Farmer's Union weighs in for McCaskill

Sen. Jim Talent and his challenger, State Auditor Claire McCaskill, have dueling farm group endorsements to go along with their dueling ads in Springfield.

McCaskill held a telephone conference Wednesday to announce an endorsement by the National Farmer's Union (NFU).

Russ Kremer, a Missouri farmer and board member of the NFU, said the organization had chosen to endorse McCaskill because she "respects family farms," and is fighting for their interests.

McCaskill said she was honored to receive the endorsement and that it would be her responsibility to ensure that family farms, "have the ability to control their own destiny."

According to Kremer, the NFU is made up of 250,000-plus member nationally and that the newer Missouri chapter is made up of approximately 1,500 families. McCaskill emphasized that only family-owned farms can qualify as members.

"At a time when family farms are under attack in Washington, we need a strong voice," said Kremer.

Kremer said family farmers were, "tired of being used as poster children," for issues they were not be in favor of. Kremer cited the estate tax as an example saying family farms were held up as the emotional incentive but that the tax affected only one-half of one percent of family farms.

McCaskill talked about restoring farmers role as price-maker, not price-taker. McCaskill hit upon "country of origin" labeling, a practice she said would open markets to family farms and provide consumers with an educated choice. When it comes to ethanol, she defended her opposition to the Senate energy bill saying it gave too little to renewable energy while piling up big oil's plate.

McCaskill said Talent was being dishonest in his characterization of her opposition to the energy bill (which contained some significant funding for renewable energy as well as tax cuts for oil companies) and that he was only now jumping on the ethanol bandwagon, while she had been in favor of encouraging the development of ethanol since the 1980's.

Though corn-based ethanol is the picture of renewable rural energy (just don't mention it to the TVA), McCaskill said there are other avenues family farmers are also able to take. Windfarms and switchgrass-based ethanol are potential areas of development in Missouri.

In this period of rapid growth for ethanol and corporate farms, the best way to protect the position of family farms from the effects of consolidation, according to McCaskill, is to separate the producers from the processors.

McCaskill has spent considerable money running ads in Southwest Missouri. McCaskill's plan is to take an aggressive position in going after parts of the state that she lost in the Gubernatorial race in 2004.

"We are going to fight in every corner of the state," said McCaskill.

Talent has substantially out-raised McCaskill, as a result McCaskill has refocused her money on areas where she can do "more with less." If she can successfully challenge Talent in his areas that Democrats may have written off previously, she may pick up enough votes to win.

As many campaign junkies may remember, Democrat Charles Dake won the 132nd District State Rep seat with 55% in February of this year, a district Gov. Blunt won with over 65% in 2004.