From [HERE] The 2012 Missouri Democratic primary was a big night for black political empowerment in St. Louis, as African Americans won bitterly contested primaries at the federal, state and city levels. U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay, Jamilah Nasheed and Tishaura O. Jones - to name only the three biggest winners in a night with many victories – won races that, had they gone another way, could have left black voters in the city of St. Louis with no African-American representation in the U.S. Congress or the Missouri Senate and with one fewer citywide elected black official. What is more, given their confident margins of victory and endorsement records, it is clear that these candidates benefitted from both an energized black vote and significant support from non-black voters. It was an election where African Americans ran professional, effective campaigns in their base while also convincing many voters outside of our community of the superiority of a black candidate in a contested primary.
The same effect was shown in several state representative races, where again many African-American voters could have been left with no black representation in the State House. Michael Butler beat Martin Casas – badly - in the 79th State House District, and Courtney Curtis beat Doug Clemens in District 73. Penny V. Hubbard (District 78) and Karla May (District 84) beat white opponents with either impressive campaigns or name recognition, despite the presence in both of their races of a second black candidate who could have been expected to split the black vote – similar to Nasheed’s spectacular win over Jeanette Mott Oxford, who trailed even the other black candidate, Robin Wright-Jones, in Missouri’s 5th Senatorial District. Indeed, in some of these races the black political power at work was greater than even our own confidence in the African-American candidate, given that many of the white candidates beat by black opponents for state Legislature races on Tuesday were impressive candidates. We know – too well – the feeling of being left with a beautiful loser, when the sheer numbers of the majority spell defeat for a highly qualified black candidate. On Tuesday night, more often than not, that pain was felt by many white voters and candidates.
There may have been black power at work on these campaigns, but no “black magic.” Though a far more serious challenger than he was judged by the dismissive editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Vernon Betts could not quite topple entrenched incumbent Sheriff Jim Murphy, losing by only 877 votes, far fewer votes than those picked up by an obscure third candidate, David Mosley (3,720). We dearly wished for Betts to issue a much more startling wake-up call by sending Murphy into belated retirement, but we are certain that upholders of the South Side status quo – including the Post’s editorial board – looked at the numbers in this race and realized they no longer adequately understand the political and racial dynamics in this city. That is a good thing, and Betts and his supporters deserve our thanks.
Other outcomes were potent reminders that even when racial demographics favor the black candidate, a better-known and better-resourced white candidate can beat them on the ground and beat them badly. Despite our great admiration for Redditt Hudson as a leader for our community, we have never disguised our respect for Gina Walsh as a candidate for state Senate in this primary, and the veteran white state rep beat the first-time black candidate in the 13th Senatorial District by a Clay/Carnahan margin. As many people who care about Hudson hinted to him early in his campaign, he simply was not ready to run for the state Senate. Black Caucus chair Steve Webb would have been a better candidate, and he could have given Walsh a run for her money – that is, for North County labor’s money – and possibly added an African American to the Missouri Senate. Instead, Webb won his reelection race for state rep by a margin even wider than Clay’s trouncing of Carnahan. The black political community was not strategic in this race – and the outcome reflected that.
We will conclude with words of self-evident wisdom for Russ Carnahan and his supporters. We know many who supported Carnahan predicted he would lose in 2012 but come close enough to Clay to set him up for a defeat in two years. If Carnahan and his supporters believe they have succeeded in doing so, we wish them all the best in raising enough money for a humiliated Russ Carnahan to buy a cup of coffee in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District in 2014. We hope Carnahan and the architects of his campaign feel humiliated to have run such a relentlessly negative and divisive campaign against Clay, whose record as the most liberal vote in Congress did not merit this pointless trash talk, as the voters overwhelmingly showed at the polls on Tuesday. Indeed, Carnahan and his quixotic, negative “rent to own” campaign fooled no one but himself and the Post editorial board, which has never looked more out of touch with this city than they looked on Tuesday night.