Billionaire Announces Donation To Spencer PAC With Unhinged Rant
The trend toward monopolization and the rise of billionaire oligarchs are two dominant themes of our times. Sometimes, we see these twin phenomena interact in odd ways. This was the case with Clayco’s Bob Clark and his $111,330.25 donation to A Brighter Future for St Louis PAC, a Political Action Committee (PAC) supporting Ald. Cara Spencer mayoral ambitions. The billionaire construction magnate decided to do a media blitz about the donation. This included an interview with KSDK’s Mark Maxwell, wherein he trampled over the truth in the service of a narrative he was attempting to spin.
Clark grieved the regional loss of corporate headquarters to other parts of the county. “If you think about it — you’re new to the city — but when I started Clayco there were over 50 major corporations that were in St. Louis that are gone. I don’t think another city in the world probably has suffered such a devastating, non wartime loss of employers. You know we had Anheuser Busch. We had Ralston Purina. We had General Dynamics. We had TWA. We were an international airport when I started Clayco at Lambert Field. I mean, I could go on. Monsanto Corporation. Express Scripts sold to Cigna, I mean, there’s just like a bloodbath. Southwestern Bell was in St. Louis at one time and moved to San Antonio,” said Clark.
There’s a number of problems with his statement, but the central issue is that almost none of the companies he mentioned moved. Instead, they were mostly part of the global trend toward corporate concentration. Rather than having lost these businesses to other metros, these were mostly just purchased by even bigger corporations, many of which weren’t even domestic. Much like the billionaire oligarchs on our national political stage, Mr. Clark seems to have little regard for the truth.
KSDK’s Maxwell even asks about these “global financial pressures”, to which Clark responds “No, no, I know. I don’t blame the mayor. I don’t even blame the current mayor, for the situation that we’re in.” Despite this, he goes on to state his belief that Mayor Jones is ill-suited to handle the challenges facing the city.
Then there’s the reality that St. Louis Lambert International Airport is still, well, an international airport. Sure, we are no longer a hub for TWA, but we do still have international flights leaving from the region’s main airport. His seeming lack of awareness of this fact is especially odd, as he was a member of one of the groups that bid on the airport’s attempted privatization.
When further asked about why he was making the donation and statement, Clark seemed to say that it both was and wasn’t about the Jones administration not approving a proposed cement plant in north St. Louis. He then pivoted to implying that Mayor Jones is unsupportive of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD), despite significant raises and fairly smooth labor relations with the union. The Ethical Society of Police (ESOP) has endorsed Gov. Kehoe’s proposed state takeover plan. This is a reversal of ESOP’s traditional position of supporting local control is interesting and could indicate something is amiss among rank-and-file officers. On the other hand, the chief seems solidly on the side of local control, which lines up department leadership with Mayor Jones’ position. At least from the outside, the mayor and chief appear to have a good relationship.
Towards the end of the interview, Mr. Clark engages in promoting the conspiracy theory that Virvus Jones is in control of the mayor’s office. This has long been a go-to for Mayor Jones’ foes. Not that anybody has ever been able to show proof of Mr. Jones having actual control of operations at either Mayor Jones’ current job or her previous one as Treasurer. All-in-all, the interview was an unhinged rant.
Mayor Jones was right to refer to Mr. Clark’s actions as a “temper tantrum”.
