Roy Blunt: “while our colleagues show their affection for Senator McCaskill, let me talk a little bit about my relationship with her…”

“while our colleagues show their affection for Senator McCaskill, let me talk a little bit about my relationship with her and her service to our State. She chose not to do that, but she has served Missourians at every level of government--as a county legislator, as a State legislator, as an extraordinary prosecutor, and as the State auditor, when her particular talent to find out exactly what was going wrong and point it out was maybe at its best use, and 12 years in the U.S. Senate. I know that not too long ago Claire and Joe took their family on a vacation to a ranch in the West. I was thinking about that, and thinking about her reminded me of a story I had heard about a wrangler at one of those ranches, who was just perfect on a horse. Somebody who was visiting asked: How do you get that good riding a horse? He said: Well, first of all, you get on the horse and you put your boot in the stirrup. You put your heel right up against the back of the stirrup. You sit easily in the saddle, and you ride for about 30 years. You ride for about 30 years. If you had paid any attention to either the last Senate campaign in Missouri or the one I was involved in before that, you heard a lot about 30 years. In the case of Senator McCaskill and me, we have our own 30 years. About that long ago, she was starting her second term in the Missouri legislature--smart, well-prepared, all she always is.…”