This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Aug. 1, 2012 - Call the phone number for McHenry Truck, a St. Louis firm at 5525 West Park Ave., and someone will answer. The company is open for business. The firm’s website is virtually identical to the one for McHenry Truck Equipment Inc., a firm that had operated until March 2011 at 3838 Cote Brilliante Ave.
The phone number is the same. So is the history of McHenry Truck and McHenry Truck Equipment Inc.: started in 1946 by Elmer McHenry.
And the firm that officially owns McHenry Truck -- National Rail Truck Inc. -- is owned by the same man, Charles Koors, who owned McHenry Truck Equipment Inc.
So what does that have to do with Dave Spence, a Republican candidate for governor?
Spence's latest ad shows him standing in front of the shuttered Cote Brilliante site and blaming the closing of McHenry Truck Equipment Inc. on Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat.
But did McHenry Truck Equipment Inc. close -- or just move and tweak its name?
Spence spokesman Jared Craighead said the campaign stands by its ad, and denies the assertion, first reported by the Riverfront Times, that the Spence campaign goofed.
“The ad is 100 percent accurate,“ Craighead said. He pointed to a March 2011 story by KMOV-TV (Channel 4) about the closing at the Cote Brilliante site, which cited the economic downturn.
Craighead also pointed to McHenry Truck’s ownership by National Rail Truck Inc. “It’s not the same company," he said, apparently unaware that Koors was the real owner of the McHenry firm or firms, and of National Rail.
In any case, Craighead noted that the business papers for McHenry Truck had been filed on June 26, which he said was after the TV ad had been filmed.
Craighead’s point is that there may not have been a McHenry firm – by either name – in operation when Spence stood in front of the Cote Brilliante site.
A spokeswoman at McHenry Truck declined to clear up the matter, saying the firm was not commenting.
Craighead, who rejected any talk of controversy, said that the ad has been running all over the state for about a week without anyone raising any questions about it.
In any case, he added that the ad already had been scheduled to be replaced soon by a newer spot. He denied that its departure from the airwaves had anything to do with the question of whether McHenry had truly shut down.
Craighead said that the ad’s broader point had nothing to do with McHenry and that there were “thousands of examples" of Missouri firms that really did close “because of Jay Nixon’s failing economy.”
Spence campaign counters with jab at Nixon ad
Craighead then pivoted to one of the governor’s TV spots, which notes that the state “now has a AAA bond rating.”
Craighead objects to the word “now” because Missouri has had a AAA bond rating by all the rating firms since 1989, and by at least one of them since the mid-1960s. “That’s misleading, and should be taken off the air,” Craighead said.
Isaac Wright, spokesman for the Missouri Democratic Party, was incredulous: “Hasn’t anyone told Dave Spence that you don’t dig your way out of a lie by telling more lies?”
“At a time when even the nation’s credit rating was downgraded, Missouri is one of the few states in the nation with a perfect AAA rating – and that’s a direct result of Gov. Nixon’s ability to bring Democrats and Republicans together to balance the budget and manage the state in a fiscally responsible way,” Wright said. “Dave Spence is just making himself look silly here."
