Koster campaign advertises on vacant lots

Earlier this week a contributor to MPNblog.com drove through Chris Koster's Senate district and took note of large campaign signs placed strategically at several intersections and on busy roads in Harrisonville, Missouri.

Our contributor also noted that Koster's signs were placed only in vacant lots or in front of vacant houses (see pictures below).

Koster, a candidate for Attorney General, launched his campaign last year and has been running at full pace ever since. But the placement of the signs races one key question: how extensive is Koster's support?

Signs alone will not answer this question, particularly since the campaigns of Jeff Harris and Margaret Donnelly have not yet begun placing signs in friendly areas.

In fact, we don't seem to have an answer to the question of the extent of Koster's support question since none of the campaigns have yet released their polling results, but MPN's analysis of campaign finance records indicates Koster's campaign is lagging behind Jeff Harris and Margaret Donnelly in attracting in-state support. MPN's analysis of campaign finance reports indicates Koster had less than half of the in-state individual donors of either Harris or Donnelly during all four quarters of 2007.

Political analysts are beginning to publicly question whether Koster's campaign will survive the months leading up to the Aug. 5th primary election. On a radio broadcast last week, long-time Kansas City political reporter Dave Helling referred to Koster's campaign as a "long shot" at this stage.

Here are the pictures:

Abandoned house/vacant lot on corner of Mechanic and Short

Corner of Mechanic and S Commercial

Vacant lot on Wall Street

Vacant lot on N Commercial near abandoned Wal-Mart