Yes Voters, There Are Dems In Congressional Race

If you plan to vote, you're probably up to speed on the Republican race for West County's 2nd Congressional District seat, vacated by U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (who is now in a three-way race for the U.S. Senate Republican nomination.)

The 2nd Congressional District includes Chesterfield.

But no one has talked much about the Democratic primary race for U.S. Congress, 2nd district, from Missouri.

For the few Democrats in West County, here are the candidates:

• Marshall Works of Ballwin
• George “Boots” Weber of Eureka
• Harold Whitfield of Kirkwood
• Glen Koenen of Valley Park

From this list, Harold Whitfield is the best known. Whitfield is a lawyer and was the Kirkwood municipal judge for 25 years.

For 30 years, Whitfield served as the city attorney for a number of North County municipalities. He was very active in the 2008 Obama presidential campaign in Missouri.

Weber was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress in 2004 when he got 33-percent of the vote while losing to Akin. In 2006, Weber was again the nominee and garnered 36-percent to Akin’s 61 percent.  

The last Democrat to hold the Second Congressional District seat was Joan Kelly Horn, 1991-93. Since 1993 to the present, the seat was held by Jim Talent (93-2001) and Akin (2001-present).

Congress ballot favorites  

If you're picking ballot favorites for the November election right now, it would have to be Ann Wagner of Ballwin (on the Republican side) and Whitfield of Kirkwood (on the Democratic side.)

Chesterfield City Council race 

A trip to the Board of Election Commissioners revealed a little and a lot.

In the Ward 2 race Elliott Grissom, 65, who was appointed to fill Mayor Bruce Geiger’s spot when Geiger was elected mayor, has raised $3,433. Most of the money came from residents of Chesterfield and most of those people according to campaign filings with the Missouri Ethics Commission are from retirees. Grissom has given $438 to his campaign. $1,370 of the remaining $2,995 in contributions came from people living on Grissom’s street, Chesterfield Villas Circle.

His opponent Tania Pappas, 44, has not filed any campaign fundraisers or expenses. If a candidate raised less than $1,000 and spends less than $1,000 no reports are necessary.

In the Ward 1 race between longtime incumbent Barry Flachsbart, 73, (an original city councilman when Chesterfield was first founded) and challenger and lifetime Chesterfield resident, 35-year-old David Arbogast, showed far less money raised.

Arbogast has four contributions according to records he filed with the Board of Election Commissioners totaling $2,320. Of that, $1,875 came from Arbogast himself, $200 from a relative who lives in South County and $250 from a person living in Lenexa, Kansas.    

Flachsbart’s file was the thinnest we looked at. For this election, his campaign has $2,000 which he paid to his own campaign, $200 from former Monarch fire District Director Rick Gans and a few cash donations under $100 each.

What was interesting about Flachsbart’s file was the number of times people have looked at it.   

Three times his opponent, Arbogast, has examined the file from February 23 to March 26. The only thing I found that some might consider controversial was the contribution from Rick Gans due to Gans’ past association with the always controversial Monarch Fire Protection District.

The fourth person who examined the file is a woman from Webster Groves who is best known for growing Irises and serving on an Iris grower association board of directors.

Having spent over a dozen years as a sports writer or editor, it is hard not to root for the underdog or the outsider. We used to call this “rooting for your lead” meaning the lead sentence or paragraph to an upset is always more interesting and fun to write.

I have won an election where my opponent, an incumbent, was interrupted at the West County restaurant where he was holding his victory party to be told he lost. I didn’t find out I had won until I finished driving around in the rain picking up election signs.

But I have run as an incumbent and lost, so I have been in both positions of all the Chesterfield candidates and know the feelings—win or lose.        

Mr. Hoffman is a former Town and Country alderman.