McCaskill faces Republican’s Hawley plan
CONWAY, MO — “No, no, no,” Josh Hawley said, suddenly animated. “No. No. No. Not on the agenda.”
It was a flash of unguardedness from the relentlessly on-message Hawley, the Missouri attorney general, who is seeking the Republican nomination in the state’s Senate race. Riding in the back of an SUV last month, he was responding to criticism raised by both Democrats and Republicans that his swift rise made him a political opportunist who was looking ahead to a Senate bid when he ran for attorney general two years ago.
“That’s a hard no,” he said, as he headed to a campaign stop at a factory in Springfield. “It was not anything — no, that was not on the brain.”
It is a sensitive subject for Hawley, who campaigned for attorney general with a message of disdain for “ladder-climbing politicians.” One campaign ad showed him walking through a forest of ladders with legs scrambling up them while he remained firmly rooted on the ground.
Ten months after he was sworn in, Hawley announced his Senate candidacy. He was recruited by party leaders who thought his résumé — Stanford and Yale graduate, law professor, father of two — made him the perfect candidate to challenge the incumbent Democrat, Claire McCaskill, for a seat that Republicans believe is one of the most vulnerable in the Senate this year.
And he was backed by a who’s who of the state’s conservative donor class, including former Sen. John Danforth, businessman David Humphreys and former ambassador Sam Fox.
Polls suggest it could be a close race against McCaskill in November, and Hawley has opened a new front against her with President Donald Trump’s nomination this week of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.