Getting ‘Worser’ on the Southside [Update x2] 

Some voters in south St. Louis received an anonymous automated phone call today telling them to vote for anyone but Jeff Smith in Tuesday’s state senate election. Many Smith supporters immediately pointed the finger at Derio Gambaro, Smith’s chief competitor for the important southside vote.

“Jeff Smith is a part-time professor of African-American Studies,” says a male voice that sounds kind of like Gambaro’s — but even if he was behind the calls, he probably wouldn’t use his own voice.

“He is also the only candidate running that lacks any legislative or government experience. Jeff Smith is a carpetbagger,” the voice continues. “We need a senator with experience and commitment to our community, not Jeff Smith.”

There is no doubt that even many less partisan voters are thinking Gambaro is to blame, primarily because he and Smith have been going back and forth with negative campaign mailers directed at these same voters. In one memorable piece, Gambaro jokes that Smith’s Confluence Charter School is “even worser then [sic] St. Louis Public Schools.”

Gambaro told PUB DEF this evening that he was aware of the calls and deeply upset about it. “This is why people get turned off to politics,” he said. He flatly denied having anything to do with the calls.

Blogger Larry Handlin recorded the call. Click here to listen.

UPDATE: State Rep. Yaphett El-Amin, another candidate for the 4th District State Senate seat, also denied knowing anything about the call when contacted by phone.

Her campaign has also started attacking Smith, who many see as the frontrunner in this race, on local black radio stations. An El-Amin commercial running on 95.5 FM asks voters if Smith thinks they are stupid for listing a vacant lot as his district address on early campaign documents.

UPDATE 2: Smith is trying to turn the phantom calls into a fundraising tool. In an email to supporters, he calls the calls “a combination of misrepresentations and outright lies” and asks them to contribute to his campaign via his website “then add $1 to show that you are giving in response to this email.”

“I don’t care about the amount,” said Smith. “I just want to show that the community will not tolerate this kind of campaigning.”