Missouri Largest Prize in Feb. 3 Primaries

Missouri is the biggest prize of Feb. 3 primary states, with 74 delegate votes up for grabs. Before his departure from the race following a disappointing showing in the Iowa caucuses, native son Rep. Richard Gephardt was favored to win the state. With the end of Gephardt’s candidacy, the Missouri race is seen as an open contest.

On Jan. 29, St. Louis Post Dispatch political reporter Ellen Soeteber told the NewsHour that Missouri Democrats are interested in voting for a candidate who has a chance of defeating President Bush in November’s general election.

“A lot of Democrats here have come to really distrust President Bush,” Soeteber said. “They dislike him almost as much as the Republicans disliked President Clinton. And so electability is something that is being talked about a lot here in Missouri.”

In fact, according to Soeteber, the primary contest in Missouri may well point to the Democratic candidate best suited to take on the president.

“Missouri is a bellwether state,” Soeteber said. “It’s an interesting statistic that in the entire 20th century Missouri voted for the winner in the presidential election every year but one, 1956.”

This ability to pick a winner may be due in part to the state’s “middle America” status, which has as much to do with its population’s political leanings as geography.

Like the nation as a whole, Missouri is closely divided in its politics. Three of Missouri’s recent statewide elections prove the point. In the 2000 presidential election Republican George W. Bush beat Democrat Al Gore 50 percent to 47 percent. In that same year Democrat Bob Holden won the governorship 49 percent to 48 percent, defeating Republican Jim Talent. The U.S. Senate race that year also proved to be a close contest when deceased Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan (who died in a plane crash 22 days before the election) beat Republican John Ashcroft 51 percent to 48 percent.

In the 2002 Senate race Jim Talent, the GOP candidate, won 50 percent to 49 percent, defeating Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan who had been sent to the Senate via a special two-year gubernatorial appointment after her late husband Mel Carnahan beat Ashcroft in 2000.

Political analyst Michael Barone, writing in the 2004 Almanac of American Politics, pointed out that Missouri’s large urban centers, Kansas City and St. Louis, slightly favored Al Gore over George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election while Bush won decisively in the state’s rural areas.

Barone agrees that Missouri is an important “presidential bellwether,” a status he attributes to its “peculiar balance of North and South, urban and rural.”

Since Gephardt’s departure from the race, the remaining Democrats have had to scramble to size up Missouri’s unique political disposition, decide on the appropriate level of campaign resources to use in the state, and deploy on-the-ground organizations to get the word out to voters.

“This is a real whirlwind campaign because none of them expected to campaign here because they didn’t expect Congressman Gephardt to drop out so quickly,” said Soeteber. “In fact, when we went out to talk to voters on Tuesday and Wednesday most of them were not aware that there was going to be a primary election next week.”

Soeteber said that the campaigns of Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and the Rev. Al Sharpton are currently the most active in the state.

Kerry, Edwards and retired Gen. Wesley Clark have reportedly hired political operatives with ties to Gephardt and are seeking endorsements from top Democrats in the state in order to gain an edge.

Clark and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean are also reportedly relying on a large group of volunteer campaign workers to spread their message through the state.

Many of Gephardt’s political allies, including various elected officials, have thrown their support to either Kerry or Edwards, who lobbied for their assistance, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reported on Jan. 29.

Gephardt has not said whether he will endorse one of the candidates, nor has Democratic Gov. Bob Holden.

Kerry’s recent success in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary may give him an advantage, especially if the electability issue remains at the top of Missourians’ list of desirable traits.

On Jan. 30 a Zogby Missouri tracking poll gave Kerry a large lead with 45 percent followed by Edwards (11 percent) and Dean (9 percent).

Some political observers of the “Show Me” state, however, say its citizens may be slow to coalesce around one candidate’s approach or platform.

Political observers have also said that the state’s Democrats are more practical than ideological, making it hard to galvanize them with specific issues.

“The threads that bind Missourians together are harder to weave than in other states,” Democratic state Attorney General Jay Nixon told the Chicago Tribune on Jan. 29. “It’s hard to find themes that unite Missouri.”

Edwards, who may hope to match his rural/southern roots with those of similar background in Missouri, agrees that campaigning in the state will be an uphill battle.

“I think Missouri is more of a wild card,” Edwards told CNN Jan. 29. “Some of the states, like Oklahoma, New Mexico, obviously South Carolina, that we’ve been campaigning in for a year, it’ll be easier for voters to know more about us.”

Local observers agree that inspiring Missourians to vote for one of the remaining candidates in an unusually early primary after the state’s favorite son candidate has left the race will be a serious challenge.

“Voters in Missouri will cast their ballots Tuesday for their favorite candidate or political party,” declared The Sedalia Democrat, a small Missouri newspaper, on Jan. 30, “or just sit at home.”