Polinaut: March 30, 2006 Archive

The Crystal Ball

Posted at 8:16 AM on March 30, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Political wag Larry Sabato in his Crystal Ball today says things continue to look OK for Democrats in November, although he says things have stabilized and the Dems are playing with fire on the censure issue, which he calls "a left wing fantasy."

"What's good for Feingold '08 is poison for Democrats in '06," Sabato says.

For some reason, whenever I read the censure stories, I recall the Kucinich delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Boston threatening to scuttle the attempt by Kerry forces for a unanimous nomination.

Anyway, back to Sabato. Lots of good stuff in there. Governorwise, he's still saying Minnesota is leaning Republican, Wisconsin solid Democrat (Rasmussen yesterday had Doyle up by 5), North Dakota likely Democrat; no changes on any of those.

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CSI Baghdad

Posted at 11:30 AM on March 30, 2006 by Bob Collins

From the Times...

On Web, Error Is Uncovered Through Relentless Pursuit

WSJ take on Minnesota

Posted at 12:15 PM on March 30, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at Minnesota politics in an article today (Subscription required)

K.J. McDonald, a former Republican state legislator who now is mayor of Watertown in Carver County, recites a litany of party woes from "the ineptness of the Bush administration" to the national debt and the Iraq war. "We are due for a fall," he worries. "We're a disgrace."

Yikes!

But most revealing are the House races. In the First and Second districts, incumbent Republicans are challenged. In the Sixth, the seat is held by Mr. Kennedy, but the race has sparked party infighting as conservatives jockey to try to succeed him as he runs for the Senate.

I wonder when Tim Walz is going to get some coverage in the Twin Cities?

But as Ms. Rowley's campaign has faltered, another Democrat, State Sen. Sharon Marko, jumped in recently to offer a more moderate approach -- and to put greater emphasis on traditional economic issues.

Ummmm.....ummmmmm....this just in: bigtime newspaper doesn't read Polinaut, or apparently any other news coming out of Minnesota.

Yet, after compiling a near-perfect party unity rating in recent years, he now describes himself as a "conservative but independent" Republican and faults the White House for resisting pension-relief provisions important to bankrupt Northwest Airlines in his district. "They're wrong," he says of the administration.

Both Republican incumbents worry about voter concerns, even with Minnesota's low unemployment. "You think, 'What if I lost my job when I'm 55 or 56 or 57?'" Mr. Kline says.

The 2nd District is thick with unemployed -- and barely employed -- Northwest Airlines workers. It's a valid concern -- the voter backlash thing. But only if Rowley makes it an issue. I'm not on the stump with her, but on her page of issues on her Web site, there's nothing about the economy. And none of her press releases (at least that I can find) has been about Northwest. The now-closed Sharon Marko campaign didn't appear to till that soil either.

Foodfight in the 6th!

Posted at 3:37 PM on March 30, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

I'm really late getting to this because I've been... well... never mind. But the 6th District race is really getting interesting among the Republicans... specifically Phil Krinkie and Jim Knoblach.

Check out this puppy from the Knoblach campaign:

Krinkie put out a press release (and by the way, the Krinkie Web site needs to get itself up to date since the last release posted there is almost a month old) saying:

The reason Phil voted against this huge omnibus bill had nothing to do with “Katie’s Law” or sex offenders. The bill contained the creation of a huge government computer database called CRIMNET that cost millions of dollars to implement and put the privacy rights of individual citizens in jeopardy. In fact, private information about regular citizens was collected and stored in this government database, even the names of suspects, witnesses and people who sought handgun permits.

The last thing Phil wanted was for state government to compile a database that would track gun owners!

The bottom line: Phil Krinkie votes against boondoggles and government intrusion into our lives, even when it’s not politically expedient. That’s just what we need in Congress.

You don't usually see Republicans beating themselves up like this. I can't imagine it's entirely comforting to GOP boss Ron Carey. The blogger at Residual Forces, who I also believe is a GOP operative of some sort at the committee level, has also seen enough. He points out that Krinkie also lobbed a grenade in Michele Bachmann's direction. And he has good reason to be nervous since the nightmare scenario for any party is that its candidates pick each other off in the primary, and are considerably weakened in the general.

But it's interesting that the piece from Knoblach focuses on two things (1) the ability of a candidate to beat Patty Wetterling and (2) protecting chldren.

Let's fast-forward here to November. If you're a Republican, do you really want to have protecting children be the issue you want to run on against Patty Wetterling? Bueller? Bueller?

Now, I suppose the issue that one might expect to come into play is taxes and spending. But it's hardly a surprise that Krinkie, who heads the House Taxes Committee, is known as "Dr. No" at the Capitol when it comes to taxes, so you can't get a heck of a lot of mileage out of that now.

It's an odd -- at least to me and I'm not genius -- combination.

So where do these two differ. Enter Votetracker.

See Knoblach from the '05 session. See Krinkie from the '05 session.

Ethanol and casinos. On the major votes last year... that was it.

Don't they still have farmers in the 6th? And is the whole casino issue just too hot to touch?

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