St. Louis Post-Dispatch: McCaskill for Missouri
October 22, 2006
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Editorial
"It says something about Missouri," Jim Talent was saying last week, "that after this much time, with two first-tier candidates, with this much money and national attention and with these kind of differences on the issues, that it's still so close."
Indeed it does. Missouri, which has been a bellwether state in 25 of the last 26 presidential elections, now reflects the deeply divided political mood of the country in this off-year election. Mr. Talent, 50, a Republican from Chesterfield who is seeking re-election to the U.S. Senate, has found that out the hard way. With all the advantages of incumbency, including $21.4 million in campaign donations, he finds himself in a dead heat with Democratic state Auditor Claire McCaskill with the election two weeks away.
It no doubt comes as a surprise to the 53-year-old Ms. McCaskill as well. In an interview 19 months ago, still nursing bruises from her unsuccessful 2004 gubernatorial race against the 33-year-old Republican Matt Blunt, Ms. McCaskill had been ambivalent about the prospect of challenging Mr. Talent.
Party leaders wanted her to make the run, she said, but Mr. Talent would have all the money he needed, and she was sick of asking people for money, particularly in a race she wasn't sure she could win. Another defeat would end her political career, she said.
Things changed. The war in Iraq continued to claim American lives and treasure. Hurricane Katrina raised profound questions about the competence of the Bush administration. Gasoline prices spiked. The national economy, driven by tax cuts passed by the Republican Congress, benefited mainly the wealthy. Mr. Talent, a hard-core supporter of President George W. Bush (and the president, likewise, for him), was caught in the downdraft when the president's poll numbers began to drop.
Back home, Mr. Blunt and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed Draconian cuts to the state's Medicaid program. Initiative drives got controversial issues including stem cell research, the minimum wage and a tobacco tax increase on the November ballot. Republican legislators passed a voter identification bill that might have held down Democratic turnout, but the courts threw it out.
Suddenly it was a horse race featuring two familiar horses. Mr. Talent, a lawyer, served four terms in the state Legislature and four terms in Congress and has run two previous statewide races: an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2000 and his successful race against Sen. Jean Carnahan in 2002. Ms. McCaskill, of Kirkwood, a lawyer, state legislator and two-term Jackson County prosecutor, has run statewide three previous times, twice for auditor and once for governor.
Their political positions are familiar -- and poles apart. James Matthes Talent is an affable, fervent, ideological conservative and a low-key, fervent, evangelical Christian. As a freshman senator, he sought bipartisan solutions on issues like biofuels, national infrastructure funding and small business health care. From a junior seat on the Armed Services Commitee, he supported a larger Army and became a strong advocate for the Navy. He strongly supports President Bush's "terrorist surveillance" program, including the president's claim to broad executive war powers.
Ms. McCaskill, a pro-choice Catholic, is a populist Democrat who supports the death penalty and who thinks the race in outstate Missouri should be "less about the NRA and more about access to health care." She criticizes the decision to invade Iraq and wants to establish "benchmarks" for U.S. troop withdrawal. She favors toughened security of U.S. borders and cracking down on employers who hire undocumented aliens. She favors increasing the federal minimum wage and changing the tax code to favor the middle class. She promises to take auditors from her office in Jefferson City to Washington to pore over Government Accountablity Office reports on government waste.
Ambitious, blunt-spoken and confrontational her entire career, she says anyone who thinks Missouri should be a "blue-state echo chamber" misreads the state.
The policy differences between the two candidates have been sharply revealed in a series of debates. The basic decency of both individuals has been shamefully distorted by their media campaigns. The choice, however, is clear.
For her independence, her attitude and her grasp of the real problems faced by today's Missouri and today's America, Claire McCaskill should be Missouri's next United States senator.
