In Lloyd Smith, state has its own Karl Rove

WASHINGTON -- In Washington, Karl Rove is seen as the wizard behind President Bush's electoral successes. In Missouri, that distinction belongs to an affable, silver-haired Republican operative named Lloyd Smith.

Smith ran Bush's re-election campaign in Missouri, a state that crept from battleground to Bush country in a matter of months this year. And he steered Republican Jim Talent to the U.S. Senate in 2002 in a hard-fought campaign.

Smith, 53, entered politics in 1981 by working for Rep. Bill Emerson and has never left. Today, he's the top aide to Emerson's widow, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau.

Southeast Missouri was a Democratic stronghold when Smith started out. Smith grew up there -- in "MISSippi" County, he says in a Southern drawl -- and he was a Democrat, too. The rural territory grew steadily more Republican, and Smith had a hand in the shift.

In the beginning, the goal was not to change the district from Democratic to Republican; it was to get Bill Emerson re-elected.

"It was to prove you could deliver good government without a partisan label," Smith said. "If you did your job right, people would strip off the party label and start voting for the person."

Bill Emerson proved it, becoming so popular with the area's Democrats, they became known as "Emercrats."

The Emerson organization sowed fertile ground, creating opportunity for Republicans during a time when the Democratic Party -- under presidential nominees Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis -- was growing more liberal and less like southern conservative Democrats.

Soon, Smith and his cohorts started recruiting other Republicans, often when a state legislator was retiring. Back then, of the area's 27 state legislators, only one was Republican. Today, 22 of them are Republicans.

'Built the castle'

The Missouri GOP used the same tactics elsewhere as time went on. Eventually, aided by term limits that forced many longtime Democratic lawmakers to retire, Republicans took over the legislature, winning control of the state Senate in 2001 and the state House in 2002.

"He's the guy that has built the castle, and he's done it by creating a model the rest of our state congressional delegation followed," said GOP consultant John Hancock. "And then he stepped it up to the next level and is now the dean of statewide strategy."

Smith parlayed his experience into victories for Bush and Talent in Missouri. In more than two decades of campaigning, he's never lost an election.

He seems content working behind-the-scenes: After each high-profile victory, he's returned to his job as the congresswoman's chief of staff.

Still, he is frank about his desire to run for Congress should Jo Ann Emerson step down.

"I've never voted on the issues of the day ... I think that would be neat," Smith said. "For a kid that grew up in a not-really-highly-educated household -- my dad finished ninth grade; I was the first one to go to college; my mom worked in a shoe factory and did night courses till she got enough hours to be a librarian ...

"I wouldn't be the first Mississippi Countian to go to Congress, but I'd be the first one from East Prairie," Smith said with a belly laugh.

Like a brother

His boss doesn't mind his aspirations; Jo Ann Emerson considers Smith family and says he would do a "phenomenal" job.

"I'm nine months older than him; it's like working with your brother," she said.

After her husband died of lung cancer in 1996, she decided to run -- in simultaneous elections, both to finish the term and to succeed her husband.

"Our relationship changed a little bit -- it's one thing when, as a spouse, Lloyd would have called me to get Bill to do stuff," Jo Ann Emerson said with a chuckle. "I'm a lot different than Bill in many ways."

She remembered the difficult conversation they had upon returning from her husband's funeral on June 22, 1996. The Democrats had filed a strong candidate, but if Jo Ann Emerson wanted it, she had a strong chance of winning.

"No sooner had I gotten back after burying Bill and changed into my sweats, and he said, 'I have to talk to you.' I knew what he wanted. I said, 'Do we really have to discuss this right now?' I was not feeling very well mentally," she remembered. "He said, 'We have to discuss this right now.' He basically said, 'You've got to do this.'

Smith likely considered running himself at the time, according to his longtime friend Peter Myers.

"He put that aside instantly when he realized Jo Ann was capable and had the Emerson name," Myers said. "He doesn't have to be the congressman to be effective."

The hard sell

And Myers was one of those candidates recruited by Smith after retiring from a career as a top Agriculture Department official and lobbyist. Next year begins his fourth term in the state House.

"That's when he did the hard sell, he sure did," Myers said. "He got six or seven of my friends, and they ganged up on me one Saturday afternoon when my wife had laryngitis."

Smith is a gregarious man who used to drive down the road with Bill Emerson singing hymns. He also has a reputation for directness, in his own party and among Democrats, too.

Democratic consultant Joyce Aboussie, a longtime adviser to Democratic Rep. Dick Gephardt, worked closely with Smith when lawmakers drew new boundaries for Missouri congressional districts.

The process is grinding and contentious, but Aboussie said: "You don't really ever get tense with Lloyd. He's got that nice, sweet, kind of down-home way about him, but you pretty much know where he stands."