< Hennepin County Board approves sales tax increase for Twins ballpark | Main | The Daily Digest: 8-30-06 >

Three major parties?

Posted at 7:57 AM on August 30, 2006 by Mike Mulcahy (8 Comments)

MPR's Laura McCallum has a report today that details how IP-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson ended up with just $16,000 left in his campaign coffers as of this week's pre-primary report.

Among other things, he spent $21,000 to rent a hotel ballroom to announce his campaign and has paid staff so far about $250,000.

He's counting on the taxpayers to give a boost to his campaign with a public subsidy of about $283,000. And his campaign says they've been raising money since the end of the reporting period.

Of course fundraising isn't the only way to judge the success of a campaign, but this story does raise some questions.

Is the "major party" bar set too low in Minnesota? (It takes 5 votes out of every hundred cast statewide to qualify)

Does Hutchinson's campaign spending reflect at all on his campaign message that he can best manage the state budget?

Did the Ventura era leave a lasting third party legacy in Minnesota?

I'll leave it to you to provide the answers.

Comments (8)

Is MPR trying to take the legs out from under a new party candidate to clear the way for the crabby Mike Hatch?

Posted by realtime | August 30, 2006 8:27 AM

Peter Hutchinson comparing his money-burning, insular campaign to the campaigns of Paul Wellstone? Pure chutzpah.

Wellstone's campaigns relied disproportionately on volunteers, not paid staff, for the grass-roots effort. Wellstone and his three-time campaign manager, Jeff Blodgett, were extraordinarily frugal -- no, cheap -- on all types of overhead. More importantly, Wellstone was able to mount a statewide, grass-roots effort because he had toiled for years at the roots of the DFL Party.

I haven't seen any Wellstone-esque activity by Mr. Hutchinson over the last ten years. The simple fact is that he has blown through a serious chunk of change, without significant ads, billboards, or real grass-roots support to show for it.

Posted by David | August 30, 2006 8:28 AM

MPR isn't trying to take the legs out from anybody. We've done plenty of stories on Mike Hatch and Tim Pawlenty and will do plenty more. And I would challenge you to name any news outlet that has given more time to Peter Hutchinson (or Jesse Ventura for that matter) than MPR.

Posted by Mike Mulcahy | August 30, 2006 8:32 AM

I do believe Howard Dean went through a huge chunk of change at a similar pace a couple years ago. Does that make the Democrats less than a major party?

Just because Hutchinson's campaign is poorly managed doesn't mean he is a minor candidate. Also, before the Wellstone memorial Tim Penny was polling close to Tim and Roger. The IP is certainly a major player in Minnesota politics. They force moderation upon the other two major parties.

Posted by James | August 30, 2006 9:42 AM

That is absolutely ridiculous that he has blown that much cash. 1/4 mil on staff? He better have Joe Trippi, Bill Hillsman and Jeff Blodgett working for him with that kind of money going into it.
I know Hutchinson raised quite a bit of money at his announcement - but $21,000?!

Maybe he thinks he needs to spend money up the Wazoo to match Pawlenty and Hatch, but he is dead in the water at this point.

Posted by DFLer22 | August 30, 2006 10:04 AM

Considering that Hutchinson has to get the message out without the benefit of a well-funded statewide or national party, its hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Is the bar set too low? No. If it were, wouldn't there be more parties achieving major party status?

Posted by bsimon | August 30, 2006 10:43 AM

Wow. I vote for the NDP (our third party) in Canada and frequently visit relatives in Hallock Minnesota. I have followed the Independence Party on occasion because I think its probably the only hope. I'll tell you this, if a Sun reporter ever wrote a blog entry like this I would have to question his bias when writing other pieces. I guess it doesn't work that way south of the border. Isn't Ventura's party the one that still doesn't take special interest money? There was no mention of that fact in the blog or the story.

Posted by gus melin | August 31, 2006 1:31 AM

I'll confess I don't know much about Canadian politics or Canadian blogging, but I can guarantee you that if a Democrat or Republican endorsed candidate for governor of Minnesota was sitting with $16,000 cash on hand on Labor Day we would be doing stories about it, and there would be plenty of questions about it from people inside their parties. The piece was fair.

We've had Peter Hutchinson on the air for several hours to talk about his campaign. We'll continue to cover him and we'll ask tough questions about him and the other candidates. I think that's the job of journalists on both sides of the border.

The special interest question is a good one. We'll look into that. But the point of the story wasn't that Hutchinson isn't raising money. It was about how he was spending it.

Posted by Mike Mulcahy | August 31, 2006 7:24 AM

August 2006
S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Master Archive

MPR News
Radio

Listen Now

On Air

Fresh Air®

Schedule

Shortcuts
Hourly Newscast
Hosts
Station Map

Other Radio Streams from MPR

Classical MPR
Radio Heartland

Services

Become a Sponsor

In The Spotlight

Sound Learning
Looking for ways to ensure your students are doing quality research from credible sources? Sound Learning is a launching point to Minnesota Public Radio's content on the Web.
The Current Music Blog
Your daily note for good music, news and pop culture. With attempted jokes.