WASHINGTON _ You may not have heard the last of Claire McCaskill, but these final days of the 115th Congress will be her last in elected office.
In a 40-minute interview in her Senate office, the incumbent Missouri Democrat who lost re-election for a third term last month says she will never run again, squashing any thought she'd run for Missouri's governorship.
At 65, McCaskill said she's planning a yet-to-be-announced initiative, and she sees potential in the non-elected public role that former Missouri Sen. John Danforth has taken since he left office 24 years ago.
McCaskill said she may teach and will remain involved in Democratic politics in Missouri after a new Congress is seated in January. She views Missouri's heavy tilt toward Republicanism as a function of President Donald Trump's appeal to disaffected Missourians and failures by her own party to deliver on change.
But McCaskill predicted that the Democrats will benefit from a pendulum swing back, and said her party is better off, fundamentally, than the results of recent Republican sweeps in the state would indicate.
"I am not going to disappear," McCaskill said. "I am going to help and I think I can help in terms of the party recruiting good candidates, being prepared. I envision trying to help teach candidates some of the basics.
"One of the problems was I was so busy running I didn't have time to work with some of the candidates out there," McCaskill added. "There were some close (legislative races) we lost that I think we can win in '20."
One thing she will never, ever do again?
"I will never make another phone call, asking for money.
"It's terrible, terrible," said the woman who raised almost $40 million for her re-election, almost four times that raised by the Republican who defeated her, Josh Hawley. "It is a horrible part of the job, and I have done it for a long time."
McCaskill is scheduled to deliver her final floor speech Thursday, even as the Congress she is leaving careens toward another possible government shutdown. She said she'll give a speech similar to the one she gave on election night, in which she stressed the positives of serving, not dwelling too much on the loss.
But she will not stop tweeting, McCaskill said, and hinted that the sharp Twitter bursts that sometimes got her into trouble will be even sharper after she leaves office.
"I will tear the bark off the tree next year," McCaskill said, "but I will go out in the Senate a lot like I went out on election night."
McCaskill told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch she'd thought hard about not running this year, that she did partly out of duty, and that win or lose, she decided before announcing for re-election that this was her last campaign.
"It was not an easy decision for me to run," said McCaskill, who was first elected to the Senate in 2006. "I had made up my mind at the end of (the 2012 election) that I wasn't going to run again. I had never served in an office for 12 years.
"I have a really high level of energy and a really strong work ethic, and I also get bored," she continued. "I was worried that this was becoming a little bit of a grind. But under the circumstances _ Trump did so well in Missouri (in 2016) and there wasn't anybody else _ I felt like I had an obligation to stand and fight and not just walk off the field. And so we gave it our best. But I am really at peace about being done."
Danforth, who has served as United Nations ambassador and in a variety of governmental roles since retiring from the Senate, was among those who called her the day after the election, McCaskill said. Post-Senate, Danforth also directed a government investigation into the FBI's role in a violent confrontation between the government and Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas early in the Clinton administration, tried to broker peace in Sudan, and lent his name to several big policy and political pronouncements.
"She has been a very, very successful person in our state and the world of politics and government. She should be really proud of herself," Danforth said of McCaskill.
"She has got a lot of life ahead of her," Danforth continued. "There are a lot of opportunities for people who want to continue to be engaged."
"I think Jack has had an interesting career since the Senate," McCaskill responded. "I want that. I want things that are interesting. I am intellectually curious by nature... I need to engage my brain every day in something that is complicated and hard. I think he has done that. I would want to emulate that, the kind of different things he has done."
Her Republican counterpart, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., stressed that he will miss collaborating on Missouri-specific issues.
"We've known each other a long time, and have been friends a long time," Blunt said. "It has been a good working relationship for two people from opposite parties who may often disagree on big issues."
"I have the utmost respect," said Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, who contemplated challenging McCaskill for the Senate seat before running for re-election to Missouri's 2nd Congressional District. "She has served our state and our nation for decades now, and my hat is off to anyone that jumps into this arena to serve the common good."
Said Rep. William Lacy Clay, D-St. Louis: "She says she is going to go off and have fun. ... (But) I am sure we have not heard the last of Ms. McCaskill."
McCaskill leaves a Congress that is torn over Trump's agenda, worry about potential constitutional showdowns over a counsel investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 election and the Trump campaign. Come 2019, a fresh Democratic majority in the House is girding to take on Trump.
Danforth just this week signed a letter, along with 43 other ex-senators, warning that the U.S. was headed toward a crisis if current senators weren't "steadfast guardians of our democracy" as the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Trump and the 2016 election gathers momentum.
McCaskill said she has no idea what Mueller will ultimately conclude and report, but warned: "If it continues down the path it appears to be going, my colleagues here _ if more of them don't speak up _ I think they will have a crisis."
Trump's Republican allies in Congress, McCaskill said, "are all conflicted right now. They don't know what to do. All you have to do is look at the state of Missouri, where Trump's blessing was all a Republican needed. So you want to risk that if he is not going down? It will be interesting to see."
But McCaskill pronounced herself "pretty cheerful" as she leaves office.
"I am an optimistic person by nature," she said. "I have great faith in our democracy. I think the checks and balances are still working. I think this election is a good example. The Democrats picked up 40 seats in the House of Representatives. That is a significant flip. That is a reaction to what they see going on in their government. I will always put my money on the American people to figure this out."
