The St. Louis American: What is the message to the black community sent by the August 7 primary results?
Retired Congressman Bill Clay: The message was: Power is the name of the game. Without power, you have nothing. We’re certainly not going to surrender our power to anybody. The 1st Congressional District is the basis of the political power that we have. There are only three kinds of power: the power of mass media, economic power and political power. And it’s a known fact that if have two you are feared, if have one you are respected, and if you have none you are oppressed.
That’s precisely where black people were for the first 50 years of the 20th century. It was disgraceful, the lack of representation we had, especially in Congress. From 1901 until 1945, we had two members in the Congress out of 535 seats; from 1901 to 1928, we had none. It would be not only disgraceful, it would be almost a sin that we would surrender our power to anybody.
The American: What was the message to white Democrats?
Bill Clay: The message is they need to understand the real purpose of the Voting Rights Act and understand that a people who are 12 percent of the population is certainly entitled to representation at the table. If you are not at the table from a sense of power, you are sitting on the floor waiting for crumbs to drop off the table. And people in the white community that stood with Lacy in this election certainly must have realized we are entitled to representation.
The American: How did you win that big?
Bill Clay: It was a question of establishing a strategy and defining the issues. Lacy’s campaign was about the wisdom of doing work at the ground level. As Virvus Jones has adequately described in your paper, you have to have a ground game if you intend to win. He had that ground game, starting with the endorsements of over 1,000 people, including the governor, the mayor of St. Louis and the county executive.
We put together a group of canvassers and telephone volunteers who called over 20,000 households in a 12-month period, and these were not robo-calls, they were individual calls. The campaign ran an aggressive online and social network program, releasing “30 differences in 30 days” on Facebook. We ran effective radio commercials with people like Jackie Joyner-Kersee and myself, and commercials by Mayor Slay and Charles Dooley. We did some very effective TV spots. We had a lot of help from other candidates, and his coattails had effect on them winning as well. Seven of his endorsed candidates won highly contested races. As a result, we ended up winning overwhelmingly.
As important as anything was the loyalty of the people who constituted the team that executed the well put together plan; many people on the team have been together 12 years. And last not least, tremendous credit must go to the media, especially The St. Louis American, for the support they gave in this campaign.
The American: What should we be saying to statewide Democrat candidates going into November?
Bill Clay: I would say: If you want the same kind of results we got, you have got to devote the same kind of resources and energy that we devoted. It’s not just issuing press releases. To stimulate and energize the community, you need to make sure the resources are out there for the same people who got the vote out for us. You need to do the same thing, and go to the media in our community and advertise in those resources. You have got to go to the churches and send your top people into those churches. You need to do the same damn thing in our community to get out the vote that you do in your community.
The American: This costs money.
Bill Clay: It certainly does cost money. Between Lacy and Russ Carnahan, there must have been $2 million spent on this campaign. Carnahan spent over $1 million, and Lacy spent over $700,000. You don’t get in for free. Hell, what do they think this is? Do they think can come into our community, send out a few press releases, shake hands, kiss babies and walk away with the same kind of results? That’s absolute insanity.
The American: If statewide Democrats are told this and don’t invest in this community, what are we supposed to think?
Bill Clay: I’d say to them: If you are willing to spend your millions of dollars on TV and radio that’s listened to by other people primarily, that’s fine. But don’t expect us to do a Herculean job for you with scant resources. This is a capitalistic society; we’re not homeless beggars out here.
The first thing you should do is surround yourselves with some credible people in our community who stand for something and who can influence other people and who will tell you what has to be done and what it will cost you to do it. We’re not talking about mercenaries, paid mercenaries who get out and conduct negative campaigns; we are talking about conducting a proper, positive campaign that sells the candidate based on that candidate’s record.
The American: We were thinking if statewide Democrats won’t invest in what was just proven to an effective campaign infrastructure in the black community, maybe they are intimidated and fearful that they will invest in a new power base that they can’t control.
Bill Clay: That’s the problem. They can’t control it. And they should not. Why should they think they can control and influence power in a district that has equal power to whatever power they bring to the table? But it’s apparent they can’t win without the voters in the 1st Congressional District, so they need to come to this table if they want to win.
The American: So the message to statewide Democrats is: You need to pay for some professional help from the black political community and accept some power-sharing?
Bill Clay: Yes. Pay respect to the people who deliver the vote for you. If it involves financial investment in this community, then that’s exactly what you’ve got to do. Put this community on the same basis as your financial investment in other communities
The American: Let’s say I had Claire McCaskill on the line. What is your message to Claire?
Bill Clay: If she is as smart as I think she is politically and has done a thorough analysis of what happened in the 1st Congressional District, then she will go to the people she has determined delivered these votes and she will to the media people who were responsible for educating people and she will go to the wards and precincts that delivered heavily for the Democrats’ victorious slate, and she will be willing to sit down with those people. You can’t ignore the people who deliver the votes then expect them to go out and bust their tails for you. Everybody has needs, and some might not need finances from her, but they need some commitments from her. She aught to be willing to sit down and negotiate for full-fledged support.
