The one alleged Missouri Democrat who seems benignly indifferent to the war between Jay Nixon and Matt Blunt is our own Francis Slay. Not a week goes by these days when we don’t find Blunt standing somewhere in St. Louis with Slay beside him, all loved up with the Republican incumbent about bipartisan solutions to poverty or the rebuilding of Downtown St. Louis.
Of course, the mayor of St. Louis has to play ball, to some extent, with the governor of Missouri. And, yes, the City is broke and needs all the help it can get in moving forward its turnaround. But there is a point when playing ball becomes getting played – and, possibly, letting yourself get played.
It wouldn’t be the first time Slay shirked loyalty to fellow Dems during a campaign, to benefit his own administration. He went after Bekki Cook and Robin Carnahan right before the 2004 elections (via newspaper, radio and TV) after Dems ran the ad arguing that said Peter Kinder and Catherine Hanaway should have made sure that public schools get public funds before new sports stadiums do.
You will recall that Cook then lost by about 16,000 votes (less than 1 percent) statewide – and that her St. Louis-area numbers were lower than they should have been.
The recent surge of activity between Slay and Blunt – in the Democratic stronghold of St. Louis – must be making the Nixon camp crazy. If it keeps up, and Nixon ends up losing the election by a small margin with relatively weak numbers in the city, it will make a lot of folks crazy.