PLANK SEPTEMBER 7, 2012
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Of the handful of Democrats who opted to skip the party’s convention this week, no one’s absence was more conspicuous than Senator Claire McCaskill’s. The freshman Senator, who in 2008 threw her support behind Barack Obama even when the smart money was on Hillary Clinton, opted to campaign in Missouri, where the electorate is hostile to the Obama and deeply skeptical of her early affinity for him.
So while Cory Booker was delivering his Tuesday night philippic, McCaskill was at tiny Westminster College, looking weary as she affirmed her commitment to federally-backed student loans for the third time in two days. Last night, after two mighty brief appearances at convention watch parties in St. Louis, McCaskill viewed Obama’s speech in private, at her mom’s house.
But while McCaskill was obviously missing from Charlotte, her opponent, Rep. Todd Akin, was even more ghostlike in the very state he hopes to capture from her.
Since proclaiming, on August 19, that the female body has natural contraceptive powers in instances of “legitimate rape,” Akin has made but two public appearances: One awkwardly short press conference to reaffirm his Senate candidacy, and a parade appearance last Thursday in Bethany—a dusty collection of storefronts along the two-lane highway connecting Kansas City and Des Moines.
At first, the Bethany appearance seemed a sign that Akin’s campaign was back underway. But he hasn’t resurfaced since. He has been with Missouri mostly in spirit, his legend invoked by detractors but his person elusive. His remark that student loans are “a stage-three cancer of socialism,” for instance, is ever-present in McCaskill’s stump speech. Sandra Fluke uttered his name in a televised interview following her primetime convention appearance. Yesterday, the nuns of the Nuns on the Bus staged a protest at his Ballwin, Missouri office—but he didn’t seem to be there.
Akin enthusiasts, meanwhile, await his triumphant return. “He really is a conservative, cares about the family, cares about life, cares about traditional marriage, cares about keeping the debt low,” said regional Christian radio star Dick Bott, in a conversation with former Ohio Representative Bob McEwen broadcast on Wednesday. “He just is the person, people tell me, who’s the real deal.” That same day, Akin's realness was even briefly confirmed by a six-minute stint on Your World with Neil Cavuto.
A recent PPP poll showed McCaskill maintaining a mere one-point lead over the absent Akin. Perhaps, combined with the adulation of supporters like Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich, that news is what gave him the resolve to commit to what by his recent standards amounts to a heavy campaigning schedule for the next two days: a gathering this morning with the Columbia Pachyderm Club, and a rally on Saturday in Camdenton, Missouri, population 3,691.
7 comments
It seems to me that McCaskill is trying to pretend she isn't something she is -- she's a moderate but convinced Democrat and if it wasn't for the Akin debacle she'd still be trailing and no amount of "distance" from Obama would help. If you're going to go down, why not go down for something you believe in? Or at least, why try to pretend that your basic ideas and values are different from the president's when nobody really buys that?
- ironyroad
September 7, 2012 at 11:17am
Agree, irony, wish she'd been in NC and CANNOT believe she's polling even with a poisonous ghost. This is awful. But in fact if you're reading commentary the hatred of women is pretty scary. I'm shocked by that as much as by anything this past few years. Sandra Fluke in particular has become a lightning rod for rage and fear on the Right but she's not alone, she's a symbol for us all and Ann Romney declaring she loves women ain't gonna fix this.
- Sophia
September 7, 2012 at 12:47pm
The fact that a Neanderthal like Akin might well win the election and sit in the Senate is too depressing for words.
- VAliberal
September 7, 2012 at 12:49pm
Even in 2010, appearing with Obama on the stump was toxic for most incumbent Dems. Whatever McCaskill has to do to win is ok with me. Someone in Congress has to remember what the Democratic Party used to be...when they could remember what a budget looks like.
- K2K
September 7, 2012 at 2:00pm
Wow. K2K wtf? Did you watch the convention?
- Sophia
September 7, 2012 at 3:49pm
No Sophia - I usually skip political conventions. Only in 2004 did I watch the DNC - one of the benefits of being in the third year of what was to become eternal unemployment. I have left some links to the changing demographics of the Democratic Party for you elsewhere, but you are so obviously in love with their mythology, you can never accept the reality since 2008. To my horror, Pelosi behaved like DeLay - power does corrupt. No mas. My vote never counts. I have no intention of watching our stupid two party duopoly finish their very bipartisan destruction of the American economy since 1978.
- K2K
September 7, 2012 at 7:48pm
Pelosi was the most effective member of the government while she was Speaker passing stimulus that saved the economy from collapse, transformative budgets, financial reform, healthcare for almost ever American, and the only real attempt to address the coming climate catastrophe. Self pity is a lot of fun but it's clearly not a coherent political position.
- Pnaut
September 8, 2012 at 1:09am