This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, July 16, 2012 - It’s a rare year when a contested Missouri primary battle for governor is overshadowed by fights for other offices – even lieutenant governor.
But so far, that appears to be the case in the state’s Republican contest for governor, where three Republicans are actively campaigning for a chance to challenge Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, this fall.
The three – Kirkwood businessman Dave Spence, lawyer/minister Bill Randles and anti-abortion activist Fred Sauer – are among four who have filed in the Aug. 7 GOP primary. Nixon also faces two little-known Democrats, Clay Thunderhawk and William B. Campbell, but neither appears to be campaigning.
The low-key nature of the Republican primary appears, in part, to be by design. Spence has focused primarily on Nixon and generally has ignored Randles and Sauer.
For example: The Republican candidates are holding no televised debate or any major forum. That contrasts with the GOP’s U.S. Senate hopefuls, who engaged in more than a dozen debates.
Earlier this week, all three Republican hopefuls issued statements critical of Nixon’s decision to veto a bill allowing employers to refuse insurance coverage for contraception, abortion or sterilization. None of the releases mentioned the other Republican contenders.
For the most part, all three espouse similar views. All tout themselves as fiscal and social conservatives.
Spence, 54, is likely the best known of the GOP candidates in the St. Louis area and has been deemed the favorite. For 26 years, he was the owner of Alpha Packaging, which grew from a small plastic-packaging company with annual sales of about $350,000 to a firm with an annual business of $200 million. He sold most of the business to a private equity firm in 2010.
His chief message, detailed on his website, is that he would use his business skills to improve how Missouri seeks and retains jobs. He supports legislation to make Missouri a right-to-work state, which would bar closed-union shops where all workers pay dues if a majority vote for union representation.
Spence also has fielded Democratic fire for months, much of it directed at his years on the board of Reliance Bancshares, which accepted federal bailout money but has yet to pay it back. He also touched off controversy a few months ago when it was discovered that his economics degree that he touted from the University of Missouri-St. Louis was actually in home economics.
Randles, 49, is a lawyer, ordained Baptist minister and owner of an investment firm. He has been campaigning mostly outstate, but has done well in straw polls at rural Republican gatherings -- at times outpolling Spence.
His campaign platform includes getting rid of public-sector unions, implementing a right-to-work law, eliminating the state’s income tax and replacing it with a sales tax.
Sauer, 67, of St. Louis is best known as the founder of Roundtable for Life, an anti-abortion group. Sauer has been an outspoken critic of Amendment 2, which passed in 2006 and protects in Missouri all forms of stem cell research allowed under federal law.
Sauer is now suing to block implementation of the Missouri Science & Innovation Reinvestment Act (MOSIRA), which would provide tax breaks for certain types of scientific research. He won the first round in court earlier this year, when a judge tossed out the program on procedural grounds.
Sauer recently has been ramping up an aggressive online blitz of news releases. He has yet to return repeated requests from the Beacon for interviews.
Spence, in contrast, has been traveling around the state to campaign, but he recently appears to have lowered his public profile – perhaps waiting until after the primary.
Sauer and Spence are funding much of their own campaigns themselves. Sauer has lent at least $260,000 to his campaign so far. Spence already has loaned or spent more than $2 million of his own money, much of it on early TV ads.
So far, Spence is the only one of the three Republican candidates to air TV spots around the state. But his ads don't appear to be on the air at the moment -- a hint that Spence is focusing less on the primary, and more on what could come afterwards.
