Little grass roots financial support for governor's reelection

The campaign disclosure report filed by Gov. Matt Blunt with the Missouri Ethics Commission does not indicate any widespread grass roots support.
On the contrary, it includes $124,950 from retired billionaire voucher supporter Rex Sinquefield, a development mentioned in two Tuesday Turner Report posts. It also includes the shuffling of special interest money from supporters who gave amounts over the campaign contribution limits, then took their refunds following the Missouri Supreme Court decision, and funneled them into the state party, and then legislative district committees to allow them to give more than the $1,275 maximum:

Blunt has collected close to $400,000 from dozens of Republican campaign committees or political action committees. Many of those groups got their money from contributors who'd gotten refunds from Blunt. The governor had publicly encouraged those donors to give to GOP groups.

Multimillionaire Rex Sinquefield, for example, received a refund of $97,450 from Blunt in November. But in December, Blunt collected at least $124,950 from dozens of education-related PACs that got their money from Sinquefield.

In addition, the Missouri Republican Party's report says it sent $487,250 to various lower-level Republican committees, which in turn gave almost $262,000 to Blunt. The state GOP collected $285,000 in donations from eight people who had gotten refunds from Blunt.

A spokesman for Attorney General Jay Nixon, a Democrat seeking to unseat Blunt this fall, attacked Blunt for "exploiting loopholes in the campaign finance laws to raise money."