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SEDALIA, Mo. — from www.stltoday.com – Dogged for a week by questions about strip club visits he made in the mid 1990s, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder tried to put the matter behind him today at the Governor’s Ham Breakfast at the state fair.

“I did five interviews yesterday,” Kinder said. “I’ve said all I’m saying.”

Asked how his answers had been received, Kinder said: “I’m getting a terrific reception.”

Kinder stood in the breakfast line with a group of yellow-shirted Tea Party activists from Lebanon, Mo. One of them, Sam Price, 78, said he was “an ultra-conservative Republican” and pastor of a Southern Baptist church. He wore a tag that said “right-wing extremist.”

Price said he wasn’t bothered by Kinder’s past dalliances.

“How many years back was it? In kindergarten he stole somebody’s bubble gum? I’m 78 and I’m sure not like I used to be,” Price said.

Fellow Republicans at the breakfast said it was too early to tell how voters would judge the strip club saga if Kinder, as expected, seeks the Republican nod to challenge Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon next year.

“Any negative stuff can’t be good,” said Rep. Tom Loehner, R-Koeltztown.

Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, agreed.

“I don’t approve of people going to strip clubs,” Smith said. “But it’s very unfortunate that, people who are in politics, everything they do is scrutinized, whether it’s yesterday or 20 years ago. Everyone has skeletons in their closet.”

The national political environment — and the economy — will prove to be much more important to voters, said Lloyd Smith, executive director of the Missouri Republican Party.

“Barack Obama is down 14 points in this state because of jobs,” Smith said. “The election is going to be about jobs. That’s it.”

The Kinder controversy arose after bartender Tammy Chapman told reporters that when she worked at a Sauget strip club in the mid-1990s, Kinder was a frequent customer and sometimes made her uncomfortable. The Riverfront Times earlier this month published a photograph of Chapman with the lieutenant governor.

Kinder initially declined to comment but he changed his approach and did several radio and newspaper interviews Wednesday.

In the interviews, he said he was not proud that he visited the club about 10 times when he was a state senator. He said he stopped going when he realized it was “not consistent with my upbringing.”

Kinder blamed a “Democratic operative” for the story coming out now.

Asked at a news conference after the breakfast whether his campaign had anything to do with the story, Nixon said: “All this stuff’s kind of disappointing, disturbing. I really don’t have much to say about it. Let him answer the questions.”

House Speaker Steve Tilley, R-Perryville, said Kinder had already done that.

“I think it was helpful for him to get his side of the story out” yesterday said Tilley. “In my travels around the state, people still support Peter Kinder.”

Tilley said he expects Kinder to remain the GOP’s standard-bearer.

U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth, said he has no plans to switch to the governor’s race.

“I’m glad to have my job,” he said.

As for Kinder, “we’re in a he-said-she-said situation and that’s a good time to stay out of the fray,” Luetkemeyer said.