Republican attorney Ed Martin, who narrowly lost a bid for Congress last year, said Monday that he will challenge Democrat Claire McCaskill in Missouri’s 2012 U.S. Senate race.
Martin immediately sought to link McCaskill to President Barack Obama, decrying her support for the economic stimulus act and the health care overhaul and suggesting in a newsletter to supporters that their “ObamaClaire” policies were growing government.
This could turn out to be a pretty interesting primary, depending on the players. Martin will tout his near-win against Dem Rep. Russ Carnahan last year as an electability argument, but somehow I don’t see him scaring any House members off (like, say, Graves or Emerson), but you never know.
Despite Roy “Papa” Blunt being the junior Senator from Missouri, the most damning attack on Ed Martin may be to remind voters he was CoS to Matt “Baby” Blunt.
I read somewhere that Emerson and Wagner are “close” and unlikely to run against each other in a primary…despite not having been elected before I think Ann Wagner is the 800lb Gorilla in this race (if she runs), she is easily as conservative as Martin and appeals to the Tea Party crown ideologically (remember she was the non-prebus conservative in the RNC chair race), but also can be Ms. establishment (Papa Blunt’s Campaign chair & RNC Member) and she’ll also be able to raise more cash than you can shake a stick at (plus the stick).
Martin is probably going to occupy the farthest right spot of the major candidates in the primary — the question is if that will be enough to outpace Steelman, Graves, Wagner or whoever else jumps in.
I suspect that he would be the easiest if any of them for McCaskill to beat – because he certainly won’t have the same political environment that he had working for him in 2010.
It’s not clear how many will be in the primary, but Martin knows that if the others have divisive campaigns, he can slip through.
a Republican who lost in the biggest GOP wave year in decades! I’m so scared!
The Northern Florida US District Court (Pensacola) has struck down HRC in it’s entirety. Interesting part is it claims the individual mandate cannot be removed.
To quote: “I must conclude that the individual mandate and the remaining provisions are all inextricably bound together in purpose and must stand or fall as a single unit. The individual mandate cannot be severed.”
If you look at the current census information you can see why Mr. Martin is trying for the senate. The third distict will probably disappear by the next election. The population in St. Louis continues to exit – mainly to its inner and outer cores. See excellent article attached:
http://www.newgeography.com/co…
Based on these numbers much of South St. Louis will be added to the first district with the counties of Jefferson and St. Genevieve added to others. The 3rd district will be completely changed by the next election and neither Mr Martin nor Mr. Carnahan will have much luck winning in a redistricted Missouri.