Politico: The Clintons kept a 'hit' list

Guess where Missouri’s Claire McCaskill is on this list? (It’s not pretty. She endorsed Barack Obama in 2008).

And guess where Kansas City’s Emanuel Cleaver ranks? (A member of the black congressional caucus — meaning he would be given a pass for backing Obama — he still backed Hillary that year).

Now, to be clear, a lot of campaigns keep detailed lists of who’s for them and who’s against them.

But the Clinton list, apparently, was particularly detailed.

For example,

according to Politico

, McCaskill was ranked as a “seven,” regarded as “most treacherous” to the Clintons and whose support of Obama was particularly galling to the Clinton team.

When she endorsed Obama in January 2008, McCaskill said her kids had convinced her to roll the dice and go with the Illinois senator.

“This is a man who has incredible intellectual heft who is not afraid to figure out a new and different way to tackle problems ” McCaskill said in her endorsement speech. “Only once in a generation does a leader come along that has that particular gift. Barack Obama is, I believe, right for the country this time.”

One member of Hillary Clinton’s campaign team said this:

“We wanted to have a record of who endorsed us and who didn’t, and of those who endorsed us, who went the extra mile and who was just kind of there.

“And of those who didn’t endorse us, those who understandably didn’t endorse us because they are [Congressional Black Caucus] members or Illinois members. And then, of course, those who endorsed him but really should have been with her that burned her.”

The lowdown is all contained in a new book,

This story was originally published January 13, 2014 at 8:20 AM with the headline "Politico: The Clintons kept a 'hit' list."