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Brian Wahby

​St. Louis feels like a small town sometimes, ripe with recurring names and intertwined narratives.The city's political dynamics tend to showcase this phenomenon very effectively. Latest exhibit: this year's race for city treasurer.

For context, let's go to a 1999 Riverfront Times feature story about treasurer Larry Williams, the current incumbent. Reporter D.J. Wilson describes a scandal involving the "'stalking horse' candidacy of Penny Alcott in the 1993 comptroller's election:

Steve Baker, an assistant city treasurer under Williams, pleaded guilty to mail fraud in connection with Alcott's candidacy. [Incumbent Virvus] Jones defeated Ald. Jim Shrewsbury (D-16th), 44,670 votes to 42,661 votes. Alcott received 3,268 votes. Part of the investigation of Jones was related to the allegation that Alcott was talked into the race to split the South St. Louis [white] vote, thereby helping Jones. During the trial, Alcott testified that Williams' executive assistant, Brian Wahby, gave her the $725 filing fee she used to file for comptroller and later gave her money for expenses, including clothes and health insurance.

Baker admitted during testimony that he had falsified campaign-disclosure reports, hiding a transfer of funds from Jones' campaign to Alcott. He also testified that Alcott "was never intended to be a viable candidate" and that Alcott "was intended to take votes away from Jim Shrewsbury."

Baker pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced to a $4,000 fine and two years' probation. Wahby got off scott-free.

Wahby is now running for treasurer. So is Virvus Jones' daughter, state Rep. Tishaura Jones. And in what is either a Shakespearean (incidental) or Machiavellian (cynical) twist, Jones might end up splitting the north St. Louis (black) vote with 22nd Ward Alderman Jeffrey Boyd, the candidate who has raised the most money so far. (13th Ward Alderman Fred Wessels rounds out the field.)

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​Last night Rick Santorum swept the primaries in Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado. As expected, his most decisive victory was in Missouri, where he took all 114 county for a 55 percent runaway, more than doubling Mitt Romney's 25 percent.

In many ways, it's a hollow success. It didn't count toward any delegates, which will be awarded based on the March 17 caucus. Newt Gingrich wasn't on the ballot. Early estimations show that only ten percent of voters participated. And Santorum was the only candidate to campaign in the state.

But, compounded with another decisive win, in Minnesota, and a surprisingly easy win in Colorado, Santorum's Missouri victory has seemed to morph from an expected and trivial outcome into a peripherally significant piece of the greater narrative.

With Santorum's path to the nomination getting more and more narrow and with Gingrich increasingly emerging as Romney's most viable threat from the Right, last night provided Santorum a much needed-- perhaps campaign saving-- spark. He has jumped onto newspaper front page headlines across the country and become the lead item of political pundit talk.

Here's what They are saying about Santorum's Missouri win:

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D'oh!

​ With the presidential primary campaign circus coming to Missouri both next week (for the election that doesn't count) and next month (for the official caucus), we're likely to soon see a serious spike in the number of polls about us. Which means it's is a good time for some Horse Race talk. Public Policy Polling released a comprehensive one yesterday, surveying respondent on three compelling GOP primary races: presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial.

Here are some notable findings:

The Gingrich-Santorum Paradox

Newt Gingrich, taking 30 percent of the hypothetical vote, led the presidential primary field, although Rick Santorum, at 28 percent, was within the margin of error. Mitt Romney sat a close third with 24 percent and Ron Paul was at the back of the pack with 11 percent. Interestingly, though, when respondents were asked whom they would vote for if it came down to Gingrich and Romney, the former House Speaker led the former Massachusetts governor by just one point, 43 to 42. But when the choice was between Romney and Santorum, Santorum blew past Romney by 13 points, 50 to 37.

This seems to challenge the conventional wisdom that conservative voters will coalesce around whichever "Romney-Alternative" candidate sticks around longer, Gingrich or Santorum. These numbers suggest that there is a slice of Santorum voters who will not necessarily jump to Gingrich in the event Santorum drops out. Of course this make sense, given that many in Satorum's base, the religious right, may be turned off by Gingrich's marital history and/or his tendency in past years to promote big government policies.

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Will a new leader jump start Todd Akin's campaign?

​The campaign manager and two other top aides recently left Todd Akin's Senate campaign team. The shake-up seems to be a product of a stumbling operation for a candidate who fumbled away his status as presumed Republican front-runner to challenge vulnerable Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill.

Campaign manager Karl Hansen, finance director Heather Grote and general consultant Chris LaCivita each exited the campaign in December, the National Journal reported on Tuesday. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has since reported that Akin's son, Perry Akin, will take over as campaign manager. Perhaps a big change like this will give Akin the fresh start he needs.

It's unclear who broke up with whom. What is clear is that Akin's campaign stumbled out of the gates months ago and hasn't yet been able to get back on it's feet.

In June, Akin said in a radio interview that "at the heart of Liberalism is a hatred of God." In September, he questioned the constitutionality of medicare, which Americans overwhelmingly support. And then in November, his staff mistakenly announced an endorsement from Rep. Paul Ryan after Ryan simply praised Akin for his conservative principles.

Fortunately for Akin, his opponents in the GOP primary haven't fully capitalized on his struggles.

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​A couple of weeks ago, Huffington Post blogger Will Bower wrote, "This February 7th, 2012, I'll be paying closer attention to Missouri's primary results and asking myself 'What if Missourians had been able to go first this time 'round?'"

Bower, an outspoken crusader for election reform, proposed in 2008 a primary election calendar kicked off by the four states that had the closest margin of victory in the previous general election. Along this standard, Missouri, which John McCain won by 0.1 percent, would be leading off the current cycle. The point, he wrote, "is to help the political parties determine which candidates can best appeal to the citizens of those states that have found themselves most recently on the Electoral Divide."

Certainly there are flaws within this plan, just as there are flaws within the present framework. But there is no doubt that Missouri sits most prominently on the Electoral Divide. In addition to being the most closely fought state in the 2008 general election, Missouri held that year's tightest Republican Primary and second tightest Democratic Primary. The winner of the state's 2008 GOP contest, John McCain, beat out second place finisher Mike Huckabee by 1 percent, and third place finisher Mitt Romney by 4 percent. And Barack Obama topped Hilary Clinton by a little over 1 percent.

By these measures, it is reasonable to suggest that Missouri is the most balanced and competitive presidential election battleground in the nation.

The irony of all this, of course, is that Missouri's February 7 primary might not count because Republican National Committee rules state that only Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada can hold their contests before March 6. (Those in violation risk losing half their delegates for the nominating convention.)

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Jennifer Silverberg

State Rep. Jamilah Nasheed is seeking to make a jump to the state Senate.

​Today state Representative Jamilah Nasheed, subject of our August feature story Just Who Does Jamilah Nasheed Think She Is?, announced that she is running for the state Senate seat currently held by Robin Wright-Jones.

Nasheed, who is in the middle of her third term in the state House, immediately becomes an imposing challenger to a vulnerable incumbent. She has high name recognition and has been extremely popular among her constituents. She ran unopposed in her last reelection primary and took 75 percent of the vote two years before that.

According to the last campaign finance reports, Nasheed has around $29,000 in her war chest. Wright-Jones has less than $700. Moreover, Wright-Jones, 5th District state Senator since 2008, made news last March when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Jake Wagman reported that the Four Seasons hotel sued her for not fully paying a $6,000 tab, less than half of which was picked up by lobbyists. Soon after, in June, Wagman reported that Wright-Jones filed a campaign finance report that failed to account for $95,000, which Wright-Jones said was a mistake by her campaign's treasurer. The P-D article also mentioned that the state Senator, "lists in the May report $111 spent at Marmi, a shoe store at the Galleria Mall. In a description line in the campaign report, the expense is listed as 'non-campaign.' Wright-Jones said she bought the shoes for a political event but could not recall which one."

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​A few days ago, the Springfield News-Leader published a Q&A with the three candidates in Missouri's GOP Senate primary race.

It's still early in the race and Sarah Steelman, Rep. Todd Akin and John Brunner have all positioned themselves as rock solid conservative candidates. As such, it's always interesting to see what policy issues split up the pack.

Extending the payroll tax cuts, which would keep rates at 4.2 percent instead of the normal 6.1 percent, is one such policy issue.

Akin told the News-Leader that he is against extending it, which isn't too surprising considering that this is how most congressional Republicans feel, despite the party's general obsession with tax cuts.

"Usually I love any kind of tax cut," he said, "but I'm opposed to (the payroll break) because you're taking money out of Social Security."

Steelman, however, stood on the other side of the fence, saying simply, "I would support just the payroll tax cut." (The question also asked about extending unemployment benefits, which Akin and Steelman are against).

Firmly on the fence, it seemed, was Brunner, who explained (apparently speaking on both payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits):

I've gone back and forth. You're in this big hole. People are hurting, you don't want to lay any more pressure on top of people... (But) without having an understanding of what the end-game strategy is, I look at this as a knee-jerk strategy that kicks the can down the road.

So... against?

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Mike Carter hopes his unconventional politics and ideas can rally him support in his bid for lieutenant governor.

​In 2008, Mike Carter ran in the Democratic primary for Missouri lieutenant governor and voted in the Republican primary for president. He likes the idea of government being run as a business but doesn't like the idea of privatizing certain government duties. He thinks there are "serious problems" with President Obama's health care act and he supports the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Basically, Mike Carter is a man without a party.

He's running for lieutenant governor again, this time as a Republican. His ideas sometimes fall outside the paradigm of most serious candidates. His stances on controversial issues are seemingly inconsistent by today's rigidly dichotomic ideological expectations. He says things that would make most political operatives cringe. In an era of increasing political polarization and spin-room calculation, Carter is a staunch outlier.

He's a heavy underdog in the GOP primary, a former one-term Wentzville municipal judge facing off against a capable incumbent, Peter Kinder, and a prominent state Senator, Brad Lager. But with voters growing more and more frustrated with today's fierce partisanship, Carter hopes to emerge as a viable alternative to his political-establishment opponents.

Perhaps the most emblematic idea of Carter's platform: lieutenant governor is a part-time job and should be paid like it.

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Peter Kinder's had a rough year.

​Today Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder announced that he will not run for governor. Instead he will seek a third term at his current seat.

On one hand this is mildly surprising considering that he's been considered the GOP front-runner to challenge Governor Jay Nixon in 2012. On the other, there have been plenty of reasons to have seen this coming.

For one, Kinder has been on the wrong end of a series of unflattering headlines involving strip club visits, an allegedly strange relationship with a former stripper, lavish tax-payer funded hotel stays, and Twitter outbursts. At least one donor asked for a refund soon after the stripper controversy erupted. While it is not clear how much the negative attention affected his electability, a September poll by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling showed Kinder 19 points behind Nixon. By comparison, Bill Randles, at the time the only official gubernatorial candidate, trailed Nixon by just two more points, despite low name recognition.

Secondly, earlier this week, St. Louis business man Dave Spence, who was Kinder's frat bro back at Mizzou, announced his candidacy for governor, framing himself as an "alternative to Peter Kinder." Politico reported that this week Kinder was still telling donors that he was planning to run. There were rumors that he would announce his candidacy this weekend. Perhaps Spence knew something we didn't know.

And thirdly, GOP rising star Steve Tilley, current Speaker of the House, dropped out of the race for lieutenant governor, which gave Kinder a safer political alternative to running for governor.

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