JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. —
The race to replace Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill was solidified on Tuesday, when, by a 36-percent margin, Missouri voters nominated U.S. Rep. Todd Akin for the Republican nomination.
Akin, a social conservative from St. Louis, was aided by rising above an intensely negative primary campaign between his primary rivals, businessman John Brunner and former State Treasurer Sarah Steelman. Throughout the primary election, McCaskill was watching.
“This is like Christmas, and I finally get to unwrap the package and have an opponent,” McCaskill said outside of her polling location on Tuesday, hours before polls closed and the race was decided.
A day later, McCaskill began to “unwrap the package.” Her campaign launched a website, and later a series of television ads, portraying Akin as “far outside of the mainstream of Missouri,” pointing to his support of privatization of Medicare and Social Security, ending government involvement in student loans, and his opposition to a federal minimum wage.
In most political campaigns, after charges like that emerge, the campaign would denounce it as dishonest or misleading. But Akin’s campaign said McCaskill’s effort is at least getting his message right, a sign this race could actually be a discussion about two competing visions on big issues.
“I did not go into everything in each individual issue in depth, but what it looks like is basically things they consider bad but we don’t,” Akin spokesman Ryan Hite told The Columbia Daily Tribune on Thursday.
Speaking to agriculture stakeholders at a meeting of the Missouri Farm Bureau on Friday, McCaskill said the race between her and Akin will be about whether he is “out of the mainstream” and she is a “good ol’ fashioned Missouri moderate.”
McCaskill, defending her seat for the first time, touts her differences with President Barack Obama — unpopular in many parts of Missouri — on issues like agriculture regulation, spending caps, the Keystone oil pipeline and earmarks.
“I would challenge anybody to find a Democrat who is more fiscally responsible as I have been,” she said.
Akin, in his remarks to the group, said he is OK with being “too conservative” for McCaskill. Touting opposition to “big government,” support of the Second Amendment and opposition to abortion, Akin asked the farmers: “Is that too conservative for Missouri?”
In an interview, Akin said he and McCaskill are “poles apart” on policy, and said that is where his campaign is going to focus.
“She is a rubber stamp for Obama. She stood with him on a lot of these big votes, particularly Obamacare, the stimulus bill, basically similar to his positions on energy,” he said. “Those are things that are different.”
Since before the primary, starting in mid-July, McCaskill has run ads touting Akin as “too conservative for Missouri.” But the ads were a double-edged sword, establishing McCaskill’s general election message against Akin while at the same time boosting him in the primary.
Just as Steelman had a super PAC boosting her message in the primary and Brunner had support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s political action arm, McCaskill’s efforts — targeting Republican voters in important parts of the state — were the same efforts that a political action committee would do to boost a candidate.
But now, post-primary, those essentially supportive ads are down, traded out for ones with a significantly different tone, using ominous music and dark images.
A day after the primary, American Crossroads — a national super PAC that has consistently targeted McCaskill for a year — launched a new ad targeting McCaskill for her support of the federal health care law. McCaskill has made a key pillar of her message her opposition to anonymous donations to outside groups like Crossroads.
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Todd Akin to focus campaign on how he differs from incumbent McCaskill
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