7/12/00 4:50 p.m.
Bloody Missouri
The ultimate heartland battleground of the year.

By Ben Domenech, NRO contributing editor

hile it's true that the presidential race is the most important contest this cycle, it's by no means the bloodiest. As is often the case during an election year, the hardest-fought political battle can usually be found in a race for local dogcatcher or — this time around — the Missouri Senate, where the race between incumbent John Ashcroft and Governor Mel Carnahan is shaping up to be the dirtiest smackdown of the year.

Today, the Missouri Democratic party is set to loose the latest attack in an ongoing TV ad war between incumbent Senator John Ashcroft and Governor Mel Carnahan, unveiling a 30-second spot that accuses Ashcroft of a "tax cut scheme to help the rich" that would "force deep cuts in Medicare and raid the Social Security Trust Fund." It's similar to another ad, originally run last week as part of a $100,000 time buy in major Missouri markets — but with one significant difference.

That previous ad featured Max Richtman, the Executive Vice President of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), touting the fact that his organization's scorecard had given Ashcroft "one of the worst" vote ratings in the Senate on Social Security issues.

But Ashcroft's supporters fired back at the lobbying organization, pointing to articles in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that accused the NCPSSM of issuing "deceptive mailings to seniors" for fundraising purposes. In an article published in March of 1988, the Washington Monthly categorized the NCPSSM as one of "The Worst Public Interest Groups," and said that the group had a reputation for "lobbying Congress with the same scare tactics it had used to shake down the unsuspecting elderly."

More than any other state, Missouri is a bellwether for the rest of the nation during presidential election years. In the 20th century, Missouri has voted in favor of the winner of the presidential contest in every single election but one (Eisenhower in '56). But so far, the national candidates have focused elsewhere — according to a Kansas City Star poll released yesterday, Bush currently leads Gore among likely voters by more than 10 percentage points (48%–37%).

While Carnahan's campaign has backed off their use of the NCPSSM as a source for assaults on Ashcroft, there's no sign that this race will be slowing down anytime soon. Ashcroft and Carnahan hold deep personal grudges against each other, and have locked horns over local political issues several times over the past two decades. In any case, there's a good chance that the end result of the presidential race could decide the election in Missouri, too.

"If Bush maintains a sizable lead, Republican turnout will be high in Missouri in the fall," says the University of Virginia's Larry Sabato. "That could be enough to sink Carnahan. But right now, it looks like it's going to be a long and violent haul til November."