Missouri senator's exit alters political landscape
By SUZANNE GAMBOA
Associated Press
January 9, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The decision by Republican Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri to end more than a two-decade run in the Senate had an immediate impact on the political outlook for his home state and made the next election cycle tougher for the national GOP.
Republicans lost three of the five Senate seats opened by retirements last year and are facing at least one more retirement in Florida, a swing state.
Bond already was headed toward a highly competitive, highly watched re-election bid in 2010. By announcing Thursday that he would not seek re-election when his current term ends, Bond accelerated the ground game for the candidates that will vie for his seat.
"There is no doubt that if Senator Bond's name was on the ballot in November of 2010 he would have won," Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., considered a potential candidate for Bond's seat, said in a statement.
Sen. John Cornyn, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Republicans had "a number of qualified candidates to carry forward the Republican vision" and had been preparing for a competitive race in Missouri long before Bond's decision.
"I am confident our message will resonate with the voters of Missouri in 2010," said Cornyn, whose committee is responsible for getting Republicans elected to the Senate.
Missouri voters have been unpredictable in statewide elections lately. They handed Democrat Jay Nixon an easy victory last year in the governor's race, then backed Republican John McCain in the presidential election. Two years prior, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, managed to win her seat by a slim margin.
"The state is really on a teeter-totter," said Richard Fulton, a political science professor at Northwest Missouri State University. "We've been a state that has been swinging back and forth between Democrats and Republicans at the statewide level. ... Bond's retiring opens up the whole thing."
Democrats have 58 Senate seats and could get 59 if courts in Minnesota uphold Al Franken's recount victory. They would need 60 seats to stop Republican filibusters.
Michael Kelley, a St. Louis-based Democratic strategist, said Bond has been a stumbling block for his party's candidates, because in addition to performing well in rural areas, he has been able to pick up votes in the traditional Democratic urban areas of St. Louis and Kansas City.
Taking the Senate seat is "becoming a much more doable task with the candidate being anyone one other than Bond." Kelley said.
Robin Carnahan, Missouri's secretary of state, had been considered the strongest Democratic contender to take on Bond in 2010. With Bond out of the picture, "this may embolden others to challenge her," Fulton said.
Meanwhile, Republicans now have to launch two expensive, competitive campaigns to try to hang onto the Missouri and Florida seats next year.
Mel Martinez of Florida has said he is not seeking re-election, leaving open a seat in a state won by President-elect Barack Obama in November. President George W. Bush's brother Jeb once was expected to pursue Martinez's seat but has since bowed out.
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