I believe that was a matter of a $287,272 and some cents that she "forgot" to pay. She's already reimbursed the treasury for $88,000 she billed to the taxpayer for private trips in the plane...
McCaskill's seat in Missouri has been listed among the most endangered of the 23 Democratic Senate seats up for grabs in 2012, and the airplane scandal could make her an even easier target for Republicans, who need to pick up just four additional seats to win a Senate majority. Even before the news about the airplane broke, Republican leaders were calling McCaskill's seat "ground zero" in their effort to win control of the Senate.
"Missouri is probably not a great environment for her to run in in the first place," Cook Political Report Senior Editor Jennifer Duffy said. "And it just got a lot more difficult."
The state tends to be politically fickle, electing Democrats to statewide offices one year and Republicans the next.
Before her election in 2006, McCaskill's seat was held by Republican Jim Talent, who won it by defeating Democrat Jean Carnahan.
"This is a seat that bounces around a bit," Duffy said.
In the last presidential election, Missouri rejected President B.O. in favor of Sen.
John MaverickMcCain,
... the Senator-for-Life from Arizona, former presidential candidate and even more former
foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution...
R-Ariz., and voters are more likely to pick the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, political analysts say. Moreover, Missouri voters last year overwhelmingly chose Republican Rep. Roy Blunt
...A Missouri political oligarch. As a member of Congress he was reelected six times without significant opposition. He married Roseann Ray in May 1967 and had three children with her: Matt (the former Governor of Missouri), Amy Blunt Mosby and Andrew Blunt, both lawyers and lobbyists. Blunt and Ray divorced after 35 years of marriage. Afterward, he married Abigail Perlman, a lobbyist for Kraft Foods. In April 2006, he and his wife adopted an 18-month old boy from Russia, whom they renamed Alexander Charles
CharlieBlunt. He will be either a politician or a lobbyist or both when he grows up.
over popular Democrat Robin Carnahan to fill the Senate seat vacated by retiring Kit Bond.
Missouri politix appears from this distance to be all oligarchs -- Carnahan also comes from a political dynasty.
Despite the political fallout from the airplane scandal, few are ready to predict McCaskill's seat will bounce back into the GOP column in 2012, in part because Republicans have yet to pick her challenger.
At the moment I'm guessing anybody not wearing an orange jumpsuit or carrying a bloody ax will do. Of course a year's forever in politix and voters' memories are short...
Potential candidates include state Sen. Sarah Steelman, Rep. Todd Akin, former Missouri GOP Chairwoman Ann Wagner and Ed Martin, an attorney who narrowly lost the race for the House seat held by Democrat Russ Carnahan.