Across the Wide Missouri: Claire McCaskill dishes the dirt on how she energized the Trumpists-before-Trump, and how they obliged her by turning the stomachs of independents and non-wingnut Republicans, and reelected her over the truly infamous Todd Akin:
Running for reelection... from Missouri....
I [had]... poll[ed]... Republicans in Missouri... $40,000 to... find out what was on the[ir] minds... John Brunner led at 39 percent, with Rep. Todd Akin at 17, and former state treasurer and senator Sarah Steelman at 15.... We gave [our sample]... each candidate’s message.... Akin... one of the most conservative members of Congress; had consistently voted against government spending and debt; had opposed the Wall Street bailout, the federal stimulus, and the rescue of the automobile companies; had voted no on Obamacare; and was a founding member of the Tea Party Caucus. Akin also promised to restore faith in God as the center of public life in America and had consistently voted to defend the sanctity of human life.... Brunner was a job creator and an ex-marine, while Steelman was fighting to end the ‘status quo.’...
The sample of Republican voters was then polled again.... Akin now came in at 38 percent and Brunner at 36, while Steelman was still at 15. Akin’s narrative could make him the winner among the people most likely to vote in the Republican primary—-and maybe, just maybe....
Tom Kiley, my pollster, turned up some findings that seemed crazy... less than one quarter of the likely Republican primary voters believed that Barack Obama had been born in the United States... a subset of energized people with strong religious convictions and serious aversion to gay people, public schools, immigrants and reproductive choice could help elect someone like Akin [in the primary]. I began to consider whether it would be useful to help Akin spread his message....
Akin’s track record made him my ideal opponent. Many of his votes in Congress contradicted his claim of being a fiscal conservative.... During the Bush administration... he had voted to raise the [debt] limit.... In 2001 Akin had voted in favor of a $25 billion stimulus package that mostly benefited large corporations and the wealthy. And he was a big earmarker.... [He had] asked for God’s help in keeping the nation from ‘socialized medicine’... claimed... it was ‘common practice’ for doctors to conduct abortions on women ‘who were not actually pregnant’... calling for America to pull out of the United Nations... claiming the government had ‘a bunch of socialists in the Senate’ and a ‘commie’ in the White House.
So how could we maneuver Akin into the GOP driver’s seat?... A ‘dog whistle’ ad... put Akin’s uber-conservative bona fides in an ad—and then, using reverse psychology, tell voters not to vote for him. And we needed to run the hell out of that ad... a $1.7 million plan... $750,000 at first... test to see if it was working.... The second TV buy would approach $900,000. We hoped that... some of the outside groups would augment....
We spent more money for Todd Akin in the last two weeks of the primary than he spent on his whole primary campaign... include[d] Akin’s statement that Obama was a ‘menace to civilization’ and that Akin had said of himself that he was ‘too conservative’ for Missouri.... At the end of the ad, my voice was heard saying, ‘I’m Claire McCaskill, and I approve this message’...
