Talent: Greene County Key To Loss

Sen. Jim Talent says his underpeformance in Greene County last Tuesday helped lead to the loss of his U.S. Senate seat to Claire McCaskill.

Talent made the comments to the Kansas City Star's Matt Stearns in a piece that gives more insight into what went wrong for Missouri's junior Senator one week ago today.

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"There were two main places our targets were off … Greene County and St. Charles,” he said.

In southwest Missouri’s Greene County, where President Bush campaigned for Talent four days before the election in an effort to rally Republican voters, Talent won less than 54 percent of the vote. In 2002, he won closer to 60 percent of the vote.

And in vote-rich St. Charles, Talent won less than 54 percent, compared with 58 percent four years ago.

“In Missouri, you can’t just give away 3 to 5 percent of the vote and expect to win,” he said.

Talent also told Stearns the decision to go negative against McCaskill was his own call that "helped keep the race close."

Without the negative ads focusing on McCaskill, the loss might have been worse, Talent said.