…or a match, depending on how you look at it.

Today at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C151077 04/10/2015 MISSOURIANS FOR JOHN BRUNNER David Spence 2021 S Warson Rd Saint Louis MO 63124 Legacy Chairman 4/9/2015 $25,000.00

[emphasis added]

Previously:

Campaign Finance: maybe it’s an investment strategery (November 2, 2012)

Campaign Finance: all in today (April 9, 2015)

Here’s the raw numbers from SurveyUSA, 10/28-11/3/2012, for KSDK-TV, KSHB-TV, KSPR-TV and KYTV-TV, 589 likely voters:

If the election for President were today, would you vote for … (choices rotated) Republican Mitt Romney? Democrat Barack Obama? Or one of the other candidates?

Mitt Romney (R) 50%

Barack Obama (D) 43%

Other 4%

Undecided 3%

Missouri will also elect a Governor. If the election for Governor were today, would you vote for … (choices rotated) Republican Dave Spence? Democrat Jay Nixon? Or Libertarian Jim Higgins?

Dave Spence (R) 39%

Jay Nixon (D) 48%

Jim Higgins (L) 5%

Undecided 8%

Missouri will also elect a United States Senator. If the election for US Senate were today, would you vote for … (choices rotated) Republican Todd Akin? Democrat Claire McCaskill? Or Libertarian Jonathan Dine?

Todd Akin (R) 36%

Claire McCaskill (D) 51%

Jonathan Dine (L) 8%

Undecided 5%

So let’s go into the details

The first detail worth noting is that on a survey with the sample of 38% Republicans and 31% Democrats, Claire McCaskill leads by 15 points. Yes, that is possible.

SurveyUSA finds McCaskill leading by 24% (55-31) with Independents. She wins 67% of Moderates and 20% of Conservatives (81% of the electorate). She wins 47% of landlines and 61% of non-landlines. SurveyUSA uses a system where “Respondents not reachable on a home telephone (28% of likely voters) were shown a questionnaire on their smartphone, laptop or other electronic device”.

That landline number is 47-40 Claire. That’s important, compared to the landline-only Public Policy Polling results, where Claire leads 48-44. While the whole cellphone/landline debate hasn’t exactly produced any real consensus about the impact of being landline-only or being landline/cellphone/others. The SurveyUSA numbers move closer to the PPP numbers when you compare their numbers on the exact method uses to survey voters.

(for reference: SurveyUSA landline numbers for President were 55/40 Romney and Nixon 47/Spence 45)

Another difference between SurveyUSA and Public Policy is the partisan composition of their universes.

SurveyUSAs sample: 38R/31D/29I (as noted)

PPP’s (.pdf) sample: 36R/33D/32I

So Claire’s numbers are better on a +7R SurveyUSA than a +3R PPP? Yes, that’s possible.

Public Policy says that Claire and Akin are tied with Independents and that Akin wins 79% of Republicans, instead of the 67% that SurveyUSA put in the Akin column.

If you get wild and creative, you could combine the Public Policy sample, and SurveyUSA party numbers, then you get the following numbers:

President: Romney 48, Obama 46

Senator: Claire 54, Akin 35

Governor: Nixon 50, Spence 39

If you combine the SurveyUSA sample and Public Policy numbers, you get:

President: Romney 54, Obama 43

Senator: Claire 45, Akin 45

Governor: Nixon 50, Spence 46

So that sets up a fun little universe of possibilities if you mix your drinks. (Although the Romney v. Obama numbers from Mason-Dixon were the same as Blunt/Carnahan numbers (54/41). But that’s Mason-Dixon.)

If Claire McCaskill finishes ahead of Jay Nixon, the SurveyUSA method is going to be vindicated and/or we will have wound up in a world we didn’t expect to be in back on August 7th.

If she doesn’t do that well, then the universe continues undisturbed. Because it’s not like the varying success of non-landline methods has stopped Reuters/Ipsos, YouGov, and other online-friendly pollsters. Sometimes pollsters like SurveyUSA get a direct hit (McCain 48, Obama 48). Sometimes they miss slightly (Claire 51, Talent 42). Polling is sort of like a science.

The Presidential race in Missouri is pretty much two campaigns who only run ads in the parts of Missouri whose TV stations cover Iowa. But in all likelyhood, the better Obama does, the better the rest of the Democrats do in the election and the Missouri Democratic ticket probably runs slightly ahead of Obama.

In 2012, We live in a very surreal state. And in a few days, we’ll begin the process of forgetting Todd Akin, Dave Spence and Mitt Romney.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C111205 11/02/2012 SPENCE FOR GOVERNOR David Spence 2021 S. Warson Road St Louis MO 63124 Self Businessman 10/31/2012 $600,000.00

[emphasis added]

Why, I bet there’s plenty more where that came from.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: he’ll only waste it on more television commercials (October 18, 2012)

Campaign Finance: he’ll only waste it on even more television commercials (October 24, 2012)

Campaign Finance: No really, why hold back? (October 27, 2012)  

Kevin Horrigan in his Sunday column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch brought up a study (pdf) by a couple of academics that question the practice of “peer benchmarking” CEO salaries in order to keep them from moving on to more lucrative jobs. The idea is that companies have to pay more in order to keep talented CEOs in place. The two researchers, Charles M. Elson and Craig K. Ferrere, question the wisdom of that practice:

…  Scholars have long recognized a distinction between firm-specific and general skills. It is quite apparent that successful CEOs leverage not only their intrinsic talents but also, and more importantly, a vast accumulation of firm-specific knowledge developed over a multi-year career. Whether it is deep knowledge of an organization’s personnel or the processes specific to a particular operation, this skill set is learned carefully over a long tenure with a company and not easily capable of quick replication at other firms. In fact, when “superstar” executives change companies, the result is usually disappointing.

Horrigan was interested in the issue of CEO compensation, particularly as it involves Robert R. Archibald, the embattled director of the Missouri Historical Museum. It strikes me, though, that the point is just as apt when applied to businessmen who claim that their business success will allow them to shine as government leaders.

My thoughts went immediately to two GOP candidates for high elective office who want us to believe that they are qualified for those positions because of their past business careers: Missouri gubernatorial candidate Dave Spence, and ex-financial mogul and current presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. However, the Elson and Ferrere study suggests that there is nothing in the background of a successful financier and a plastics manufacturer that would necessarily translate to success in government.

Certainly history suggests that businessmen in government are rarely effective leaders. According to journalist Daniel Akst who consulted with Historian Barbara Perry about the relationship between the success of twentieth century presidents and their earlier careers:

It’s important to know whether a president has worked in business. It’s important because having worked in business is associated with being a lousy president, at least in the modern era.

Recollect that while Mitt Romney was successful in the highly specialized financial realm, he was also by many measures a failure as governor of Massachusetts. The performance of the Massachusetts economy under Romney wasn’t that great to say the least – there’s a reason few in the state support his presidential bid. Although Romney has tried to claim that the fault lay with the Democratic legislature, the current Democratic governor, Patrick Duval together with a largely Democratic legislature has been able to  rescue the state from the Bush recession twice as fact as other states. Massachusetts currently ranks in the top 10 states in job growth. So much for Romney’s vaunted claims to understand what makes an economy successful.

Nor, by the measures that Elson and Ferrere suggest, should we assume that Mr. Spence’s success in a very specialized plastics business would translate into the skill set that would allow him to take the reins of a complex state government. As for his more generalized management skills, we have only to examine his to-date feckless, largely self-financed campaign, to get an idea of his ability to run entities that are not organized around a specific body of manufacturing knowledge.

None of this is surprising, of course. Think of successful businessman and colossally failed president Herbert Hoover. Or, to take a more recent example, think back to the hilarious spectacle of real estate tycoon Donald Trump contemplating a run for President and it’s easy to conclude that instead of a savy manager, successful businessmen transplanted to government are apt to prove either inept as in Hoover’s case, or total clowns, as would surely be the case were Trump to ever win office.  

Previously:

Campaign Finance: he’ll only waste it on more television commercials (October 18, 2012)

Campaign Finance: he’ll only waste it on even more television commercials (October 24, 2012)

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C111205 10/27/2012 SPENCE FOR GOVERNOR David Spence 2021 S. Warson Road St Louis MO 63124 Self Businessman 10/26/2012 $1,000,000.00

[emphasis added]

Gee, why not abandon any restraint and just go all in?

Governor Jay Nixon didn’t write himself a big check today:

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Missouri Health Care Association PAC 236 Metro Drive Jefferson City MO 65109 10/25/2012 $20,000.00

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Carpenters’ Legislative Improvement Committee 101 Constitution Avenue, NW 10th Floor Washington DC 20001 10/25/2012 $60,000.00

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Myrna A Blair 10 Cricklewood Place Saint Louis MO 63131 Retired Retired 10/25/2012 $10,000.00

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 562 Voluntary Political Fund 12385 Larimore Road Saint Louis MO 63138 10/26/2012 $20,000.00

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Hoisting Engineers Local 513 Political & Educational Fund 3449 Hollenberg Drive Bridgeton MO 63044 10/26/2012 $10,000.00

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Andrew A OBrien 815 Geyer Avenue Saint Louis MO 63104 O’Brien Law Firm Attorney 10/26/2012 $10,000.00

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Thomas A McDonnell 4909 Sunset Drive Kansas City MO 64112 DST Systems, Inc. CEO 10/26/2012 $10,000.00

C001135 10/27/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Union Pacific Railroad Company 600 Broadway Suite 500 Kansas City MO 64105 10/26/2012 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Previously: Campaign Finance: he’ll only waste it on more television commercials (October 18, 2012)

Gee, that’s $1,000,000.00 in little less than a week. Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C111205 10/24/2012 SPENCE FOR GOVERNOR David Spence 2021 S. Warson Rd. St Louis MO 63124 Self Businessman 10/22/2012 $500,000.00

[emphasis added]

The commercials remain, not worth it.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C001135 10/21/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Democratic Governors Association – Missouri 2201 Wisconsin Avenue, NW Suite 320 Washington DC 20007 10/19/2012 $100,000.00

[emphasis added]

And there’s plenty more over the past week:

C001135 10/14/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI AgXplore International, LLC PO Box 638 Parma MO 63870 10/12/2012 $10,000.00

C001135 10/14/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Tri-County Seed PO Box 638 Parma MO 63870 10/12/2012 $12,500.00

C001135 10/14/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Davis Minton 16138 Shady Lane Dexter MO 63841 Crowley Ridge Farm Ag Enterprises President 10/12/2012 $15,000.00

C001135 10/14/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Carey & Danis, LLC 8235 Forsyth Boulevard Suite 1101 Saint Louis MO 63105 10/12/2012 $25,000.00

C001135 10/17/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI James B Nutter Sr 1201 W. 66th Street Kansas City MO 64113 James B. Nutter & Company Owner 10/15/2012 $25,000.00

C001135 10/18/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI DCI Construction, LLC 1354 E. Kingsley Street Suite C Springfield MO 65804 10/16/2012 $10,000.00

C001135 10/18/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Credit Union Political Action Committee 223 Madison Street Jefferson City MO 65101 10/16/2012 $5,001.00

C001135 10/19/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI American Federation of Teachers COPE 555 New Jersey Avenue, NW Washington DC 20001 10/17/2012 $25,000.00

C001135 10/21/2012 JAY NIXON FOR MISSOURI Simmons, Browder, Gianaris, Angelides & Barnerd, LLC One Court Street Alton IL 62002 10/19/2012 $10,000.00

[emphasis added]

Evidently the alternative isn’t very attractive.

So far Dave Spence’s campaign for Missouri governor has seemed like an afterthought; he actually had to resort to suing Governor Jay Nixon to get himself some media attention. Spence has, however, found himself some big GOP guns to fire off: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in September, and, next Monday, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will try to gin up some enthusiasm for Spence at a rally in Jefferson City.

Of course Scott Walker, who is to progressives as Darth Vader is to Obi Wan Kenobi, is a hero to the anti-union right-wing, all of which ought to play well with Tea Party loving Missourians. But given that Spence is making little whining noises about supposed corruption on the part of Governor Nixon, he should perhaps think twice about the message he sends when he touts the support of a man like Scott Walker.

Walker, after all, has spent the last two years mired in a particularly nasty corruption scandal involving both local investigators and the FBI:

The wide-ranging investigation has included allegations of illegal campaign work on the public payroll, embezzlement of funds from a veterans’ charity, and even child enticement. So far, it has netted 15 felony indictments and, at this moment, three people are awaiting trial.

At least six of those arrested and charged with felonies are close Walker associates. Walker himself has retained two teams of lawyers, including some specializing in criminal allegations, and, it is widely speculated, may well be one of the targets of the investigation.* Makes the iffy accusations that Spence is leveling at Governor Nixon seem like mighty small potatoes.  

But “Walkergate” is only the beginning. There have been reports of rampant cronyism and political payoffs under Walker:

… Republican political appointments – including wives, girlfriends, and even sons of major contributors – were given “career state leadership positions” with massive pay raises, while other public employees are forced to take giant cuts in pay, benefits, retirement, and collective bargaining rights.

The most recent Walker scandal may involve corruption or, maybe, just maybe, only incompetence. Or both. It’s still too early to tell. Soon after his election, Walker transformed the state agency responsible for economic development, the Department of Commerce, into a quasi-public agency, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC), with himself as Chairman of the Board of Directors. He claimed he took this action because he wanted to streamline away the inefficiencies of ponderous state bureaucracies that conservatives always jaw on about. The outcome?:

Gov. Scott Walker called for “dramatic moves” Thursday in the wake of revelations that his flagship jobs agency had for more than a year lost track of $8 million in past due loans.

The revelation this week was just the latest embarrassment for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation since Walker created it after taking office last year. It is also under scrutiny from the federal Department Housing and Urban Development for failing to follow federal law and state policies in issuing economic development grants. And it was criticized for offering tax credits to a company bidding on a state contract.

Spence himself is a little tarnished about the edges. One assumes that he is probably trying to tar Jay Nixon in order to deflect attention from the charges of corruption attendant upon his tenure on the Board of Directors of Reliance Bank. Consequently,  he should be especially chary of associating himself with a figure like Walker whose administration seems to be either criminal or just criminally incompetent. Of course, these things don’t seem to really matter to most Republicans when they’re the ones who get caught.

Photos from Wikimedia

* Sentence slightly edited for clarity. Third from last paragraph: “bureaucracy” changed to “bureaucracies”  

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C111205 10/18/2012 SPENCE FOR GOVERNOR David Spence 2021 S. Warson Rd. St Louis MO 63124 Self Businessman 10/16/2012 $500,000.00

[emphasis added]

And they’re not very good ones at that.

Today, at the Missouri Ethics Commission:

C111205 10/16/2012 SPENCE FOR GOVERNOR RGA Missouri PAC 1747 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Ste. 250 Washington DC 20006 10/15/2012 $300,000.00

[emphasis added]

He’ll have all the money he needs.

Previously:

Campaign Finance: like they’re gonna hold back (October 6, 2012)

Campaign Finance: Dave Spence (r) is gonna need a bigger campaign land yacht (October 11, 2012)