Today, McCaskill's pitch to this sea of white faces was cultural. "I know this man," she said of Obama. "He is humble. He is devoutly Christian. He loves his family more than anything else in the world. He reveres our men and women in uniform and he is as red white and blue as you can possible get."
Obama is spending the day rolling through central and south Missouri, visiting cities and towns where Democrats don't usually go. Rolla, where Obama traveled later in the day, had not seen a Democrat forever. This part of the state is culturally closer to the South than to the Midwest.
McCaskill's 2006 victory over incumbent Sen. Jim Talent is a puzzle of sorts. Riding on the tide of Democratic enthusiasm, she overperformed in the state's urban centers and capitalized on Republican disaffection in other parts of the state. When she ran for governor in 2004, she lost, managing to win only nine rural counties. (John Kerry won one.) Running for Senate two years later, she ran a model populist campaign and focused heavily on rural precincts she had earlier ignored. She was tough on national security - no "cutting and running," pro-gun, and with the exception of her support for embryonic stem cell research , steered clear of the cultural landmines that tend to trip up Democrats.
Her mother Betty Anne, a pioneering political figure from Lebanon, MO, validated the daughter's cred. In the end, Talent still did better in the rural counties, but she did better relative to her 2004 performance. Here in Greene County, she won 43% of the vote, five points higher than the Democratic average. The Obama campaign is studying McCaskill's travel patterns and what worked in which counties.
"It's all about narrowing the margins," says Tod Martin, Obama's deputy state director who is taking a leave of absence from McCaskill's Senate office.
Says an Obama adviser: "it's critical that we perform well in rural Missouri or we won't be able to win."
McCain's political strategists acknowledge that the race will be close. It's just a bad time to be a Republican. They fear he will underperform among evangelicals in southern Missouri - Ashcroftland, as Democrats derisively call it, but they hope he will overperform in St. Louis and Kansas City suburbs and turn out black voters in record numbers; McCaskill beat Talent by fewer than 50,000 votes, and her entire margin came from the two cities.
No Democratic presidential nominee has campaigned here since 1992, when Bill Clinton stumped in Springfield. John Kerry sent his Southerner, John Edwards here but did not make a personal appearance. "It's just important we show up," said Buffy Wicks, Obama's state director.
It did not escape notice that the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Jay Nixon, was proud to stand with Obama in Rolla; in past cycles, statewide candidates might have shied away from the Democratic presidential nominee.
"96 days from today, rural Missouri is going to lead the way," Nixon said.
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