Gray hue for Holden

By Steve Kraske ~ The Kansas City Star

Feel free to send a sympathy card to us political correspondents who aren't based in recall-frenzied California for the looniest political story in decades.

To be sure, Missouri is no California. And while nothing will match the Gray Davis fiasco, I'm starting to think the Missouri governor's race may be a decent consolation prize.

On Thursday, a grizzled Kansas City political operative with ties to Democrat Claire McCaskill showed up bearing an intriguing gift: a statewide Missouri governor's race poll.

The survey compared Democratic Gov. Bob Holden with McCaskill, the state auditor and his potential primary challenger. And the poll showed how both matched up against the likely Republican nominee, Matt Blunt.

Now, those of us who cover politics know to be wary of polls. They can be easily manipulated.

But Thursday the political operative took an unusual step. He handed me the whole poll, as opposed to a few select questions. Inside the survey was the nugget that more than half of Missourians had no opinion of McCaskill or had never heard of her.

By itself, that suggests McCaskill has an enormous hill to climb if she decides to challenge Holden.

That gave the poll an air of credibility. So did the response of one of Holden's top aides when I ran Holden's Gray Davis-like numbers past him. The aide acknowledged, as Holden has, that 2 1/2 years of running Missouri in a down economy had taken a bite out of Holden's standing, just as it had governors everywhere.

"Bob Holden is fighting for the right principles," the aide said. Voters will reward him in the long run.

The poll was conducted by the respected Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. I wondered about the sample, however. The poll seemed to include too many Republicans. A few findings didn't make sense.

Still, the trends were clear. The numbers showed that Davis and Holden were at least kissing cousins when it came to their popularity in their two states. The poll said only 30 percent of Missourians thought Holden was doing a good or excellent job as governor.

Two-thirds thought he was doing a fair or poor job.

Only 19 percent said they would vote to re-elect him. Despite McCaskill's relative obscurity, she and Blunt are in a virtual tie in a hypothetical matchup. Blunt beats Holden 41 percent to 37 percent.

And these numbers were generated not long after the Democratic Party poured big dollars into pro-Holden TV and radio ads as the governor was squaring off against the GOP-controlled General Assembly in May and June.

It's a bleak picture for Holden, and the McCaskill forces are busy spreading poll excerpts across Missouri.

Whether you buy the numbers or not, the fact that McCaskill is distributing it says something important about the potential for a 2004 Democratic primary.

In passing out the poll, McCaskill has upped the ante by raising serious doubts about Holden's ability to win another term. That's a serious contention, coming as it does from a member of Holden's party.

And it makes it more difficult for McCaskill to back out and throw her support to Holden for the sake of party unity.

Lots of people think McCaskill already is in the race. I've been a holdout. Winning a primary against a sitting governor is the political equivalent of scaling Mount Everest.

Now, thanks to the poll, I'm sliding the other way. I think she's running. McCaskill is going for broke.