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C.W. Gardner, candidate for Missouri's U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Roy Blunt, takes a phone call from a tenant on Tuesday, May, 24, 2022, while working his job as a doorman at a St. Louis condominium high rise. Photo by Christian Gooden, cgooden@post-dispatch.com
ST. LOUIS — Different life experiences motivated a crowded field of people to run for Missouri’s open seat in the U.S. Senate.
For personal injury attorney Mark McCloskey, he said God nudged him by forming the “angry mob” outside his Central West End mansion in 2020. He and his wife, Patricia, were subsequently catapulted into right-wing heroism for brandishing firearms in defense.
For C.W. Gardner, a condo tower doorman who also lives and works in the Central West End, it was seeing McCloskey’s early campaign ad. The one where McCloskey, driving a green tractor on the farm, vows never to back down. At formal appearances, he wears suits and cowboy boots.
“If that’s all it takes for you to run, I guess I can too,” said Gardner, 42. “I would even add that his cowboy boots don’t have scuffs on them. That tells you a lot.”
True, Eric Greitens, running at the front end of the pack in the Senate race, has broken his boots in since he also lived in the neighborhood. But Greitens was accused of tying up his hairdresser in the basement, taking a naked picture against her will. He later quit as governor in disgrace.
“The Central West End hasn’t been sending their best, as of late,” Gardner said.
Rather than just complain, Gardner, who grew up in Florissant and O’Fallon, pieced together a campaign of his own. He says he’s a populist who wants to invest in each person. He’s not accepting donations so he can’t be be bought (and won’t have to mess with the paperwork).
A knack for production, homespun videos and pictures cast Gardner in a Western theme. In one, he stands in front of a barn stock photo. A bald eagle, cut and pasted from the internet, appears to fly overhead.
He’s going as C.W. instead of his real first name, Christopher. He’s grown a formidable mustache.
“I like to think that it polls well in St. Francois County,” he said.
An eccentric friend volunteered to be campaign manager and, since Gardner doesn’t have a license anymore, drive him to Jefferson City on Feb. 22. He wanted to be among the first to formally register as a candidate with the secretary of state.
Gardner considered running as an independent. That requires enough shoe leather to garner 10,000 signatures. Instead, he donned a blue turtleneck, sport coat and black cowboy boots on registration day. He sauntered up to the Republican desk, paid the $500 entry fee in cash. Quickly moving on to another step in the process, he drew a random number to designate where his name will be on the Republican ballot.
As of Tuesday, the deadline to certify ballots, there were 34 candidates in the primary. They are vying to occupy the seat U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, is vacating after serving three six-year terms in Washington. There are 11 Democrats, 21 Republicans, one Libertarian and one Constitution candidate. Officials said it’s the largest U.S. Senate primary in at least a generation of Missouri elections.
The Aug. 2 primary will winnow the pack to one candidate per party. Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth last week reiterated that he expects a “formidable” independent candidate to announce soon. Petitions for new party or independent candidate nominations must be submitted by Aug. 1 to be in the Nov. 8 general election.
Gardner is officially among the herd of Republicans, barring a court order to remove his name from the ballot at this point.
“That’s where the circus is,” he said. “I enjoy that kind of chaos, and illuminating who these people actually are.”
At least one elections clerk isn’t amused.
“I can understand the cynicism, but they don’t appreciate the collateral damage when they just run on a whim like that,” said Pam Grow, Phelps County clerk. “It’s just one more thing to pile on the back of the local election authority.”
She estimated hours, if not days, of extra preparatory work to ensure ballot machines work properly for so many candidates. It may be a challenge to fit all the candidates from each party on the same side of the paper ballot.
Steve Korsmeyer, Cole County clerk, said the high number of candidates this time around reminded him of the March 2020 presidential primary. There were 22 Democrats on the ballot, so many that separate debates were held. Before that, in 2016, the late Chief Wana Dubie, of Dent County, garnered headlines for seeking to replace Blunt in the Senate.
“Everybody has a right to run and everybody has a right to vote,” Korsmeyer said. “It’s just part of the process. We are just administrators.”
By most accounts, another Republican stands the best chance of joining Josh Hawley in Washington as the junior U.S. senator from Missouri. Other than a few blotches of blue in urban areas, the Show-Me State has become deep red, when it comes to picking political candidates.
Even still, 21 Republicans signing up for the primary is a lot of candidates, said Ken Warren, the most seasoned political scientist in the St. Louis region.
“On the other hand, so many of them stand no chance of winning,” he said. “Honestly, you don’t even pay attention to them. You discount them.”
More than 20 candidates are seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Missouri. The six leading candidates, based on polling and fundraising, are (top row, left to right) former Gov. Eric Greitens, U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, and U.S. Rep. Billy Long (bottom row, left to right) St. Louis attorney Mark McCloskey, Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. (Post-Dispatch file photos)
According to polling data he’s studied, Warren said only three of the GOP contenders are viable: Greitens, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler. Warren described U.S. Rep. Billy Long, an auctioneer from Springfield, as “credible,” though he’s not polling well, even if he did invent the phrase “Trump train.”
“All three of those candidates have played up to Trump, who poses a clear threat to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law as we have known it in the United States for over 200 years,” Warren said. “All my life I have studied Congress and the presidency. I have never seen what has evolved since 2016.”
Courts have made it clear that Joe Biden beat Trump in the last presidential election. Yet on Jan. 6, Trump loyalists violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. Lawmakers like Hawley, Hartzler and Long voted not to certify the election results.
Although comments like “legitimate rape” buried politicians such as Todd Akin, the former congressman who ran in 2012 for U.S. Senate in Missouri, Trump seems to have an omnipotent shield. He mocked a disabled reporter. He called the late Republican Sen. John McCain from Arizona, who spent several years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, a loser. He disparaged women, minorities and immigrants.
“It doesn’t matter what he does and he gets away with it,” Warren said. “Leading Republicans in the Senate race have bought into it. No Republican is willing to speak out against Trump. As they see it, it would end their careers.”
The key word is “leading” Republican candidate. And perhaps RINO, which stands for Republican in name only. To differentiate himself, Greitens, a former Democrat, often bombs his competition by calling them RINOs. He refused to join the statewide GOP Lincoln Days festivities earlier this year because there were too many RINOs. Greitens preferred to get in front of a cross-country trucker convoy.
But it’s further back in the herd of Republican candidates where RINOs seem to be running hardest, out in the open.
Patrick A. Lewis, of tiny Wellsville, drew the lowest number on registration day, a stroke of luck that will put his name at the top of the list on the Republican primary ballot.
“Go big or go home,” the union laborer told the Montgomery Standard, about running. “What makes an electrician qualified when they first start? They don’t know anything about it. But they learn the job as they progress into it. That’s how I am looking at it.”
Lewis told the Standard that he wanted to keep Missouri from becoming a right to work state, a sentiment that Missouri voters widely supported by rejecting Prop A so unions and higher wages would be protected, a position traditionally owned by Democrats.
Gardner, the doorman from the Central West End on the Republican ballot, calls out Trump.
“He’s a coward, and I think he’s pathetic,” said Gardner. “The candidates in this race that follow him are the same.”
Gardner went so far as to agree with some of what Democrat Lucas Kunce has to say. Kunce has raised $3.3 million for his Senate campaign, the most of any of the 34 candidates so far, according to the Federal Election Commission. Kunce, a former Marine officer, posts pointed comments about monopolies and the need to make more goods in the U.S.
“I am for that,” said Gardner, yet he wanted Kunce to note the added costs. “Say you have to subsidize that.”
From his own side of the ballot, Gardner said leaders are playing dress-up.
“There are no ideas behind the people. They really don’t have solutions,” he said. “Eric Schmitt, his solution is to put on cowboy boots, even though he’s a DeSmet grad who lives in Glendale.”
It won’t take opposition researchers long to find some dirt on Gardner. He had several DUIs, served brief jail time and house arrest.
Lucas Kunce and Trudy Busch Valentine are among leading candidates in the Democratic contest for U.S. Senate in Missouri.
“I look at it as a story of redemption,” Gardner said. “Those mistakes were made. I can’t ignore them. I have taken the only step possible to not let that happen again, and that is to not drink.”
Gardner said he’s been sober nearly nine years, a comment verified by a close friend. Instead of chasing vodka with bourbon, he sucks down menthols. His leading policy plan is “pot for potholes,” which would use federal tax dollars from marijuana sales to fix holes in the road.
He said he’s running for Senate for fun and with a “tinge” of seriousness. He foresees losing big.
“I should probably start saying it’s rigged now to get the issue rolling,” said Gardner, sarcastic smile bigger than his mustache.
Posted online at 7 a.m. Wednesday, May 25.
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Jesse Bogan is a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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Former Sen. John Danforth commissions poll that shows room for independent U.S. Senate candidate.
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C.W. Gardner, candidate for Missouri's U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Roy Blunt, takes a phone call from a tenant on Tuesday, May, 24, 2022, while working his job as a doorman at a St. Louis condominium high rise. Photo by Christian Gooden, cgooden@post-dispatch.com
More than 20 candidates are seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Missouri. The six leading candidates, based on polling and fundraising, are (top row, left to right) former Gov. Eric Greitens, U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, and U.S. Rep. Billy Long (bottom row, left to right) St. Louis attorney Mark McCloskey, Missouri Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt. (Post-Dispatch file photos)
Lucas Kunce and Trudy Busch Valentine are among leading candidates in the Democratic contest for U.S. Senate in Missouri.
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