McCaskill Twitters but she also shouts

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) engaged in some unusual behavior Tuesday — she shouted at the man who recruited her to run for the Senate.

“I don’t care, it’s still not a good use of public money,” she yelled at Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). All the brash New Yorker could do was shake his head and walk away.

{mosads}Neither side will say what the altercation, which took place after the Tuesday Senate lunches, was about, but McCaskill said that she and Schumer understand each other’s aggressive ways.

“When he was recruiting me to run, he gave me a huge compliment. He said he thought I could be from Brooklyn.”

The heated exchange was not as scorching as when she called Wall Street executives “idiots” in January for taking federal bailouts an then paying millions in corporate bonuses, but it was normal operating procedure for McCaskill.

Known for her strong distaste for pork-barrel spending and her sharp-tongued attacks on whatever she views as hypocritical, corrupt or wasteful, the former state auditor has made a name for herself in just two years in Washington as a principled workhorse who takes tough stands, knows how to get attention and likes the limelight. The New York Times recently named her as among 17 female leaders who could become president.

McCaskill doesn’t appear to have a shy bone in her body — perhaps a reflection of her belief that government should be as transparent and open as possible.

The evening before Inauguration, McCaskill planted herself in the VIP area of the Huffington Post party at the Newseum and was overheard giving Robert De Niro advice on the best way to get to the Capitol for the ceremony. At the Democratic convention, she hung out at the Google party. She was one of President Obama’s early supporters and became a regular Obama surrogate on the talk-show circuit during the campaign. Her Twittering boasts 13,626 followers.

She arrived in the Senate just two years after Obama, in a tough 2006 election where she eked out a three-point victory in a closely watched contest.

McCaskill captured the spotlight again this week as the Senate considers a $410 billion omnibus spending bill chock-full of earmarks.

On Tuesday, McCaskill crossed the aisle to support Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) attempt to strip out all 8,500 earmarks from the omnibus appropriations bill. She acknowledged in a Twitter message that it felt awkward to defy Democratic leaders’ support for the bill as written, but said she was following her conscience.

“They understand that’s my brand,” she said, when asked whether she’s concerned about her standing among the Democratic leaders.

The next day she let loose on Senate Republicans, accusing them of hypocrisy for complaining about wasteful spending in the economic stimulus while larding up the omnibus with millions of dollars in earmarks themselves.

“No fewer than 17 different Republican senators stood up, and with absolutely righteous indignation, talked about the pet projects in the stimulus bill,” she said. “And guess what? Every single one of them has earmarks in this bill.”

Then, on Thursday, she surprised her anti-earmark brethren by voting against an amendment by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) that would have stripped earmarks benefiting the clients of PMA Group, a lobbying firm that is under federal investigation and has since disbanded.

She said she did so because she doesn’t believe in individual senators being allowed to “cherry-pick” which earmarks are good and which are bad when they may know very little about their actual merits based on their descriptions in the bill.

“I think that’s kinda dumb,” she remarked.

{mospagebreak}That left Coburn, and others, a little puzzled. McCain, Coburn and several other fiscal conservatives have come out fighting this week against the bill, and there’s a chance they could send Democrats back to the drawing board by mustering enough opposition to defeat it on cloture, a procedural vote to move to the measure that requires 60 votes.

Throughout the week, reporters and peers have peppered McCaskill with the same question:

Will she or won’t she support her party and her president and vote for the massive appropriations measure?

{mosads}Inquiring minds want to know. McCain wants to know.

When asked whether McCaskill was starting to steal some of his “maverick” title, McCain socked it to her.

“No,” he snapped. “I’ll be interested in seeing how she votes on cloture — that’s the key vote here if you’re really serious about cutting spending and fighting earmarks.”

He followed up with some sharp words on Obama’s recent assertion that the bill is leftover work from last year’s appropriations process so he could sign it, despite his vocal opposition to earmarks during the campaign and afterward.

“The president should veto this bill,” McCain said. “If he wants to argue this is last year’s business, we should send it to Crawford [Texas] to get signed.”

McCaskill told a scrum of reporters Thursday that she was leaning toward voting for cloture but still had not determined how she would vote on final passage of the bill.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” McCain said, his voice agitated.

McCaskill, however, isn’t worried about her fiscal conservative bona fides.

“I have voted to cut a lot of spending, but I don’t know if I want to sit on the sidelines for all the budget votes,” she said.

She also praised Obama’s anti-earmark rhetoric despite his apparent willingness to sign a bill with 8,500 earmarks in it.

“This is an entrenched battle he’s facing — to reform the earmark system,” she said. “He’s not going to win every fight.”

If she votes yes on cloture, she will get her fair share of heat from fiscal conservative allies, but she’s likely to take it in stride.

“She’s a very strong person, a very smart person who has a distinct view of why she’s here,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.). “I’m a big fan. She has a forcible, straight-from-the-shoulder style.”

Despite her take-no-prisoners attitude, she hasn’t rubbed too many of her colleagues the wrong way — at least not yet. Beneath her sometimes-brazen exterior is a heart of gold and empathetic ear, says Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.).

“I recently had a friend die, and it was a very bad moment,” Cantwell said. “She came up to me and told me about a similar experience she had. She has a side to her that’s very caring and sympathetic.”

Her straight-shooting style also makes it easy to know where she’s coming from and not take any assault on a particular position personally.

In fact, the day after her public row with Schumer, the two were buddy-buddy again, conferring about a joint project in front of the Senate elevators.

“I just want you to know,” she told a reporter who had asked about the exchange, “I heart Chuck Schumer.”