McCaskill likes to bake away her pain

When the going gets tough for Sen. Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat doesn’t get going — she bakes cookies.

The senator joked Wednesday that after she was defeated during her 2004 Missouri gubernatorial bid by Matt Blunt (R), she baked approximately 540 chocolate chip cookies — and then proceeded to eat most of them herself.

“I baked about 45 dozen chocolate chip cookies after I lost that election, consumed most of them myself and then got off the couch, and literally had that moment where you just really want to kill someone because what your mother said is right: when one door shuts, another door opens. And I got elected to the Senate,” she said.

{mosads}McCaskill, 62, opened up about drowning her sorrows in baking binges during a discussion of her new book, “Plenty Ladylike,” at George Washington University, hosted by Politics & Prose bookstore.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who moderated the event, expressed surprise that he and his Senate colleague appeared to engage in the same dessert coping mechanism.

“There were many times after significant losses that I engaged in the best ménages à trois possible with Ben & Jerry’s,” he quipped to the crowd of about 100 college students.

Although Booker now boasts vegan status, a fact that he states on Twitter often (and one which McCaskill teased him about throughout the night), he told the crowd he has a weak spot for Chubby Hubby.

In between the playful banter and laughs, the two senators discussed passages in McCaskill’s book on her life in public office, sexism in politics and having “civility dinners” with the other women senators and the Supreme Court’s female justices.

“I do think there are ways women are marginalized [in politics], but the nice thing about me doing this for as long as I have, is that I have seen a little bit of a change,” McCaskill said.

During a Q&A portion, an audience member asked the former prosecutor if Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton wins her 2016 presidential bid, and if McCaskill were forced to leave the Senate, which position in a Clinton Cabinet might interest her.

After replying with a laugh that the question wasn’t fair, McCaskill said, “If I had to leave the Senate and I got comfortable with the idea of working for someone … and separating what you want to do because you have to follow the leader, I would say attorney general.”