Facing up to her lopsided defeat in outstate Missouri last year, state Auditor Claire McCaskill chose to launch her 2006 Senate campaign in a town in Texas County where she was born and spent her early years. McCaskill carried Texas County easily in her re-election race for state auditor, but lost to Matt Blunt in the governor’s race last year, 60 percent to 40 percent.
McCaskill insists that she is more in touch with what is bothering rural Missouri than Republican incumbent Jim Talent. There is little likelihood that even an effective campaigner like McCaskill can carry rural Missouri, but her task will be to cut into those huge margins the GOP has enjoyed in recent years.
There is hope. Gay marriage and gay rights are largely moot as wedge issues because of already-enacted laws. Much of the outstate opposition to Democratic candidates now is based on the abortion issue. But there is disarray among the Republicans themselves, largely because of the embryonic stem cell issue. This dispute threatens Republican voter solidarity. Moreover, McCaskill has indicated that she plans to race to the middle on the volatile issue of abortion. She is convinced that her Democratic base, starved for a major victory, will stay with her even if she is not out-front on preserving abortion rights or stopping the war in Iraq.
The Democrats have the right candidate. We remember that McCaskill lost to Blunt by a mere three points during a campaign in which the head of the Republican ticket, President Bush, carried the state by 11 points. And now Bush has lost some voters. The latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll found Bush’s job approval rating at 45 percent, down seven points since January. Fifty-three percent of those polled disapproved of the president’s performance. (The rising gas prices that six in ten Americans feel need to be addressed better by the administration seem to account for the increased voter dissatisfaction.) In addition, many of the president’s conservative supporters are dismayed about the language in Iraq’s proposed constitution calling for Islam to be the official religion of the state, as well as the closeness of Shiite leaders to the theocracy in Islam.
These are serious issues for Republicans on the eve of next year’s mid-term elections, and they account for the special interest national Democrats have taken in the Missouri Senate race. Sensing the nation’s frustration with the leadership of the country, Democrats are emboldened by the prospects of 2006 even in a red state like Missouri.
It would be a huge coup if Democrats could wrest a Senate seat from a Republican incumbent in a red state as a prelude to the 2008 election. The stakes are high for both parties. Fortunately, the Democrats have their strongest candidate in the race – a seasoned campaigner with a practical understanding of the political reality in Missouri. She will not have the problem this time of trying to mend the wounds from a fractious primary. We welcome Ms. McCaskill to this pivotal contest.