Polinaut: February 7, 2006 Archive

Briefing - February 7, 2006

Posted at 8:56 AM on February 7, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

So Martin Sabo gets a DFL challenger today, eh? The guy has lots of things to say about the state of the DFL and its reticence to take on the White House. It'll be interesting to see how much coverage he gets today (and, no, I have no idea if MPR is covering it.)

City Hall Scoop has a cool caption contest going with a funny -- well, it could be funny if you provided the laughs -- photo.

The Pioneer Press says Rep. John Lesch has left Iraq. Apparently an Iraqi official told him it's not a place for grandstanding, which -- I guess -- could confirm that progress is being made in Iraq in the war on grandstanding. We have to fight the grandstanding in foreign lands because otherwise, we'll have to fight it here. I don't know. Regardless of how you feel about Lesch's politics, his blog is a good read anyway.

Earl Newtal jumps into the race for the SD 62 seat. Which reminds me: I've got to figure out how to present all the legislative candidates this year on Campaign 2006. In 2004, we set up a giant table (HTMLy speaking) and had all candidates and incumbents fill out a form on issues. I was surprised by the number of incumbents who were offended by the request for a statement on issues. "Things could change," many of them said. You think? Goes to show how in the Internet age, many politicians are leaving no traceable evidence of having a position. Not sure what we'll do this year although I suppose I could link it in with Votetracker. But then, how to display the challengers, whoe -- often -- have no voting record? I'm up for opinions on this.

I feel like I'm stealing, but I can't help myself. I don't have a subscription to Roll Call, but I notice material via RSS is bypassing the usual log-in page. Maybe it's supposed to. Maybe it's not. But I read, Early money key in many '06 primaries, which was difficult since I was looking over my shoulder every few minutes.

Is the Democratic Party a big tent? Hillary Clinton is defending a contribution to a candidate who opposes abortion.

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Debates and forums

Posted at 11:08 AM on February 7, 2006 by Bob Collins

At present, here's the running list of candidate forums I've got on my trusty whiteboard. It's obviously by no means complete but if you know of some, send 'em along.

Wed 2/8 - DFL Govs. - St. Louis Park
Fri 3/3 - DFL Senate candidates, 11 a.m. (Midday)
Fri 3/3 - Senate candidates - North Chamber of Commerce - 12p
Mon 3/6 - DFL Govs - 11 a.m. (Midday)

Doyle leads in Rasmussen poll

Posted at 11:13 AM on February 7, 2006 by Bob Collins

Rasmussen is out with a poll today that shows Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle with a 7 percent lead over both Scott Walker and Mark Green. The Walker numbers are down 4% from December. His lead over Green is 1 percent better than December.

According to Rasmussen, the Doyle results put him squarely in the "vulnerable" category.

Blog update

Posted at 11:46 AM on February 7, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

A new political blog in the region to pass along (OK, "new" is a relative term. I get that.).

Dreckless, from Cory Miltomore describes itself as "Actively participating in Minnesota's political debate from a conservative co-conspirator's perspective."

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On the issues (continued)

Posted at 2:51 PM on February 7, 2006 by Bob Collins

As many of you know, we have individual pages for each candidate on the Campaign 2006 Web site. Click on the issue, hear the candidate discuss the issue. We're at the "interviewing" stage and ace MPR Capitol reporter Tom Scheck is sitting down with the Senate candidates and exploring specifics as part of the background we need to roll out the new version of Select A Candidate. And I post the answers on the candidate's page.

Last week, Tom talked to Ford Bell. Yesterday he talked to Amy Klobuchar. I believe he's waiting to hear back from Rep. Kennedy. And we interviewed Michael Cavlan (Green) months ago.

It'll take me a bit to get the material sliced up and posted. Hopefully by tomorrow.

Where in the world is John Lesch?

Posted at 3:50 PM on February 7, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

John Lesch has left Iraq, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. We confirm that and we feel downright certain in reporting that , in fact, the Pioneer Press is reporting that John Lesch has left Iraq.

But where the St. Paul state rep is is anyone's guess and why he isn't talking is, well, our guess.

MPR reporter Marisa Helms got him on his cellphone earlier today and was told he wasn't ready to talk. And in the last few hours, the MPR All Things Considered producers have been chasing Lesch down. And they found him, but we don't know where.

But we do know this: he's 9 hours from here. We know that because they asked him what time it was there...wherever "there" was...or is. Beyond that, Lesch says he's not "ready to talk" about his sudden trip to Iraq. He did update his blog today.

So let's figure this out. We've narrowed Lesch's whereabouts to these locations:

Bahrain
Comoros
Djibouti
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Iraq
Kenya
Kuwait
Madagascar
Mayotte
Qatar
Russia
Astrakhan* (NAO)
Saratov* (NAO)
Ulyanovsk* (NAO)
Volgograd* (NAO)
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Sudan
Tanzania
Uganda
Yemen
Bemidji

It's only a matter of time before we find him. We've turned the phone tapes over to CTU for analysis.

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