Okay, I know I’m risking looking like an idiot, but I’ll predict (with 16% of the precincts reporting) that Claire McCaskill will win the Democrat Gubernatorial primary in Missouri, defeating a failed, one-term governor who won primarily because his predecessor died a month before the election.
Bob Holden was a disaster as governor. He was outwitted by the Republican House Speaker at every turn. He seemed petty and unprepared for the office.
Prior to Governor Mel Carnahan’s death in a plane crash in 2000, Republican Jim Talent held a wide lead over Holden for Governor. But Carnahan’s death changed everything. Out of bizarre sentimentality, Missouri voters elected the dead Carnahan to the U.S. Senate (in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution), and elected Holden governor. Four years later, John Ashcroft, who lost in his Senate bid to the carcass, is U. S. Attorney General, Jim Talent hold the Senate seat that Ashcroft sought, and Holden is about to be thrown out of office by his own party.
Good riddance.
P.S. If Holden comes back and wins, my opinion of him will remain the same. However, polls show that McCaskill would do better against the Republican candidate than would Holden.