This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 8, 2012 - Dave Spence, the Republican nominee for Missouri governor, has sent out “cease and desist’’ letters to TV stations around the state, demanding that they quit airing the latest attack ad by Gov. Jay Nixon.
Nixon, a Democrat, has been portraying Spence for weeks as “a banker’’ as he continues to jab at Spence’s former role on the board of Reliance Bancshares, which accepted $40 million in federal bailout money and has yet to pay any back.
In the attack ad, Nixon links the bank’s nonpayment to a loan that it gave Spence to purchase a vacation home at Lake of the Ozarks.
Spence campaign consultant Jared Craighead said the two matters are not related.
Craighead said that many of the bank’s board members were encouraged to take out loans as a way to help the bank generate more business. The loans’ interest rates did generate income for the bank, Craighead said.
Spence “was a great customer and always made his payments on time," Craighead said.
“They’re saying (in the ad) that the bank couldn’t pay back TARP (the bank bailout) because it made his loan, which is patently false,’’ Craighead said. He asserted the ad shows Nixon "has crossed the line'' in what is appropriate in campaign ads.
In the “cease and desist’’ letters, Spence’s campaign is threatening possible legal action.
Nixon has been running similar ads featuring Spence's vacation home or referring to his role on the bank's board for weeks. So why did Spence wait so long with the "cease and desist'' letters?
"We wanted to be judicious and make sure that we did the legal research to make sure that we had a good case," Craighead said.
Nixon's campaign replied, “Dave Spence is down in the polls and running out of time, so he’s beginning to panic and resort to desperate measures."
Said Nixon campaign manager Oren Shur: “Instead of threatening television stations with lawsuits, Spence would be better advised to simply explain why, after his bank took a $40 million bailout, he felt there was money for his million-dollar insider loan but not money to repay the taxpayers. Governors are responsible for overseeing taxpayer dollars, and voters should know that in the one instance that Spence oversaw taxpayer dollars, he was more concerned about helping himself than protecting the taxpayers.”
(Update) Nixon's campaign also provided a copy of a letter from the campaign's lawyer to the TV stations, stating that federal law bars them from censoring the ad, as long as it is appropriately identified as a Nixon campaign ad, "you must continue running it."
The letter also detailed the Nixon campaign's backup of each point in the ad. For example, it stated that Spence's role on the bank's governing board made him a banker.
Craighead said the lawyers for both camps are continuing to discuss the ad. (End of update)
