Missouri Pro-Vote is releasing a report today that traces all the school choice money pouring into St. Louis back to its sources and crunches the numbers on who has been pocketing the most. One can tell by looking at these financials that the All Children Matter inner circle are political novices, who are greatly reliant upon out-of-state consultants. While ACM spent a lot of money, it was spread thin. The PAC spent almost every dollar contributed to it this cycle.
There were only a couple of contributors this election cycle, one being the ACM Virginia PAC. ACM VA may have only given because the Missouri ACM PAC contributed to it at one point this year during a hotly contested gubernatorial race in Virginia, where Tim Kaine (a Democrat) won. Kaine strongly opposes using public dollars to fund private education, which is at the heart of school choice legislation.
One could make two conflicting conclusions when looking at ACM in 2006: Out-of-state contributors view the ACM Missouri PAC as losing ground on the pro-voucher movement, and it is more important to ACM to support gubernatorial candidates. ACM’s main thrust and single opportunity is in those years a new governor is selected, not in a non-presidential election year.
In 2006 ACM afforded Democrats the opportunity to overall have the upper hand, because it spent money in the wrong places, which allowed Democrats to spot Republican vulnerabilities in the long run. The new political frontiers for Democrats are now in West County and St. Charles. Not only did Dems pick up seats from growing naturally Democratic districts throughout Missouri, but they now see new areas of opportunity. This underscores a widespread conclusion coming out of the Claire McCaskill campaign: Missouri is not so much a red state as a state with an inadequately organized Democratic Party.
The good news is, neither ACM nor its consultants have Missouri pegged politically. The bad news is, no one else does, either.