Will Claire McCaskill run for Missouri-GOV?

We’re about to find out, apparently.  Also, whether Claire McCaskill will be resigning from the Senate in order to run for Governor: she does not strictly have to, mind you. And, honestly, you know that my reflexive response on this would be Dang straight McCaskill should resign, and Jay Nixon should schedule a special election on the spot. Which Jay Nixon would not: even assuming that McCaskill resigned Jay Nixon would be only be obligated to schedule an election in 2016 for a two-year term.

Although it’d be funny if the Missouri state legislature suddenly decided to require both a resign-to-run law, and a special-election one.  I think that they have enough to overturn a veto…

Charlie Cook speculates Claire McCaskill will run for MO-GOV in 2016.

He figures that she will; Senator Claire McCaskill said that she won’t, but politicians always say that they’re not interested in a new job, right up to the point where they actively start campaigning for one.  Besides, back in September of 2014 it still looked like the Democrats had a legitimate shot at keeping the Senate.  Given that it’s now very much an open question about whether the Democrats can actually manage to retake the Senate – when Landrieu loses next week, the answer is going to be ‘probably not*.’  I can’t imagine that the next four years are going to be any fun for Claire McCaskill, particularly since she is a pre-loaded prime target for Republican strategists in 2018.   Continue reading Charlie Cook speculates Claire McCaskill will run for MO-GOV in 2016.

Tweet of the Day, This Rumor About McCaskill Would Make Me So Happy edition.

Well now.

Dear Lord:

You gave me a wonderful present yesterday, and I am truly grateful for it. And I have no desire to appear greedy. But if You could see Yourself clear to convincing Barack Obama to make Claire McCaskill the next Attorney General, that would be wonderful.

Love,

Moe Lane

How much longer can Claire McCaskill last in Missouri?

If you’re a Democrat, then the latest poll from Mason-Dixon should not be combined with alcohol and/or used in conjunction with heavy machinery: she’s not just losing.  John Brunner beats her 52/41; Sarah Steelman, 49/42; and Todd Akin 49/44.  And that’s registered voters.  These are the kinds of numbers that you’d expect to see from a challenger; an incumbent that far underwater needs an exit strategy, quick.  Guess the Democrats guessed wrong on how quickly McCaskill was going to fade.

Mind you, the person who should really be worried right now is Missouri governor Jay Nixon.  The Democrats have written off the state in the Presidential election; Claire McCaskill is starting to swirl the drain; and the DCCC seems to have decided not to really push at the three first-term Republican incumbents this cycle.  Nixon’s looking very, very alone right now.  Such a shame…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

(Via @TookieW)

PS: Primary’s August 7th.  McCaskill is, by the way, running unopposed in the primary.  …Oops?

#rsrh Unlike Claire McCaskill, I DON’T want Obama campaigning in Missouri.

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) Although seeing her out on the shaking tree limb like this is funny.  Anyway, no, I don’t want Obama campaigning in Missouri because we don’t need him there to win Missouri; I’d prefer that he spend time in states where his presence would rebound to a practical benefit for the Republican party.  Like, say, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

And maybe Colorado, depending on whether the administration messes up their disaster reaction response to the wildfires in that state.  Personally, I hope that the administration does not mess that one up – my fellow Americans are having problems over there right now – but if the President brings his reverse-Midas touch to the situation in classic fashion then I am not really required to be too forgiving of the man.

#rsrh Claire McCaskill (D, MO) ducks out of the Democratic Convention.

I was half-tempted to let this news pass without real comment – after all, it’s hardly news that Democratic politicians are finding their national (and Obama-dominated) convention to be about as congenial as a leper colony, and for roughly the same reasons – but I couldn’t let this bit of half-hearted apologia get away without taking a slap at it:

The aide stressed that McCaskill did not attend the 2004 Democratic National Convention, when she was running for governor of Missouri.

Indeed.  2004.  The year where the Democratic nominee was a pumped-up cipher with no meaningful accomplishments in his political career, a rhetorical style often miscalled ‘eloquent’ but really ‘grandiose,’ and whose stale, recycled faux-populist message merely ensured that his opponent got a majority of the popular vote.  Can’t imagine why Claire’s seeing parallels to that

Moe Lane

PS: A certain amount of inherent cruelty requires me to point out that McCaskill lost that election in 2004.  Too.

Claire McCaskill (desperately) weighs in on Siga scandal.

Background: several weeks ago the LA Times reported that the Obama administration had steered nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of a no-bid contract on a secondary smallpox vaccine – one not actually tested on human beings – to Siga Technology, a company controlled by longtime Democratic party contributor Ronald Perelman.  Needless to say, the drug’s much more expensive than the primary drug, the government interfered with the bidding process, and people pretended afterward that no correspondence between the company and the government took place.

Well, it seems that questions are being asked by an exceptionally unlikely source: Continue reading Claire McCaskill (desperately) weighs in on Siga scandal.

Sen. McCaskill: “We have paid every dime of our taxes.”

That is, McCaskill said that she did, back in 2006 (via Hot Air Headlines):

For those who don’t remember the initial controversy mentioned in the ad, McCaskill’s husband was linked to some extraordinarily poorly-operated Missouri nursing homes at the same time that McCaskill herself had oversight over Missouri nursing homes as Missouri State Auditor.  As you can see, back in 2006 McCaskill vehemently denied any wrongdoing, just before she declared that she paid her taxes.

Which she actually did not do in 2006; and has continued to not do since then.  Iknow that this is just repeating Bill S. ‘s excellent post from yesterday, which is why I would like to point out an old Tom Daschle campaign ad below. You may remember it: it’s the one where he bragged about driving his own car to work.

Continue reading Sen. McCaskill: “We have paid every dime of our taxes.”

Sen Claire McCaskill (D, MO) sounds rattled.

Also, resentful.

Welcome, Instapundit readers.  I have worked out an interesting fundraising tactic here.

After a rather fascinating exercise of profiles in courage from her St. Louis office – essentially, they locked the doors, drew the blinds, called the cops, and hid from a bunch of protesters knocking on the door. But can you blame the staffers?

dsc026951

…I mean, those guys brought a cocker spaniel.

Anyway, Senator McCaskill would have liked to be conciliatory, except that the passive-aggressive resentment at being forced to treat these grubby neo-peasants as if they mattered as much as Beltway types kept getting in the way:

I think we learned from Friday and will do better in the future. In return I hope those that are protesting refrain from banging on the windows and doors continuously. Thanks so much.

Via Instapundit. For the record: it was the ‘Thanks so much’ part that wrecked the rest of the statement. If she had ended the statement one sentence earlier it would have actually come across as being witty; those three words decreased that quality by, oh, about fifty percent.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Former IG Walpin suing to get good name back.

You may remember Gerald Walpin.  He was fired from his position as AmeriCorps Inspector General a few months ago for either: pushing an investigation against one of the President’s cronies; no particular reason; or diminished mental capacity.  These three possible answers are, respectively: an assumption based on an acquaintance with objective (if cynical) reality; what the White House went with before Senator Grassley reminded them of the law; and what the White House went with after Senator Grassley reminded them of the law.  Well, Mr. Walpin didn’t particularly care for the last answer, and he’s decided to get satisfaction:

Gerald Walpin, the AmeriCorps inspector general who was summarily fired in June amid controversy over his investigation of a politically-connected supporter of President Obama, has filed suit alleging that the firing was “unlawful,” “politically driven,” “procedurally defective” and “a transparent and clumsily-conducted effort to circumvent the protections” given to inspectors general under the Inspectors General Reform Act of 2008.

Walpin’s suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is against the Corporation for National and Community Service, which oversees AmeriCorps.  Also named are Nicola Goren, the acting CEO of the Corporation, Frank Trinity, its general counsel, and Raymond Limon, the Corporation’s “chief human capital officer.”  The suit asks the court to declare Walpin’s firing unlawful and restore him to his position as the Corporation’s inspector general.

Via The Rhetorician. Note that Walpin isn’t suing for damages, merely reinstatement and an admission that the firing was improper in the first place.  Whether or not he gets either will depend in large part whether the administration can outwait him; as Ed Morrissey points out, Walpin is 77 years old.  On the other hand, this is hardly the only IG controversy going on, and right now the White House doesn’t need any more negative scrutiny than what it’s already getting…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.