The St. Louis American: The Post endorsement of Russ Carnahan was no surprise, was it?
U.S. Rep Wm. Lacy Clay: I was disappointed, but not surprised. They completely ignored the most important measure, which is who does the best job producing real results for the people you represent.
The American: After your interview with them, you told me there was no diversity on the Post editorial board.
Clay: The Post editorial board has zero diversity – and therefore zero credibility in such a diverse community.
The American: Who interviewed you for their endorsement?
Clay: Tony Messenger, Deb Peterson and Kevin Horrigan were basically the ones, with the reporter Nick Pistor.
The American: That’s three white men and a white woman whose last assignment at the Post was gossip columnist?
Clay: [Laughs.] Oh, God. Yes, that was the Post-Dispatch editorial board. Then they just used Russ’ playbook for the editorial itself. Whatever we said did not matter – how we refuted his lies, his claims about me, that didn’t matter.
The American: What was something you refuted they wrote anyway?
Clay: The rent to own issue. Russ Carnahan was our co-sponsor on that bill for the last four years in a row. It provides minimum standards of consumer protection for people entering into a contract with the rent to own industry. It requires clear and concise language in the terms and conditions, and the annual percent rate is capped at 30 percent annually. The bill requires the rent to own industry to tell in plain language how much an item costs over a period of time.
They also claimed I am somehow aligned with the payday loan industry. That’s totally inaccurate. The two times that came up before Congress, I voted both times against the industry. What does it matter if I take campaign money when I vote against the industry? Russ voted for TARP and took hundreds of thousands of dollars over time from banks, so is his vote in Congress construed as a payoff?
But what makes the attack so ridiculous is that Russ Carnahan was one of the rent to own bill’s co-sponsors for the last four years!
The American: In their editorial, the Post also seems to have discovered for the first time – starting with you – that elected officials sometimes pay their family members to work on their campaigns.
Clay: Isn’t that something? My opponent hired his wife, Deborah Carnahan, to honcho his redistricting effort (and we see how successful that was), but we hear nothing about that. His brother got $100 million in tax credits for his wind farm, and we hear nothing about that. My sister, they claim, received upwards of $300,000 from my campaigns. That’s over a six-year period. I’d say $50,000 a year is quite a bargain for a fundraiser, if you look at what others pay fundraisers. I get value for value, and I trust my sister.
The American: Aside from the editorial, I was absolutely stunned by the Post’s front-page news analysis of race in the campaign.
Clay: Look at the source – who validates the story? Gentry Trotter!
The American: The Post sources Gentry Trotter, who has been paid by the Carnahan campaign (Carnahan’s July quarterly campaign finance report lists a $2,750 disbursement to Trotter’s Multimedia Services on May 23), but they never state that he is a campaign operative.
Clay: They call him a “supporter,” when his company Multimedia has been paid by the Carnahan campaign. And Carnahan is putting ads in the Argus and the Whirl, and Gentry is involved with both papers.
The American: I actually could not believe the Post quoted a paid campaign operative in a news story as if he were an independent source on race.
Clay: That’s their lead-in to the story!
The American: Gentry is the first quote in the story who is not one of the candidates.
Clay: That doesn’t say much about their credibility. Then they hit me on the fact that two respected ministers spoke up for me in a radio ad. That was held up as being racial. Why does the support of two black ministers have to be racial? It’s insulting.
The American: When was the last time you got a call from a political reporter, editor or editorial writer at the Post who was African-American?
Clay: [Pauses.] Hey, man, it’s been a long time. Back in the days of Bob Joiner or Greg Freeman. Before I was in Congress. At least 12 years. They are not reflective of this community, which is a diverse community, all over this region and this district. Kind of incredible, isn’t it?
