MO-SEN 2018: The Megathread

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I doubt we'll be seeing the same "McCaskill funds the primary opponent most beatable" strategy again. It was innovative in 2012 but people know McCaskill will do it now, and so it's easy to make a counter ad (by Hawley or something) saying "Vicky Hartzler has support from this 'conservative' PAC. But it's actually funded by Senator McCaskill. McCaskill's lying again" and so on.

Trump's still fairly popular in Missouri, as I recall, so I still think this will be a big ol' money fight.

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You can't rely on being picked for the Supreme Court and while I'd say Hawley is qualified to be on the court, he can't assume that. People have wanted to put Tribe on the court practically since John Marshall died. Orrin Hatch wanted to be put on (he's now, what, 85?). And Bork.

Plus there's nothing saying you can't be a senator and be selected onto the court. Earl Warren was the Vice Presidential nominee and then was put as Chief Justice.

If there's real family problems (which is odd considering he just got elected Attorney General, which is still sizeable) then that's his own situation.

If I were him I'd run -- Eric Schmitt will lose and the one state representative needs to run for mayor or something, not US Senate -- but that's his decision to make.

Hawley-McCaskill leans R. He's a good public speaker.

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So just for noting purposes, I'm fully behind a Hawley for Senate run. Should he run I think he's fully qualified to serve as a Senator and seems to command enough of my respect that it's not worth throwing the election away to the political class. Hawley (who eyes the SCOTUS moreso than the Senate), I think, is sufficiently not-aiming-to-be-President to be a decent legislator.

So I'll keep the Lean R, the state still likes him. I don't suspect "Trump is mediocre in Missouri" naturally translates to Hawley in a midterm, unless the situation gets a lot worse.

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https://twitter.com/Eric_Schmitt/status/897495489888833536

Schmitt out.

Field is cleared if Hawley wants to run; if Schmitt's refusing to run and C4G is raising double-digit millions a year ahead, he'd be a fool not to take the opportunity. Senators can go on the Supreme Court, no issue with that. Harold Burton did it. I think the field's set; Hawley/McCaskill for 2018 Senate. Jesus! This far out, they'll put half a billion into this race.

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A libertarian selling guns on Facebook, getting banned, and then using bitcoin.

Austin Peterson is a libertarian stereotype. He won't win - LP isn't socially conservative or anything accomplished and Peterson has a really bad fratboy image - but since Hawley's running awfully late on that Senate announcement, it's not doing him any favors.

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I'm not entirely convinced that Hawley is as conservative as Bannon seems to think he is -- a lot of association with the Bush classes, the kind of business or old money Republicans that Bannon wants to get rid of.

But on policy, he seems to have his head straight. I'll vote for him, I just have a bad feeling.

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I'm not entirely convinced that Hawley is as conservative as Bannon seems to think he is -- a lot of association with the Bush classes, the kind of business or old money Republicans that Bannon wants to get rid of.

But on policy, he seems to have his head straight. I'll vote for him, I just have a bad feeling.

Hawley is seen as a rising star, and has quickly united nearly all of the party behind him. If Bannon didn't back him, who else? He apparently tried to get Ed Martin in at one point, but he said no, and he sounds like another Tarkanian (as in perennial candidate who always loses). Rosendale and Mandel also seem to have coalesced both the establishment and grassroots around them.

It's mostly Hawley's credentials that are giving me the bad feeling. Bannon doesn't recruit star Ivy League lawyers and constitutional teachers, mentored by John Danforth, who argued before the Supreme Court for Sibelius, and then rapidly rises to the attorney general's office that fast.

Kelli Ward doesn't have that kind of past, and neither does Chris McDaniel. If Bannon wants to be recruiting a wide swath of potential candidates (Tarkanian's perennial candidacy + McDaniel's Tea Party credentials + Ward's nativism + Prince's emphasis on alternative strategies), that's fine, but Hawley really doesn't fit that mold.

The problem is the lack of strong statewide candidates that weren't just elected: Greitens, Parson, Ashcroft, Hawley, they're all new. But that usually means you throw a good state senator (Caleb Rowden?). Not a 37 year old who hasn't held elected office for a single year.

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I think people here are severely underestimating how bad it looks to be running for Senate nine months into the job you promised voters you wouldn't use as a launching pad. My Trump supporting parents who don't like McCaskill are even pissed at this and they didn't even vote for her in her 2012 landslide.

Rosen and Hawley doing this is extremely stupid (not trying to do a both sides thing here. i agree its ridiculous).  I wish there was a law where, unless in extreme cases, you can't run for an office if you have not completed at least one term of your first, but I feel like that would run into too many problems.

Missouri Legislature would probably be all over that -- they love ethics reform

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I'm at least 90% sure that the Breitbart narrative of "conservatives coalescing around Hawley" is bunk. The man's a 37 year old Ivy League lawyer, not the type of grassroots or tough populist the Missouri GOP (which is increasingly radicalizing thanks to white suburbanites in St Louis county learning race tension exists) is looking for.

If Greitens was in his second term as governor he'd have McCaskill's seat on a diamond platter, I'm sure of that.