Primaries a tuneup for fall contest
McCaskill challenge to Talent could decide majority in Senate.

Sen. Kit Bond told a group of Audrain County farmers recently how important it was this year to re-elect Jim Talent, his Republican colleague in the U.S. Senate.

The 2006 election, Bond said, was far more important than simply deciding who was going to occupy the second Senate chair from Missouri. The outcome of the balloting on Nov. 7 could spell the difference in whether the GOP continues running Congress as well as the executive branch of government or whether Democrats retake control of the Senate.

"Please send Jim back," Bond said. "I need him to work with me instead of against me."

As Missouri’s senior senator made his pitch in Mexico, Mo., Talent stood nearby like an acolyte. Bond did not mention her by name, but it was clear to everyone on hand that Bond considered state Auditor Claire McCaskill, a Democrat and Talent’s likely opponent, a formidable political force.

Bond said Republicans need victories for Talent and U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, who is seeking a fourth term in Montana.

"We re-elect them, we’ve got control of the U.S. Senate at least for two more years," Bond said. "If we lose either of them, then our control is at risk."

At the same time, with the Republicans holding a 55-44 majority in the Senate with one Democrat-leaning independent, Democrats must win in Missouri if they hope to have any chance of becoming a majority again.

A lot of national attention has been devoted to Missouri’s U.S. Senate races in recent years because of the state’s closely divided electorate, because Missouri is a bellwether state and because control of the Senate sometimes seems to hang in the balance.

The 2006 election has all of those elements.

"We have one of the best races in the country," said Dave Robertson, a political scientist at University of Missouri-St. Louis. "They are so evenly matched."

Independent polls taken in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s primary election show McCaskill and Talent with nearly identical levels of support. Rasmussen Reports, an independent political polling firm, surveyed 500 likely Missouri voters on July 20. It showed that McCaskill had moved ahead of Talent, although the difference between the two candidates - 45 percent to 42 percent - was within the poll’s margin of error.

"It’s going to be close," predicted David Webber, a political science professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. "No one should bet very much money on this one."

Because Talent’s votes in the Senate the past four years are so closely aligned with President George W. Bush’s policies, many consider the outcome of the vote 94 days from now a referendum on Bush’s performance.

"In the current poll, 54 percent of Missouri voters disapprove of the president’s job performance, with 43 percent reporting strong disapproval," the Rasmussen Report said.

If true, Talent could be in trouble this fall. When Talent first ran for the Senate, he linked his campaign to support for Bush. At the same time, Bush helped raise millions of dollars for Talent’s now-hefty political war chest.

When he came to St. Louis last year, Bush called Talent a "tough, principled" partner in the president’s attempt to overhaul the economy and revamp Social Security. In a record-setting performance, Bush helped Talent raise $1.5 million from a group of about 1,000 supporters.

But voters’ displeasure with the war in Iraq, high gasoline prices and concerns about limiting stem cell research could attach a steep price tag to those campaign contributions.

"Talent has a headwind, and McCaskill has the wind behind her," Robertson said. "The reason is the climate of opinion in the country."

ACCOUNTABILITY FACTOR

Besides focusing on specific issues, McCaskill’s campaign has a general theme: With Talent in the Senate and Republicans in control of Congress, federal lawmakers have abandoned their oversight function of the Republican Bush administration.

"The accountability is not there," McCaskill said of one-party government. With no accountability, McCaskill said, business interests have gained ground against the middle class, painting Talent as a tool of corporations, big oil companies and agribusinesses. With a Democrat-controlled Senate, there could be scrutiny and investigative hearings into controversial issues such as oil company profits and gas prices, the national debt or the conduct and cost of the Iraq war.

McCaskill calls Talent a Bush clone, voting with the president 94 percent of the time. Talent has supported privatizing Social Security and favors repeal of the estate tax, which affects rich families that want to pass their wealth on to survivors.

Talent also has supported the idea of giving $100 to people to make up for high gasoline prices.

"I’ve always wanted to link it with pro-supply measures," Talent said. He said part of the package would increase oil-refining capacity, exploration for energy in the Gulf of Mexico and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

McCaskill opposes drilling for oil in the Gulf and the ANWR. She said the idea of giving $100 to motorists was "insulting" when "CEOs of oil companies are going home with $400 million in retirement."

Talent said he’s been tough on big oil companies and cites his support for alternative fuels as an example. He successfully pushed for a requirement in a renewable fuel standards bill that will force oil companies to blend 7.5 billion gallons of bio-diesel and ethanol fuels by 2012.

"Oil companies bottled up ethanol and bio-diesel for a number of years," Talent said. "The renewable fuel standard was the way of breaking the back of the oil companies."

Talent is campaigning on the work he’s carried out while in Congress, reducing health-care costs for small businesses, helping to pass the Medicare prescription drug plan and fighting the scourge of methamphetamine.

And when Bush came to Missouri again in June to raise more money for him, Talent said he welcomed the help.

"I’ve appreciated his strong leadership in exercising his constitutional responsibilities to keep America safe in the global war on terror," Talent said.

Talent favors increasing border security by boosting the number of border guards and inspectors by 10,000 during the next five years. He also supports spending $5 billion for new technology, roads and fences and barriers to secure borders.

"I think the Republicans still have an edge on the terrorism issue," Robertson said. "If terrorism moves up the scale on the list of voter concerns going into the" November "election, the Republicans will gain traction. If social issues for some reason move up the scale, such as gay marriage, that too will help Republicans."

The two issues that seem to loom large are the Iraq war and stem cell research. Talent is a "stay the course" man who believes setting a schedule for U.S. troop reductions in Iraq would undermine the war effort and give insurgents a reason to keep fighting.

McCaskill wants to reduce the number of U.S. forces in Iraq during a two-year period and re-deploy them to other parts of the Middle East. She also supports the formation of a commission that would investigate war profiteering, similar to one launched by Harry Truman when he was a U.S. senator during World War II.

Talent opposes a ballot measure that would open Missouri to stem cell research, saying he opposes human cloning. He voted against a bill in Congress that would have boosted stem cell research funding, which Bush later vetoed. McCaskill supports the stem cell ballot measure, saying it prohibits cloning while creating the possibility for curing some diseases. She had asked Bush not to veto the stem cell research funding bill.

The issue could be a big unknown in the November election, bringing out people on both sides. National surveys show growing support for stem cell research. The issue threatens to create a fissure in the Republican party, with anti-abortion forces opposing the ballot initiative while pro-business groups favor it because they believe it will boost Missouri’s chances for bio-tech industries.

Webber, the political scientist from MU, does not see the stem cell issue as a "tie breaker."

"I don’t think the stem cell issue is going to hurt Jim Talent that much," Webber said. "I can’t image rural Republicans not voting for Talent because of stem cells."

OLD-FASHIONED ORGANIZATION

The three candidates whose names are likely to appear on the general election ballot all live within a few miles of one another in St. Louis County. McCaskill, 53, lives in Kirkwood, and Talent, 49, resides in Chesterfield.

The third name that will appear on the Nov. 7 ballot is that of Frank Gilmour, 50, the Libertarian Party candidate, who is unopposed in the primary. Gilmour lives in Manchester.

Both Talent and McCaskill are lawyers who have spent most of their lives in politics and government. They were members of the same legislative committee when they served together in the Missouri General Assembly.

They also have similar educational pedigrees. Talent got a bachelor’s degree in political science at Washington University in St. Louis and a law degree from the University of Chicago. McCaskill’s bachelor’s degree in political science as well as her law degree came from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

Both are articulate, quick thinkers. If there are political debates this fall, they should be interesting. McCaskill can be glib and aggressive on the campaign trail while Talent seems more laid back.

Talent served eight years in the Missouri House and eight years in Congress. Between his government jobs, he was a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Among his clients was the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Talent won his Senate seat in 2002, defeating Democrat Jean Carnahan, who was appointed to the Senate after the death of her husband, Mel Carnahan. Mel Carnahan, who had won the seat, died in a plane crash in October 2000 while campaigning against incumbent Republican John Ashcroft.

While McCaskill’s father was the state insurance commissioner, her family lived in Columbia. McCaskill graduated from Hickman High School, and her mother, Betty Anne McCaskill, was the first woman on the Columbia City Council.

McCaskill was a member of the state House representing a Kansas City legislative district from 1983 to 1989. She was a Jackson County prosecuting attorney from 1993 to 1998, when she was elected to the first of two terms as state auditor.

Another common factor is that both Talent and McCaskill have lost races for governor. Democrat Bob Holden defeated Talent by about 21,000 votes in 2000. McCaskill lost to Republican Matt Blunt by about 81,000 votes nearly two years ago.

Robertson believes McCaskill’s loss in 2004 works in her behalf now, just as it did for Talent in 2002.

"People learn from narrow setbacks and improve substantially the next time they run for office," Robertson said.

As if to confirm that, McCaskill is spending a lot of time this election campaigning outside of the state’s major urban areas. McCaskill ran poorly in rural areas compared to Blunt two years ago, and she is attempting to build support in areas that have given a boost to Republicans.

After his narrow loss to Holden in 2000, Talent spent a lot more time campaigning throughout Missouri two years later and secured winning margins in 89 of the state’s 114 counties.

"For the last four to six years, Republicans have been successful because they have out-organized Democrats in rural Missouri," Webber said. "I still think that’s the key. I know McCaskill has been hitting rural Missouri for the last couple of months. I think it’s still old-fashioned organization."

TURNOUT CRUCIAL

The two major parties’ candidates have nominal opposition Tuesday. In addition to Talent, there are four candidates for the GOP nomination to the U.S. Senate: Isaiah Hair Jr., of St. Louis; Joyce Lea of Kansas City; Roxie Fausnaught of Granby; and Scott Babbitt of St. Joseph.

None has mounted a recognizable political campaign, reported any significant campaign contributions or displayed an inclination to actively pursue the office.

Babbitt’s Web page, www.scottbabbitt4senate06.info, contains a rambling litany of charges and makes unsubstantiated references to the plane crash that killed Carnahan, his son, Randy, and a campaign aide, Chris Sifford.

McCaskill has one opponent in the Democratic primary, Bill Clinton Young, who does not appear to be actively campaigning.

Gilmour, the Libertarian candidate, makes a living with a mobile oil-changing service. He has been changing oil in trucks and wood chippers for the past six years.

He advocates his party’s philosophy of smaller government, low taxes and an end to government intrusion into people’s lives.

"We need obviously to be looking very hard at the amount of money we are spending," Gilmour said. "Both parties have done their fair share of it. One is a tax-and-spender and the other is a borrower-and-spender. I believe I would offer more checks and balances, being a third-party candidate."

Saying America cannot police the world, Gilmour said it was time to remove U.S. military forces from Iraq.

If the candidate with the most money always wins an election, Talent is a shoo-in. Recent campaign finance disclosure reports show the incumbent with a $4 million advantage. Reports showed Talent had raised more than $10 million and had $7 million on hand. McCaskill had raised $4 million and had about $2.75 million in the bank. Gilmour says he has not raised any money.

Talent’s campaign has already launched a series of television ads that depict him as a bipartisan problem solver.

If McCaskill’s campaign is cash-strapped, it might get a boost from the U.S. Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which had amassed a $38 million campaign treasury by June 30. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has collected about $20 million. The Associated Press has reported that the DSCC plans to spend $6 million from late August through Nov. 7 in McCaskill’s behalf.

"Clearly the Democratic candidate would be in better shape if she had a larger war chest at this point," Robertson said. "I’d be surprised if she doesn’t get enough money to wage a successful challenge. It’s hard to discount the interest of the Democrat party at a lot of different levels in terms of taking the Senate seat back."

Both Robertson and Webber predicted voter turnout will make the difference in November.

"At this point, Bush and the Iraq war are drags on the Talent campaign as they are on incumbent Republicans nationwide," Robertson said. "Republicans are going to have to replicate their big turnout successes of the last few cycles."

Webber said the outcome might well depend on the mood nationally rather than any performance on Talent’s part or his approach to an issue.

"He’s a known quantity," Webber said. "I just can’t imagine why you would vote for Talent now if you’ve never voted for him before. He needs all those voters he had the last time."

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Reach Terry Ganey at (573) 815-1708 or tganey@tribmail.com.

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