WASHINGTON — While Republican gubernatorial candidate Catherine Hanaway has been privately focusing her attention on a primary challenge from State Auditor Tom Schweich, another challenge may be waiting quietly, tucked away in the halls of the Rayburn House Office Building here in Washington.

U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a mid-Missouri Republican whose district includes both the Columbia and suburban St. Louis media market, is quietly gauging support for a gubernatorial candidacy of his own. But, the three-term congressman is waiting to enter the already-forming 2016 fray until after completing his 2014 reelection effort.

“We are focused on the 2014 election this fall for Congress, and if, at the end of that, there is still support and the family thinks it is something we need to talk about, I’ll sit down with the family and think about it and see if it is something we want to consider and pursue,” he said during an interview in his office last week. “Until then, my focus is on this job and my campaign this fall.”

While all the while mulling entering into what could shape up to be a three-way primary, Luetkemeyer has also been critical of the idea of another 2012-style slug fest (the one that produced Republican Todd Akin as a challenger to U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill) that have been damaging to Republicans across the country.

“This is one of the problems we have as Republicans. The Democrats have figured out how to clear the field and have one single candidate who has the entire party and donor base behind them, and two to four years to be able to run his campaign and get his network and organization in place. Republicans wind up with vicious primary,” he said. “They beat the heck out of each other, and wind up 90 days from the general with a bloodied and battered candidate who survived and now, because of the vicious primary, is wounded and broke to the point where it is very difficult to win the general.”

Luetkemeyer’s analysis is right. Last April, Koster quickly cleared the field when he announced his interest in the seat, and Democrats have broadly rallied behind him. And on Republicans, Democrats across the country have employed a strategy of counting on grueling GOP primaries to damage their potential rivals, and in some cases allowing the most politically extreme candidate to emerge with the nomination.

Luetkemeyer said, “until we figure out how to clear the field for a candidate, I’m not sure we can win consistently statewide – Democrats have got this all figured out.” But that’s essentially what Hanaway said when she announced her reasons for announcing her candidacy in March.

“We can no longer sit idly by as the de-facto Democrat nominee continues to raise money and build his organization. I am starting now so that we can build the largest and best grassroots campaign in Missouri history,” she said at the time.

In response, Luetkemeyer smirked and said, ““Catherine has to have her own plan on how she is going about this. If she thinks this is the time and way to go about this, that’s fine.”

Luetkemeyer went to college at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, an historically black university. He played baseball there and worked on a farm throughout school. After a career in banking and insurance, Luetkemeyer served in the Missouri House of Representatives. He then went to Washington after another mid-Missouri Republican – Kenny Hulshof – lost his seat following his unsuccessful 2008 campaign for governor against then-Attorney General Jay Nixon, a Democrat.

Luetkemeyer offers something neither of the other two Republicans 2016ers can: A political base outside of St. Louis. None of the state’s recent governors have been from St. Louis. Luetkemeyer was reluctant to take specific jabs at either Schweich or Hanaway, but did say one from St. Louis could have trouble winning a statewide General Election based simply on geography.

“It’s difficult. There’s a built in bias against the big city candidate. It doesn’t mean they can’t win,” he said.

Luetkemeyer said as governor, he would not support efforts to expand Medicaid under the federal health care law, as Gov. Nixon has called for since his reelection in 2012.

“Are you ready to enlarge your welfare rolls with the hope that the federal government is going to continue to fund this,” he asked. “Do you think we’re going to be able to fund Medicaid? No way!”

In a direct jab at Nixon, Luetkemeyer said, “if you’re somebody in charge of the Medicaid system, to run out and put more people on Medicaid rolls — you’ve just hung yourself out to dry unless you’re term limited and you can leave that hanging on the next guy.”

Luetkemeyer noted funding deficiencies for transportation projects, but was coy about whether he was supportive of an effort to raise the state’s sales tax by .75 percent to create a new, 10-year funding source for roads and bridges, which voters will consider on the ballot later this year.

“Putting it before the voters is the best way to do it,” he said. “One of the ideas that has been put on the table is tax increase. If you like it, fine. If you don’t, what’s your solution? Do you want to go back to gravel roads and a horse and buggy, because that’s one of your alternatives. I support the legislature in their efforts to put this before the people and let them make the decision. They’re the ones that are ultimately going to pay the taxes.”

When asked whether he would personally vote for the measure, Luetkemeyer laughed and looked nervously at a press aide and said, “next question.”

On the campaign trail, Koster – who became a Democrat in 2007 – has placed fault in his switch from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party at the feet of the Republicans for their “angry stubbornness” at the time on the issue of stem cell research, and likened their opposition to that issue then to their opposition to Medicaid now. Essentially, Koster has said the Republicans left him, not the other way around.

“The Republican Party didn’t leave Chris — Chris left the Republican Party,” Luetkemeyer said plainly. “He left because he saw an opportunity to run as a Democrat where he thought he’d be able to advance his political career. … He had other intuitions and they were all based on his ability to take political advantage of the situation.”

Despite being from a safe Republican district, Luetkemeyer does have both a primary election and a General Election later this year. He has nearly $1 million in his campaign coffers heading into his reelection effort. Until the new congressional map was implemented in 2012, Luetkemeyer represented more than 1.1 million voters, much more than most members of Congress.