Born in 1956 in Des Peres, Missouri to a labor-management lawyer father and a mother who owned her own court reporting business, former Congressman Jim Talent became active in politics while in school at Missouri's Washington University. There he joined a young Republicans group and another conservative group called The Second Side, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

He graduated with a degree in political science in 1978 and earned a law degree from the University of Chicago in 1981, where he met his future wife, Brenda. He spent the next year clerking for Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals in Chicago.

In 1984, at the age of 28, Talent took the plunge twice, marrying Brenda and making his first run for office -- a successful bid for the Missouri state Senate. Within five years, the then-32-year-old Talent was voted the state Senate minority leader -- a post he held from 1989 to 1993.

In 1992, Talent set his sights on Washington, DC -- seeking a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri's 2nd District, a region near St. Louis that holds some of the fastest-growing affluent suburbs in the country. It wasn't an easy race. In the Republican primary, he faced off against Bert Walker -- also known as George Herbert Walker III, the cousin of then-President George H. W. Bush.

Walker had endorsements of several of Mr. Bush's Cabinet members and a bigger campaign war chest, but Talent still prevailed. In the general election, he faced sitting Rep. Joan Kelly Horn, a Democrat who won the seat in 1990 by a razor-thin 54-vote margin. In the end, Talent edged out the incumbent by a slim 2 percentage points.

Earning a reputation as a no-nonsense detail stickler, Talent had little problem during the "Republican Revolution" of 1994, trounced Joan Kelly Horn once again in a 61 to 37 percent victory in 1996 and garnered a whopping 70 percent of the vote in 1998.

During his years in Congress, Talent amassed a strong conservative voting record, supporting measures like a ban on "partial birth" abortions, the 1996 overhaul of welfare laws and a move to repeal the ban on certain types of assault weapons.

But he also established a reputation on both sides of the aisle as a nice guy, the Post-Dispatch says. "I never saw Jim Talent do an inconsiderate thing to another person," House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said.

Missouri Auditor Claire McCaskill, a Democrat served in the state House with Talent, expressed similar sentiments to the Post-Dispatch, although she phrased them somewhat differently: "Jim was very skillful at being a pretty rigid ideologue, very right-wing, without showing people that," she said. "This is a very likable guy, and sometimes you found yourself forgetting what an ideologue he is."

Talent took his winning electoral record and voter-friendly image on the road once again in 2000, this time waging what many said was an issue-oriented campaign against Democrat Bob Holden - especially compared to the fire-and-brimstone Senate battle raging between Republican Sen. John Ashcroft and Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan.

But Carnahan died in a plane crash on Oct. 17, just weeks before the election, casting a pall on the state's political contests. Election day netted Carnahan a posthumous victory and handed Talent his first defeat - a move some analysts say stemmed in part from the Carnahan tragedy.

The same political cloud still looms over Talent's latest effort -- a bid to serve the remainder of Carnahan's Senate term. In 2000, acting Gov. Roger Wilson appointed Carnahan's widow, Jean, to fill two years of her late husband's stint in office -- but Missouri law says Jean Carnahan's appointment only lasts until the next major statewide election.

Carnahan wants to keep the seat -- and the battle over it has been an oddly civil, yet tense, affair given the situation's delicate circumstances.

"Let's put it this way," Talent told the Christian Science Monitor in August, "Even the most hard-bitten consultant is not going to lean on me to go negative." Instead, Talent has been campaigning hard. In August, he launched a "Main Street Missouri Tour," visiting each of the state's 114 counties to stump for his policy initiatives.

Although he and Carnahan remain locked in a dead heat in one of the most-watched elections of the season, Talent has kept his focus small, hoping to drum up enough support to earn a ticket back to Washington.

--By Greg Barber, Online NewsHour