This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 31, 2012 - U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is resurrecting memories of her victory over Republican rival Todd Akin one more time – in a bid for campaign cash.
With the New Year’s Eve campaign-finance deadline looming, McCaskill sent out an email appeal to potential donors over the weekend that asked them to dig down a bit to help her eliminate her remaining debt – just under $240,000 – from her successful re-election campaign.
As part of her pitch, McCaskill called Akin – who she defeated by 15 percentage points – as “one of the worst candidates in the country.”
McCaskill spent close to $20 million to defeat Akin, R-Wildwood, who raised only about $6 million (and last reported a debt of about $270,000).
She was helped, and he was hurt, by the defection of expected outside pro-Akin help from conservative groups upset over his erroneous observation that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant because of hormonal defenses.
In her money-raising email, McCaskill noted that she will be sworn in Thursday to a second term in the Senate. “Even just a few months ago, there were many people who never thought I'd survive a re-election bid -- I was the most vulnerable incumbent senator,” she recalled.
“But I, along with many of you, refused to give up. We confronted the extremism of Todd Akin head on. We gave it all we had. There was so much at stake.
“Together we scored an improbable but decisive victory. I will take the oath in less than a week with gratitude and a sense of satisfaction that we prevailed over the odds and on behalf of the values we share…”
McCaskill wrote that she had a goal of raising a final $25,000 from grassroots supporters – a hint that she may already have collected hefty post-election sums from other sources.
She also implied that she planned to continue her recent high-profile challenges against long-standing opponents like the National Rifle Association. “I've always been willing to take on the big guys when it's the right thing to do -- like my recent call on the NRA to come to the table to help prevent further gun violence or my fight to end taxpayer-funded subsidies for Big Oil,” McCaskill wrote.
“In the election, doing everything we could to win wasn't just the right thing to do -- it was an imperative. So we pulled out all the stops to win, even if it meant spending a bit more than we originally planned.
“Our strategy worked -- we had a strong, decisive win in a state Mitt Romney carried by nearly ten points, and we kept one of the worst candidates in the country out of the Senate….”
