The election juggernaut that is the Jim Talent re-election campaign hit a wee little bump this week in the Missouri bootheel. Left in Missouri has learned that at two recent campaign stops, the Talent team was only able to scrape together 5 - that's right FIVE - people interested enough in Mr. Talent and his plans for Missouri to come listen to him speak.
The first stop was in Sikeston. When Talent walked in, this is what he saw: two people assembling a 1,000-piece puzze of Big Ben, two old salts chatting about the war, and Shirla, a disgruntled Democrat from Dexter. The director of the center came in to ask if anybody wanted juice, and a woman named Dorothy from the Dept. of Aging in Cape Girardeau watched the goldfish.
Here's a nice picture of Senator Talent hashing things out with two visitors:
After a brief conference with his campaign staffer, Talent decided to "visit" with people. The puzzlers were more than happy to have him. "Pull up a chair!" they said, "this is a hard puzzle." Realizing that this couple had no intention of discussing Medicare or any other issues of the day, Talent admired the large clock in its various stages, then moved on to the war story guys. The war story guys were mostly interested in talking about the war. Talent listened, but seemed to grow impatient after ten or fifteen minutes. Then he walked over to Shirla, where he got to spend some quality time with one of his constituents, getting an earful over the many ways Republicans have screwed this country up before she walked out.
At the next stop, in Jackson, again only five seniors showed up, along with a few reporters - including one from The New York Times, and Dorothy. Talent recited his usual Medicare talking points and got the hell out of there.Republicans love to claim that they own outstate Missouri. Jim Talent's performance in Sikeston and Jackson says otherwise. Two stops - 10 potential voters. Compare that to the 50 attendees who met with Claire McCaskill at the kickoff of her Medicare-RV trip in Mexico, Missouri last week and the picture becomes clear. Missourians are waking up to the fact that Jim Talent has marched in lock-step with the Bush administration since taking office and that it is to Missouri's detriment. Jim Talent wants to go back to Washington, D.C., to help his buddies in the oil companies, the drug companies and the war-profiteers. That is why he is running for re-election. He could care less about average Missourians, except to the extent that they might (foolishly) vote for him.
His message is falling on deaf ears.