Claire McCaskill

From The Star's David Goldstein: 

Two prominent Republicans were among three dozen civic and political supporters of Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill who met in Kansas City last Monday to hear her plans for re-election.

Both are top officials at Kansas City Southern, where the meeting took place. One was company Chairman Michael Haverty. The other was the meeting’s host, KCS Executive Vice President Warren Erdman, who used to be chief of staff to former Republican Sen. Kit Bond.

“I would like to see her back in the Senate,” Erdman said. “I don’t see her as a polarizing person. I see her as more of a pragmatist. I guess if you had to describe me, I’m a pragmatist. I like things that produce results.”

From Steve Kraske's latest column in the Star:

Here are seven other forecasts to bank on for the year ahead...

Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill skates across the finish line with a re-election victory. It’s going to be ugly, but McCaskill bobs, weaves and glides just enough to win her second term against a gift GOP candidate.

That “gift” GOP nominee will be John Brunner, the St. Louis businessman who has enough money to buy himself a place on the Republican ticket in August over Sarah Steelman and U.S. Rep. Todd Akin. The deciding factor: Brunner’s experienced political team.

Update: The consumate Washington insider won the Conference Vice Chairman job without tea party support. 

Must-listen stuff from KTRS' McGraw Millhaven show this morning from Sen. Claire McCaskill on the lack of support for Roy Blunt's GOP Senate leadership bid from John Brunner, Sarah Steelman and Todd Akin. 

It's a little known fact that the best thing to talk about on a Wednesday afternoon is payroll taxes, so let's dive right in.

In Washington, Senate Democrats - including Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill - are preparing to hold a vote on extending the payroll tax cut that affects millions upon millions of America's working families, but as you can imagine, they're facing some stiff opposition.  I'll give you three guesses as to what that opposition is, and the first two don't count.  Here goes:

1. Republicans, like Roy Blunt, sticking up for the 1%.
2. Republicans, like Roy Blunt, sticking up for the 1%.
3. Republicans, like Roy Blunt, sticking up for the 1%.

If you guessed Republicans, like Roy Blunt, sticking up for the 1% you'd be right.  Well, almost right.  The real answer is republicans sticking up for the .2%.  That's 2 tenths of 1 percent of American taxpayers, approximately 1 in 500.

Republicans are protecting .2% of American taxpayers from a tiny tax increase of only 2.1%, and in doing so are demanding that 113,000,000 working families - that's 3.1 million Missouri families, for the record - to pay $1,000 more in taxes in 2012.  So much for sticking to their anti-tax pledge.

In Karl Rove's new smear ads against Senator Claire McCaskill – an obvious attempt to distract from the Medicare-bashing sideshow that is the GOP primary -- Rove and his billionaire donors can't help but mislead Missourians on even the most basic details.

The ads suggest that McCaskill is still flying on the plane, despite the fact that she vowed to never set foot on it again months ago.

McCaskillPlane by FiredUpMissouri

Judging by the amount of attention they've already given to McCaskill this cycle, Rove and his special interest funders are clearly threatened by her independent streak that pisses off just about every corporate contractor in DC.

And based on the way they're going about it, apparently Karl Rove is still allergic to telling the truth or just genuinely enjoys making stuff up.

According to Public Policy Polling:

McCaskill leads all of her potential Republican opponents for reelection, albeit by extremely narrow margins. She's up a point on Sarah Steelman at 43-42, two on Todd Akin at 45-43, and her lead widens to 9 over John Brunner at 46-37.

The Commission on Wartime Spending, originally proposed in a bill sponsored by Senator Claire McCaskill and Senator Jim Webb, has identified at least $60 billion in wasteful spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

Politico reported that the waste can be attributed to poor planning, ineffective oversight of contractors and payments to warlords and insurgents.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) wrote in a statement emailed Tuesday to the AP that “it is disgusting to think that nearly a third of the billions and billions we spent on contracting was wasted or used for fraud.”

The commission also stated that the $60 billion figure could grow as maintenance costs take precedence over reconstruction.

What seems to be the most troubling part is that hundreds of millions dollars from the American government may have made it's way to insurgent groups like the Taliban. 

The Associated Press reported earlier this month that U.S. military authorities in Kabul have estimated that $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of people the American-led coalition has spent nearly a decade battling: the Taliban, criminals and power brokers with ties to both. The military said that only a small percentage of the $360 million has been garnered by the Taliban and insurgent groups. Most of the money was lost to profiteering, bribery and extortion by criminals and power brokers.

Although politicians of all political persuasions often talk about rooting out waste and fraud, it is good to see that every once and a while they actually succeed. 

Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post notes that KMOV has changed a story that misprepresented Senator Claire McCaskill's position on unemployment benefits. However, KMOV didn't note the correction online and the incorrect story appeared on newscasts last night.  

Initially, KMOV quoted McCaskill as saying:

I’m not for extending unemployment benefits any further. The payroll tax cut, I’m always for tax cuts for working folks, because I think that helps our consuming economy.

Upon seeking clarification, the Huffington Post received a statement from McCaskill’s office that made it clear she was in favor of ensuring people can receive unemployment benefits.

McCaskill's office says additional context omitted from KMOV's report would show that she was responding to a question about giving the unemployed extra weeks of benefits. Her office said she supports preserving the existing extended benefits.

"Claire continues to fully support unemployment benefits for people who have lost their jobs by no fault of their own as a result of the struggling economy. This includes up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, expanding benefits beyond 99 weeks -- as some suggest -- is unaffordable and unrealistic because of staunch opposition in the House."

On the other hand, KMOV seems to want government surveillance for those who receive food stamps and government assistance.

Via Politico: “I would just say Mitch, honestly, with a straight face, do a press conference and say, ‘Here’s the solution to the problem: Let’s let the Democrats do it and we want them to do it three times before the next election and it will be OK with us if they do it as long as we don’t have to touch it.’ And people aren’t ridiculing that? This is when we’re supposed to come together.”

The AP is reporting that Senator Claire McCaskill raised nearly $1.4 million dollars during the second quarter of 2011, giving her approximately $3 million dollars cash-on-hand for her re-election bid. This news comes while Todd Akin and Sarah Steelman have been stumbling in their attempts to take on McCaskill.

Here is the brief story from the AP: 

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill posted a solid fundraising quarter in her re-election campaign for U.S. Senate.

The state Democratic Party said Monday that McCaskill raised nearly $1.4 million during the second quarter of 2011, which ended June 30. The party said McCaskill will report almost $3 million in her campaign account.

Candidates are not required to file quarterly campaign finance reports until Friday.

Two Republicans already have declared their candidacies against McCaskill in the 2012 Senate race. They are St. Louis area Congressman Todd Akin and former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman.

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Today in the Globe:

The federal government has a chance to cut $2 billion annually for the next decade by rescinding government subsidies to the five largest oil companies in the world, according to a bill sponsored by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and Shell reported profits of $32 billion in the first quarter alone. So we support McCaskill’s idea to get those subsidies back...

New poll data from Public Policy Polling:

McCaskill steady

Claire McCaskill's endured a lot of bad press over the last two months since PPP last polled Missouri, but at least in the short term it doesn't appear to be affecting her prospects for reelection. McCaskill's approval rating in early March was 46% and now it's still 46%. McCaskll had small leads over a cadre of potential Republican opponents in early March and she still has small leads over all of her potential foes. This continues to look like a toss up race, as it has for months now, but McCaskill's position now is no worse than it was before the issue of her airplane and its related taxes hit the news.

The Beacon: The League of Women Voters "has announced that it has 'launched a seven-figure television ad campaign calling public attention to the votes by Senator Scott Brown, R-Mass, and Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., earlier this month to block new air pollution standards. The accountability ads call on both Senators to protect the people, not the polluters.'"

Here's the spot, via Roll Call:

From the Associated Press' David Lieb: "John Brunner, the chairman of health care products company Vi-Jon Inc., confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday that he is considering entering Missouri's 2012 Senate race. 'I'm very serious,' Brunner said. 'We've got a fire raging here in our country and our economy. It's going to take an additional level of character and competence to deal with the crisis.'"

Brunner's bio from the Vi-Jon, Inc. website may be found here.

Crazy Ed Martin has already commented on Brunner's potential interest in the field, stating his belief that Sen. Claire McCaskill "would prefer to face an untested Republican candidate 'who McCaskill and her special interest allies can then marginalize and demonize in the general election.'"

It's been a great weekend for bad punditry in Missouri.

In his weekend column, The Star's Steve Kraske compared Sen. Claire McCaskill's recent self-disclosed tax problem and immediate apology to Richard Nixon's Watergate crimes, cover-up and scandal that consumed a nation.  The two events are similar, in Kraske's mind, because they lasted more than one news cycle. (Seriously.)   Is McCaskill"in the midst" of her own Watergate?  It's certainly possible, because there were more than two stories about it!!

To be fair to Kraske, he really had no choice but to lead his column with a comparison to the most scandalous episode in modern American history, for two obvious reasons.   First, the absence of any poll data detailing actual voters' knowledge and attitude towards the Senator and her response means that no Dems in Disarray! prediction is too dire.   Second, it would have been far too boring to compare McCaskill's situation to another candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri who experienced his own property tax turbulence at the exact same moment of a very recent election cycle. 

Roy Temple has a great piece over at The Huffington Post you should really check out, titled "Standing With Senator Claire McCaskill." Here's a snippet:

Claire has always viewed it as her responsibility to keep Missourians informed of what she is up to. She's done that by keeping up with the latest technology, like Twitter, and she's done it by coming back and traveling the state talking to Missourians -- even when the crowd wasn't with her.

As you have probably heard by now, Claire made a mistake in how she accounted for her travel around the state. And in her typical style, she stepped forward and handled it with transparency. Unlike most politicians, she has been willing to accept responsibility for whatever mistakes may have happened.

Frankly, she has gone way beyond what most politicians would have done. It was a costly mistake -- and she has put her money where her mouth is to make it right.

She has disclosed mistakes that no one else was aware of or likely would have found out about on their own. She could have hidden out and hoped no one ever discovered those errors. But instead, she has backed up her talk of transparency and accountability with her own actions.

For those of you fatigued by our Tiger Blood Tourney bracket, here is Sen. Claire McCaskill's NCAA bracket. 

"It was done with my head and not my heart," the Senator begs us to consider as we review the choices.  An important disclaimer, given some unseemly picks in the Southwest Region. 

Click here for a larger version.

Today, Crazy Ed Martin blasted out the following in an email to supporters: "Senator Claire McCaskill voted in favor of Cap and Trade, signaling a rote hostility toward business by agreeing to increased energy prices."

False.  McCaskill didn't vote for the American Clean Energy and and Security Act because it never came up for a vote in the Senate.  It passed the House in June 2009, but died in the Senate.  It didn't even make it out of committee in the Senate. 

More than a few progressive types (like me) wish the Senator would be more aggressive in pushing for an energy policy that would create more green jobs and begin to address our unsustainable pollution problem.  But she hasn't.