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Politically Speaking: On pre-existing conditions, St. Louis County turnout and Kander’s decision

Then-Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander greets supporters as they welcome him to the stage at The Pageant on Oct. 28, 2016.
Carolina Hidalgo | St. Louis Public Radio
Then-Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander greets supporters as they welcome him to the stage at The Pageant on Oct. 28, 2016.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum and Jo Mannies look at three things playing a big role in Missouri’s 2018 election cycle.

The first is debate over pre-existing conditions between U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill and her GOP opponent Josh Hawley. It stems from Hawley’sdecision to be a partof a lawsuit seeking toupend the Affordable Care Act.

McCaskillmade health care a signature issue of her re-election campaignlong before it became a trend among other Democratic candidate running in states where President Donald Trump is reasonably popular.

Mannies and Rosenbaum also discuss the importance of turnout, and Democratic unity, in St. Louis County for candidates like McCaskill. They also reflect on former Secretary of State Jason Kander’s decision tobow out of the Kansas City mayor’s raceto seek treatment for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Follow Jason on Twitter:@jrosenbaum

Follow Jo on Twitter:@jmannies

Music: “Serpents” by Sharon Van Etten

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Since entering the world of professional journalism in 2006, Jason Rosenbaum dove head first into the world of politics, policy and even rock and roll music. A graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Rosenbaum spent more than four years in the Missouri State Capitol writing for the Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri Lawyers Media and the St. Louis Beacon.
Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.