Divided Missouri Democrats uniting for 2006 elections

HANNIBAL, Mo. -- Missouri Democrats, not long ago divided, were united Saturday as they looked toward the 2006 elections with high hopes of regaining offices lost in recent years to Republicans.

This year's Missouri Democrat Days was a marked departure from two years ago, when a gubernatorial primary topped their ticket and divided donors and voters.

Democrats in 2004 ended up losing the governor's office, capping a downward slide in which they lost a U.S. Senate seat, their majority in statewide offices and control of both chambers of the state legislature in a span of less than four years.

This year, however, Democrats sense their fortune is turning -- or returning, as it may be.

"I think Democrats are so convinced that we've got to get together, that they've put the past behind them," said former Sen. Jean Carnahan, whose late husband was the last clear leader of a united Democratic Party. Now, "everyone is in one accord."

Democrats have been in decline since the unusual November 2000 elections, in which then-Gov. Mel Carnahan defeated Republican U.S. Sen. John Ashcroft despite dying in a plane crash a few weeks earlier. Jean Carnahan was appointed to her husband's seat.

But she lost a 2002 special election to retain that seat to Republican Jim Talent, who is up for election to a full six-year term this year. Talent's opponent this year is Democratic State Auditor Claire McCaskill, who was at the center of party division two years ago when she successfully challenged incumbent Gov. Bob Holden in the Democratic primary only to lose the general election to Republican Matt Blunt.

In March 2004, McCaskill and Holden factions were handing out rival yard signs, lapel stickers and bumper strips at the Hannibal hotel that is the home of the annual event.

McCaskill on Saturday recalled the 2004 Hannibal event as "one of the most difficult experiences I've ever been through." But this year, Democrats are united behind McCaskill's challenge to Talent.

"There has been a tremendous sea change in our party," McCaskill said. "We are working together, we are working hard, we are working smart, because we have a sense of urgency about the way people are getting kicked to the curb, how people are being treated" under Republican administrations.

State Democratic Party Chairman Roger Wilson said the surging party unity is related to an effort at building a party structure not dependent on having an incumbent governor.

The Senate race is not the only one where Democrats have tried to avoid primary fights.

Senate Minority Leader Maida Coleman, of St. Louis, bowed out of the state auditor's race last week -- the third Democrat to do so -- leaving Buchanan County Auditor Susan Montee as the party's only candidate for the job.

Republicans, meanwhile, have four people competing in the state auditor's primary.

"Primary fights are not good -- usually the other party wins," Coleman told fellow Democrats.

Montee, who supported McCaskill's 2004 challenge of Holden, said she is unsure whether the party's recent experience with divisiveness led to her own so-far unchallenged primary. (Candidate filing officially runs through March 28.) Montee believes her $500,000 personal commitment to the campaign and her qualifications as an auditor, accountant and attorney played a role.

But "if we had an ugly, negative primary, we would come out weaker," Montee said.

John Hancock, a Missouri Republican Party consultant and spokesman, had plenty of experience in the political minority before his party became the majority. He said Democrats "are more united than they have been in some time, by virtue of the fact they don't have any power."

Republicans, meanwhile, have seen recent splits between Blunt and House Speaker Rod Jetton on several issues, and division among some of its pro-business and anti-abortion contingents over the issue of embryonic stem cell research.

"When there's policy-making authority coupled with political power, it becomes harder to keep a party unified," Hancock said. "It's remarkable we've been able to maintain that unity despite our successes."

Democratic candidates repeatedly stressed party unity in speeches Saturday while criticizing Blunt's cuts to the state Medicaid health care program for the poor and Talent's position on early stem cell research.

Talent last month withdrew his support of a federal bill banning all cloning of human embryos and threw it behind a potential alternative form of stem cell research. He has yet to take a position on a likely ballot measure that would guarantee all federally legal forms of stem cell research can occur in Missouri.

McCaskill supports the ballot measure, and her campaign crews hung up signs Saturday depicting a box of breakfast waffles with the slogan: "It takes Talent to be a good waffler."

Hancock replied that those Democrats lack "the mental acuity to understand the extremely thoughtful and cutting-edge position of Sen. Talent."