Kinder prepares to leave political office after 24 years

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder remembers when Democrats were the political heavyweights at the state Capitol in the 1990s and for decades earlier.

Republicans, he said, were a "permanent minority." Democrats held most of the political offices in Southeast Missouri, too.

Times have changed, both in the region and in Jefferson City.

Today, Republicans control both houses of the state Legislature, and Southeast Missouri lawmakers are a key part of that majority.

After 24 years in Jefferson City, including 12 years as a state senator and another 12 as lieutenant governor, Kinder is leaving office. His term ends Jan. 9 when the new statewide officeholders are sworn in.

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder poses for a photo Friday in Cape Girardeau. Kinder soon will be leaving Missouri political office after 24 years in Jefferson City.Andrew J. Whitaker

Before then, he has one last official act. He will preside Wednesday over the convening of the Missouri Senate for the start of the 2017 legislative session.

A new majority

Kinder, who grew up in Cape Girardeau and still resides here, said he helped usher in today's Republican majority.

"It is beyond dispute that the Senate has changed, and it has been changed in large part by the effort I led to bring a Republican and conservative majority to the Legislature," he said.

As Senate president pro tem, Kinder said he helped trim the Senate staff budget.

"I let go ghost employees and senators' girlfriends who were on the payroll. We cut Senate staff and budget by 20 percent," he said.

Kinder first won election as a state senator in 1992, representing Cape Girardeau, Bollinger, Madison, Mississippi, Perry and Scott counties.

He beat well-known Charleston, Missouri, Democrat Betty Hearnes. In September that year, Kinder said his polling showed he trailed Hearnes by 23 points.

"I was fortunate to win," he said.

"The Democrats controlled everything (in state government)," Kinder recalled. "The Democrats had a big Senate majority and an even bigger majority in the House, and held all but one of the statewide offices."

But in 2001, Republicans gained a majority in the Senate. Kinder's colleagues elected him as president pro tem. Kinder was the first Republican to hold the top leadership post in the Senate in 53 years.

State government faced budget woes.

"We had to put the budget together with almost chewing gum and baling wire," he said.

In his years in the Senate, Kinder said he helped deliver state funding for a number of major projects in his district, including creation of Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus, construction of Dempster Hall for the business college on Southeast's main campus and construction of a new Career and Technology Center in Cape Girardeau.

Kinder said he helped to establish a new state prison at Charleston with the help of Democratic leaders in the Bootheel.

"Working together, we had a lot of successes," he recalled.

Lieutenant governor

In 2004, Kinder ran for lieutenant governor. He was opposed by Cape Girardeau Democrat Bekki Cook, who formerly served as Missouri's secretary of state.

"I picked the right year and won," he said.

He successfully ran for re-election in 2008 and 2012. Those two years, he was the only Republican candidate to win a statewide office.

"In 2012, I was dramatically outspent and still won," he said.

Kinder won six straight elections, going back to his first run for Senate.

But he lost in a four-way race for governor in the Republican primary this August. Kinder said he was outspent by his GOP opponents.

"I had $2.6 million. The three candidates who opposed me had $27 million," he said.

Kinder added he was outspent more than 10-to-1, and that did not include spending by outside groups.

The Republican said he knew it would be an expensive race, but he never envisioned the magnitude of spending.

Kinder said he was the only gubernatorial candidate in the Republican primary who did not criticize his opponents.

"I am proud of that," he said.

He added, "I hope I am the same person that I was when I went there (Jefferson City) as a 30-something-year-old, young senator."

Love of politics

Kinder said he has been interested in politics since he was in junior high school. In college, he served as a GOP delegate for presidential candidate Ronald Reagan at the state convention in 1976 and subsequently was a visitor to the national convention in Kansas City that same year.

After graduating from law school, Kinder prepared to take a job in 1980 as Cape Girardeau County assistant prosecuting attorney. Kinder said he figured he might run for prosecuting attorney in 1982.

But instead of joining the prosecutor's office, he accepted a job as campaign manager for Republican congressional candidate Bill Emerson.

As campaign manager, he earned a salary of $1,000 a month. Kinder recalled he lived in an apartment in a De Soto, Missouri, funeral home during the campaign.

"We worked our tails off. It was the hottest summer of my life," he remembered,

To the surprise of many political observers, Emerson won. Kinder spent 15 months working for Emerson in Washington, D.C. He returned home to run Emerson's second campaign.

After Emerson was re-elected, Kinder left to work four years for hotel owner and developer Charles Drury.

He subsequently worked as associate publisher at the Southeast Missourian for five years before running for the Senate seat.

With his career in Jefferson City coming to an end, Kinder said he will miss "working with good people."

He said politics is a "people business."

He added, "If you like people, it is fun and rewarding."

Kinder said he doesn't know what he will do next.

"I am investigating two or three different private-sector opportunities," he said.

He said he has no plans to be a lobbyist.

Friends who have ties to President-elect Donald Trump have encouraged him to investigate possible job opportunities with the new administration, Kinder said.

But he added it would be expensive to live in Washington.

"I have to balance those very real costs against what opportunity might ever develop," Kinder said.

Regardless, Kinder, whose family has lived in Southeast Missouri for eight generations, said Cape Girardeau always will be home.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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