Four candidates for Missouri governor battle in tight GOP primary

There aren’t many policy differences between the four Republican candidates running for governor.

Each wants tougher regulations on labor unions and fewer regulations on business. They believe Missouri’s taxes should be lower and the state’s public workforce should be smaller. They’re anti-abortion and pro-gun.

And each paints a picture of a lawless state, pointing to the 2014 unrest in Ferguson and campus protests last year at Mizzou as prime examples.

The real difference between the candidates seeking to replace Gov. Jay Nixon, who can’t seek re-election because of term limits, is their biographies.

Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder leans on his experience in elective office, saying he has consistently championed conservative causes and is the only Republican who won on the statewide ballot in Missouri during the presidential election years of 2008 and 2012.

Businessman John Brunner and former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens stake their candidacies on being political outsiders. Brunner believes his success in the business world will translate in the statehouse, while Greitens says Jefferson City is corrupt and in need of a political outsider to clean it up.

Former Missouri House speaker Catherine Hanaway is trying to split the difference, pointing to her legislative accomplishments yet focusing more on her life after elective office, most notably her time as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Polls have consistently shown a tight four-way race, so the Aug. 2 primary is anybody’s game.

The winner is likely to face Attorney General Chris Koster in the November election. Koster faces only token opposition from three men who filed to run against him in the Democratic primary but have not raised any money. Koster has $10 million in his campaign war chest.

Catherine Hanaway

Hanaway, 52, won a seat in the Missouri House in 1998. Four years later, she became the first and only woman to serve as House speaker. She ran unsuccessfully for secretary of state in 2004, and the next year she was appointed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri by President George W. Bush.

“Missouri is facing twin crises of public safety and economic woe,” she said. “Of the candidates, I’m uniquely qualified to address both.”

Hanaway stands out as the only candidate in the race to publicly call for a law mandating the use of police body cameras, an idea that hasn’t gotten much traction in Missouri’s GOP-dominated General Assembly.

“Cameras don’t lie,” she said. “Cameras will show police officers do an extraordinarily difficult job where they are often abused by citizens and still do it right.”

One area where Hanaway has faced criticism from within the Republican Party is on guns.

In 1999, Missouri voters rejected a ballot measure that would have legalized concealed carry of a firearm. Hanaway’s legislative district voted overwhelmingly against concealed carry, and in the years that followed she cast numerous votes against concealed carry. But when lawmakers were finally able to pass the provision, Hanaway supported it and helped override a gubernatorial veto to enact it.

Hanaway says she always supported concealed carry, but until 2003 “we were the minority party. My vote wasn’t going to make a difference, and so I voted against conceal carry to reflect the people of my district.”

Hanaway’s campaign is funded by GOP megadonor Rex Sinquefield, who has spent $4 million on Hanaway’s candidacy. Although some have been critical of that fact, Hanaway said each candidate has a large patron funding their efforts, whether it’s an individual donor or large labor unions.

“There is a lot of money in this governor’s race,” she said. “But we have instantaneous reporting in this state, so everyone knows who is supporting who.”

Eric Greitens

Greitens, 42, is a former Navy SEAL who returned to Missouri after his time in the military to start The Mission Continues, a nonprofit that connects veterans with volunteer opportunities in their home communities.

He’s never run for public office before, but he did flirt with a run for Congress as a Democrat in 2010. Additionally, he attended the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Both incidents have become fodder for attacks by his GOP rivals, especially Brunner, who has assailed Greitens with TV ads questioning his conservative bona fides.

Greitens said he was raised a Democrat by his parents, but after serving in the military and starting his nonprofit, he was “made a conservative, not by birth but by conviction.”

Jefferson City is corrupt, Greitens said, and in need of an outsider to clean it up. He believes he’s the man for the job.

“We have corrupt politicians, well-paid lobbyists and special-interest insiders taking the state in the wrong direction,” he said. “People deserve a government they can trust. I’m the only candidate in this race who has been willing to say that Jefferson City is corrupt.”

His campaign is largely funded by big checks from out-of-state donors. He recently accepted the largest single donation in Missouri’s history — a nearly $2 million donation from a super PAC called “SEALS for Truth.” The group isn’t required to disclose where it got that money until October, two months after voters cast their ballots in the primary.

The massive infusion of dark money into the primary riled his opponents, who accused Greitens of hypocrisy for preaching an anti-corruption message while awash in out-of-state anonymous money.

Greitens said he’s not surprised his rivals have attacked him repeatedly during the primary.

“We have the political establishment terrified,” he said.

John Brunner

Brunner, 64, is the former CEO of Vi-Jon, a manufacturing company that makes hand sanitizer, lotions and other personal care products.

While his opponents have funded their campaigns with six-figure contributions from wealthy donors, Brunner is self-funding his campaign, pumping nearly $7 million into the race so far. He’s never held elective office before, although he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2012.

Brunner said his business background makes him the perfect candidate to take the reins of Missouri government. The last thing voters want right now, he said, is another “career politician” running their state.

“Donald Trump has surged because the people want someone who is going to take a fresh look at things,” he said. “Let’s find someone with a successful business record and bring those skills to our state government.”

The fact that he’s funding his own campaign should also resonate with voters, Brunner said, because it means he won’t be beholden to big donors.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “the reality is that those who get elected in Missouri are so consumed with supporting their big dollar donors, that’s where their priorities end up going.”

Peter Kinder

A native of Cape Girardeau, Kinder, 62, won a seat in the Missouri Senate in 1992, and when his party captured control of the legislature in 2001, he became the Senate’s president.

He was elected lieutenant governor in 2004. He was the only Republican on the statewide ballot to emerge victorious when he won re-election in 2008, with Democrats sweeping the other offices. He repeated that feat in 2012.

“I have a record of succeeding where others have failed,” Kinder said. “I’m the only candidate in the race who has ever won a statewide election. The Democratic nominee will be a formidable candidate, and we have to put a proven winner up against him.”

His rivals for the nomination have tried to demonize his electoral success, he said, but two of the three — Brunner and Hanaway — previously made a run for statewide office but didn’t win.

“They would be officeholders today if they demonstrated an ability to do what I have done,” Kinder said. “They couldn’t, which makes that argument kind of silly.”

Kinder also believes that if any of his rivals were to win the nomination, the party would be ceding the coveted endorsement of the NRA to Democrat Koster — a blow that could prove fatal for the party’s chances of winning back the governor’s mansion.

“I am the only candidate with an A-plus rating,” he said. “Koster has an A rating, which is higher than anyone else in the race besides me.”

This story was originally published July 26, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Four candidates for Missouri governor battle in tight GOP primary."