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Donald Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign

McCaskill cheers Clinton; Blunt mum on GOP contenders

Deirdre Shesgreen
DSHESGREEN@USATODAY.COM
LEFT: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hugs Sen. Claire McCaskill, left, before speaking to supporters during a campaign stop at a union hall on Dec. 11 in St. Louis. ABOVE: Sen. Roy Blunt.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Claire McCaskill’s weekend travel schedule is starting to look like a guide to the early presidential states — she was in Iowa two weeks ago, rural Nevada this weekend, and she’ll be heading to South Carolina next.

In between those campaign stops, the Missouri Democrat has been popping up regularly on cable TV to tout Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects — or to bash one of Clinton’s opponents. She’s accused Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a leading GOP presidential contender, of folding “like a cheap shotgun” on immigration reform. And she’s sounded alarm bells about Sen. Bernie Sanders’ socialist leanings, trying to sully the Vermont independent as he gains on Clinton in the Democratic primary.

McCaskill endorsed Clinton 2 ½ years ago — making a splash with that surprisingly early declaration. It was particularly notable because McCaskill spurned Clinton in the 2008 race to support then-Sen. Barack Obama, a move that left many Clinton allies bitter. Now, however, the hatchets seem to be buried, as McCaskill goes all-out for Clinton — revving up Democratic voters on the campaign trail and ginning up pro-Clinton coverage in the press.

“When I make a decision, I have a tendency to be all in,” McCaskill said in an interview last week. “I’m not someone who typically treads carefully.”

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., waits for the start of the Senate Republicans media availability in the Ohio Clock Corridor on Tuesday, April 28, 2015.

By contrast, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., appears to be treading very carefully. Unlike past presidential elections, when he endorsed early and worked actively for his preferred candidate, Blunt is keeping mum this year about who he would like to see at the top of the GOP ticket.

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Blunt said there’s a good reason he is steering clear of the GOP race. For starters, several of his Senate colleagues are running and he doesn’t want to make a presidential pick that might irk one, or all, of them. And with the Republican contest unsettled and unpredictable, Blunt said, it doesn’t make much sense for him to weigh in.

“My view has been that with four of my Republican colleagues running … and no clear sense of how this was going to work out,” Blunt said last week, “that I was going to stay focused on my job in the Senate.”

In the 2012 election, Blunt did not hesitate to name his favored GOP candidate, endorsing Mitt Romney early in that contest and spearheading Romney’s effort to round up additional congressional support. Blunt played a similar role in George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns.

But Blunt’s calculations are different this year, because he will also be on the ballot along with the eventual GOP presidential nominee. Political strategists say it would be crazy for Blunt to stick his nose into the muddled GOP primary, when his own Senate seat is on the line.

“The volatile and unpredictable nature of the race makes it difficult for a lot of Republican elites to jump in,” said Steven Smith, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “With the party undecided and deeply split ... his safest bet is to just keep his powder dry and see how this sorts itself out.”

Democrats offered a harsher assessment of Blunt’s decision.

“In previous years, (Blunt) operated as the consummate D.C. insider and wanted to leverage that for his benefit” by playing a role in the GOP presidential race, said Roy Temple, chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party. “He now believes it would be a detriment … to his re-election in Missouri, so he’s stepping back from it.”

Either way, Blunt’s arms-length approach to the presidential race comes as many of his GOP colleagues are openly fretting about who the GOP nominee will be. Some Republicans have predicted an electoral wipeout if Donald Trump, the bombastic New York real-estate tycoon, or Sen. Ted Cruz, the conservative Texas firebrand, win the GOP nomination.

GOP strategists fear that Trump, who has alienated Hispanics with his incendiary remarks and anti-immigration positions, will damage the party’s efforts to expand its appeal to minorities. And they worry Cruz will similarly turn off moderates and independents with his hardline conservatism.

“I think we’ll lose if (Cruz is) our nominee,” Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Senate’s senior Republican, recently told CNN. Another GOP senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said choosing between Trump and Cruz was “like being shot or being poisoned.”

​It’s unclear how Cruz or Trump would play in Missouri, an increasingly Republican-leaning state with an independent streak.

Blunt predicted the Republican candidate will win handily in Missouri, no matter who the nominee is. And he shrugged off questions about whether Trump or Cruz could hurt his own prospects by alienating swing voters.

“I’m not nearly as agitated about this as many of my colleagues are,” Blunt said of a possible Trump or Cruz victory. “It’s still early. I think a lot will happen in the next three weeks that people don’t anticipate.”

John Hancock, head of the Missouri Republican Party, was equally bullish about the GOP presidential race. He said the only candidates who will turn off Missouri’s independent voters are on the Democratic ledger.

“The polls I’ve seen indicate that neither Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders has a chance in Missouri,” Hancock said. He noted, with some glee, that even McCaskill conceded Sanders would be electoral toast in the Show-Me State if he were to win the Democratic nomination.

“That’s not something you would typically say about a fellow member of your party,” Hancock said. “That shows she is definitely engaged all the way for Hillary Clinton.”

He noted her role is a switch from 2012, when McCaskill faced her own re-election challenge and appeared to distance herself from President Obama as he sought a second term.

McCaskill said such assertions were “overblown” and she has always been an enthusiastic Obama supporter. Now, she said, she is relishing her role as a Clinton campaign cheerleader.

“I know it would be politically smarter if I laid low,” McCaskill said, as she prepared to spend her Saturday night serving as a Clinton surrogate at a Democratic banquet in rural Nevada. “But I don’t know half-speed on this stuff.”

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