Obama. He eventually became a partner at the Kansas City law firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon, where he defended tobacco firms Philip Morris and Lorillard against consumer lawsuits. Sauer, 67, of Creve Coeur, earned an economics degree from Yale and a master's in business administration from Stanford before enlisting in the Navy, where he served on a destroyer near Vietnam. He helped start the Missouri Roundtable for Life, which waged an unsuccessful battle against a 2006 ballot initiative that created a constitutional guarantee to conduct stem cell research in Missouri. Sauer successfully sued to block a Missouri law passed last fall that sought to create an incentive program for science and technology companies. He believed it amounted to "a socialist venture capitalist system," redistributing tax dollars to favored companies. His objections to that law and other business incentives proposed in the Legislature ultimately led Sauer to run for governor. Like his rivals, Sauer wants to make Missouri a "right-to-work" state and enact education reforms. But Sauer's platform also includes the reinstatement of campaign contribution limits, which he says would limit the influence of interest groups seeking taxpayer dollars from state officials.