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O'Donnell: Democrats need red state centrists like McCaskill

Missouri's Claire McCaskill may not be the most liberal Democrat in the Senate, but she's one of Obama's biggest assets, according to The Last Word host Lawrenc

Missouri's Claire McCaskill may not be the most liberal Democrat in the Senate, but she's one of Obama's biggest assets, according to The Last Word host Lawrence O'Donnell.

In June, McCaskill seemingly distanced herself from the president by announcing she wouldn’t be attending the Democratic convention. She said she never attends during her own campaigns, but O’Donnell said “there’s not much room for doubt that [distancing herself from Obama] is one of the reasons she won’t be attending.”

O'Donnell argued that Democrats are wrong when they criticize moderate Democrats from moderate states, saying that Obama “wouldn’t dream of criticizing” her, because “he wants Claire McCaskill to get re-elected in Missouri, a state he lost four years ago.”


According to O’Donnell, McCaskill has been “as helpful as any Democrat in an unsafe Senate seat has ever been.” In fact, she voted for the stimulus bill, the Affordable Care Act (something that is particularly unpopular in Missouri), and the confirmation of Sonia Sotomeyer and Elena Kagan.

“The votes that Claire McCaskill has cast for President Obama’s agenda have cost her so much politically that she has been [polling] significantly behind an abject imbecile,” O’Donnell said referring to Republican Rep. Todd Akin. 

"America should be thanking her for managing to prevent a member of the Missouri Republican party from winning that Senate seat six years ago," O'Donnell said. "And for sanity's sake, for America's sanity, America should be hoping Claire McCaskill can do it again."