Springfield businesspeople financially back politics

Political donations deriving from Springfield ZIP codes exceeded $465,000 between Jan. 1, 2003, and Oct. 13, 2004, according to Fundrace.org, a searchable database built on campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, the independent agency that regulates federal campaign finance laws.

While President Bush took Missouri’s 11 electoral votes, Springfield Republicans also won in the spending race. Republican donations, totaling $245,879, slightly outdistanced those of their Democrat counterparts in Springfield, who contributed $219,377.

Familiar names such as Morris, O’Reilly and Stack appear among the top Springfield contributors, according to information from the FEC.

The largest single donation – $25,000 to the Republican National Committee – came from Jean L. Morris, wife of Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, who is a friend of the Bush family. Morris is close enough with the president that during Bush’s July 30 Hammons Field rally, the president singled out Morris and said he wished the two were out fishing.

Not surprisingly, many Springfield attorneys, including Clifton Smart, Thomas Strong, Brad Bradshaw and Timothy O’Reilly, supported Democratic races, while private business owners, including the Morris family and radio station owner John Mahaffey, contributed to the Republicans.

Behind the money

Smart, an attorney with The Strong Law Firm, has been a major political contributor for years. Smart said his campaign contributions were based on the candidates’ political ideas.

“We gave money first to (Democratic presidential candidate Wesley) Clark and then to (the John Kerry-John Edwards campaign) because we think the country’s going in the wrong direction,” Smart said. “We’re particularly upset about the Iraq war and Bush’s policy on that. We thought anyone was better on that issue than he was, and that we were more likely to get out of that conflict (by supporting Bush’s opponent).”

Smart’s largest contribution was a $10,000 donation to the Democratic National Committee to fund Edwards’ Jan. 28 Springfield campaign visit. Smart and fellow Edwards supporters raised more than $100,000 to fund the trip.

Smart’s legal partner, Thomas Strong, also donated $10,000 to DNC for Edwards’ visit.

While some contributors are willing to discuss the motivation behind their contributions, others say their financial choices are a more personal matter. Mahaffey, who owns Springfield stations KTTR, KXMO and KMOZ, declined to comment on the reasons for his $27,000 in donations, saying he felt it was a private matter.

Springfield emanufacturing Corp. CEO Jack Stack said there are many reasons to make a donation.

“One is defensive,” he said. “It’s fear that your cause could get hurt if you didn’t donate, so you’re in it sometimes from a defensive position.”

And the donations are not always based on party allegiance. The Stack family gave $10,000 to the presidential campaign of Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and $4,000 to the Bush campaign. Stack also hosted the president’s Feb. 9 visit to SRC. Stack said that’s because there’s more to a candidate than his party affiliation.

“You want to participate if you think someone has great values or potential,” he said. “I’ll be honest; in the Democratic Party I supported Gephardt because I thought he was seasoned, he had really great values, and I thought he was probably one of the better contenders – one of the better people that the Democrats ran. I would have much rather seen him than Kerry or Edwards. So it all came down to leadership.”

Follow the rules

Steve Stepp, chair of the Greene County Democratic Party, said there is a specific way that donations must be made in order to comply with regulations.

“(Contributors) don’t make contributions to the presidential campaign through the local party. Those would have to have been made directly,” he said. “But people wanting to donate directly to local candidates either write checks to those campaigns or they can write checks to the local party, and the party then has the discretion to use the funds in a way of its own choosing.

“You can’t come to the party and say, ‘Here’s $300, give it all to Sam Smith.’ You could say that, and we might very well do it, but the party is not bound to do it. It’s one of those shady areas that we have to be careful that we account for all the funds, because everybody’s watching.”

Greene County Republican Party Chair Dan Imhof said fundraising is one of the party’s most crucial jobs.

“I think people realize that it all takes money,” he said. “We maintain a year-round office here, to keep a little bit of cohesiveness at all times, and I think people understand that a certain amount of party building needs to be done.”

Smart said that solicitation for political donations is by no means random; giving once opens the floodgates.

“Once you give to somebody, everybody calls,” he said.