Politics

Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Spence has put an additional $500,000 into his campaign to unseat Democratic Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon.

The Missouri Ethics Commission website shows that Spence made the loan earlier this week. He has now given and loaned his campaign a total of $4.5 million.

The latest loan comes after finance reports released Monday showed Spence's campaign with less cash than Nixon's. The incumbent governor reported more than $4.9 million in his campaign account as of the start of October, compared with $1.5 million for Spence.

On Thursday night, the two Missouri senate candidates from the two major parties shook hands in front of a crowd of hundreds of potential voters. Meanwhile, the Libertarian candidate listened to the debate on the radio as he drove back to Kansas City for work in the morning.

Jonathan Dine was not invited to the debate, but drove to St. Louis anyway to meet with members of the media. On St. Louis on the Air on Wednesday, Dine expressed his frustration over being excluded from the debate.

Incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill and Republican challenger Todd Akin squared off in their final debate of the campaign last night. Those hoping for a slugfest were probably disappointed.

In fact, Akin’s previous “legitimate rape” comment largely went ignored, and the two candidates didn’t cover much new ground.

They mostly stuck to the talking points they’ve used on the campaign trail – McCaskill portrayed herself as a moderate.