Flashback: What Do Red State Office-Seekers Want?

Every time the topic comes up as to which of our presidential candidates would do a better job in helping Democrats in down-ticket races, I turn to a May 29, 2006 article in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Goldberg.

Goldberg focused on Missouri, where a August 2004 visit by running mates Kerry and Edwards turned sour when Teresa Heinz Kerry started preaching the virtues of organic farming to the local hog farmers.  Claire McCaskill was running for governor then and barely lost; in 2006, she was in the midst of her successful run for the Senate, and spoke about what it's like campaigning in a purple state like Missouri:

In many ways, McCaskill sounds like any traditional Democrat. She speaks out against oil companies and pharmaceutical companies—she usually gets her biggest applause when she condemns Bush’s prescription-drug plan—and she is in favor of abortion rights, although she doesn’t make it a central issue. "If people ask, I tell them I’m pro-choice," she said. "That doesn’t mean I can’t understand the other side of the debate, though." She went on, "Being a Democrat is about balance. It’s about being moderate and truthful and strong. Harry Truman, leaders like that, they were strong enough to take on foreign enemies when they needed to, but they were also strong enough to know when not to fight, when to use other weapons besides military force. That’s the message the Democratic Party should be sending. We should let the American people know we want to work with allies, work with the U.N., and that we don’t like war, but that we’ll defend this country’s interests with everything we’ve got."

Referring to the Kerry-Edwards campaign stop, she said, "I’m sure Teresa’s motives were fine. But I think it’s a tone thing. It’s the ‘We know better’ thing. Some of it is completely unfair, but there’s a critical number of Missourians who believe that people from the East Coast or West Coast don’t think that people in the heartland are smart."

Goldberg goes on to talk to Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Rahm Emanuel and others about what they believed in 2006 it would take for Democrats to win again, returning to McCaskill and others when the subject of 2008 came up:

Hillary Clinton is a sensitive subject for McCaskill. After the governor’s race two years ago, many Missouri Democrats assumed that in 2008 McCaskill would make another run against Matt Blunt, the Republican who defeated her. But she has told people in Missouri and in Washington that a ticket led by Clinton would be fatal for many Democrats on the ballot, and that a Clinton candidacy would rule out her chance to win the governorship. "The Democratic Party has to look at candidates who can be competitive in all fifty states," she said. A few days later, at the annual Jackson Day dinner of the Greene County Democrats, in Springfield, Republican protesters held signs labelling her "New York’s third senator."

In states like Missouri, coolness toward Hillary Clinton puts many Democrats in an uncomfortable position. Harold Ford, Jr., is close to both Clintons. He is running a strong race in Tennessee -- if he wins, he would be the first popularly elected African-American senator from the South. When I asked Ford if Hillary Clinton would be campaigning with him, he said, "I’m not running away from her position on the war or her position on energy independence. I’m doing events with her." When I asked him where, he said, "In Washington."

Some Democrats fear any association with national Democrats, who are perceived to be too liberal. "I had this notion that I could convince people who were skeptical of national Democrats to vote for me because I could bring home the bacon, or because I could find some personal pitch to them," Brad Carson, the former Oklahoma congressman, said. "But it was very hard for people to separate me out from Hillary Clinton. All their ads were Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, and me. They said I was more liberal than these guys, and that if I went to Washington I’d be supporting their agenda. I found that extremely difficult to overcome."

Across Missouri, I heard similar fears. At a breakfast fund-raiser for McCaskill in Kansas City, Katheryn J. Shields, a Democrat who is the chief executive of Jackson County, which encompasses Kansas City, said of Hillary Clinton, "She’s great." But when asked if Clinton should be the Party’s nominee, Shields said, "That would be a hard one." The outgoing executive director of the Greene County Democrats, Nora Walcott, was more direct. Though she said she was to the left in the Party, she feared that Clinton’s liberal credentials would alienate Missouri voters. "You’ve got to tell the people in Washington not to nominate Hillary," she told me. "It would do so much damage to the Missouri Democratic Party."

So who did McCaskill want in Missouri?

Only a few nationally known Democrats have been invited to Missouri to speak on Claire McCaskill’s behalf; one was Obama, whom she described as "so popular that we have to get him back." Obama returns the compliment: McCaskill, he told me, "is a terrific candidate who is deeply rooted in Missouri and understands the people of Missouri." He added, "A successful swing-state candidate can and should stand for progressive values, but they’ve got to appeal to common sense and pragmatism as opposed to ideology. I think what doesn’t work in these places is a sense that you are ideologically liberal."

We can get up to 60 seats in the Senate, and we can keep electing more and better Democrats in the House, but we need a presidential candidate who wants to campaign in all 50 states, and who will be welcome in every single one of them.