Of hubris and humility: McCaskill, Dooley mistakes offer lesson in shedding political liability

http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/article_01634d04-54d2-11e0-9125-00127992bc8b.html

Two Missouri Democrats got caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar in recent days, one perhaps innocently, one not so much. In their differing responses lies a tale of character.

First, there is the case of St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, who thumbed his nose at voters by hiring the 27-year-old son of his top campaign fundraiser for a $70,000-a-year sham job. Then, when asked about it, he refused to answer any questions and, worse yet, shoved an aide out to take the bullet. The aide, county operations director Garry Earls, compounded the problem by providing weak and contradictory explanations.

Contrast that with Sen. Claire McCaskill, who sent Missouri Republicans into a state of political ecstasy when she announced via a conference call Monday that she and her husband were $287,000 in arrears on personal property taxes on a private plane. Ms. McCaskill already was under fire from Republicans for using taxpayer dollars to pay for flights on the plane, including at least one flight that had a political, not public, purpose.

Unlike Mr. Dooley, Ms. McCaskill came clean. She apologized for using the plane and for not paying the taxes. She said she was sick to her stomach for days. She wrote a big check to repay federal taxpayers and another to repay the county.

It was quite the mea culpa.

Both Democrats deserve the drubbing they’re getting this week in the court of public opinion. But it’s also instructive to compare their responses to controversy.

Mr. Dooley could learn a thing or two from Ms. McCaskill. In many ways, his mistake is much worse than hers, because he’s not only misspending the public’s money, but he also is refusing to account for how the money is being spent. The Post-Dispatch’s Paul Hampel last Friday reported on the many problems with the hiring of Mike Temporiti, a son of Mr. Dooley’s top fundraiser and political adviser, John Temporiti:

• The job wasn’t posted and nobody was interviewed.

• The county is in a hiring and salary raise freeze.

• Mr. Temporiti’s qualifications for the made-up job of “tax abatement compliance officer” are unclear. So, too, is the need for the job.

• And if there is a job to be done, the county’s revenue department already has more than a handful of attorneys on staff who could do it.

Mr. Earls said he’d become acquainted with Mike Temporiti last summer when both were doing volunteer work on Mr. Dooley’s reelection campaign and that the two had discussed the need for someone to monitor various tax abatement programs in the county.

How utterly prescient of them. By sheer coincidence, on Nov. 30, four weeks after Mr. Dooley’s re-election, the Post-Dispatch reported that some large companies, including the St. Louis Cardinals, were not fulfilling the agreements that led to various tax abatements.

“Charlie came to me and he said, ‘How do we do this?’” Mr. Earls said. “And I said. ‘Good point,’ because I had been reading the same article.”

Luckily, Mr. Earls knew just the guy, who just happened the be son of Mr. Dooley’s largest fundraiser. And this guy was willing to leave his job at a law firm and take a $15,000 pay cut to work in the exciting field of tax abatement compliance.

If Mr. Dooley hopes to regain an ounce of credibility with the voting public — and reassure county residents of the integrity of his office — he knows what he has to do: Get rid of this job.

We have no ill will toward Mike Temporiti. He can’t help it if his father, a former state Democratic chairman, has raised millions of dollars getting Mr. Dooley and other Democrats elected. The elder Temporiti is well-known for being willing to throw his weight and connections around.

According to the county charter, Mr. Dooley has the right to appoint some employees outside the merit system. Mr. Temporiti is the 47th such employee, including executive staff, department heads and assistants. But even the department heads go through a confirmation process. To suggest that Mr. Temporiti’s job is important and then not seek the most qualified candidate is bad government.

The biggest disappointment with Mr. Dooley is not so much that he hired the son of a party bigfoot. That’s hardly news in the world of politics. It’s that he chose to obfuscate the reasons and, when caught, didn’t deal straight with the public.

But Ms. McCaskill, the veteran of many rough-and-tumble Missouri political battles, knows a liability when she sees one.

In a conference call with reporters on Monday, after dejectedly admitting that she and her husband had failed to pay St. Louis County personal property taxes on their private plane, Missouri’s senior senator was asked about the potential political fallout.

“This is not good,” Ms. McCaskill said.

No, it is not. Not paying taxes on the plane takes the story into the stratosphere. The toughest thing for the Missouri Republican Party to do now will be to remake the banners for the 2012 race they already had been printing.

“AirClaire” is so last week.

The story started as a trickle on March 9, when the national political website Politico broke the news that Ms. McCaskill had been paying a company that she and her husband own for various flights. In fact, the practice might have saved taxpayers some money, but, because it looked bad, Ms. McCaskill reimbursed the federal treasury $88,000.

A few days later it developed that at least one flight had a political purpose, as compared to a public one — bad news for a politician who has made government ethics a signature issue.

But owing back taxes? That one’s hard to spin.

Ms. McCaskill didn’t even try. She has the ability, rare among politicians, to admit a mistake and to do so in plain, unequivocal language.

“There are people I could blame for this, but I know better,” Ms. McCaskill told reporters. “I take full responsibility.”

Ms. McCaskill went so far as to tell reporters that in a difficult conversation with her husband, she persuaded him to “sell the damn plane.”

Mr. Dooley should take note, but his arrogance in this affair doesn’t suggest that he will. But the good news for taxpayers is this: At least with Ms. McCaskill’s $287,000, Mr. Dooley can pay Mike Temporiti’s salary and benefits for about three years.

Here’s an idea: In his spare moments, of which there will be many, Mr. Temporiti could go to the airport, count corporate jets and check them against tax rolls.