Senator gets increased security after ‘kill’ comment at rally

U.S. Capitol Police have increased security for Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) after an activist told a crowd at a GOP rally in St. Louis, “We have to kill the Claire Bear.”

McCaskill’s reelection campaign declined to comment on matters pertaining to the senator’s security, but Republican Sarah Steelman, who is vying for the GOP nomination to oppose McCaskill in November, came to the activist’s defense and decried what she called a double standard of “the liberal media.”

{mosads}Steelman, the former state treasurer and front-running Republican for McCaskill’s seat, was in the audience Thursday when GOP activist Scott Boston made what was perceived as a threat against the first-term senator.

“We have to kill the Claire Bear, ladies and gentlemen,” said Boston, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “She walks around like she’s some sort of Rainbow Brite Care Bear or something but really she’s an evil monster.”

Boston later said he didn’t mean to threaten McCaskill, but intended the comment as a metaphor for injuring McCaskill politically. But the remarks were enough to prompt the  Capitol Police to increase protection for the first-term senator.

The remark came at a rally organized by Tea Party Express, a group that has endorsed Steelman. Asked whether she denounced the comments, Steelman declined to distance herself from Boston’s remarks.

“When a conservative citizen makes a statement the liberal press attacks it and spins it in the worst way,” Steelman said in a statement to The Hill. “Yet when President Obama states ‘If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun’ or his Senator, Claire McCaskill suggest ‘We should take up pitch forks if Congress doesn’t raise taxes’, the liberal media applauds it.”

Steelman appeared to be referring to a comment McCaskill made in December 2010 as Congress weighed extending the Bush-era tax cuts for high earners.

“If they think it’s ok to raise taxes for the embattled middle class, because they’re gonna pout if we don’t give more money to millionaires, it really is time for the people of America to take up pitchforks,” McCaskill said.

Although Democrats said McCaskill’s remark was different because it didn’t threaten an individual, Steelman called the situation a double standard and an example of why conservatives “are at war with the liberal establishment.”

“I may disagree with the words Mr. Boston chose in his statement, but I understand his frustration and I emphatically support his right to express his views,” said Steelman.

But the Missouri Democratic Party called on Steelman and the other two Republicans vying for McCaskill’s seat — Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and businessman John Brunner — to renounce Boston’s remarks.

“Akin, Brunner and Steelman need to make it crystal clear to their supporters that this kind of language will not be tolerated in any venue under any circumstances,” said Caitlin Legacki, a spokeswoman for the state party. “If they refuse to do so, these three candidates are sending a clear message that they endorse the kind of inflammatory language that could lead to violence — or something worse.”

– This post was updated at 7:13 p.m.