The League of Women Voters of St. Louis will be moderating a candidate forum for those who seek to be elected Mayor of the City of St. Louis in the April 7, 2009 election. And for the first time, all four candidates — Francis Slay, Robb Cunningham, Elston McCowan and Maida Coleman — have confirmed they will attend.

The forum will be held on Monday, March 30th from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at Central Library, the main branch of the St. Louis Public Library, located at 1301 Olive Street . This forum is co-sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Downtown St. Louis Residents Association.

The St. Louis American and the Post-Dispatch reported this week on controversial comments by former state senator and now Independent candidate for mayor Maida Coleman in which she accuses Democratic leaders of “raping” African-Americans for their votes.

From The American:

“We have gone along with the program, thinking the Democrats are going to change the way the system operates in this state,” Coleman said.

“We have been going along, expecting for the Democrats to change something. I am tired of the Democrats raping us for our votes.”

This is not the first time Coleman has voiced her displeasure with the Democratic Party’s relationship with its African-American base. In a 2006 interview with PubDef.net, Coleman discussed the subject at length.

The St. Louis Oracle

The mystery of Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman’s surprise mayoral candidacy still weighs on the minds of many political observers, including the St. Louis Oracle. In his latest blog post, the Oracle, a self-described political junkie for over 50 years, suspects another well-known politico may have an interest in torpedoing any viable challengers to Francis Slay: Mike McMillan.

Without offering much proof besides that Denise Coleman has 19th Ward roots, the Oracle theorizes:

If Maida Coleman’s challenge to Slay were successful, then she’d be the incumbent mayor in four years, and McMillan would not be in a position to challenge a fellow African American for the top job. (Yes, I know, Clarence Harmon successfully did just that to Freeman Bosley, Jr. in 1997, but Harmon won with white support, not black support.) Slay’s reelection is now also in McMillan’s self-interest.

Hmmmm… well, if we’re discussing third party self-interest, what about Aldermanic President Lewis Reed? He’s probably the man most likely to be the next mayor now — especially if Francis were to step down near the end of his third term, maybe to accept a judgeship or another attractive appointment. And there is a Reed-Coleman connection. She used to be attorney for the Board of Aldermen.

Or what if Francis does have plausible deniability even though his staff put Coleman #2 in the race. I mean, remember who we’re talking about here. Word has long been that his chief of staff and campaign manager Jeff Rainford was fired years ago as a journalist at KMOV after trying to entrap a priest with a male prostitute. Not the most honorable people in the world.

So the list of suspects grows longer and the days till Election Day grow shorter. And in the end, maybe Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman is just a political novice that thinks she’s the next Barack Obama. If so, God bless her heart. And may He bless some of our other leaders with the courage that naivity provides.

Read Oracle’s full post at: http://stloracle.blogspot.com/2009/01/is-mystery-coleman-filing-mac-attack.html

Well, St. Louis’ news media got the story wrong today. After the deadline to file for mayor ended at 5:00, with few reporters actually covering the event, the TV news stations reported falsely that State Senator Maida Coleman had filed for mayor. Channel 5 even claimed she did it an hour before they reported it at 5:02 PM.

But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gets the prize for reporting completely false information. The website of the city’s only daily newspaper reported that Coleman decided not to run for mayor, which was factually incorrect.

What Coleman said in a press conference at the Election Board was that because it appeared that Mayor Slay was illegally backing a stalking horse to run in the Democratic primary, she would instead battle him as an Independent in a heads up race in the general election in April.

After the paper was called out on their error, they soon amended the misleading headline.

In this EXCLUSIVE VIDEO, St. Louis attorney Denise Watson-Wesley Coleman takes the oath attesting that no one put her in the race for mayor and that she is indeed a legitimate candidate. Continue Reading