In The Huffington Post on December 31, 2009, quoting a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article:

Claire McCaskill: ‘It’s OK If I Don’t Get Re-Elected’

This is not new.

At approximately one hour and forty-one minutes into the health care reform town hall in Hillsboro, Missouri on August 11, 2009:

….Senator Claire McCaskill:…He wants to chew on me. That’s okay. [describing the written question] Uh, this is, how long do you think you can keep your job if you vote for this plan or any plan that includes a public option? [applause, cheers, shouts, whistles]…

Voices: Answer it. Answer it.

Senator McCaskill: Oh, um, well, I, I, you know, I’m gonna tell you the truth. Um…

Voice: Good. [shouts, applause, laughter]

Senator McCaskill: I’m gonna do my best. But it’s okay if I go home. Um…[inaudible]

Voice: You work for us. You work for us. [crosstalk]

Senator McCaskill: [inaudible][crosstalk] I think one of the problems in Washington…

Voice: [inaudible]…the people.

Voice: [shouted] Enjoy retirement.

Senator McCaskill: I’m gonna try and work hard. I’m gonna try and do my best. I’m gonna try and listen and I’m gonna try to make good decisions that I think most Missourians would agree with. But, if, end of the day Missouri decides they don’t want to hire me again, you know, I’ve had a long, and I can get emotional about this, I’ve had an incredibly wonderful time working in the public sector. Um, I’ve done [applause] it for a long time and [inaudible].

When I ran for this office I was unsure I could win. Um, I had just lost a, a, a gut wrenching campaign. And, in, in case you hadn’t noticed, campaigns are tough on your family. And the campaigns, uh, against me were particularly tough on my family. And so I kind of ran for this job and I wasn’t really sure I could do it. I mean it was gonna be hard. It was the incumbent senator and Missouri hadn’t elected a Democratic senator in a long, long time. And, I, it was really an up hill battle. And so, I kind of went into it thinking, hey, it’s okay, you know, this doesn’t work out, I, I’m lucky. I’ve got, mom will tell you, I, I, I’ve got, I’ve got wonderful kids in, we’re blessed, and I, other things I can do. I, I can contribute.

So, at the end of the day, if you guys send me home, I’ll still greet you as, hi neighbor, and we’ll be okay. So, that’s…[applause][inaudible shout]….

Uh, Claire McCaskill has consistently stated that she’s going to try to do the right thing as she represents the interests of her constituents in Missouri and if she doesn’t get re-elected she’ll accept that.

The St. Louis Post Dispatch article:

McCaskill feeling some frustration in Senate

By Bill Lambrecht

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

12/29/2009

….According to the most recent tally in a database at the Washington Post, McCaskill has voted with her party 77 percent of the time this year, the third-lowest among Democratic senators behind only Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska….

A question. If the only two Democratic U.S. Senators to the right of you by voting record are Evan Bayh and Ben Nelson, and the right wingers and teabaggers in Missouri won’t vote for you anyway, and you’re not overly concerned about re-election, why don’t you take the job for a spin and see what it can do rather than cater to all the fear mongering obstructionists and the inside the beltway cocktail weenie circuit?

Just asking.

From Judd Legum via Twitter:

Old media upset that @nicopitney — who has been working around the clock on the Iranian uprising — was called on. Cry me a river. 11 minutes ago from web

And the founder of the “Great Orange Satan” weighs in, too:

No one could’ve predicted that Nico Pitney would ask a question about the only thing he’s written about in weeks! 21 minutes ago from TweetDeck

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/31508276#31508276

…President Obama: …Since we’re on Iran, uh, I know, uh, Nico Pitney is here from, uh, Huffington Post.

Nico Pitney, Huffington Post: Thank you Mr. President.

President Obama: Nico, I know that, uh, you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. Uh, I know that, uh, there may actually be questions from, uh, people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Uh, what, do you have a question?

Nico Pitney: Yeah, I did, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating on line and one of them wanted to ask you this:

Uh, under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadenijad and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there isn’t that, uh, a betrayal of the, of what the demonstrators there are working towards?

President Obama: Well look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground. Uh, we can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places, uh, throughout the country. Uh, what we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. Uh, it’s not an isolated, uh, instance, uh, little grumbling here or there. Uh, there is significant questions about, uh, the legitimacy of the election. Uh, and so ultimately the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people. Uh, not in the eyes of the United States. And that’s why I’ve been very clear, ultimately this is up to the Iranian people, to decide who their leadership is gonna be and the structure of their government. What we can do is to say unequivocally that they’re sets of international norms and principles about violence, about, uh, dealing with the peaceful dissent. Uh, that, uh, that spans cultures, spans borders, uh, and what we’ve been seeing, uh, over the Internet and what we’ve been seeing in news reports violates those norms and violates those principles. Uh, I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that, uh, that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it…

Update – from Peter Daou via Twitter:

Maybe the WH had a sense of what Nico was going to ask because, um, he wrote about it long before the presser? http://tinyurl.com/n8gfsc1 3 minutes ago from web