Capitol View: October 13, 2006 Archive

The Daily Digest: 10-13-06

Posted at 10:32 AM on October 13, 2006 by Tom Scheck (2 Comments)

Minnesota's 1st District leads the digest today. We begin with this question: Is GOP Congressman Gil Gutknecht in trouble? The Rochester Post Bulletin has a story on a new poll that has Gutknecht and DFLer Tim Walz running neck and neck. The Mankato Free Press has several stories on House Majority Leader John Boehner's visit to Mankato yesterday to help Gutknecht. The overall story. The protester angle and Boehner's take on Foley.

Former U.S. Senator Rod Grams says Congressman Jim Oberstar is out of touch with the 8th Congressional District. Grams is challenging Oberstar.

The Star Tribune writes about the 5th Congressional District contest. Rochelle Olson must have writer's cramp after also writing profiles on DFLer Keith Ellison, Republican Alan Fine, I-P candidate Tammy Lee and Green Party candidate Jay Pond. She also says an Islamic organization will hold a fundraiser for Ellison in Florida. Here's a question for all of the bloggers wondering if DFL Congressman Martin Sabo is endorsing I-P candidate Tammy Lee. Did his endorsement help Mike Erlandson?

KARE-11 says the senate candidates are getting ready for their Meet the Press debate on Sunday.

The Washington Times mentions Minnesota's Senate race in a story that focuses on taxes.

DNC Chair Howard Dean will be in town next week.

WCCO-TV's Pat Kessler reality checks the latest ads by Pawlenty and Hatch.

KARE-11 wonders if these types of ads are effective.

Finally, we say good-bye to CBGBs. The New York night club that gave birth to punk in 1973 and launched bands like the Ramones, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, Talking Heads, Live and Blondie. It makes me so sad that I could just slam dance.

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An interview with Michael Barrett

Posted at 12:32 PM on October 13, 2006 by Bob Collins

MPR's Bob Reha, in preparing a story profiling the 7th Congressional District race, has an interview with GOP candidate Michael Barrett.

Here's the audio in RealPlayer.

It's about 21 minutes long, although it'll show over an hour on the player. My audio editing system isn't working so I couldn't trim it up properly. You won't hear the questions on the feed.

Collin Peterson later, I presume.

Debates next week

Posted at 12:40 PM on October 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

We'll be providing live coverage online next week of two Congressional debates. These will not be broadcast live on the radio.

They are:

Tues. Oct. 17, 2006
8th District debate. 8 p.m.

Thur. Oct. 19, 2006
1st District debate. 7 p.m.

Hopefully, I'll be able to have them encoded for the archive by 11 p.m. the same night, but no guarantees.

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Air America bankrupt

Posted at 12:53 PM on October 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Air America filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Politics aside, given their business model, it was only a matter of time. The method of buying blocks of time from a radio station and then putting your show there and then -- hopefully -- selling enough advertising to make it work has been tried before.

Generally the stations that end up selling you the time are cruddy little radio stations with very little audience and and almost no signal, who are desperate for the cash themselves (it's called "brokered radio").

Technically, they can safely tell the advertisers that they're on the air in major markets, but most of the time the stations are only peripherally in those markets.

Pretty hard to develop an audience that way, and very difficult to make any money that way.

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Debate follow-up

Posted at 2:27 PM on October 13, 2006 by Bob Collins

Down below you can see a note I wrote regarding debates on the Web. One thing I left out: if you record a campaign event -- such as a debate -- and would like to have it on the Web, send it to me (you can burn it to a CD, for example) and I'll encode it and put it on the appropriate candidate page on the C2006 site.

For example, I know there are lots of candidate forums out there and, for the most part, if a radio reporter isn't covering from here, we have no access to it here in the online department.

But if you have recorded it and would like to have it available, I'd be willing to provide the audio server and the encoding services.

Howard Dean fundraiser for the DFL

Posted at 4:50 PM on October 13, 2006 by Tom Scheck

This fundraising e-mail was just sent out:

Please join us for an evening with

DNC Chair Howard Dean in support of the Minnesota DFL Party

Thursday, October 19, 2006

8:00 – 9:00 p.m.

at the home of

State DFL Chair Brian Melendez

Dean will also be on the University of Minnesota campus on Thursday afternoon.

Poll: Hatch leads Pawlenty

Posted at 10:25 PM on October 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

The Star Tribune poll is out and shows that Mike Hatch has a 9-percentage-point lead over Tim Pawlenty. The last time the poll was conducted, the race was basically even. Peter Hutchinson came in at 7 percent. He's not in a competitive state, but the good news for the IP is he's, so far, got the vote to keep the IP considered a "major party."

Now let me be clear here: I am not a political scientist. I can't dissect this methodology from a statistics expertise. I can't tell you this poll is right or wrong. What I can tell you is what I feel, what my gut instinct tells me. Up to now, it's served me well.

I listen to the call-in talk shows, I even set the clock to get up and listen to the overnight talk shows on AM radio, I talk to people, I bend over in my chair at a restaurant to hear what people are saying, I listen to conversations at bus stops and anywhere else...where...there is one. I can't detect that Tim Pawlenty is in this much trouble.

That's not to conclude that he's not. I'm just saying, the usual barometers that usually give me a clue that something's up, are either not working... or they are. I won't know until Election Day.

These numbers could mean that Republicans are the ones turning on him -- there's a few that aren't all that happy with his breaking of the "no new taxes" pledge (spare me the "fee" talk, just because the DFLers agreed to call it a fee when approving the legislation, doesn't mean that the voters are similarly obliged, or interested in the term.), but where are those voters going to go? Hatch? C'mon. And, besides, the same paper just wrote a story that what support exists for Klobuchar, isn't adding up to support for Hatch. So something doesn't add up there.

I do know this, however: if this poll is right and Pawlenty really is in this much trouble: the Republicans in the Legislature are in a huge mess.

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