Jeff Smith for Missouri

Joining the ever-growing list of Smith supporters, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has endorsed Jeff for the 4th District Senate seat.

“Mr. Smith’s energy and intellect would shake up the Missouri Senate, to the benefit of both the Senate and the 4th District.”

Progressive Democrats of St. Louis
www.STLProgDems.org

Dear Jeff:

We are pleased to announce that our group, Progressive Democrats of St. Louis, PDA Chapter, has decided to endorse you. We have passed your name and contact info to our members and other alliance groups to recommend that they help you in any way they can. May we also list you on our website as an endorsed candidate?

We appreciate you honesty and courage to support progressive ideals and to offer Democratic voters a strong, clear platform that they can get behind in the primaries and then send you to Jeff City in the fall!

Thanks for coming out to talk to us and I hope we can send some extra help your way!

Sincerely,

Martha Scheer

Board, Progressive Democrats of St. Louis/PDA Chapter

Tuesday, July 18th
Gina Haggerty Coffee
7:00-8:00 p.m.
5800 Pernod
RSVP to Sean at 314-226-7374

Wednesday, July 19th
Joe Moramarco and Dan Orlet
7:00-8:00 p.m.
4523 Arco
RSVP to Sean at 314-226-7374

Kathleen Clark & Denise Lieberman
7:30 – 9:00 p.m.
6047 Waterman
RSVP to Sean at 314-226-7374

Thursday, July 20th
Mary Krieghuaser Coffee
Co-Hosts:
Hon. Fred Kratky, Ann Roth, Louise Tonkovich, John & Carol Powers, and Chris Hohn
6:30-7:30 p.m.
5103 Donovan

Friday July 21st
Blouin & Squillace House Party
6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
3519 Arsenal
RSVP to Amy and Joe at 518-8867 or 776-8955

Bar Italia
8:30-10:00 p.m.
13 Maryland Plz

Tuesday, July 25th
Kay Gabbert
7:00 p.m.
4115 Flora
RSVP to Sean at 314-226-7374

Jeff Smith has got game

By Toriano L. Porter
For the St. Louis American

Forgive James Walker, Jay Sloan and Lamont and Anthony Fields. The foursome captured first place at the Jeff Smith 3-on-3 basketball tournament held Saturday at Fairground Park by winning four games, even eliminating Missouri State Senate candidate Smith’s team in the process.

“We came out here to help support Jeff Smith (for the 4th District state Senate seat) and play a little basketball,” said the virtually unstoppable Walker, who lit it up all afternoon despite heavy defensive attention. “We beat him on the basketball court, but we’re going to let him hold the politics down.”

Anthony Fields said Smith’s grassroots approach towards the basketball tournament could help Smith sway some votes his way come election time in August. Smith, who narrowly lost his bid for the 3rd Congressional district seat vacated by Dick Gephardt in 2004 (won by Congressman Russ Carnahan), is up against 4th District candidates and state Representatives Amber Boykins and Yaphett El-Amin, former city Alderman Kenneth Jones and former state Rep. Derio Gambaro.

“By him doing something like this, I think it may help him win some votes over this way,” Fields said.

Walker agreed.

“If he maintains that kind of status and communication with the actual people who live here, he’ll be a good voice for the community and not just an empty voice with a lot of broken promises.”

Sloan chided Smith for Smith’s basketball defense, but applauded his efforts in reaching out to the community in a non-traditional way.

“Anybody who can take my crossover and still want to shake my hand afterwards – that’s what I call sticking with the community,” Sloan joked. He added Smith’s tenacity on the court matched Smith’s skill level. “He was way better than I thought he would be.”

That Smith can hoop should not be surprising. After all, the feisty five-foot-something point guard helped his Ladue Rams win a share of the Suburban South Conference Championship back in the 1991-1992 season. One of Smith’s teammates at Ladue, David Buckner, co-chaired the 3-on-3 tournament at Fairground and maintains Smith’s website at www.jeffsmith2006.com.

“We had a good turnout today,” Buckner said about Saturday’s hoop-fest, which was sponsored by Brown Suga’s, Ben & Jerry’s, MoKaBe’s, Marte Shoes, Big Shark Bicycle Company and Lawanda Gibson of ReMax Property West. (DJ Charley Chan provided his services on the ones and twos as well).

“Parents had a good time, kids had a good time and it was all positive. That goes to show that positive events can happen in North St. Louis neighborhoods. We’ve just got to have faith in the community and have more events down here.”

As for Smith, who stayed behind well after the tournament was over for another round of half-court “Bucket” with a few locals, he was just as pleased with the turnout as the 300 or so players, parents, sponsors and spectators who showed up for a dazzling display of street ball, amid scorching heat and humidity.

“St. Louis politics are traditionally seen through this tired prism of North Side versus South Side, white versus black. It doesn’t have to be that way,” Smith said of his objective for the tourney.

“For me, this is a natural. I’ve been coaching one way or another 14 years, and I thought this would be a great way to bring people together and have a good time.”

Photo caption: Jeff Smith, senate candidate for the 4th District, drives to the basket during the Jeff Smith 3-3 Basketball Tournament held in Fairgrounds Park Saturday.

GOP votes may be factor in Democratic Senate primary
By Jo Mannies
POST-DISPATCH REGIONAL POLITICAL CORESPONDENT
06/22/2006

Five Missouri Republicans are competing in their party’s statewide primary on Aug. 8 for the state auditor nominee.

Five St. Louis Democrats are competing in their party’s primary on Aug. 8 for the city’s 4th District state Senate seat.

Aside from the same number of hopefuls, the two contests ordinarily would have nothing in common.

But they will if Carol Wilson, a Republican committeewoman for the city’s 16th Ward, gets her wish.

Wilson, who also is vice chairwoman of the St. Louis Republican Central Committee, has a campaign poster displayed in her home’s front window. It’s for one of the Democrats running for the 4th District state Senate seat: Derio Gambaro, a former legislator who most recently headed the St. Louis Election Board.

Wilson says she may take a Democratic ballot in August so she can vote for Gambaro, who she deems is the most conservative of the Senate Democratic hopefuls. No Republicans filed as candidates in the 4th District, so the Democrat who wins in August will be that district’s next state senator.

The 4th District generally spans the western half of the city, and includes the southwest section where most city Republicans reside.

“For city Republicans, that Senate race is an important one,” Wilson said. She added that she has not brought up the contest at citywide Republican meetings, but “it’s being talked about quietly.”

Wilson is advocating that city Republicans “cross over” into the Democratic primary so they can influence who wins the 4th District.

Republican crossovers are somewhat of a tradition in St. Louis’ municipal contests, because so few Republicans file for citywide or ward offices in the predominantly Democratic city.

Republicans generally cast less than 20 percent of the city’s votes. But that bloc can be crucial. In the 1997 mayoral race, for example, a very public Republican crossover effort was deemed key to the Democratic victory of Clarence Harmon, then the police chief, over then-Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr.

But crossing over for a legislative contest this August could have a statewide impact. That’s because Republicans who cross over won’t be able to vote in their party’s primaries – which include the hotly contested GOP contest for state auditor.

On the surface, such defections could mean fewer local votes for the two St. Louis-area Republicans running for auditor: state Rep. Jack Jackson of Wildwood and state Sen. John Loudon of Chesterfield.

Both men say they hadn’t heard of any city Republican crossover effort. Both also emphasized that they do want city GOP votes. The three other auditor candidates are from outstate: state Rep. Mark Wright of Springfield, Platte County Auditor Sandra Thomas and prison counselor Al Hanson.

Judy Zakibe, the city’s 10th Ward Republican committeewoman, says that many city Republicans have a favorite in the state auditor race. But she added that she’s hearing from a growing number of city Republicans that they’re willing to forgo a vote in the contest, because they’re comfortable with the views of all the major state auditor contenders.

Zakibe added that the growing crossover talk is fueled by city Republicans’ fear of Democratic state Senate contender Jeff Smith.

“They do not want someone as liberal as Jeff Smith for their state senator,” Zakibe said.

Smith, an associate political science professor, is vying with Gambaro and three others – state Reps. Amber Boykins and Yaphett El-Amin, and former city Alderman Kenneth Jones.

Like most St. Louis contests, there’s also a racial aspect to the 4th District race. Smith and Gambaro are white. Boykins, El-Amin and Jones are African-American.

And there’s a religious component. A letter from lawyer Jim Wilson, a conservative Democrat and parishioner at St. Gabriel’s Catholic Church, is circulating within the district to warn of Smith’s opposition to vouchers or tax credits for parents who send their children to parochial or private schools. Smith does support public charter schools.

Gambaro is proposing a tax credit program for need-based scholarships to help families who reside in troubled school districts so they can send their children to parochial, private or other public schools.

Gambaro says he welcomes all supporters, regardless of party. Smith says he does, too, but added that an organized Republican crossover effort could energize city Democrats who might resent GOP meddling. El-Amin and Boykins declined requests for comment.

Dave Robertson, a political science professor at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, said he’d be surprised if enough city Republicans crossed over to have much of an effect on either the state auditor’s race or the state Senate contest.

Harmon and Bosley might disagree.

By Jo Mannies – STLtoday.com
06/20/2006 1:31 pm

As the 4th District state Senate contest swings into the final seven-week stretch, Democratic hopeful Jeff Smith released this week a list of endorsements from three progressive groups and the Democratic organization for the 28th Ward (arguably the city’s most progressive turf.)

Various blogs, such as Archcitychronicle and BlogSt. Louis, have already noted the progressive-group endorsements, which came from: Personal Rights Of Missourians Political Action Committee (PROMO PAC), Missouri Votes Conservation (MVC), and the Missouri Equal Rights Amendment Political Action Committee (ERA PAC).

As Smith pointed out in his release, PROMO is “one of the state’s largest and most active equal rights organizations.’’

Pamela Merritt, chair of PROMO’s PAC, praised Smith as “an outspoken champion of LGBT equality in the Missouri Senate.’’

The MVC is an arm of the Missouri League of Conservation Voters. The Missouri ERA PAC supports candidates it deems as fighting to to protect women’s rights.

Smith said in an interview and in his release that he is proud to show “the progressive community rallying around my campaign.’’

But there is a question of whether promoting such endorsements could prove divisive among voters in the 4th District, which spans the western half of the city and takes in many of the city’s more socially conservative territory in southwest St. Louis.

One of his rivals, former state Rep. Derio Gambaro, is wooing socially conservative Democrats and some Republicans (who are hearing some appeals that they “cross over’’ in August and take a Democratic ballot.) Gambaro has been touting his 8th Ward endorsement, which echoed the social-conservative argument.

The contest’s other two major candidates, state Reps. Amber Boykins and Yaphett El-Amin, are making their strongest appeals in African-American neighborhoods, but also are seeking votes from elsewhere in the district.

At this point, neither Boykins nor El-Amin appear to be targeting progressive voters and groups with the same intensity as Smith.

(El-Amin is among those legislators calling for a special session to restore Medicaid benefits to the working disabled. But she also has received donations from pro-school voucher groups and is deemed more socially conservative when it comes to gay rights and abortion.)

Smith cited his endorsements from the Democratic groups in the socially conservative 16th and 23rd Ward Democratic groups as evidence that his support “spans political lines’’ and includes people who may not support his views on every issue, but back “my work ethic, my drive, my ability to be an aggressive legislator.’’

It’ll be interesting to see how all this plays out in the coming weeks.

By Sylvester Brown Jr.
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
06/25/2006

“I wouldn’t give you two cents for all your fancy rules if, behind them, they didn’t have a little bit of plain, ordinary, everyday kindness and a little looking out for the other fella, too.” – Jimmy Stewart,

“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”

Real-life politicians hated director Frank Capra’s 1939 film. But Stewart’s portrayal of Jefferson Smith, a plainspoken, politically idealistic politician awash in a town dictated by power and corruption, resonated with audiences.

Fed up and frustrated with President George W. Bush’s first three years in office, Webster Groves film producer Frank Popper, 57, went looking for inspiration. In early 2004, he found it in a candidate whose name, style and ambition matched that of Capra’s hero.

Political insiders gave legislative novice Jeff Smith, a political science instructor at Washington University, little notice or chance of succeeding Rep. Richard Gephardt, who had given up his seat in Congress. Most assumed, based on name recognition alone, that Russ Carnahan, the son of late Gov. Mel Carnahan, would win.

But Popper, after spending only “30 seconds” with Smith at a local bookstore, saw something those in-the-know seemed to have missed.

“It was a gut feeling,” said Popper, an award-winning producer of commercial and nonprofit films. “Jeff was young, articulate and dynamic.”

Two years later, Popper and his co-writers and producers, Michael Kime, a lawyer with Sauerwein Blanchard & Kime P.C., and entrepreneur Matt Coen, are abuzz with excitement. Their documentary, “Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore,” won the Audience Award for Feature Film on June 18 at the Silverdocs Film Festival in Washington. If fate holds true to the path of “Street Fight,” the 2005 Silverdocs “Audience Award” winner, the film created by Popper et al. could clinch an Oscar nomination.

Popper, Kime and Coen’s road to the Silverdocs began after an initially reluctant Smith agreed to allow Popper to tag along to shoot his gruff, gritty and grueling campaign. The film opens with shots of Smith’s family adamantly refusing to fund his campaign and voicing their doubts about his chances of winning the congressional seat.

“I don’t think a person with the mind that he has should waste it on politics,” Smith’s grandmother, Idah Rubin, says in the film.

After comments from political analysts and Post-Dispatch columnists (Bill McClellan, Jo Mannies and yours truly) and a reporter from the St. Louis American newspaper, the film segues into early assessments of Smith’s height and lispy voice, delivered by campaign workers and supporters like Steve Brown: “This scruffy kid, wearing a suit that looked like he got it from Garanimals, said he was 30. I didn’t believe him. . . .”

“Even though Jeff looks like he’s 12 and sounds like he’s been castrated, he was the most brilliant and articulate candidate,” quipped Artie Harris, Smith’s campaign communication director.

Just as the governor’s children in Capra’s film convince their father to give Jefferson Smith a shot in the Senate, Jeff Smith’s young volunteers add the spark in Popper’s documentary. Their hard work, anger, hope, tears and enthusiasm, perfectly synchronized with a musical score of blues, gospel and a drumline from Webster Groves High School musicians, give the film its edge-of-your-seat, along-for-the-ride energy.

Popper’s film doesn’t have a “David conquers Goliath” ending. It cinematically illustrates how political clout and name recognition often trump quality, grass-roots campaigns. And, according to producer Coen, the fact that an unknown candidate lost by less than 2,000 votes also underscores hope, as demonstrated by Smith, who’s now running for the Missouri Senate.

“The ending makes it honest. It shows an arduous journey, but it also shows it can be done,” Coen said. “It resonated so well at Silverdocs because it taps into the bigger story playing out across the country.”

Silverdocs was an unreal experience for the filmmakers. Not only did they win a prestigious award and experience their documentary shown on the big screen before an audience of movie buffs, they also mingled with former Vice President Al Gore, director Martin Scorsese, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman and other notables. Upon their return home, Kime, Coen and Popper have been deluged with media requests for interviews.

“It’s been like a fast-moving train and we’re just trying to hold on,” said Kime, adding that the “real work” is just beginning. The trio is working feverishly to book the film across the country and focusing on “packing the house” for its local premiere July 27 at the Tivoli Theater.

Although the film documenting a political outsider’s difficult odyssey reflects the essence of Capra’s film, the filmmakers are in the midst of drafting their own against-all-odds story.

“We’re three guys who are hardly Hollywood types,” Coen told me. “We’ve managed to put together a film that’s been well-received, taps into a political reality, yet still leaves people with a sense of optimism that they can engage and truly make a difference.”