Duffy: Dems Worry A McCaskill Loss Dooms Them in 2008

Missouri Democrats are worried that if Claire McCaskill loses to Jim Talent in 27 days, the Show-Me state will be written off by the national party during the 2008 presidential election cycle.

That's according to political analyst Jennifer Duffy of The Cook Political Report, who specializes in studying the key battleground U.S. Senate races.

"In talking to Missouri Democrats, it's something they are really very concerned about," Duffy said. "If McCaskill loses this thing, Missouri will be written off as a red state that's not in play. The party will take their resources elsewhere."

I got to sit down with Duffy this weekend to delve into her knowledge and analysis about Missouri's U.S. Senate race. Below is what I extracted as her key points:

Size of The Wave - If Talent loses, most likely both the U.S. Senate and House will flip to Democratic power. "One of the things this race is going to tell us is how big this Democratic wave was. If Sen. Talent loses his re-election bid, then it was a pretty big wave. He is a fairly strong structure for this wave to hit, so if the wave knocks him down, it was a pretty big wave. If he loses, he's really sort of collateral damage to the bad environment."

Talent Is Clean - The war and the President are clearly weighing Sen. Talent down. This race probably wouldn't be in play in a good G.O.P. environment. "Sen. Talent doesn't have any significant problems. Specific events are driving this. He doesn't have ethics problems, he has legislative accomplishments, he works well with Democrats across the aisle, he shows up for work." Will a red state punish him for the bad environment?

Stem Cell Swing - There's no real evidence yet that the stem cell ballot initiative will help or hurt either candidate. It's a mystery. "It is entirely possible that people could feel strongly about stem cells, yet not have any real problem with Jim Talent and accept that they disagree on this one issue."

The Undecideds - Duffy estimates they are fighting over 6 to 8% of undecided voters. "Undecideds do not typically break for the incumbent, they break for the challenger, but in a race this close, the undecideds are probably fairly split themselves."

The Rural Vote - Republicans will subtly try to paint McCaskill as "shrill and inappropriate," Missouri's own smaller version of Hillary Clinton. "I think it's something she needs to worry about." It won't work in the cities, but it could touch a nerve in southwest Missouri, where McCaskill is making an aggressive push to cut down her losses. Why didn't McCaskill do well in SWMO in 2004? "Democrats think it's because she didn't spend enough time there, but I'm wondering if it was a little bit bigger than that."

Overall, Duffy, like Tim Russert, calls this race a complete toss-up. But if you look closely at her answers, they seem to lean towards a slight . . .very slight Talent advantage, just because of the state's demographics and Talent's clean bill of political health.