This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: After a solid victory in the country's most closely watched Senate contest in 2012, U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill has become a hot commodity nationally and in Missouri.
Her heightened national prominence is a key reason she was in Iowa on Friday addressing supporters of Emily’s List, a major campaign-finance bundler for women who are candidates for office and support abortion rights.
But arguably, McCaskill’s most significant political power play is here at home, where she is taking on a much higher profile in Missouri government and state Democratic politics.
Among other things, she’s the chief driver in the move to make the Missouri Democratic Party more muscular — and outspoken — by installing veteran party activist Roy Temple as the chairman later this month.
"I just feel very strongly that as Democrats in Missouri, we need to draw the contrast as to which party is worried about education for our kids," she said. "And which party is worried about our roads and our bridges. And which party is worried about whether or not our kids can afford the tuition at the University of Missouri. And whether or not we have affordable health care accessible to us in this state."
And what’s wrong with the Republicans controlling the state Capitol?
"It’s like there’s a bunch of 'Todd Akin wannabes' down there, and I know that’s not what most Missourians want them to be focused on,” McCaskill said in a recent interview. "They’ve lost sight of the moderate middle."
If it weren’t for the serious stakes, she said, it’d almost be humorous that Republicans in Jefferson City were forging ahead with many of the favorite issues of Akin, the GOP opponent and former congressman who she trounced last fall.
Attacks legislative focus on guns, 'Sharia law'
Missouri Republicans in the state Capitol, she said, have ignored issues like jobs to focus instead "on the looming, perceived, imaginary threat of Sharia law… and ridiculous paranoia about a land grab by the U.N."
As another example, McCaskill — a former state legislator and county prosecutor — cited the General Assembly’s overwhelming approval of HB436, the bill to bar enforcement of federal gun laws in Missouri.
If legislators override Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto, she said, they’re acting to turn federal law enforcement officers into criminals if they go after a machine gun-wielding bank robber. Among other things, the bill would do away with the 1934 federal ban on machine guns.
"Things have gotten worse and worse in Jefferson City as it relates to our legislators," she said.
"The agenda of the Republican leadership in Jefferson City is far to the right of the majority of Missourians," she continued. "I understand, Missouri is not a bright blue liberal place, but… there’s no way that all the Democrats would have won statewide, some of us by the margins we did, if Missourians had wanted to embrace a Todd Akin agenda."
Sides with Nixon on tax cut bill, backs veto
McCaskill’s outspoken attacks contrast sharply with the low-key approach of U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., a former Missouri secretary of state who says that he’s intentionally keeping his mouth shut — at least publicly — about Republican actions back home.
Not so McCaskill. “I just want to help if I can," she said. "The way I was brought up, you don’t complain, you try to do something about it. That’s the way my parents raised me. Talk is cheap. If you really want to change things, you’ve got to roll up your sleeves and try to make a difference."
She also lauded Nixon’s veto of the tax-cut package, HB253. Aside from the issues raised by the governor, McCaskill said the measure – if allowed to go into law – would make Missouri even more reliant on federal dollars, if the state raises fewer on its own.
"There are only a handful of states in the country who are more dependent on the federal government than Missouri," McCaskill said. "This will make Missouri even more dependent than they were before."
"There’s only a handful of states that fund higher education at a lower level in Missouri,’’ she continued. “We are at rock bottom in terms of higher education. I don’t get it. We already are a low-tax state. The way you attract business in this economy is by having an educated work force. And you can’t continue to whack away at the muscle and bone of the education budget in Missouri and continue to be competitive for jobs.”
Asserts GOP out to drive up insurance rates
McCaskill is similarly critical of the General Assembly's decision against expanding Missouri's Medicaid program, although the federal government would pick up the extra costs for the first three years — and at least 90 percent thereafter.
Republicans have philosophical objections to expanding government involvement in health care. Some also contend that they fear that the federal government will renege on its financial promises.
She also blasts conservative legislators' actions to block Missouri from setting up its own insurance exchange, as recommended under the Affordable Care Act, thus requiring the federal government to set up one instead.
However, under the terms of Proposition E — passed by Missourians last fall — the state government can't advise people wanting help on how to navigate the exchange and find the best insurance rates.
At the same time, private groups can't offer any advice either, unless their personnel have a state "license."
Contended McCaskill: “Unfortunately, Jefferson City has been more focused on making this (federal program) fail, than helping Missourians" obtain better health care and cheaper insurance.
As for the license requirement, the senator said dryly, "I’m confused. I thought these people were freedom lovers" who oppose government intrusion.
"This is the ugly side of politics," McCaskill continued, "when they are so worried about primaries and proving that they hate Obamacare the most, that they are giving their backhand to Missourians who really need information at this point. Good information, not misinformation."
McCaskill said Missourians have been calling her office for help, and her staff has tried to provide it. She recommended that the public visit the website healthcare.gov for additional advice.
She jabbed specifically at state Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph — and a physician — who was quoted recently in the New York Times as saying that he objected to government providing "able-bodied people with free health care."
"He needs to go down to BJC every night," McCaskill said, where the emergency room is "filled with 'abled-bodied people' without insurance who are seeking health care. Some can't afford insurance and some have pre-existing conditions and can't get it, she said.
Under such a setup, "we’re all paying for it through higher rates," she said.
Legislators, she said, "want to have (the Affordable Care Act) fail by having as few people as possible participate, which just drives up the costs for all the people they represent. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen.”
McCaskill predicted that Missouri taxpayers may begin holding state lawmakers accountable when they see that insurance rates are dropping in states that are participating fully in Obamacare, including the expansion of Medicaid.
"In Missouri rates... are going up because of the legislature in Jefferson City. I think there will be a reaction. I think that people will feel like they’ve been cheated, and frankly they have been."
Her fear, McCaskill continued, is that some rural hospitals — often major employers outstate — will close because of the General Assembly's actions to block federal help and the Medicaid expansion. "If they refuse to take the federal tax dollars that Missourians have paid... there will be a high price to pay in rural Missouri. It makes my heart hurt."
Rules out any bid for governor
Such concerns, said McCaskill, explane why she's getting more involved in Missouri governmental and political affairs. But she rules out any future quest for a job she long coveted — Missouri governor.
McCaskill often has said that she had grown up dreaming of being elected Missouri's first woman governor. That hoped was dashed when she lost in 2004 to Republican Matt Blunt.
She initially had planned to try for governor again in 2008 but was pressed by Democratic leaders to run for U.S. Senate instead in 2006. She then narrowly defeated Republican incumbent Jim Talent, becoming the first woman elected in Missouri to the U.S. Senate.
(Jean Carnahan — the first woman in Missouri to serve in the U.S. Senate — was appointed to the post in 2000 after her husband, then-Gov. Mel Carnahan, was elected posthumously to the U.S. Senate three weeks after he died in a plane crash.)
Now, McCaskill says she is happy where she is. "I feel like I’m in an incredibly wonderful job that is intellecturally challenging and with a lot of work to do. While I don’t love going back and forth to Washington every week — and the schedule is hard — I feel very blessed to have the job and I’m really not interested in coming back and running for governor."
But she's nonetheless interested in what goes on in the state Capitol — and playing an role in influencing state government's course.
George Connor, head of the political science department at Missouri State University, says that his initial reaction to McCaskill's higher state profile — at least, as to her reasons — was "beats the hell out of me."
On the surface, Connor said, "It's sort of an anti-Nixon deal, regardless of what anybody says. There hasn't been much statewide leadership of the Democratic Party. Gov. Nixon hasn't taken an active role."
But that said, Connor continued, "There's not much to gain for Claire McCaskill or the Democrats by engaging in these rhetorical battles with the Republicans. They're not going to win a significant number of (state) legislative seats... because of Claire McCaskill's activity."
With the 2011 redistricting, he said, most of Missouri's legislative seats are heavily Republican — or Democratic. "The demographic hand has been dealt, and the Republicans have the winning hand. So I don't know that there's much to be gained within the state of Missouri by fighting these fights."
Democratic victories statewide, the professor said, are arguably tied in part to the Republicans' tendency "to shoot themselves in the foot."
But McCaskill's heightened state-government involvement, like Nixon's recent higher profile, may "have nothing to do with domestic politics and all about national politics," Connor continued.
Both have cast themselves as moderate Democrats, but each is believed to harbor hopes of a cabinet position if Democrats retain control of the White House in the 2016 election.
"She's doing exactly what Nixon's doing," Connor said. "Make it look you're being more Democratic. Raise your profile with a national audience."
Which brings us back to her trip Friday to Iowa.
