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Candidates for Missouri governor said the 2016 race would be amicable after a contender who had criticized political bullying shot and killed himself last year.
But two Republican candidates created a dust-up last month with the public release of a private phone conversation between the two, and Democrats this week said the demeanor of one of the candidates during that phone call shows he doesn’t have the right “temperament” to be governor.
Is attention-getting, negative campaigning inevitable?
Probably, according to some Missouri political scientists, especially given the competitive, four-way GOP primary.
Political insiders and party officials said there’s still hope that the Missouri governor’s race won’t devolve into name-calling.
But Truman State University political scientist Randy Hagerty said “it’s likely to get nasty.”
“If you ask a campaign, ‘Are you going to launch a bunch of negative personal attacks?’ Nobody’s going to say, ‘Well, you bet I am because negative campaigning works,'” Hagerty said. “Instead they’ll say, ‘We’re focused on the issues, we’re focused on the needs of people of Missouri, and unfortunately we have to respond to these negative attacks against us.'”
Hagerty said that while that’s “standard political rhetoric,” it “ignores the reality.” He said more vicious personal attacks and negative campaigning is a growing trend, and not just in Missouri.
A political action committee has slammed gubernatorial hopeful Eric Greitens as “not a conservative” on its website. The group sent out a new press release attacking Greitens’ conservative credentials this weekend.
The website led to a dispute between Greitens, a former Navy SEAL officer, and suburban St. Louis businessman John Brunner, whose former campaign staffer helped form the PAC in November, according to Federal Election Commission documents.
Brunner last month recorded a hostile phone call between himself and Greitens — Greitens called him a “weasel” — and it was later leaked to the media. Democrats last week sent out a news release saying Greitens doesn’t have the right “temperament” to be governor based on his demeanor during the phone call.
Brunner’s campaign has said it did not approve releasing the recording, and Brunner’s deputy campaign manager, Mike Hafner, said staffers don’t know who leaked it. Hafner said its release was unfortunate and said there’s no question it “decreased the tone of the campaign.”
“Our campaign has every intention of moving forward in a positive way,” Hafner said.
Greitens said he, too, wants a clean campaign.
“If you say you want to be positive, then be positive,” Greitens said. “Stop with all of these insider games.”
University of Missouri political scientist Peverill Squire said it’s not surprising that such a race would get personal.
“Although everybody may hope to run a positive campaign, that’s difficult to do when you have so many people competing,” Squire said.
After months of quiet, the Brunner-Greitens scuffle is the first foray into the type of negative campaigning many of the Republican candidates criticized in the early stages of their campaigns this year. Brunner, former U.S. attorney and state House speaker Catherine Hanaway and Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder said months ago that they would stay away from such tactics after former auditor and gubernatorial candidate Tom Schweich’s death.
Schweich shot himself just moments after he told The Associated Press that he wanted to go public with allegations of an anti-Semitic whispering campaign against him by a top Republican official. Schweich, who was Christian with Jewish ancestry, also had been troubled by a negative radio ad mocking his physical appearance that was financed by a Republican consultant with ties to Hanaway, who denounced the ad.
Haggerty said a contentious GOP primary would benefit Attorney General Chris Koster, the only Democrat to say he plans to run for the office. Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon is barred from seeking re-election because of term limits.
