Polinaut: July 29, 2006 Archive

The Daily Digest: 7-29-06

Posted at 9:16 AM on July 29, 2006 by Tom Scheck

The Daily Digest 7-29-06
(Note:I'm having a problem linking so I'll past the urls after the stories)

The Star Tribune has a story on the Independence Party’s complaint about Mike Hatch.
www.startribune.com/587/story/582390.html

Fred Frommer with the Associated Press has a story on how Hollywood stars are giving to Al Franken’s Midwest Values PAC. Here’s a portion of the story:

"So far, the Midwest Values PAC has donated about $80,000 to three national Democratic Party organizations. It's also made the maximum $10,000 donations to Minnesota Democratic congressional candidates Coleen Rowley, Tim Walz and Patty Wetterling, and to Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar.

But Franken said the contributions were not made with the hope of building support for his own potential race in 2008.

"They were made in the hope of taking one of the houses or both in 2006," he said. "That's where my focus is right now."

Franken still hasn't decided whether to run for Senate, he said.
Coleman's office declined to comment for this story, but his campaign is making an issue of Franken's Hollywood money.

"One of my potential opponents is comedian Al Franken," Coleman wrote in a fundraising letter a few months ago, "but there's nothing funny about his venomous 'Air America' liberal radio show, his high-powered and deep-pocketed Hollywood friends, his national network of Bush-Haters or the magnitude of his personal wealth." --
www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/15149084.htm

The Star Tribune’s Eric Black has a story on where the candidates in MN’s 6th Congressional District stand on Lebanon:

"DFLer Patty Wetterling and Republican Michele Bachmann, who disagree on everything from taxes to abortion to the war in Iraq, completely agree that Israel's military action in Lebanon is justified and that President Bush is right not to pressure Israel for an immediate cease-fire.

John Binkowski of St. Mary's Point, the Independence Party candidate for the open seat in the north metro Sixth District, disagrees. He believes Israel has overreacted to Hezbollah's provocation and is doing too much damage to Lebanon's civilian infrastructure." --
www.startribune.com/587/story/582187.html

Finally, the National Journal profiles MN’s Senate and gubernatorial races (subscription required). A subscription is required to read them but I’ll give you the highlights from the Cook Political Report’s Jennifer Duffy:

"The most endangered Democratic seat is the one that Mark Dayton is giving up after just one term. The Minnesota race is expected to be a classic open-seat contest in which everything from candidate quality to campaign skills to fundraising matters. Still, the overall political climate might end up playing the starring role.

The Democratic nominee is Amy Klobuchar, the county attorney in Hennepin (which includes Minneapolis). She is running her campaign by the Democratic playbook -- arguing that Republicans have lost sight of the issues that average voters care about and have become fiscally irresponsible. She favors rolling back income-tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 a year, allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid recipients, opening the federal employee health care program to individuals and small businesses, and developing an exit strategy for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Klobuchar's GOP opponent, three-term Rep. Mark Kennedy, agrees that Republicans have lost their way on fiscal matters but argues that the Senate needs an accountant (him), not another lawyer (Klobuchar), to get the country back on track. He also contends that Klobuchar is not the moderate she claims to be but a liberal who favors big government and whose proposals on health care and taxes are too expensive. When he is not taking issue with Klobuchar's stands, Kennedy works to distance himself from the unpopular president who shares his party affiliation. Kennedy notes that he has voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, against the No Child Left
Behind law, and against creating a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants -- three of President Bush's signature issues.

This race is just shifting into high gear and is worth watching closely. --

http://nationaljournal.com (subscription required)

Link to Cook Political Report; http://www.cookpolitical.com

Duffy also says Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty is a mild favorite in the race for governor:

"The degree to which the race in Minnesota becomes competitive will depend largely on the outcome of the Democratic primary." --

Attorney General Mike Hatch and State Senator Becky Lourey are the DFLers running in the September primary.

Evangelicalism and politics

Posted at 2:21 PM on July 29, 2006 by Tom Scheck (1 Comments)

The New York Times has an interesting article about Gregory Boyd, an evangelical pastor from Maplewood, who tried to discourage political discourse in his church and lost some of his conservative members.

Here’s a glimpse:

"Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called “The Cross and the Sword” in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a “Christian nation” and stop glorifying American military campaigns.
“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.”

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God’s ideal. The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul — packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals — was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned. By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.

But there were also congregants who thanked Mr. Boyd, telling him they were moved to tears to hear him voice concerns they had been too afraid to share."

Disowning Conservative Politics, Evangelical Pastor Rattles Flock

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