Talent to advise GOP state lawmakers' election committees

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Former U.S. Sen. Jim Talent has a new job: help get Republican state lawmakers elected.

House and Senate Republican leaders announced Monday that Talent would be their committees' honorary chairman. Talent was defeated in his 2006 re-election bid.

Since then, he has worked as an adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and as a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think-tank.

Talent says his job will be to ensure races for state House and Senate seats aren't overshadowed by presidential and gubernatorial contests.

He says he plans to contrast Missouri's budgetary and job situation in 2008 with what it was like four years ago, before Republicans gained complete control of state government.