World’s Largest Cross, Effingham IL

Today in Politico, Claire McCaskill (D), senior Senator from Missouri has just published an excerpt from her new memoir, “Plenty Ladylike”. The article entitled, “How I Helped Todd Akin Win — So I Could Beat Him Later” carries the McCaskill byline. In this article’s lead paragraph, she boldly brags about manipulating the Republican primary and engineering her own reelection. She did this by aiding the GOP nomination of Todd Akin of eventual ‘legitimate rape’ fame. He was nominated and was actually leading McCaskill until his televised comments about rape on August 19, 2012. This is an example of down and dirty Missouri politics at its best. I’d like to believe that my $100 contribution to her 2012 campaign became part of the monies that she used to support the Akin primary campaign. Harry Truman would have been proud. Ballsy!

It was August 7, 2012, and I was standing in my hotel room in Kansas City about to shotgun a beer for the first time in my life. I had just made the biggest gamble of my political career—a $1.7 million gamble—and it had paid off. Running for reelection to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Missouri, I had successfully manipulated the Republican primary so that in the general election I would face the candidate I was most likely to beat. And this is how I had promised my daughters we would celebrate.