JEFFERSON CITY, MO. A low-pitched buzz hums from the lavender neon sign promoting the “Capital Ritz” banquet hall and dance studio in Cole County, Missouri. It’s the perfect venue for a gathering of local Republican activists–with mirrors lining the studio walls, the group of maybe 150 looks several times larger. A couple of one-person TV news operations set up cameras near the front of the room to await the arrival of Jim Talent, the GOP candidate for the Senate. Although Cole County is home to the state’s capital, Jefferson City, it is largely rural and, like most outlying Missouri counties, has steadily become more Republican over the past two decades. Talent, a former congressman from St. Louis who is challenging Democratic incumbent Jean Carnahan, shouldn’t have much trouble winning here in November. But the size of his winning margins in rural counties like Cole may well determine who wins the race. In 2000, both President Bush and former senator John Ashcroft won rural Missouri–home to nearly half of the state’s voters–in convincing fashion, with 3-to-1 margins in some counties. Talent, in his unsuccessful gubernatorial bid that same year, also swept most of rural Missouri. But not as impressively. He’ll have to do much better this time to displace Carnahan. The Missouri race will be one of the most closely watched Senate contests this year, because the current 50-49-1 balance of power means control of the chamber is up for grabs, and surveys earlier this year by Talent’s campaign and a Democratic polling firm show this race as a dead heat. What’s more, Mrs. Carnahan was appointed to the seat after her husband, who died in a plane crash three weeks before Election Day, posthumously defeated John Ashcroft. She thus enters the race as an incumbent senator who has never before run for political office. Indeed, she assails Talent as “a professional politician.” Sure enough, with more than six months until Election Day, Talent has already visited nearly half of Missouri’s 114 counties. It is an exhausting pace befitting a race that both national parties call one of their highest priorities. “I have never been more determined to do anything in my life than to win this Senate race,” he says. If Carnahan shares that intensity, it is not yet reflected in her schedule. The “campaign calendar” on her website lists no upcoming events. Even her campaign announcement was something of an afterthought. She dropped the news when asked by a reporter. By that time, most observers assumed she would run, because Carnahan boasted robust fund-raising totals last year. But a Carnahan spokesman says it’s too early to start campaigning. “Senator Carnahan makes no apologies about doing her job in the Senate,” says Dan Leistikow. “There will be plenty of time for campaigning later in the fall, after the primaries.” The race is one of several Midwest Senate contests–along with those in Minnesota, Iowa, and South Dakota–that will be among the most fiercely fought battles this election season. President Bush has visited Missouri twice this year–once on official duties in January and again for a Talent fund-raiser last month–and he has dispatched family members and top staff. Talent collected $450,000 at the fund-raiser featuring Bush, a sum that helped him outraise Carnahan in the first quarter of the year. (Carnahan still leads Talent $3.5 million to $2.1 million in cash-on-hand.) And in a sign of the White House’s willingness to help, Bush used the fund-raiser to take a shot at Carnahan’s record. He scolded her for helping to dilute a get-tough election reform bill pushed by Missouri’s senior senator, Kit Bond. “Half of the senators understand what he’s trying to do,” Bush said, referring to Bond’s efforts to promote clean elections. “It seems like one out of the two senators from Missouri understands that.” Bush made his criticism gently, without naming Carnahan. But among Missouri Republicans election reform remains a sensitive issue. And it’s one of many ways in which the bizarre events of the 2000 election in this state will influence the race. Bond’s interest in election reform intensified on Election Day 2000, when a federal judge ordered polls in St. Louis to stay open beyond their advertised 7 P.M. closing. Shortly after that decision, voters in the city began receiving pre-recorded messages from Jesse Jackson alerting them to the late closing time and encouraging them to head to the polls. By the time a second judge ordered the polls closed, thousands of additional votes had been cast. Although those shenanigans were overshadowed nationally by the presidential debacle in Florida, they have received close attention in the local press, thanks in part to scrutiny from Missouri’s Republican secretary of state, Matt Blunt. Just as Florida Democrats hope to capitalize this year on the perception that Al Gore was wronged in their state, Missouri Republicans are juiced about payback in 2002. The most obvious residual effect of the last election, of course, is the fact that there is a Senate race at all, a special election to determine who will fill out the remaining four years of Mel Carnahan’s term. When the late governor defeated Ashcroft, many Republicans urged Ashcroft to challenge the outcome, based on a requirement that senators must be living in the state at the time of their election. Ashcroft, who suspended his campaign immediately upon hearing the news of the plane crash, refused. The day after the election, he offered a gracious and emotional concession to Mrs. Carnahan. “I hope the outcome of this election is a matter of comfort to Mrs. Carnahan,” he said. “Missouri is a compassionate state, and I think, in a very special way, [voters] have demonstrated their compassion.” The tragic and unusual end to what had been a bitter Senate race also distracted attention from the relatively civil contest for governor that saw Talent lose to low-key state treasurer Bob Holden by just 20,000 votes. That Missouri remained one of the most closely contested states in the waning days of the presidential election further obscured the gubernatorial campaign. And for all that has happened in the 15 months since Carnahan took office, Republicans attending the party’s “Cole County Lincoln Days” celebration seemed most focused on the vote Carnahan cast shortly after she was sworn in to turn down John Ashcroft’s nomination to be attorney general. “If you want to get an applause line in rural Missouri, just mention Mrs. Carnahan’s ‘no’ vote on Ashcroft,” says Patricia “Pat” Secrest, a Republican state representative who is already campaigning across the state for her lieutenant governor’s race in 2004. “She didn’t even extend him senatorial courtesy, even after the courtesy he extended her by not challenging the results. She went to the Senate with absolutely no record, and that was her first big vote. People here remember that vote.” Talent didn’t use that applause line at the Capital Ritz, but he agrees that it will be an issue in the campaign. “Mrs. Carnahan’s going to have to explain that vote,” he says. “I find it inexplicable. To say that he’s not qualified to be attorney general is a slap in the face of the Missouri voters who elected him here five times.” One of the few major issues not stemming from the 2000 election is Carnahan’s decision to oppose a permanent repeal of the inheritance tax (now better known, perhaps, as the “death tax”). Carnahan voted for President Bush’s overall tax package. But those tax cuts, including the death-tax repeal, will expire in 10 years. The White House has pushed for a vote that would make permanent all of the provisions of the tax bill, but Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle says he won’t permit such a vote. Last week, however, as part of a deal to consider energy legislation, Senate Democrats agreed to allow a floor vote on the elimination of the death tax. Carnahan has already voted against the measure once. But supporters of the bill, who say they have 58 of the 60 votes necessary to make their effort filibuster-proof, see her as “persuadable.” They may be disappointed to hear the language coming from her campaign on the issue, which is technically noncommittal, but echoes Daschle’s arguments against permanence. “Last year, Senator Carnahan worked with President Bush and members of both parties to provide meaningful tax relief, including estate tax relief,” says Leistikow, her campaign spokesman. “While no bill has yet been offered, she is supportive of providing estate tax relief for family farmers and small businesses while maintaining our commitments to Social Security and Medicare.” Talent is pleased that Carnahan will have to formally register her position on that issue a second time. “It’s one of the dumbest of all federal taxes,” he says. “It punishes people for doing exactly what we want them to do–save and take care of their families. There’s a time when you have to stand up to your party and say, ‘What you’re doing is nuts!’ She hasn’t done that.” If she thinks Talent can beat her, perhaps she will. Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
