thought that a city/county merger could solve lots of problems.

The writer, however, made some points that are not only interesting, but which open a whole other can of worms. First, he identified the members of the “stealth” coalition behind a potential merger:  

Among the players are people close to St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley; retired financier and political donor Rex Sinquefield; representatives of the business leaders’ organization Civic Progress and key labor unions.

This is why Mr. Sinquefield is so deeply invested in the futures of both Mssrs. Slay and Dooley. It’s why Mr. Slay is raising money for Mr. Dooley, even as the latter struggles under the cloud of an FBI investigation into a botched contract for a crime lab. It’s why no serious Republican is lining up to run against Mr. Dooley.

And later, the editorialist describes the goals of some supporters of the merger:

Mr. Sinquefield is said to like the tax savings that merger/consolidation/metro government might bring, as well the possibility it might offer for eliminating city earnings tax. The corporate community likes the economic development advantages of combined government. Mr. Slay likes it for all sorts of reasons, including the way it would dilute the city’s crime statistics.

I’m sure that Slay has genuine reasons to support the merger, but I’m also sure that he likes the idea because it likely comes attached to big checks from Rex Sinquefield. Same goes for Charlie Dooly.

Although the author notes that Sinquefield is a “polarizing figure,” whose participation in the merger effort, if acknowledged, could create problems, he takes it for granted that at last something might get done because some very rich folks are behind a merger and are willing to buy the right politicians to do the heavy lifting, in this case Mayor Slay and Charlie Dooly.

Bear in mind that although a merger is arguably a very good idea, nobody has been able to overcome the objections of those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo – and the editorial points out that efforts to do so started in the 1920s. Maybe now, though, when enough wealthy and, hence, powerful individuals see their interests in conflict with that status quo, we might see some movement.

And guess what? When I read the editorial, I too took it for granted  that this is the way politics works. And I suspect that it’s not just because this is Missouri where big bucks can buy just about anything in the political sphere. It may have something to do with what some have described as a national slide into plutocracy.

While it is true that money not only talks, but has always been a very persuasive conversationalist, even dominating the conversation at times – consider the “gilded age,” for instance, where the adjective certainly didn’t refer to aesthetics – surely we’ve learned something over the years. But maybe not. Just stop and count the number of political outcomes that Rex Sinquefield is trying to buy in Missouri and the way that nobody even raises an eyebrow when the topic is raised. It doesn’t matter if the goal is one that is good or bad. Our political process ought to be better than this.

Uh, that would be the baseball team in Kansas City, not the folks in England.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C010201 08/08/2013 SLAY FOR MAYOR St. Louis Cardinals LLC 700 Clark St St Louis MO 63102 8/7/2013 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Play ball.

Somehow I don’t see Mayor Slay or Mayor Funkhouser taking this step:

It’s now time to meet the carbon challenge. Our second goal for the next four years is to put L.A. on a path to permanently break our addiction to coal. Coal currently accounts for roughly 40% of the DWP’s power portfolio. Breaking the coal habit is a long term proposition demanding a long-term commitment. It’s going to require investment from ratepayers. Our future depends on pricing power in relation to the environmental cost.

During my first term, we set high standards for green development and we’ve taken action to meet them. Los Angeles will get 20% of its energy from renewable sources by next year. We rolled out the most far reaching green building standards of any big city in America.

And this month, the largest city-owned wind farm will start delivering clean power to L.A.’s families. Moving forward we’re aiming to get 40% of our power from renewable sources by 2020 and go 60% carbon-free by the end of the next decade.

Today, I am directing the CEO of the Department of Water and Power to take every action necessary to reach these goals and eliminate the use of coal by 2020. Meanwhile, we’re going to move beyond the clean air action plan – the most aggressive effort to cut emissions at any port worldwide. We are going to electrify goods movement at our harbor.

I mean, Peabody Energy’s HQ is in Saint Louis. So is Arch Coal’s. They are the number one and number two private coal companies in the entire world.

A couple of weeks ago, Clark and I attended a mayoral forum for the three candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for mayor of St. Louis: Francis Slay, Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman, and Irene Smith. I got some video of Slay and Coleman, but–and this was unfortunate–none of Smith. She was the most intriguing speaker of the three. (I’ll have more to say about Coleman and Smith in later postings.)

Slay presents himself as a competent snow removal guy. I use that metaphor, though the actual question was that, considering how some have accused Slay of overemphasis on the development of downtown, what has he done or what does he plan to do to support development on the north and south sides of the city? I leave it to those of you who’ve actually lived there to decide whether his response is convincing.

A while back, in one of his many posts here arguing against Slay’s re-election, our good friend ashriver cited the Saint Louis American’s Political Eye as a credible source. When questioned on the reliability of the Political Eye, ashriver defended it as one of reputation. If they consistently passed along unsubstantiated gossip, then the P.E. would get a bad reputation as an untrustworthy source of information. Setting aside that many purveyors of false information and innuendo find their way onto every network and every editorial page in the country, I’ll present an example of why ashriver and others shouldn’t be so quick to accept the word of the Political Eye as the gospel truth.

Ever since Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman surprised the St. Louis political establishment by filing for the St. Louis mayor’s race, Slay’s critics have suspected that Coleman filed at the urging of Slay or his allies. In other words, she is supposedly a stalking horse, a false candidate in the race only to peel off confused voters who couldn’t remember whether they wanted to vote for Denise Coleman or Maida Coleman. Outgoing Senate Minority Leader Maida Coleman, who had been long rumored to be interested in the race, finally announced her intention to run in the last week before the filing deadline, only to opt for an independent run after Denise Coleman’s surprise filing.

Currently, Slay’s critics are casting about for proof that Denise Coleman is a stalking horse, without much success. A couple of weeks ago, the Political Eye’s evidence was that a Slay statement prepared in advance referred to “Ms. Coleman” rather than to “Maida Coleman”. Pretty lame stuff. The latest weak attempt refers to Denise’s website:

“The big red flag for me is that Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman had a professionally done campaign website operating just a few days after she claims she had a revelation to run. It would seem it was worked on before she was inspired and had to cost a couple of thousand dollars. She has apparently filed no Statement of Committee Organization, and one is required 20 days after the first contribution comes in and they reach $500. So who did the site, what did it cost and when was it done? If she claims a friend or relative did it, it would still be considered an in-kind contribution and put her over the $500 mark. It will also have to be reported on her first report,” this person writes.

Well, a casual glance at Denise’s website showed me the opposite of what that “astute city observer” claims. If it was a “two thousand dollar” website prepared well in advance, it probably would look more like Irene Smith’s website, which is clean and well-designed, rather than cluttered with a couple of typos like Denise’s. I tend to believe Denise’s campaign finance report, which shows that it was begun the day after Denise filed for office. And I tend to believe Denise and some of her closest supporters, who told me more than a month before the filing deadline that Denise was mulling  a run against Slay. Her team cut their teeth in the local organizing effort for Obama, who also inspired Denise to shoot for the seemingly impossible. Perhaps she’s naive, and perhaps she’s a longshot, but she definitely isn’t a stalking horse.

Personally, I’m agnostic on Slay. My own neighborhood has improved over the last eight years, and is finally beginning to perform closer to its potential. It’s safer and more businesses have moved in, and it even retains a diverse mix of people of different races and income levels. I don’t know if Slay can personally take credit, but he hasn’t gotten in the way, either. I also understand that not every neighborhood has had the same results as mine during Slay’s two terms, so I’m open to critiques on what he has done wrong and how someone else might do better.

But what turns me off as a swing voter is this bullshit insider baseball criticism of an idealistic candidate and of Slay. Nobody cares about it except the people who already see Slay as someone behind every problem in the city, and they’re already on your side. Give me something tangible and you might persuade me to take you seriously again.  

Hotflash and I had the opportunity to see the Democratic candidates for mayor up close late last week at a meeting of the 15th Ward Democratic Club. (Many thanks to Jan and Greg for organizing the event!) And I do mean up close – I was up in the front row, close enough to see the mayor’s leg twitching nervously as he delivered his opening statement, and Maida Coleman sat down right behind me, I suppose just to take in the show and research the opposition. Despite just wrapping up service as the Democratic leader in the Senate, Maida is an independent candidate for mayor and was not allowed to speak at the forum.

The 15th Ward Democratic Club held an open candidate forum for Democratic candidates on a night where the temperature hovered in the single digits. Despite this, a good 20 or 30 people turned out, not including the  entourages of the various candidates. I didn’t take very accurate notes on what each candidate said, and a couple of problems with the camera prevented us from getting all of the gory details down on film. Hopefully Hotflash will have some YouTube clips for us soon so you can see for yourself at least some of what was said. All in all, though, I was more impressed with each of the candidates than I was going into the meeting.

More below the fold.

Mayor Slay’s opening statement seemed to me to be the workmanlike speech of an accomplished technocrat, full of stats on investment and paint by the numbers accomplishments. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, it’s good to have a public servant who is rational and data driven, and this is the way Slay presents himself. He delivered the speech crisply and smoothly. As for the data itself, I’m not an expert, but I’m sure we’ll see a variety of partisans putting it in a different light between now and Election Day.

The only time Slay seemed to be agitated was when asked about Sherman George. He definitely knew the question was coming (as I recall it was something along the lines of “Would you have done anything differently regarding the situations in the fire and police departments?”) as his answer was logical and direct. He didn’t get angry or overly emotional or sentimental about the situation, but at times, he failed to complete sentences before rephrasing the sentence in another manner, and he repeated several points almost one after the other.

Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman was almost the polar opposite of Slay. Instead of coming across as a technocrat, her speech was almost completely filled with her passions. She’s obviously never been a candidate before, as her speaking style is still very rough and she began very tentatively. She did find her stride at one point, and perhaps the most entertaining point was when she glared over my left shoulder, right at Maida Coleman, and stated that she was beholden to no other interest or politician except the ideals for which she is running. I would have given anything at the point to have been seated on the other side of the room so that I could have seen Maida meet that gaze!

There’s a lot for Denise to work on if she’s going to become a formidable candidate. She didn’t have details at her fingertips like Slay did, or even a factoid she could steer the answer to if she truly didn’t have an answer. For example, she was asked what she would do about rising homelessness in St. Louis, and she responded that there were programs in Saint Louis to deal with homelessness, and she would look into getting more programs. Not exactly the most specific answer there.

Irene Smith closed out the night. A bit rushed, as the library’s closing time drew near even as she began, Smith struck a sweet spot between Slay’s managerial prose and Coleman’s fire. Like Coleman, Smith’s opening statement was heavy on biography. (Slay didn’t have to mention his biography – clearly the last eight years of his career massively outweigh everything else he’s done in terms of this campaign.) But she transitioned smoothly from her own career to the specific problems the city faces, possible solutions, and how her own previous experience matches those solutions. She’s a good public speaker, too – she effectively managed dramatic pauses for emphasis and wove larger themes into her specifics.

From people I talked to right after the forum and in the intervening week, I don’t think Slay is the lock that his overwhelming financial and institutional advantage might otherwise signify. The people I’ve talked to – regular voters, not political junkies – are very open to looking at the alternatives to Slay. A couple even recalled Smith’s incident in the aldermanic meeting back in 2001, but didn’t seem to care. All the caveats about anecdotal evidence, of course. So while Slay looks to be an easy winner, it will be interesting if a challenger gets enough funding and/or grassroots support to get their message out.

A point of disclosure and a caveat. First, I’ve given advice to Coleman’s campaign on Internet outreach. I know some of the people who are helping Denise with the campaign, and I know how tough a race they are facing. The least I could do was give them a few pointers based on what I learned working on the Margaret Donnelly campaign. It’ll be up to them to make good use of them, if they can.

Also, apologies for posting so late about the forum. I’m swamped at work and had all the usual chores in the intervening week between the candidate forum and now, plus the inaugural celebration, so I wasn’t able to post in the meantime. So there’s the caveat that I have probably failed to recollect a personal story that Slay shared, or some relevant policy details that Coleman told, that destroys my neat little characterizations of their appearances. In that respect, you, the reader, should treat this less as a news article than the personal feelings of an average voter. Hopefully, hotflash can balance that out with some YouTube clips that can allow you to form your own impression.

Antonio French has a post up about Saint Louis Mayor Francis Slay allegedly buying good coverage by the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, the largest daily paper in the state. A couple of weeks ago, the Saint Louis American exposed Slay money funneled to a couple of local African-American newspapers, and there’s no question that the P-D’s coverage of Slay has been pretty favorable.

However, the way Slay is supposedly paying off the P-D is… well, cheap. Slay has apparently directed city lobbyists to press Jeff City to “support local newspapers” in the upcoming legislative sessions. That’s a triple bank shot, at least. I can’t imagine that they would give him years of favorable coverage only on the vague promise of some city lobbying to an unsympathetic target like the Republican-dominated lege.

More likely, the editors and/or reporters just plain like Slay, and their comfort and ease with him lead them to blind spots regarding his weaknesses. It’s happened with all sorts of leaders, from George W. Bush to John F. Kennedy.

I found a greater scandal (which is to say not that big a deal) in something Antonio mentioned in comments, namely that the P-D has a Community Advisory Board which advises them on editorial stances. Sounds harmless, but a) it assumes that the reporters who cover the city are clueless and distant from the communities they are covering, and b) the CAB includes people like the mayor, the mayor’s chief of staff, and Paul McKee, some of the very people the P-D should have been investigating.

Maida Coleman is officially throwing her hat in the mayoral race. Looks like Slay’s got another four years, especially if Smith doesn’t drop out.