Six-Gun Stan

The other skeleton in Glazer's political closet, the accusation that he was caught soliciting a prostitute, was dug up during the 2003 election, thanks to Mayor Barnes' political ally Steve Glorioso. No charges were filed, and it has never been clear what happened. Glazer refuses to speak of it.

Though he says that he and his sons love one another dearly, he keeps them at arm's length in public and in the press for the sake of his campaign. For his part, Craig says he's happy to go on endlessly about his father's mayoral qualities, but he refuses to discuss anything spicier. His dad would prefer that he didn't speak to the media at all.

"I'm running for mayor, not him," Glazer says. "I can just see it now — 'Craig Glazer, who was caught using cocaine,'" Glazer says, imagining the text aloud. "You know, that judge only gave him 90 days. Don't you think if it was a bigger deal, the judge would have given him more than 90 days? He and ... some others are hanging out, and instead of beer, they get some cocaine, just like young guys."

None of these things, Glazer insists, have anything to do with his ability to lead the city. You won't find as much as a parking ticket on Stanford Glazer's record, he says. And one of the best things he has going for him now is that these so-called scandals are old news.

"Didn't do anything — that case was dismissed! My son and I went to court over a business lawsuit, a civil trial. They won. I lost. The case was ended. I shook hands with Craig and Jeff — it was five or six years ago — and that's the end of it. Who cares? Why is that such interesting material? I had some tax problems in business. Yes! Course I did!" Glazer says.

During a phone interview, a mention of a Kansas City Star article in 2000 that dug deep into Glazer's personal and professional past infuriates him. He gets so worked up that at times he sounds out of breath.

"I know when you get into politics, you're going to live in a fishbowl," Glazer says. "But I mean, what I'm trying to say is, once you shoot somebody in the head, you fall down dead. Do you walk up to them and keep shooting them in the head? How many times are you going to do that? We saw it. We heard it. We read it. Next!"

Glazer's campaign manager says he's not worried about Glazer's scandals being rehashed. "We're not going to try to redefine his image or make him over. We'll just try to fill in the blanks and tell the rest of the story that was not told in the last election," Ferguson says. "Nobody's perfect. We'll answer it, but it's not going to be anything new. If that's the worst they [his opponents] can come up with on Stan, I'd say those candidates are in trouble already."

The campaign donors from the last election still have his back. As of January, records at the Missouri Ethics Commission show that Glazer has only a couple of thousand dollars in his war chest, which is a ways behind Nace and Brooks. But it's early yet.

Anyone who doubts that Glazer can get votes should have attended the St. Patrick's Day parade and watched that green Lincoln Continental pass by. At the sight of Glazer and Lori, most people smiled. Genuinely.

"Tell me a joke, Stan!" someone in the crowd called.

"I need a minute to think of one," Glazer hollered back. This time around, he's hell-bent on making sure that his campaign isn't one.