This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 19, 2010 - U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., called on the Missouri National Guard over the weekend to be alert to the election challenges facing U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Lexington, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee.
"Missouri has no idea how lucky we are to have Ike Skelton,'' McCaskill said, at the end of an address Saturday to members of the Missouri National Guard Association at its annual conference, held over the weekend at the Airport Marriott hotel.
After speaking for about 20 minutes about the importance of the Guard and her recent overseas trip to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, McCaskill veered into territory that she acknowledged to her audience could be interpreted as political.
McCaskill praised Skelton's pro-military stance and said he is committed to making sure that National Guard troops -- especially those deployed overseas in hot spots -- are not short-changed by the nation's other armed services.
As a Missouri congressman, she continued, Skelton is particularly attuned to the Guard troops in his home state. She also cited his 35-year congressional record as a socially conservative Democrat.
"He's somebody who's independent, somebody who respects Missouri values," she said, adding that he regularly disagrees with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. -- who just happens to be a favorite conservative target,.
Even so, McCaskill said that national Republicans are out to oust him this fall. "They're going to come after Ike," the senator said. "It hurts my heart."
Skelton, in office since 1977 in western Missouri's 4th District, is arguably the biggest GOP congressional target in Missouri this year. Ten Republicans have filed for his seat, along with one Democrat.
The best-known and best-financed Republicans are Vicky Jo Hartzler and Bill Stouffer. But last week's campaign reports showed that Skelton, for the moment, has amassed a huge financial edge.
And according to a recent account in the St. Louis Business Journal, Skelton is getting a lot of help from some prominent St. Louisans, including Boeing's political action committee.
Here's the latest numbers for the three biggest money-raisers, according to their reports filed last Thursday:
Skelton
Raised: $1,537,622
Spent: $507,479
On hand: $1,232,078
Hartzler
Raised: $396,785
Spent: $100,665
On hand: $296,119
Debt: $105,000
Stouffer
Raised: $391,163
Spent: $120,359
On hand: $270,803
Debt: $50,000
UPDATE: Monday afternoon, Skelton offered words of praise for the Obama administration's efforts that apparently contributed to the deaths over the weekend of the two top leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq.
As reported by the Washington publication, The Hill: "The chairman, who has at times clashed with the Obama administration's position on the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy against gays in the military, commended it for working to root out terrorist groups in the Middle East.
"Under President Obama, we have stepped up the fight against terrorists, capturing or killing hundreds of al Qaeda’s fighters and their affiliates in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen — including the most significant captures of Afghan Taliban leaders since the start of the war in Afghanistan," he said.
