Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) is receiving extra security after a speaker at a Tea Party Express rally told his audience, "We have to kill the Claire Bear."
"We have to kill the Claire Bear ladies and gentlemen," activist Scott Boston said on Thursday to light applause, 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 told the Dispatch on Tuesday that his comment wasn't intended as a threat, but as a call to erase misconceptions of her having a feel-good persona.
Former Missouri State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a Republican contender who is hoping to unseat McCaskill, was in attendance at the rally.
"When a conservative citizen makes a statement the liberal press attacks it and spins it in the worst way," she wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. "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. This is a typical double standard and why we 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," Steelman said.
Steelman is running against Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and businessman Jon Brunner. The Republican primary is August 7.
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