Voters aren’t likely to understand obscure accusations.
JEFFERSON CITY — Like pumpkins before Halloween, October is ripe with negative politics in an election season. Yet something seems peculiar about the criticism arising in the state auditor’s race.
Put simply: The attacks just aren’t the type of things people typically understand.
The candidates are bickering over bookkeeping methods, the qualifications of certified public accountants and the legal responsibilities of county auditors.
Perhaps it’s because the candidates for the Nov. 7 election have remarkably similar resumes that the campaigns of Democratic Buchanan County Auditor Susan Montee and Republican Platte County Auditor Sandra Thomas have delved into such minutiae for their attacks.
Perhaps it’s also a good political science lesson of what happens when there is an open statewide office (when there is no incumbent vs. challenger). In this case, the state auditor’s office is open because incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill is instead running for Senate.
With an open seat, “you get better-qualified candidates, better-funded candidates and you also get lots of negative advertising,” said political scientist Beth Miller, of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. “You’re both qualified, so what do you do? You have to find very small things that might implicate the other candidate in some kind of shady deal or corrupt practices.”
Consider a four-day stretch last week in the auditor’s race.
On Day 1, Thomas claimed Montee “continues to pass the buck” when it comes to auditing Buchanan County Public Administrator Bonnie Sue Lawson, who resigned in August. Investigators said money was improperly taken out of some client accounts overseen by Lawson.
Thomas claims Montee should have audited the accounts. Montee claims state law allows her to audit only the public dollars spent by the county’s public administrator, not the private money of the individuals managed by the administrator.
On Day 2, Montee turned the attacker. She declared Thomas was “hypocritical” for proposing a constitutional amendment requiring state auditors to be certified public accountants. Although both Montee and Thomas are CPAs, Montee pointed to documents showing that while Thomas passed the CPA test in 1990 she didn’t become a licensed CPA until August 2002 — more than seven years after Thomas became county auditor.
Then on Day 4, Montee’s campaign cited unnamed sources accusing Thomas of using an outside auditing firm to “ghostwrite” financial reports that earned the Platte County auditor an award. The accusation is “false and it’s ridiculous,” countered Thomas campaign consultant Jeff Roe, who said Thomas and her staff had prepared the financial reports themselves.
Miller says it’s unlikely the winner will be determined based on the candidates themselves. Of greater weight, she said, is which political party is best at mobilizing its supporters.