If Republicans want to keep control of the Senate, they can't lose Missouri. Yes, it's a swing state, and a legendary bellwether, and all that, but this is the kind of race they should be winning comfortably.
Jim Talent is a well-liked incumbent, conservative senator with whiffs of moderation -- as well as a seasoned campaigner first elected to public office at 28. He is now 49.
Claire McCaskill, the state auditor and Democratic challenger, lost in a 2004 race for governor and, last month, requested privacy for herself and her kids after her ex-husband was murdered in Kansas City. She is going to have a tough time trying to win: Consider that Missouri has grown increasingly red since George W. Bush beat Gore by three points in 2000 after Democrats conceded the state to concentrate on Florida (ha!). In 2004, Kerry got stomped by seven points, 53 percent to 46 percent.
So what then is this rumble out of Missouri this week showing Talent and McCaskill in a statistical dead heat? The poll, which was done by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, (where I once drew a paycheck), puts McCaskill ahead of Talent by three points, 47 percent to 44 percent. That is not good news for the GOP -- even if there are ten months to Election Day.
For the GOP, losing Missouri would confirm the theory that Democrats, inside and outside of Washington, are busy cooking up using Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, and domestic spying to stir the brew.
Trouble in Missouri could mean trouble everywhere. This week, Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, who heads the GOP's Senate campaign committee, said she did not think Republican candidates had much to worry about with the ethics scandals since it was a “bipartisan problem.” (ha! Again.)
Of Talent, she said: “I think he is above the fray. He is a Boy Scout, and I think people see him as that." She can be forgiven that sentiment since the Capitol Hill press conference is often a form of modern prayer, in which truth and yearning merge into political talking points. But there is no question that Senate Republicans have reason to be nervous. Polls show their incumbents behind in Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
Talent is serving out the term that was first won by the deceased Mel Carnahan in 2000, and filled by his wife, Jean, who was appointed by then-Gov. Bob Holden. Talent and Jean Carnahan spent a total of more than $20 million in 2002 in one of the closest elections of the season: He won by 21,000 votes out of almost 1.9 million cast, and that narrow victory was with a lot of help from a president who was a lot more popular then than he is now. Bush showed up in Missouri five times to campaign for Talent in 2002, and to show how important that race was to him he went to Missouri the day before the election to campaign.
But that riverboat is way turned around now. The same Post-Dispatch poll that put McCaskill ahead of Talent, shows that Missouri is tracking the rest of the nation in how it feels about the president. And it ain't good. In September 2004, 53 percent of Missourians put the president's job rating at excellent or pretty good. Today, that number is down to 44 percent, so the presidential fly-bys are not likely to be as helpful as they had been four years ago.
And if Bush is sidelined this fall because of approval issues, McCaskill is now as well-known as any politician in Missouri. Her rural roots may allow her to cut into Talent's natural GOP base, especially since he's from the St. Louis suburbs.
And then there is the possibility that McCaskill may have been handed an issue from the gods. The current session of the Missouri state legislature will spend an extraordinary amount of time this year debating stem-cell research, including a constitutional amendment that would protect embryonic stem-cell research, while outlawing human cloning.
McCaskill is a strong supporter; Talent, who has co-sponsored a bill with Sen. Sam Brownback that would ban a certain form of stem cell research known somatic cell nuclear transfer, finds himself in a quandary. This is exactly the kind of issue that would amplify the gender gap revealed in the recent polling. McCaskill was leading by 11 percentage points among women, while she trailed Talent by five points among men. That's trouble in 2006. And trouble in Missouri could mean trouble everywhere for the GOP. Missouri does love company -- as its long history as a bellwether would attest.
Terence Samuel is a political writer in Washington, D.C.
