GOP Gets to Work on Taking Out Sen. McCaskill

Republicans in Missouri already have embarked on planning to unseat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2012. Several potential candidates are testing the waters in hopes of defeating the first-term legislator, The Hill reports.

But it won’t be easy, experts note. And Republicans have to make sure they don’t expend all their energy fighting each other in the primary. “Her numbers do not look good, but who’s going to beat her, is the question,” Kenneth Warren, a political science professor and pollster at Saint Louis University, tells The Hill.

Possible GOP candidates include former Sen. Jim Talent, whom McCaskill defeated in 2006; former state Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who already has decided to run; Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder; and Ann Wagner, a former ambassador to Luxembourg.