Maus & Stone Throw
Sticks And Stones
There is a political campaign committee that calls itself Citizens For Responsible Community (CFRC). They are one of several what I would call “conduit” committees. Their main purpose appears to be to serve as a front organization for laundering vast sums of political cash.
Like many other states, Missouri wisely adopted campaign spending limits to try to reduce the influence of special interest money in elections. In local races for the City Council, that limit is $300 per person or business.
But CFRC has received four donations of over $30,000 each from wealthy individuals seeking to gain political influence with local office holders. These individuals have given over 100 times the amount they legally could have donated to an individual candidate.
Their latest and largest donor was a homebuilder who gave $35,000 to Citizens For Responsible Community. But wait you say! Isn’t CFRC an anti-development group working to stop the unbridled growth of urban sprawl? How can they be taking money from millionaire developers?
The self-appointed co-leaders-for-life of the CFRC, Carl Maus and Raymond Stone have a unique definition of what “Responsible Growth” means. One time it can be to not build residential homes on land they say should be for commercial development. The next time, it is okay to build homes on that exact same parcel if the developer is now someone that gave the CFRC money.
They have also developed a well-deserved reputation for using the political cash they receive, not to support candidates, but to run negative attacks against their opponents. It is the old “good” cop “bad” cop ploy. The candidates they want to win get to say they had nothing to do with the nasty mudslinging pieces mailed out on their behalf by CFRC.
Recently an incumbent Alderman from O’Fallon resigned for personal and health reasons. It was too late, however, for his name to be removed from the ballot.
Carl Maus and Raymond Stone mailed out a flyer attacking this Alderman anyway. They showed his likeness with a turban on his head and chasing away “infidel” homebuilders.
This Alderman was part of the same “anti-development” slate that CFRC had helped elect previously. But CFRC then publicly “disowned” three Aldermen who refused to back-off those developers the CFRC was receiving money from.
So why spend money on a candidate that isn’t running a campaign for reelection and has publicly resigned from the board? The answer was because the Alderman was still being politically active in the community. In other words, they needed to send him a message. Sounds like an episode of the Sopranos.
Maus and Stone also tried their hand again at bending the political landscape to their will in the City of St. Charles. Neither of them live in the City of St. Charles, but they were part of an alliance of such outside special interest brokers who altogether spent a considerable amount of money trying to recall Dottie Greer.
How much money was spent trying to oust Councilwoman Greer? By my estimate, from all committees and anonymous sources, over $70,000!
Of course the CFRC couldn’t mail out literature in Dottie’s ward without using the opportunity to attack me personally. After all, they are still embarrassed that all the money they spent against me two years ago didn’t fool the voters. So I ended up on a mailer in Dottie’s ward dressed like “The Riddler” of Batman infamy. Gee, where have I heard that one before. Oh yeah…third grade.
Now a guy whose name in German literally means “Mouse” and a guy whose name is “Stone” probably had issues growing up. Kids can be cruel. But at some point you have to grow up.
Putting a turban on the likeness of an Alderman in O’Fallon and making him appear to be a terrorist, especially at a time when American servicemen and women are in harms way, was terribly…terribly cruel. It is the worst kind of mudslinging.
When asked about how such personal attacks might affect a person’s family, Maus and Stone told a local reporter that they do consider how the children of a target might feel and that is why they didn’t send the one of the Alderman dressed like a terrorist to his home.
Gee, that’s so nice of them. They mail it to all of his neighbors, the people his children go to school with, but they saved him the embarrassment of having one come to his own home.
This is the quote they gave a local newspaper about this magnanimous gesture of not sending a copy of the mailing of the man they just tried to make look like Osama Bin Laden to his home:
“We are not brutes,” Maus said. “We do have hearts.”
Could I see the X-rays again just to make sure.
