Saint Louis, Mo. — With barely one week remaining until voters across the state cast ballots in the primary, St. Louis County Council member Steve Stenger is releasing yet another television ad this week criticizing incumbent Charlie Dooley for woeful mismanagement.
Despite being negative, the ad is perhaps the most toned-down in a race that has seen multiple accusations of corruption or moral turpitude from both camps. Emboldened by an independent poll from a Republican consulting firm showing challenger Stenger with a sizeable lead, the young challenger’s campaign appears now entirely focused on painting Dooley as an incompetent leader for the region.
The ad comes on the cusp of an endorsement for Stenger from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which accompanied a cartoon of Dooley with the campaign which has been characterized as racist.
The cartoon features a smiling Dooley at his desk. Under his nameplate, the famous Harry Truman “The Buck Stops Here” motto appears on Dooley’s desk. In the cartoon, Dooley’s caricature has painted out the word “here.”
Dooley’s campaign was quick to say the cartoon was deliberately exploiting racial undertones. The Post-Dispatch strongly denied the sentiment.
The back-and-fourth highlights perhaps the most essential statistic in determining the winner of the Democratic primary: turnout.
Dooley’s strong ties to the black community and their relatively ferocious support of the embattled incumbent County Executive could be enough to put him ahead of Stenger on Aug. 5. But an off-year primary election is expected to see relatively low turnout across the board, likely signaling a dip in minority turnout.
Stenger — who represents parts of South County on the County Council — will likely easily carry the southern end of the county, where some Republicans have even vowed to vote for him on primary day in an effort to oust Dooley’s decade-long hold on the position. With large parts of North County firmly committed to Dooley, the race will largely be determined by which campaign gets the most of their supporters to the polls on election day.
Collin Reischman was the Managing Editor for The Missouri Times, and a graduate of Webster University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.
