10 things about Claire McCaskill
1. A fourth-generation Missourian, McCaskill was born in July 1953 and raised in the state.
2. Her father, William, worked at a feed mill and later served as the state's insurance commissioner. Her mother, Betty, was the first woman elected to the Columbia City Council.
3. In ninth grade, McCaskill won her first speech contest. Opening her commentary against racial prejudice with the Ku Klux Klan pledge got everyone's attention. By senior year, McCaskill's strength was in extemporaneous speaking.[3]
4. She attended the University of Missouri–Columbia, graduating with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1975. She graduated from the University of Missouri Law School and worked as a waitress and a bartender to help pay tuition.
5. She clerked for the Missouri Court of Appeals in Kansas City, served in the Missouri House of Representatives (1983 through 1988) and the Jackson County Legislature (1990 through 1992), and was the first woman elected Jackson County Prosecutor (in 1992, re-elected in 1996).
6. In 1998, she was elected Missouri state auditor, an office she still holds.
7. McCaskill has three children from her first marriage: Austin, Maddie, and Lily. She has four adult stepchildren from her second marriage to St. Louis businessman Joseph Shepard, whom she married in 2002.[4]
8. After her unsuccessful race for governor in 2004, The Kansas City Star reported that, "Her name has been on Missouri ballots 18 times," and, "her loss last week was her first."
9. Asked during the 2004 campaign about some of her favorites, she listed Motown music, legal drama television programs, the movie Fargo, and Moby-Dick and Catcher in the Rye.
10. If she wins, she'll be the first elected female senator from the Show Me State.[5]