Polinaut: April 26, 2006 Archive

Food fight in the 6th - Part IXXX

Posted at 11:45 AM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Up until now, I wasn't planning on going to either the DFL or the GOP state conventions (although MPR I'm sure will be well represented). But now I'm thinking it may be worth working at least the GOP convention just to see the looks on the faces of the non-endorsed 6th Congressional District candidates as they stand their....all unified and everything....arm-in-arm...waving.... one big happy family.

I don't see it happening. But maybe.

It's just a darned nasty race, which is, of course, good for the news and blogging business.

Phil Krinkie fired another missile last night with this release:

Sen. Bachmann Continues to "Sand off the Truth"

Lie Number 1 -- "I was the victim of DFL redistricting"

Michele Bachmann recently mailed a 20 minute video to delegates in the 6th Congressional District and in the video she described her 2002 match-up with DFL Senator Jane Krentz.

"I suppose it was a back-handed compliment to be the number one target of the Minnesota Senate Democrats.

"They redistricted me out of my Senate seat so I had to run in a completely new district against a 10 year DFL female incumbent."

It was the court, not the Democrats, who drew the map for the 2002 elections. They created a new Senate district for Senator Bachmann with a higher GOP index than her old district and paired her with a DFL Senator. She went on to under-perform the rest of the GOP ticket by more than 10 percentage points.

There is no basis for truth in this statement. It is a lie.

Lie Number 2 -- "I've run in heavily Democrat areas"

In a recent interview with Congressional Quarterly, Michele Bachmann discussed her electability:

"I’ve run in Democrat areas and I've won by a significant margin, and I've proved that, even though I'm a very vocal conservative, I can win even in heavily Democrat areas. And get a lot of crossover vote from Democrats."

Michele Bachmann has run for the State Senate twice in two different districts, both with a strong GOP index. In 2000, every single Republican candidate on the ballot won in her Senate district. In 2002, while she underperformed the GOP ticket by 10 points, Governor Pawlenty lost only one precinct in her Senate District, and he was running in a three way race!

Lie Number 3 -- "Marcus and I will soon be empty nesters"

In her speech to the delegates at the Wright County Convention on Saturday, Michele Bachmann said she and her husband look forward to being "empty nesters" soon.

The Bachmann's have three young daughters, ages 11, 13 and 15 at home. Unless they are planning to send their children to boarding school, the Bachmanns will not have an "empty nest" for over seven years.

Thank You

OK, the thing about the daughters is a little icky and as someone who is really about to become an empty nester, I'm not at all sure they ever actually, you know, leave. But that's a discussion for another day.

Krinkie is right about redistricting. The Legislature wasn't up to the task, so the court, under Republican Kathleen Blatz, had to do the job. And, of course, redistricting was the best thing that ever happened to Republicans in the 6th District as it chased incumbent Bill Luther to the 2nd, where he lost to John Kline. Luther knew he couldn't win in the 6th anymore, thus opening the door for Mark Kennedy. Of course, the court admitted it made a mistake by redistricting Kennedy out of his 2nd District seat. But that ended up working pretty well for the guy.

Here's some good background from MPR:

Redistricting: An exercise in politics

Redistricting brings identity crisis home

Suburbs get more clout from new plan

Incumbents paired under court's redistricting plan

Sue Jeffers on Midday

Posted at 12:11 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Former-Libertarian-turned-Republican candidate for governor Sue Jeffers was on Midday today. I'll have the audio posted in a bit. Here's the audio. And at some point over the afternoon I'll slice up the answers for her page on Campaign 2006.

The individual audio cuts of her position are now posted on her page on the Campaign 2006 site.

Just noodling here but if Jeffers ran as a Libertarian in November, wouldn't she likely take votes away from Pawlenty? So if she's allowed to run as a Republican, doesn't that give the GOP a chance to wipe her off the November ballot?

Grams on a comeback

Posted at 3:19 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Brian Bakst of the Associated Press is reporting that Rod Grams might challenge Rep. Jim Oberstar.

He was, of course, heading for a U.S. Senate race until cooler GOP heads prevailed and the way was cleared for Rep. Mark Kennedy.

Select A Candidate

Posted at 5:11 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Select A Candidate v3.0 has been released.

Herding cats - special campaign edition

Posted at 9:26 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

It's always been a challenge for us here at MPR to give any real coverage to legislative races. Consequently, in all honesty, we don't. We might do a piece a week before the election on some key races, and that's about it. I've never been able to come up with a solution to the problem since, it's been my position, that you're more likely to be affected by the Legislature than any of the other races that we cover.

But I get why we can't do much more than tell you who's running in each district (which is the next component to get added to Campaign 2006). That's a lot of people for 2 or 3 political reporters to cover.

Thus, my long-winded -- and overdue -- acknowledgement to the great work that Minntelect does updating the status of these races. I wish I had the ability.

I am interested in the comments on the Northfield area races for I was thinking about this while watching the stadium debate on Tuesday.

A year ago, mostly on the MPR Forum (which I don't visit much anymore since Polinaut started, but will again after Election Day when Polinaut vanishes), I said that Rep. Ray Cox was the most impressive legislator of the last session, and really found a voice for himself when the Republicans and, separately, DFLers, as a group only had one.

This session I have not seen him use that voice in floor debates as I have in the past. Why? Beats me. Maybe it's still early.

He's in a re-election battle with David Bly. He beat Bly by about 44 votes in '02, and won a not-as-close election in '04.

Anyway, that'll be an interesting race.

Twins stadium vote

Posted at 9:55 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Courtesy of Votetracker, here's the roll call of the vote for a Twins stadium bil in the House today. Do me a favor, though, and sort it by districtWhy? Well, the lower numbers are rural Minnesota and as you get into the high numbers, you're in the metro. Notice anything?

The people who've put Votetracker together have talked in the past about taking the database that drives it and integrating it with the program we use on election night to draw the red and blue districts so you can see -- better than this -- how some votes shake out based on geography. I think this is one of them.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that idea has gone to the place where good ideas go to die, but it's still something I think would be cool.

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