Six-Gun Stan

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.