This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 10, 2009 - The Missouri Republican Party has resurrected an old line of attack against U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., that failed to get much traction when it was first brought up more than two years ago.
The issue? Her husband's business interests in general, and a certain reinsurance company that he co-owns in Bermuda in particular.
Why bring it up again? Payback, explained Republican consultant John Hancock, who's somewhat of a political expert on the business dealings of McCaskill's spouse, Joseph Shepard, a highly successful businessman. (How successful is up in the air, because Shepard has never made public his tax returns, a longstanding sore spot for Republicans dying to look at them. The couple files separate returns.)
Last week, Hancock explained, McCaskill used the word "hypocrite'' to describe Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., because he was attacking the Senate use of "earmarks" -- the practice of quietly designating a certain amount of money in a spending bill for a particular project, without going through the standard appropriations process.
McCaskill's implication was that McConnell uses earmarks.
"It takes a fair amount of gumption to call someone a hypocrite when on that very day you co-sponsor a bill against tax shelters, when you yourself own one,'' Hancock said. "That's why we went ape over it."
Shepard owns an interest in the Rural Housing Re-Insurance Co. of America Ltd., situated in Bermuda.
In an interview with Post-Dispatch reporter Virginia Young in 2006, Shepard said that he and other developers "created the Bermuda company in 1986 because the property insurance market was tight and apartment projects were unable to secure policies."
At the time, the couple said Shepard owned less than 6 percent of the company. McCaskill's latest financial disclosure report states that Shepard's share of the re-insurance company is worth as much as $1 million.
In an interview Saturday night at Democrat Days in Hannibal, McCaskill disputed GOP characterizations of the Bermuda company as a tax shelter. She said it was incorporated in Bermuda because that's where many re-insurance companies are situated. She cited various regulatory reasons. Hancock contends that the location is all about tax breaks.
(Click here to see a snippet of McCaskill's explanation Saturday to reporters, as recorded by KY3's Dave Catanese.)
Still, with McCaskill not up for re-election until 2012, the question remains: Why bring up the issue now -- and with no new information -- when it didn't work before?
Hancock now is a consultant for a Republican seeking to join McCaskill in the Senate in 2010, U.S. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Strafford.
Going after McCaskill may be a Republican attempt to discourage her involvement on behalf of the only announced Democratic contender for the 2010 seat, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan.
At Saturday night's banquet, McCaskill certainly lobbed several verbal jabs at Blunt, who she characterized as a Washington insider more familiar with lobbyists on K Street than average folk on Main Street. (And don't forget that McCaskill lost a nasty contest for governor in 2004 against Blunt's son, Matt Blunt.)
So maybe the GOP's resurrected attacks against McCaskill are about payback. But perhaps it's not just McConnell's honor that prompted it.
