OH DEAR, YOU MUST PUT BATTERIES IN THE CALCULATOR – AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  Let us return for a few moments to the world of gritty, delightful politics.  A major Republican target in next year's senatorial races is incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri.   Not exactly a giant of the Senate, McCaskill is already facing sharp challenges.

Unfortunately the senator has also developed a habit of not paying taxes.  We know how hard her day must be, but, really, she must take care of these matters before next year's election...unless it's already too late.  From Fox:

Any way you slice it, $287, 273 is a lot of money, especially in this economy. For one-term Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., up for re-election in 2012, that's the amount of personal property taxes she failed to pay since 2007 on a plane she and her husband, a millionaire businessman, partially owned.

"I have discovered that the...personal property taxes on the plane have not been paid," McCaskill told a small number of reporters on a conference call Monday. "There should have been a reporting to the county of the existence of this airplane...There are people I could blame for this, but I know better. As (a former) auditor, I know I should have checked for myself. I take full responsibility for the mistake."   Audio of the call was sent to Fox by a McCaskill aide and can be found here.

The senator said she had done her own "thorough review" of all 89 flights she had taken following a political controversy that erupted recently over the same plane that was first reported by Politico.

The senator had used the plane for political purposes, paying for the travel with taxpayer money from her Senate office, a "mistake" the senator said, for which she reimbursed the government nearly $89,000. "All of the money has been repaid for the public funds," McCaskill said Monday.

The senator said she had paid sales taxes on the plane, both local and state, evidence, she said, that she had made no attempt to duck her financial responsibility. "I want to reiterate, there was no attempt to evade the plane...This is just a mistake that I take full responsibility for."

But Republicans did not buy the explanation from McCaskill, a top GOP target in 2012. "In the past two weeks, we have learned that Claire McCaskill billed taxpayers for political travel and failed to pay nearly $300,000 in personal property taxes on her plane. Over the last four years, cash-strapped school districts and the children in these schools have been deprived of these much-need funds," Missouri Republican Party chairman David Cole blasted in a statement from his office.

COMMENT:  McCaskill is probably toast, but the level of her toastiness will depend on the quality of the candidate the GOP runs against her.  Given some of the GOP's bizarre personnel picks in 2010, I'd be reluctant to put this contest in our column just yet.

March 22, 2011