Early Political Career
Bauer first ran for public office in 1992, seeking election to the Missouri House of Representatives. He challenged fellow Democrat Tony Ribaudo, a longtime incumbent. The district included the predominantly Italian Hill neighborhood where Ribaudo lived, as well as Bauer's Dogtown neighborhood. Ribaudo won re-election, beating Bauer by 3200 votes (4851 to 1651).
In 1993, Ribaudo was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of St. Louis. A number of negative ads and mailings were run by Ribaudo and his opponents attacking one another. 1994, Bauer again challenged Ribaudo for his house seat. This time, Ribaudo beat Bauer by only 254 votes (2753 to 2499). Bauer gained notoriety for campaigning in the district with his pet donkey, Scotty. The 1994 campaign was also marked by negative campaigning on both sides. Both candidates purchased advertising on cable television and aired spots attacking the other. This level of advertising was highly unusual for a local election.
In 1996, Ribaudo did not run for re-election and Bauer again ran for the State Representative seat. Bauer won the crowded Democratic primary with less than 50% of the vote, and went on to win the general election by a wide margin .
Read more about this topic: Tom Bauer
Famous quotes containing the words early, political and/or career:
“Very early in our children’s lives we will be forced to realize that the “perfect” untroubled life we’d like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we don’t want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“The rage for road building is beneficent for America, where vast distance is so main a consideration in our domestic politics and trade, inasmuch as the great political promise of the invention is to hold the Union staunch, whose days already seem numbered by the mere inconvenience of transporting representatives, judges and officers across such tedious distances of land and water.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“From a hasty glance through the various tests I figure it out that I would be classified in Group B, indicating “Low Average Ability,” reserved usually for those just learning to speak the English Language and preparing for a career of holding a spike while another man hits it.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)