Did Sen. Chris Koster plant Molly Korth Williams as a fake candidate for Missouri attorney general?

“This is the one of the oldest and lamest tricks in the books,” says Richard Martin, chairman of Margaret Donnelly’s campaign. Martin says Williams’ candidacy is the kind of thing you see in local races, not statewide elections. “We’re running for attorney general, not tax collector or dog catcher.”

And it’s not as if Koster has built up much of a reputation for authenticity. He’s a serial office climber who first announced a run for attorney general in 1995, when he had been prosecuting crimes in Cass County for all of eight months. He explored a run for governor in 1999.

Koster, 43, was an unofficial candidate for attorney general before he switched parties. His support of stem-cell research would have made it difficult for him to win in the Republican primary, however. Catherine Hanaway, a former Republican Speaker of the House, also was contemplating running for the position. (Hanaway later decided to stay out of the race.)

Koster’s becoming a Democrat met with mixed reviews. He earned props for having the courage to call the far right’s influence on the Republican Party “toxic.” At the same time, observers have wondered if he would have joined the Monarchy Party if it increased his chances of being elected to a higher office.

I’d find Koster’s conversion more convincing if, a few months earlier, he hadn’t tossed meat to the nativist wing of the electorate and introduced legislation making it a crime to rent apartments to illegal immigrants. Koster also voted for the Medicaid cuts in 2005 that denied 100,000 people health care.

Koster says now that he regrets the Medicaid vote. But his explanation — he told The Kansas City Star that he did not know the cuts would be so far-reaching — might be worse than the deed itself. Which front-page story did you miss, Chris? The one headlined “89,000 Missourians would lose their coverage” or the one accompanied by a melt-your-heart picture of a 2-year-old with spina bifida?

The Williams affair is one of the instances that makes me wonder if politicians know how foolishly they’re acting. But perhaps the real silliness is expecting anything different.

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