Don’t reward this Kansas City candidate’s unfair attack on his fellow Democrat | Opinion
Sometimes, a political ad is appalling on its face. For instance, that anti-immigrant Bill Eigel TV spot that ends with the man who had been translating the Missouri Republican gubernatorial candidate’s nonsense into Spanish shouting, “¡Ay, caramba! ¡Ándale, Ándale! ¡Arriba, Arriba!”
But other times, we might see an ad and not know what to make of it. I hope that’s not the case with the Missouri Senate District 7 candidate Pat Contreras commercial that completely distorts the record of his primary opponent and fellow Democrat, state Rep. Patty Lewis.
The TV commercial from Contreras, who is McCownGordon Construction’s vice president of business development, opens with people who look like they just bit into a big poop sandwich saying they never heard of this Patty Lewis person. (OK, then why are you appearing in this ad?) Next come the claims that she “voted against funding for schools, voted against funding for child care, funding for health care workers, job training and crime prevention.” He also says she voted against American Rescue Plan funding.
Patty Lewis is a nurse, endorsed by the teachers’ union, and someone who has voted multiple times for a child care tax credit. What she actually voted against, as did other Democrats and even some Republicans, was the Republican state budget. Is Contreras saying he wouldn’t ever do that?
What Lewis opposed in the spending of the American Rescue Plan money was the appropriation of $500 million for a tax credit offset that couldn’t even be spent, because the bill was so poorly drafted.
In Gov. Mike Parson’s 2022 veto of the portion of the bill that Lewis saw as problematic, he wrote, “The appropriation bill directs that funds be transferred from general revenue to the Tax Credit Offset Fund, but contains no language authorizing the expenditure of any funds out of the Tax Credit Offset Fund.” Thus, Parson wrote, it would be unconstitutional as well as a complete waste.
Obviously, this commercial from Pat Contreras is neither the first nor the last garbage political ad of the cycle. But his willingness to go after Lewis on such shady grounds confirms our decision as an editorial board to endorse Lewis.
He also strikes me as an exaggerator when he makes it sound like he all on his own built Kansas City hospitals and created thousands of jobs. All candidates want to accentuate the positive, but when he says in his mailers that he has “worked to deliver $800 million in Kansas City construction projects — building schools, hospitals and improving our quality of life,” he’s either singular or stretching.
Likewise, when he says he’ll “lower the cost of living and essentials like health care, gas, and groceries,” I’m skeptical that he can do what even the president — any president — can’t, since inflation and oil prices are largely moved by global forces.
This is a pattern. An April press release announcing Contreras’ exploratory committee for the race said he’d “already earned early support for a potential run” from U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas. Only, that wasn’t true, either; neither is endorsing either candidate in the race.
Just now, on Wednesday evening, I received not one but two different new mailers from the Contreras campaign, quoting all the flattering things that our editorial endorsing Lewis said about him. And yes, making it look like we endorsed him, though he doesn’t actually make that claim.
Maybe his unfair attack on Lewis will be rewarded; politicians go negative because those tactics often work. Hopefully, voters in our district will decide that this time, they won’t.
This story was originally published August 1, 2024 at 5:07 AM.
