A broken drawer on Sen. Claire McCaskill’s, D-Mo., RV is now fueling her persistent private plane problem to the tune of seven figures in Missouri.
After the Democratic incumbent was caught taking her private plane between stops on what her campaign billed as an RV tour of her state last month, McCaskill came clean, explaining, “I was on the RV so much that the broken drawer drove me crazy.”
It might have been cheaper to just fix the drawer.
McCaskill’s plane has been an albatross for her political career, albeit one she has so far managed to outrun. Back in 2011, she admitted to failing to pay almost $320,000 in back taxes on the aircraft, and had to reimburse the federal treasury more than $88,000 for using taxpayer money to cover the cost of roughly 90 flights.
On Wednesday, less than a month after the RV dustup, Missouri Rising (a state-based affiliate of America Rising Squared) launched a seven-figure campaign boosting a 30-second television ad that featured the controversy. Framing the senator as a “Washington politician,” the spot mentions McCaskill’s “30 years in office” and describes her as an “out-of-touch” “multimillionaire.”
“McCaskill billed taxpayers nearly 76 grand for her personal private plane flights, jet-setting between her sprawling Missouri mansion, and her multimillion dollar condo in D.C.,” says the narrator. “Now, McCaskill’s misleading us, claiming to be on an RV tour of Missouri, but using a private plane between stops.”
“Dishonest. Out of touch. McCaskill is out for herself, not us,” the ad concludes.
McCaskill’s likely Republican opponent, state Attorney General Josh Hawley, is working to cast her as an elite political insider, and has made the cultural rift between Missouri and the coastal centers of power a defining campaign issue.
Her private plane would have helped Hawley’s case enough, allowing him to harp on her personal wealth and bring up the back taxes and Treasury reimbursement. But to fly it between stops on what’s supposed to be an RV tour was a costly and unforced error for McCaskill. She has given Republicans an opportunity to question both her honesty and her ability to relate to the working class.
