UPDATE: Blunt spokesman Rich Chrismer responds to the Carnahan news conference: "Robin Carnahan's campaign has no message, no vision for the future and now they've lost all control.  This is the worst kind of desperate, kitchen sink politics from a campaign that wants to distract from the issues Missourians care about like jobs and economic recovery."

 

JEFFERSON CITY -- As if there was much doubt, the Senate campaign of Robin Carnahan made one thing clear in a conference call with reporters today: the campaign thinks Roy Blunt is corrupt and that's going to be the primary theme of their campaign.

Carnahan, a Democrat, and Blunt, a Republican, are battling to replace Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., in the U.S. Senate.

Yesterday, Carnahan started running a television ad continuing to press the consistent campaign theme that Blunt, a 7-term congressman from Springfield, is "corrupt."

Pressed by reporters to offer any new information that hasn't been reported previously during Blunt's 14-year career (such as his ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff), the Carnahan campaign didn't have anything.

Not that they're not going to keep trying to make the message stick. Carnahan campaign manager Mindy Mazur said that, "Missouri voters haven't really heard these issues yet."

Asked if Blunt had ever been accused by any law enforcement authority or any House ethics panel of doing anything illegal, Mazur said, "that's a good question." In fact, the Carnahan campaign has not provided any such evidence.

Blunt has been subpoened, Mazur pointed out, in a case involving a former defense contractor (Brent Wilkes) accused of corruption. True. Of course, at least 12 member of Congress were subpoened in that case, and by Wilkes, not the prosecution. Among those subpoened? Missouri Democratic Congressman Ike Skelton.Just to be clear, Blunt (nor Skelton) were ever accused of doing anything wrong in that case.

And then there's the allegation repeated by Mazur (and in the Carnahan ad) that Blunt is corrupt because he took more lobbyist money in 2009 than any other member of Congress. The reference is to a USA Today article that showed that at one time during 2009, Blunt led all individual members of Congress in lobbyist donations. Blunt didn't finish 2009 in first place. But the committee that was the top recipient of lobbyist cash -- by far -- in that same article, was the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. That committee, known as the DSCC, is supporting Carnahan's race for Senate.

Tricky thing, these corruption allegations.

Make no mistake, though, the Carnahan campaign is convinced that the corruption message will stick with voters. Mazur said they had research to show as much, but she declined to share that research with reporters.