In a story that was buried on the back pages of the St. Louis Suburban Journals, Missouri House Democrats named Rep. Rachel Storch (D-64) to lead the House Democratic Campaign Committee for the 2008 election cycle.  Storch represents the Central West End and neighboring areas in St. Louis CIty, and was just re-elected last fall, without any opposition in either the primary or general elections.

You may be wondering why I consider this bit of campaign news important to GOP victories in 2008.  I can sum that up in one word - money.

The Missouri Democratic Party, for about two decades now, has been using Democratic candidates from St. Louis City as their "bankers" for everything from statewide races all they way down to targeted state representative districts.  Rarely, if ever, are City Democratic candidates ever challenged in general elections, and, only since term limits, are there contested primary elections.  But all of these Democratic candidates, running completely unopposed, continue to raise thousands of dollars each election cycle, even though they're guaranteed re-election.  So where does the money go?  Answer: Where ever the Missouri Democratic Party needs it to go.

Case in point:  Rachel Storch raised over $7,500 for her unopposed 2006 campaign - and gave almost $6,500 to other Democratic campaigns.

This has been an almost open secret to most campaign watchers in Missouri, but the Missouri Republican Party leadership has never really attempted to close the faucet on this flow of money - even though it would be very easy to do.  How, you ask?  Just get GOP candidates to run in St. Louis City districts.

As an example, the only state representative district in St. Louis City that was contested in 2006 by a GOP candidate was the 108th District, currently held by Rep. Tom Villa.  In contrast to Ms. Storch, Tom raised over $12,000 for his campaign, but only sent a little more than $4,000 to other Dem candidates - meaning that he spent over $6,000 on a campaign that, by all accounts, he'd already won when the filing closed in February.  There are similar results for almost every GOP contested race in St. Louis City going back at least 20 years.

The Dems are counting on Ms. Storch being completely unopposed again in 2008, and, therefore, being free to devote all of her time to helping raise money for other Democratic candidates.  This gives the MRP a really easy counter plan - if they'd ever be willing to consider it.

If a solid GOP candidate files in the 64th District, gets just a modest amount of state party backing (a few hundred bucks and a little logistical help, nothing more than that from the MRP and HRCC), and actively campaigns all year in the district, Ms. Storch is going to feel a lot of pressure to concentrate more on her own campaign, and will have less time to dedicate to the MDP's statewide efforts.  This would effectively leave the HDCC leaderless (or, at worst, left with a "leader" in name only, with others having to take up the workload).  Plus, it will suck up a lot of Democratic donations that will be spent on a campaign that they'd marked as "safe" - which means that the money won't be able to be used for more important races.

Multiply this by the 11 state rep and 1 state senate districts in St. Louis City, and add in the City of Kansas City districts that have been similarly neglected by the MRP in recent years, and you've got a recipe for drying up the funds the Dems have been supplying to their statewide candidates and the swing districts in the St. Louis and KC suburban areas (where the GOP has been losing seats in recent elections), and handing the GOP statewide candidates a considerable funding advantage over their Democratic opponents.

Now, I know that campaign funding isn't the only deciding factor in winning elections.  But it is one of the most important ones.  Another key ingredient is manpower, and actively contested campaigns in St. Louis City will divert campaign volunteers from suburban campaigns to City ones.

I'm not naive enough to think that GOP candidates can win a bunch of seats in St. Louis City any time soon (although there are a couple of districts that may be winnable).  But if the MRP is going to be serious about holding on the governer's mansion and other statewide offices in 2008, as well as keeping the Democrats from mounting serious campaigns against our potentially vunerable U. S. Congressional seats, then the MRP and the HRCC and HRSC are going to have to do some "outside the box" thinking, and take another look at St. Louis City, and it's importance to the Dems.

So the question is:  How serious is the Missouri Republican Party about winning in 2008?

The big news in St. Louis City this week is that the State Board of Education announced the creation of a "transitional" oversight board for the St. Louis Public School district, in anticipation of the district failing to maintain even the current provisional accreditation status.

No one who has followed the soap opera that is SLPS over the last several years was really that surprised, although the timing is interesting.  The final report on the district's accreditation review isn't for a couple of weeks yet, and there are elections for two of the seven seats on the SLPS Board in April.  I've not seen any compelling reason why the decision couldn't have waited until after the April elections, but I'm betting there has been some behind-the-scenes "negotiations" involved.

The transitional board, composed of three members (one each selected by Gov. Blunt, Mayor Slay, and Aldermanic Board President Shrewsbury) will be on advisory oversight board on the current elected SLPS Board of Education - until the decision (which appears to have already been made) that the district is unaccredited is announced.  SLPS staff is frantically trying to find anything to get one or two more points on the accreditation scorecard to retain at least provisional accreditation, but the State Board of Education holds a "trump card":  they can simply declare that the districts finances are not sufficient for the current board to govern the district.  Either way, by this time next month, the "transitional" board will become the actual board, and the current elected board will be relegated to an "advisory" role.  They can hold meetings, review budgets, give the state-imposed board advice - but they'll have no decision making authority.

Interestingly, the two Board members who were up for re-election, Bob Archibald (president of the Missouri Historical Society) and Ron Jackson (who's listed as assistant director of St. Louis for Kids), dropped out of the race on Friday, leaving seven almost completely unknown candidates still running for what will now be purely ceremonial positions.  Apparently, the idea of not actually being able to run things any more didn't appeal to them.  Of course, if you believe Bob Archibald, they dropped out of the race because "We did everything we could to make it happen, and now it's going to happen".

This is an astonishingly frank admission, which, if true, means that Mayor Slay's hand-picked board members (Archibald, Jackson, and Board President Veronica O'Brien), have been actively working for several months to make sure that the district wouldn't pass its' accreditation review.  To have elected public officials openly admit that they have been deliberately undermining the very institution that they were sworn to uphold is, while somewhat refreshing, completely unheard of, at least in St. Louis.  It would explain some of Ms. O'Brien's behaviour over the past few months (although my preferred theory is that there's some sort of "paranoia gas" leak in the board president's office - that would not only explain her behaviour, but that of more than one of her predecessors).  And, if this was Mayor Slay's plan all along, it would also explain many of the decisions made in the district over the last few years, such as the replacement of district maintenance and kitchen employees with contractors, the selling off of some of the most valuable school buildings (with restrictions that prevent charter or private schools from using them), etc.

Of course, the announcement immediately brought out all of the "all you state officials are racists" crowd, yelling about how it's a "black district" (ignoring all of the children of European heritage who attend SLPS schools) and that's the only reason that the state board wants the district to fail.  The unions, of course, started ranting about school closings and layoffs, since, as an unaccredited district, students will be free to transfer (alone with their tax dollars) to neighboring districts, there will be fewer students attending SLPS schools, so fewer teachers and staff will be needed.

Lost in all of the shouting is the students - the children of St. Louis, and their families.  This pretty much guarantees that it will be at least a decade before the district recovers, condemning at least one and perhaps two more generations of children to a lifetime of  poverty and involuntary servitude to the government, as they won't have an educational foundation on which to rise above such a fate.  And the City receives yet another black eye, and more families that can will leave the CIty as their children reach school age.

Congratulations, Mayor Slay - mission accomplished.

Well, another Lincoln Days has come and gone.  For those reading this who aren't familiar with the event, Lincoln Days is the closest thing that the Missouri Republican Party does to an annual statewide convention.  It rotates between St. Louis, Springfield, and Kansas City (in that order) each year, and this year was St. Louis' turn again.  Dinners on Friday and Saturday night and a luncheon on Saturday with a line-up of speakers, various organizational meetings (including a meeting of the State Central Committee), booths for various groups and causes, and, of course, a number of "hospitality suites" sponsored by candidates, organizations, etc.  Definitely puts the "party" in "political party".

This year I decided to go a lot more low-key than in previous years, when I've been in a more high-profile "candidate" mode.  The suits stayed in the closet, as I opted for comfort over fomality.  And, mostly, I just hung around the St. Louis City Central Committee suite and the various "meet and greet" sessions.

This year's event was held at the Hilton St. Louis Frontenac in the middle of St. Louis County, as opposed to downtown St. Louis, where the event has traditionally been held when in St. Louis.  It's an OK hotel, with good (but not great) convention facilities, but it's really laid out weird for a hotel.  A real maze to get from one place to another, all though the area where the suites were located was a very nice area - good for mingling in a large public space with the suites located around it.

Unlike previous years, I didn't go to any of the dinners or the luncheon, so I didn't hear any of the speeches.  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on both Gov. Blunt's speech on Friday night and Gov. Mitt Romney's on Saturday.  Of course, both articles were buried in the middle of the paper.  I almost missed the one on Romney's speech.

There was a lot of discussion about who the eventual GOP presidential candidate might be, with a wide variety of opinions for and against almost all of the declared and undeclared candidates.  It seems like the Missouri "heavyweights"  - Matt Blunt, Jim Talent,  and Sam Fox (an major GOP donor who is about to be confirmed as the new U. S. ambassador to Belgium), at least - are getting behind Romney, at least for now.  And, of course, discussions about who might get the Democrat nomination.  Personally, given the personalities involved and how really cut-throat the hard-core left of the Democratic Party is these days, I'm betting that, whoever it is, they'll be very beat up and broke - which is a good thing for the GOP.

Lots of folks already declaring as candidates for various races, a lot more than at this time (two years out) than in years past.  Looks like we're really going to get a two-year campaign season this time around, which is going to mean a lot of  work and a lot of fund-raising.

The City GOP had a pretty good weekend.  Their contribution to the silent auction fund-raiser (a gift basket with a bunch of different stuff, including a lot of St. Louis sports-related ticket packages) raised the most money for a single item, which earned them a $100 donation to the City GOP treasury.  I jokingly said that we just funded the beer and brats for our 4th of July Party!  And, it looks like we may have found a new Committeeman to represent the 10th Ward (the Hill and the neighborhoods just to the south and west of the Hill), a position which has been vacant for some time.

I also had several conversations about what went wrong with the elections last fall, including an interesting discussion with Jacob Turk, the GOP candidate who ran against Emmanuel Cleaver in the 5th Congressional District (Kansas City area) last year, comparing notes on the similarities of the 5th District and the 1st and 3rd Districts here in St. Louis.  One common point of agreement - both Lacy Clay and Russ Carnahan are vulnerable, if only we could get the party to put forth strong, well funded candidates with solid campaign organizations behind them.  But I'm not sure that the Missouri GOP is serious enough about winning the state and helping to take back the U. S. House of Representatives to make the effort to campaign hard in either district - which means that we'll probably lose a few more seats in the north and south parts of St. Louis County in 2008.

All in all, not a bad weekend.  Next year will be in Springfield, and, even though the various primaries won't be completely over by then, we'll be past the first "Super Tuesday", so we should know who the GOP nominee is probably going to be.  The mood this weekend overall was a bit apprehensive, but, hopefully, in the next year, folks will get energized, organized, and gear up for a big 2008.

Welcome!

Gateway Politzania is all about my take on politics, government, and similar related issues in the Gateway City of St. Louis. Missouri, and the surrounding area.

Politics in St. Louis City (which, like most urban centers, is controlled overwhelmingly by the Democratic Party) is often described as a "full contact blood sport".  In many ways, it still reflects the old school, "ward boss" style of politics from the 1950s and 1960s.  Which, given the dynamics of the modern world, makes for some pretty interesting times!

As a Republican living, working, and campaigning here, it can be at times frustrating, maddening, bewildering, hilarious - and often all of the above.

This "blog" will be updated on an irregular schedule, although I'll try to post something at least once a week.

So, sit back, fasten your seatbelts, and prepare for a "no holds barred" ride into Gateway Politzania!