McCaskill launches rural Missouri town hall meetings in bid to stake out the middle

Aug. 12--UPDATED with reaction.

SULLIVAN, Mo. --A year out from what could be the toughest election fight of her life, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., sought to burnish her centrist credentials Friday, recounting to a crowd in this small town her efforts at bipartisan legislation in Washington, slamming over-regulation by the government and stressing that she doesn't think America can afford a Bernie Sanders-style single-payer national health care system.

McCaskill will seek next year her third Senate term in a state that has moved sharply to the right since she first took office. Targeted as one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the nation, she is using the August Senate recess to visit more than two dozen mostly rural communities around the state to hammer home her long-cultivated political persona as a moderate with a personal history that started in what is now solid red rural Missouri.

"I'm doing these in places where I'm not that popular," McCaskill told about 80 people who gathered for a "town hall" meeting with her at the Sullivan Senior Center in this town of about 7,000 some 65 miles southwest of St. Louis. "I really think it's important that I go places and hear from people who don't necessarily agree with me."

But in fact, the audience -- most of them older adults -- who showed up for the open event appeared to be, if anything, to McCaskill's left on several issues -- particularly the issue of President Donald Trump.

When one of them quipped that Trump might have been "separated at birth" from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, McCaskill declined to join in the room-wide laughter and changed the subject. When one of the written audience questions asked, "How do we stop Trump from destroying our country and the world?," McCaskill responded with similar reserve.

"He was duly elected president of the United States and I have an obligation to work with him," she told them. She went on to recount talks she has had with first daughter Ivanka Trump and others in the administration on issues such as maternity leave and infrastructure.

However, McCaskill also warned that Trump's "rhetorical war" with Kim played into the dictator's hand. "This is great for him (Kim) politically," she said.

Trump won Missouri in November by almost 20 percentage points over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, with whom McCaskill was strongly allied during the campaign.

McCaskill also was targeted nationally in 2012, but ended up winning re-election easily after the GOP nominee, then-U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, made controversial comments about rape and pregnancy that lost him support across the political spectrum.

Few in the Democratic Party think McCaskill will get so lucky this time. Several serious Republicans are lining up for the party nomination, with national GOP figures backing a potential bid by Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley.

McCaskill's Friday schedule also had planned town halls in Cuba, Potosi and Farmington.

In a written statement, the Republican National Committee accused McCaskill of "pretending to be a moderate Democrat in order to win over the rural areas."

The statement claims McCaskill "votes with Elizabeth Warren 86% of the time, continues to follow along with Democrat Party leadership in obstructing the President's agenda" and "refuses to offer solutions to our broken healthcare system."

The Missouri Democratic Party later took issue with that, noting that McCaskill has sponsored legislation that would allow people in counties no health insurers to purchase insurance on the Washington, D.C., exchange.

Open town halls of the kind McCaskill is conducting this month have become rare among Republicans nationally in the wake of the GOP's recent attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare -- an endeavor that has angered progressives because it was attempted and conservatives because it failed. For the few Republicans around the country who have faced their constituents in such settings, it generally hasn't gone well.

Post-Dispatch queries to Missouri's congressional delegation this week yielded little information about potential public events by the members while they are back in the state for the August recess.

The office of Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., who won re-election last year, said his schedule was "still being finalized" but gave no indication he will hold any town-hall-style events. Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis, will conduct "multiple events with seniors, students, children, neighborhood groups," his office said.

The offices of the remaining seven members of Congress -- one Democrat and six Republicans, all of whom are up for re-election next year -- didn't respond to the newspaper's questions.

In the case of Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, an opposition group called "Missouri 2nd District for Change" is calling attention to her lack of town hall meetings by staging its own town hall event on Aug. 24 at St. Charles County Center, the group announced Friday.

Wagner has previously dismissed the group as "radical leftists that are not interested in a discussion of the issues and simply interested in protesting and yelling at people who disagree with their viewpoint."

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