Sarah Steelman

We haven't heard from Sarah Steelman in a while, but she posted a pair of updates via Twitter this afternoon:

• Caught up on the kcstar articles. Too bad we have to pass rules and laws to ensure our elected officials are ethical.
• Perhaps we should try electing people who won't abuse the power of their office for their own personal gain.

Sarah Steelman says she has "unfinished work" in raising her sons, and will not run for the House or Senate in 2010. "Our youngest, Michael, is 14 and I want to raise him here in Missouri – in the heart of this country, not in Washington D.C.," she wrote.

Which campaign benefits more from the announcement -- Roy Blunt's or Chuck Purgason's?  Blunt is surely glad to know that he won't have a well-funded primary challenger. But does this allow Purgason's call for a return to core Republican principles to be heard more clearly?

Speaking with the Post-Dispatch's Tony Messenger's for his new column, Sarah Steelman says she's still considering a campaign in 2010.

And Steelman, who went from mulling a run for Senate to considering one for Congress or even sitting out a cycle and running for governor again, still hasn't made up her mind. And as she mulls a possible run for something, she said she's incurred no federal expenses.

Offers Steelman, "I'm still thinking about stuff."

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The National Journal and Public Policy Polling have released new rankings for the 2010 Senate races, in which they sort the contests by likelihood of switching parties.

Missouri comes in #3 in The Hotline's breakdown.

Given his poor early fundraising, Rep. Roy Blunt (R) needed a stellar second quarter -- and he got it. He also seems likely at this point to escape any significant primary challenge. Still, Democrats continue to have some advantages here, including their candidate, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who possesses a well-known family name and high approval ratings. In the end, however, it's likely that the winner will be the one who's best able to escape the drag from their national party brand.

The folks at Public Policy Polling put Missouri at #6, with a slightly different take on how the national landscape may affect Show-Me State voters.

Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com ranks the 2010 races in order of their likelihood of changing parties -- Missouri remains at the top of their list:

Missouri (R-Open)
Steady as she goes for all-but-assured Democratic nominee Robin Carnahan, who begins with a slight lead in the polls, while Republican Roy Blunt is facing a nasty primary.

It's worth noting that Silver isn't assuming Sarah Steelman is out of the primary. Sarah has been quiet the past couple of weeks (maybe waiting to see how things shake out with the Q2 filings?) but did have an op-ed this weekend in the News-Leader.

After suggesting to The Hill she's not interesting in a divisive primary, and would be interested if "some other outsider" decided to challenge Roy Blunt, Sarah Steelman spoke with KY3's Dave Catanese.

She says she's still "very seriously considering the US Senate."

Just posted:

Former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman appears increasingly less likely to run against Blunt, and she acknowledged Monday that she is looking at a possible campaign for Blunt’s open House seat as an alternative...

Though rarely afraid of ruffling feathers in the GOP establishment — including in a pitched gubernatorial primary with former Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.) in 2008 — Steelman told The Hill on Monday that she is worried about hurting the GOP.

“I am always willing to fight for what I believe in, but I would certainly prefer to do it without further destruction to our party,” Steelman said, adding: “I want to find a positive avenue to move our party forward.”

Steelman insisted she is still thinking about the Senate race. But in defending the tone of the gubernatorial primary last year, she also suggested it might be time for someone else to take up the mantle against Blunt.

Jason Rosenbaum spoke with John Danforth about his strong desire for a "fresh face" before the seismic shifts in the political landscape deal was made to stop reminding fellow Republicans about Roy Blunt's baggage.

In the not too distant past, Thomas Schweich wanted to "shed some light on the back-room politics of the sedentary, uncreative Republican leadership in this state."

Not any more, it seems.

Dave Catenese of KY3 is reporting that Roy Blunt and Schweich cut the very sort of back-room deal he previously decried. In said deal, Schweich will stop referring to Blunt as "The End of the Republican Party," and Schweich will apparently get Blunt's support for a State Auditor bid in 2010.

Also noteworthy: Catanese reports that Sarah Steelman allies say it's "highly unlikely" she will run for Auditor.

There hasn't been a lot of grist for the Blunt/Steelman/Schweich rumor mill in the past couple of weeks, but the SEMO Times posted a new interview with Steelman yesterday. She's still railing against the Republican leadership in Washington -- "people do not trust us to be conservatives because we were anything but conservative when ," she said -- but remains cagey about her actual intentions in the Senate race. A couple of the responses that stood out:

Can you give us your thoughts on the current state of the Republican Party?
“I think we need to take stock of where we are and look at how we got here. I think we need to be more principally conservative, and reflect on  just how we lost the House and Senate. The people do not trust us to be conservatives because we were anything but conservative when we were in the majority. Jack Kemp knew how to do this, and we should learn from his example.” [...]

What are your thoughts on endorsements?
“They obviously  don’t mean much to anyone in this mall or many regular working people. It is way too early for people to care about that sort of thing if they care at all.”

I've been thinking about this in the past few days, given the silence of Sarah Steelman and Thomas Schweich: how will GOP leaders  be able to motivate their base by blaming recent failures on their party's misguided leadership, and simultaneously rally the same base around Roy Blunt? 

For instance, take this quote from crazy Phyllis Schlafly in Jo Mannies' story on the Conservative Heartland Leadership Conference:

[F]ellow social conservatives "must retake control" of the GOP. Schlafly contended, during a panel discussion before about 130 people, that the lack of conservative influence was the key reason Republicans candidates lost elections in 2006 and last fall. The result has put Democrats in control of the U.S. House and Senate and the presidency.

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I've been wondering about this very issue as Roy Blunt continues his move to the right: How will the tea party crowd show itself when and if there's an actual challenger in the mix?

Populist Outrage and Pragmatic Recruiting a Volatile Mix for GOP
CQ Today

Republican officials, groping for a formula to revive their party, have been firing up their conservative activist base with support for “tea parties” that skewer big government, and rhetoric that brands President Barack Obama ’s Democratic Party as “Socialist.”

At the same time, though, GOP strategists have been working to recruit candidates for key 2010 elections who project more moderate images — which might draw them support across party lines and make them, at least in theory, more “electable.”...

From the fifth to fourth most likely to switch parties:

Missouri (R): With each passing month, the Republican race gets more complicated. The latest development: St. Louis University political science professor Thomas Schweich is being mentioned as a candidate, and has already got into a tiff with Rep. Roy Blunt, who, at this point is the only announced GOPer in the field. As the super Steve Kraske (of the K.C. Star) wrote of the incident: "The problem with Blunt's attack wasn't the substance, but the timing. It quickly legitimized Schweich as a serious threat -- the last thing Blunt wants." Did we mention that former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who ran a surprisingly strong primary campaign for governor in 2008, is likely to run as well? Somewhere Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who has cleared the Democratic primary field, is smiling. (Previous ranking: 5)

A full twenty-five days ago, Sarah Steelman announced that Washington, DC, lawyer Ben Ginsberg would be forming an exploratory committee for her prospective Senate campaign.

Yet there still aren't any records for Steelman on the Federal Elections Commission website. 

Ginsberg simultaneously served as chief counsel to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and legal advisor for the Swift Boat smear squad in 2004 -- so the man clearly knows how to juggle a few things at once.

What's taking so long?

Can it be a good sign for Roy Blunt and his "twittering operatives" (e.g. Ed Martin) that they felt compelled to go after Thomas Schweich this week?  Schweich has no campaign experience, no campaign operation -- he hasn't even filed papers yet.

Could it be that Blunt & Co. honestly fear Schweich as a Sarah Steelman stalking horse? 

Discuss.