Corrigan Says Jump, Dooley says How High

Charlie Dooley has spent seven years as County Executive. Leading up to this election, how much progress has been made strengthening ethics? None. His administration has spent seven years on the wrong side of the ethical boundaries that everyone else holds themselves to.

For examples, you can take Dooley's practice of tithing county employee salaries for his campaign, trying to steer millions in Federal funds to a campaign staffer, or the endless cloud of corruption surrounding his "consigliere” John Temporiti.

Where there's smoke there's fire, and this is just too much. It's not a misunderstanding or an awkward set of circumstances or a poorly phrased comment, it is a sustained pattern of behavior. This is how Charlie Dooley operates.

This is a Charlie Dooley campaign headline. It's not comforting.

For years Dooley got to get away with these sort of antics, as his corruption and nepotism spread out into different areas of St. Louis Government. But Dooley can't keep his head down and run away from reporters anymore, hiding from the public's eye. Dooley has a strong Republican challenger and he has to find people to vote for him.

So what's his campaign strategy?

Let's take a look at four of Dooley's recent actions, and try to figure out where they really came from:

1. Bill Corrigan creates an ethics code for St. Louis County. Months later, Dooley creates a watered down ethics code with some similar provisions.

2. Bill Corrigan calls for four debates. Weeks later, Dooley calls for one debate and acts like it was his idea.

3. Bill Corrigan calls on Dooley to stop using taxpayer funds to pay for cars for county officials. Dooley almost immediately does it.

4. Bill Corrigan calls on Dooley to return money from a developer accused of bank fraud. Dooley almost immediately gives a portion of the money away. 

One has to wonder if Dooley has had an original thought this entire campaign. Bill Corrigan says he wants something done, and Dooley does it - although he keeps managing to botch it on execution.

Why not cut out the middleman and get the job done right?

In either case, it seems like everything Dooley has been doing is because he's afraid of Bill Corrigan. We're not sure a County Executive in the country has ever been this reactive to his opponent. It shows who is driving the race, and it doesn't look good for Dooley.