KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Mike Parson couldn't be much more different than the man he is replacing to become Missouri's 57th governor.
Greitens is 44, born and reared near St. Louis, and never sought public office before his successful 2016 gubernatorial campaign.
Parson is 63, grew up on a farm in rural southwest Missouri and has held elected office since 1993, including 12 years as Polk County sheriff and 11 years in the Missouri General Assembly before being elected lieutenant governor in 2016.
Greitens campaigned as an outsider, vowing to take on "corrupt career politicians" to clean up state government. His brash, no-compromises campaign style carried over into his first year in office, where he often clashed with lawmakers from his own party.
Parson is the consummate insider, with long relationships with legislative leaders and a reputation as a deal maker.
Now Parson will take over, finishing out Greitens' term after he resigned from office Tuesday.
"I think he'll be the right person ... to heal the state," said James Harris, a veteran GOP consultant who worked on Parson's campaign for lieutenant governor. "There's a lot of raw emotions and I think he can bring the state together."
Parson's rise to the state's top job puts to a close nearly a year and a half of Greitens scandals, which all culminated in recent months with a push for impeachment and two felony charges.
But while Greitens' fall from grace ends one chapter of the scandal, many questions remain unanswered.
Parson and Greitens vehemently disagreed on the issue of low-income housing tax credits.
Greitens has suggested that Missouri's tax credit industry has conspired to exacerbate his legal problems. The Missouri Housing Development Commission, or MHDC, of which Greitens is a member, zeroed out the state's allocation of low-income housing tax credits after the governor stacked its membership with appointees critical of the program.
At a May 17 event in Jefferson City, Greitens called those involved in Missouri's tax credit industry "rip-off artists" and "tax credit millionaires." His attorneys suggested during a court hearing earlier this year that those in the low-income housing tax credit community may have been behind $100,000 or more in payments to an attorney representing the ex-husband of a woman with whom Greitens had an affair in 2015.
The ex-husband had secretly recorded his wife confessing the affair and making accusations of blackmail against the governor, which kicked off the series of scandals that ultimately forced Greitens from office.
Parson, who is also on the MHDC, was one of only two members to vote against zeroing out the low-income housing tax credit program, arguing that doing so will make it harder to provide housing to low-income Missourians and military veterans.
Parson is also close with Steve Tilley, a former House speaker who is registered as a lobbyist for several businesses involved in low-income housing tax credits. Most notably, Tilley and his lobbying firm represent Sterling Bank, which is owned by businessmen with interests in low-income housing developments.
Parson's association with Tilley was purportedly the reason Parson lost his bid to become majority floor leader in the Missouri Senate in 2012.
The policy differences between Parson and Greitens don't stop at tax credits.
Greitens demonized lobbyist gifts while accepting copious amounts of anonymous contributions routed through nonprofits to obscure the sources.
Parson has a long record criticizing the corrosive effect of campaign contributions and the type of negative campaigning that became Greitens' specialty, most notably in the aftermath of former state Auditor Tom Schweich's suicide. Yet he was the only statewide elected official to accept freebies from lobbyists in 2017 _ nearly $4,000 in gifts.
Largely, however, both Parson and Greitens share a philosophy that supports tax cuts, fewer regulations on businesses, tougher regulations on labor unions and strict limits on abortions.
Harris said the biggest differences between Parson and Greitens are their personalities rather than their political stances.
Greitens often appeared to relish conflict, but Harris said during his time in the legislature Parson sought consensus.
"Even if he disagreed, he would talk with everyone and try to understand their thought process," Harris said.
During roughly a year and a half as lieutenant governor, a job with few constitutional responsibilities, Parson's highest profile moment came last August when he publicly called for the Senate to impeach a Democratic senator, Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who posted on Facebook that she hoped President Donald Trump was assassinated.
He called on the Senate to convene a special session to expel Chappelle-Nadal from office. The Senate ended up voting to censure her but did not remove her from the Legislature.
