The real election in the city of St. Louis occurred last Tuesday
when Missouri held its Democratic primary. Six primary races pit
white Democrats versus black Democrats, including high-profile
races for U.S. Congress, the state senate, three state house races
and sheriff.
Like most major cities, the general election here is a foregone
conclusion. Republicans haven’t been a force in city politics for
more than a half-century. In fact, you’d have to time-travel back
to the misty mid-1940s before you could find a Republican occupying
the mayor’s office.
St. Louis’s last GOP mayor was a lawyer named Aloys Kaufmann,
who landed in the mayor’s chair after his predecessor, William
Becker, and nine other local luminaries plummeted 1,500 feet to
their death after a wing broke off their Waco CG-4 glider.
Following Kaufmann’s tenure, the Democrats took over city hall for
good, beginning their 50-year undeclared war on the poor, razing
historical neighborhoods and forcing residents into inhuman
crime-infested public housing projects.
Like most primaries in this half-white, half-black city, this
year’s races were first and foremost about race. Thanks to
redistricting, the fight for Missouri’s new First Congressional
District seat pit two incumbents against each other: the
African-American William Lacy Clay (son of a former congressman)
and the nebulously hued Russ Carnahan (son of a former U.S.
senator). Needless to say, the First Congressional District is not
“The People’s Seat.” Despite lots of talk about unity, diversity,
and other feel-good buzzwords, Clay was expected to get virtually
all of the African-American vote, while Carnahan had the white vote
wrapped up. Since there are slightly more blacks than whites in the
district, Clay was predicted to narrowly win. And did.
The same went for Missouri’s state house and state senate races.
Our friend Ruth, who played piano at our wedding, ran against Penny
Hubbard, a longtime cog in the North St. Louis African-American
political machine. It was telling that the Hubbard campaign
literature that graced my front door handle featured no images of
white residents. Despite that “oversight,” Hubbard narrowly won.
Meanwhile the state senate race pit a gay white women, Jeanette
Mott Oxford, versus two African-American women, Robin Wright-Jones
(the daughter of the former comptroller) and Jamilah Nasheed, who
told the local paper, “I’m black before I’m a Democrat.” The Black
Firster won handily.
SEVERAL DEMOCRAT POLITICIANS employed scare tactics to turn out
the vote. Lacy Clay warned that many black voters would not support
Carnahan if he were the nominee in the general election. “The
enthusiasm would not be there,” he told the local paper. “For the
black community, they would probably go in and vote for Obama and
walk out. It would be viewed as setting back the black community,
for sure.” The local African-American newspaper warned that St.
Louis could end up having no black representatives in Congress, the
state senate or the state house. It was the same story throughout
St. Louis. You could tell if the residents of a home were black or
white based on whose political signs were posted in their front
yard.
St. Louis’s Democrats alleged that this year’s black-white
contests were part of a right-wing conspiracy, that Republicans in
Jefferson City redrew the formerly mostly black or mostly white
districts to create bi-racial races. This would lead to more racial
tension among the Democratic Party in the city, a good move
politically for the GOP, perhaps, but a disaster for race
relations. Republicans, naturally, wouldn’t care about that since
they do not live in the city.
The idea is that since sour grape Republicans cannot win in the
city, they’ve decided to create mayhem for Democrats and city
residents. The only problem with that theory is that it is hogwash.
Republicans stopped caring about what happens in the city of St.
Louis when Aloys Kauffman left office in 1949.
