Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) “blamed her defeat not on her own campaign, but on the Democratic Party for abandoning its moderate constituents,” Roll Call reports.
Said McCaskill: “This demand for purity, this looking down your nose at people who want to compromise, is a recipe for disaster for the Democrats. Will we ever get to a majority in the Senate again, much less to 60, if we do not have some moderates in our party?”
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said that she will vote against federal appellate judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Springfield News Leader reports.
She cited “dark money” in politics as the main reason for her opposition.
Said McCaskill: “I have been thorough in examining Judge Kavanaugh’s record. And while the recent allegations against him are troubling and deserve a thorough and fair examination by the Senate Judiciary Committee, my decision is not based on those allegations but rather on his positions on several key issues, most importantly the avalanche of dark, anonymous money that is crushing our democracy.”
Missouri U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley (R) appears to be distancing himself from embattled Gov. Eric Greitens (R) as he prepares to kick into full gear his campaign to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), the Missourian reports.
Hawley consultant Brad Todd told reporters that Greitens “has plenty of things on his plate” and said not to expect him on the campaign trail.
Said Todd: “The election is going to be a whole lot more about what happens on the floor of the Senate than in the basement of the Greitens’ house.”
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Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) took action earlier this year to make her family’s private plane untrackable by the public, the Washington Free Beacon reports.
“The company hired by McCaskill to operate the plane, a 2009 Pilatus PC-12/47E, wrote to the FAA earlier this year in April to ask that tracking information on the plane be blocked from the public, according to email records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon through a Freedom of Information Act request.”
“I come from a state that no matter how I vote, 50 percent of the people are mad. So I’m kind of used to this.”
— Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), quoted by the AP, on her vote for Neil Gorsuch’s nomination.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) “will vote to filibuster Neil Gorsuch, becoming the 36th Democratic senator to vow to block President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee from confirmation,” Politico reports.
“McCaskill’s announcement Friday pushes the Senate ever-closer to a major confrontation next week over the chamber’s rules. If Democrats can secure five more votes to deny Gorsuch the 60 votes he needs to advance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is likely to gut the supermajority requirement on Supreme Court nominees using the ‘nuclear option.'”
“I watched him find that sweet spot of compromise on immigration reform, but then he broke down like a cheap shotgun the minute the right started chewing on his rear end.”
— Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), quoted by Politico, on how Sen. Marco Rubio backed away from his own immigration reform proposal.
Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said she will not run for governor in 2016 — staying put in the U.S. Senate, USA Today reports.
“McCaskill’s decision to forgo the governor’s race comes after months of speculation about her political ambitions, fueled in part by her fundraising largess. She donated more than $500,000 to Democratic state legislative candidates and party committees in the 2014 election cycle.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill’s (D-MO) forthcoming book, tentatively titled Plenty Ladylike, was expected by the end of 2014 but has been delayed until July 2015, the Kansas City Star reports.
“The Missouri Democrat has promised the full story of her 2012 victory over Todd Akin, and the tome may include other insider score-settling as well.”
[speech_bubble type=”std” subtype=”a” icon=”pwdome.jpg” name=””]This book has been talked up for months but I question how interesting the McCaskill-Akin race will seem next summer. [/speech_bubble]
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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