Capitol View: October 27, 2006 Archive

John Kerry in Minnesota next week

Posted at 8:21 AM on October 27, 2006 by Tom Scheck

For a DFL fundraiser. I'm sure there will be some campaigning as well.

Minnesota DFL Chair Brian Melendez

Invites you to join him for a special event with

Senator John Kerry

in support of the

Minnesota DFL Party
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

at the

Saint Paul Hotel
350 Market Street
Saint Paul
$250 per person
(Limited Space)

Obamapalooza

Posted at 8:43 AM on October 27, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Politics, these days, is like painting bridge. As soon as you finish, it's time to start again. As Campaign 2006 winds down, a few of us around the Dilbertian-village are planning the Campaign 2008 site.

Barry Casselman is doing the same thing. The Minneapolis writer has a piece in the Washington Times today looking at the 2008 race, now that Barack Obama is thinking about jumping in.

I think we got an early look at the anti-Barack sentiment; from the Strib, no less.

Obama, by the way, is going to be in Minneapolis on Monday. He's got a book-signing event at one of the big chains downtown. It'll be interesting to see what the turnout is.

He'll be in Rochester at 5, supporting 1st District challenger Tim Walz.

If you want to get warmed up for Obamapalooza, here's his 2004 convention speech. And here's his stump speech, when he was in town for Klobuchar last spring.

Random thoughts: We look for political entertainment whereever we can find it. I've started a new political race at my house. Which category "wins" the junk mail race: political mailings or credit card offers.

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Why we don't cover all legislative races

Posted at 9:33 AM on October 27, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

A reader writes in the comments section of the Obama post:

I am an independent candidate for State Representative in district 58A, and though I have not had any MPR coverage, I am not writing to protest on my own behalf. I will just say that state legislative races have been very poorly covered by all of our news services, and that as a result, many incumbents who do not deserve re-election will win their races.

First the disclaimers. I am not a spokesman for MPR News. I'm just a schlep typing on a laptop. But I agree with you; I'd guess that everyone here agrees with you. And I've written here before about covering legislative races.

Here's the problem.

-- There are five people covering politics here...one is assigned to the Senate race...one to the 5th District race (part time), one to the 6th District race (part-time), one to the governor's race..one to the 1st District (part-time). And, as time allows...they also produce issue pieces on the various races and cover all the other stuff on their beats. That's reality.

-- There are 201 legislative races in Minnesota.

Do the math. It can't be done. It's not that we don't want to, we just don't have the resources.

So here's what we are doing:

-- Laura McCallum has talked to the major parties to find out what races they targeted as key races and she -- and others -- have done profiles on those races. Those all came after the primary, so Mike wasn't lying.

Personally, I've been trying to get us to do a profile of the 56B race (Klinzing vs. Swails), but neither of the parties saw it as a "key" race. I think they're totally wrong, but that's just me. I don't think the DFL understands the suburbs anyway; I think someone who actually lives in these districts has a better grasp on things. But so be it. We'll see on Election Day.

-- Our VERY limited online staff (except for me) has been working on a legislative section of Campaign 2006. It was supposed to be done last week. It wasn't. Why? Because there's three part-time people working on it fulltime and there's 201 races. About all we can do is tell you who's running and tell you where the information is about their positions.

That's all we can do now, but we're building a system.

What?

First, Votetracker, which is designed to give you the voting record of incumbents. It's only been out for two years and it's nowhere as near robust as it needs to be. But we're working on it and we have to start somewhere.

We're trying to get all the political databases we've built (election results, campaign 2006 and Votetracker, Select A Candidate) separately, to talk to each other so that we can actually build -- and here's the key words -- over time a political encyclopedia of Minnesota. The guts of that is the work of a true genius -- Andy Beger -- in our information technology department. But Andy is just one guy and some of his accomplishments this year include a very terrific interface for Select A Candidate which has made it much easier to crank these things out. We have more Select A Candidates for races than we've ever produced before because of Andy. Is there one for everybody? No, not yet, but at least we've started taking the steps to make that a possibility.

I realize this doesn't satisfy folks who want more coverage of legislative races. It shouldn't. It doesn't satisfy me and I don't think it satisfies anybody here. We're never satisfied; that's why our online site is better today than it was yesterday.

But we're talking a very small number of people doing a very large amount of work. They're working hard, they're working with integrity, and they're working on behalf of you. Maybe it doesn't show yet -- it certainly doesn't show to the extent we would like -- but we have to deal with some physical realities.

I have talked to a few folks here about Dan Gilmore's project at the Center for Citizen Media, in which -- thanks to a $25,000 grant -- they're putting together a "citizen driven" legislative and congressional district Voter Guide.

This is very cool. It's also a giant experiment that just went out 2 days ago. Is it something I would like to do? You bet. What would it cost? I don't know. What resources would it take? I don't know. Gilmore has a whole university full of kids working on it.

I can't make all this happen tomorrow. I don't even think it can happen for 2008. But the first step is wanting it to. A bunch of us want it to and we're prepared to battle for the dollars to make it happen against other people who here who have their own ideas about things to do that aren't about politics. That's the way it works and while I'd like to wave a magic wand and make the future happen, I just can't.

And I'm sorry about that and I wish you'd remain a member. But that choice is yours.

As for the auditor debate, I don't have anything to do with programming and those things. Take your question over to The News Grid and pose it to the guy who's in charge.

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The Daily Digest: 10-27-06

Posted at 12:06 PM on October 27, 2006 by Tom Scheck

Turnout leads the digest. The GOP started its push to get their voters to the polls. Candidates for governor, congress and U.S. Senate held news conferences back to back to back to talk about the Iraq war, the war on terror and immigration. Why? The Pi Press says that's what Republican voters care about. MPR focuses on all of the immigration ads that are running on behalf of GOP candidates. (I'll post link once it's up). Polls show immigration is tied for the #1 issue among conservative Republicans (the war on terror is the other). KARE-11 focuses on the immigration debate in the governor's race.

The Washington Post says it's kitchen sink time for the GOP.

One potential turnout tool that will not be used is gay marriage, at least in MN's 6th, says Republican Michele Bachmann.

The Democrats are relying on their national heavyweights to rally their troops. And it looks like they'll be working hard for DFLer Tim Walz in the 1st Congressional District. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Illinois Senator Barack Obama will be holding rallies in the 1st for Walz and U.S. Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar next week.

The 1st District race between Walz and Gutknecht is getting plenty of attention. In fact, we were just alerted that the DCCC has included the race in its red to blue status. That means oodles and oodles and oodles of dough on behalf of Walz. AP has a profile of the race. A group known as Vote Vets is also running ads critical of Gutknecht. The Star Tribune writes about the ad and the ad buy.

Republican Mark Kennedy, running for the U.S. Senate, is challenging Amy Klobuchar to a debate on Iraq and nothing else.

AP takes a look at all of the fundraising numbers. Kennedy's campaign hasn't released their numbers.

The Pi Press has a profile of Amy Klobuchar, the DFL candidate for U.S. Senate.

The Wall Street Journal mentions Kennedy's first ad in this story.

The Star Tribune says the pace has quickened in the governor's race.

Pawlenty campaigns in Stillwater.

The Red Wing Republican Eagle and the St. Cloud Times endorse Pawlenty.

The Albert Lea Tribune endorses Hatch.

KSTP-TV will host two debates on Sunday. One on the U.S. Senate race. One on the governor's race.

KSTP-TV will also have a 6th District debate tonight (FRI). WCCO-TV has one on Saturday.

MPR's Tim Pugmire has a profile on the contest in the 6th.

Republican Michele Bachmann and DFLer Patty Wetterling, two of the candidates running in the 6th, are just raising oodles and oodles and oodles of cash.

The Strib also fact checks a DCCC ad that criticizes Bachmann.

The Pi Press endorses Wetterling.

Hello there, 7th District congressional candidates. Thanks for meeting in a debate so we can include you in the digest.

The Star Tribune and the AP take a look at the candidates for auditor.

Lt. Governor Carol Molnau will be in Bemidji.

The candidates for Lieutenant Governor will also be on TPT's Almanac show tonight.

Lavender Magazine lists the GLBT friendly candidates. The magazine and Jesse Ventura also endorse I-P member Tammy Lee in Minnesota's 5th.

USA Today has a story on Lee's DFL opponent, Keith Ellison and the campaign probably doesn't like it.

The Worthington Daily Globe also takes a look at the legislative races in that area.

The St. Cloud Times also examines the candidates in Senate District 16.

City Pages takes a look at Alida Messinger.

Sandy Keith for Pawlenty

Posted at 3:46 PM on October 27, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Barry Casselman told me this at lunch today and I hadn't heard about it. Now I've just seen an AP story cross and here it is:

A Democrat who served in all three branches of government gave his backing Friday to Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's re-election campaign. Sandy Keith, who served as a state senator, as lieutant governor and as Supreme Court chief justice, said Pawlenty was taking Minnesota in the right direction. "During the past four years, he's shown courage and tenacity in tackling tough economic issues and his efforts have brought our state budget into balance," Keith said in a written statement.

Barry told me today, by the way, that Sandy Keith knows everything about every legislative race in the state. I'd love to spend some time with him next week. Maybe time and fortune will allow. That would be fun.

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An inside look at endorsements

Posted at 4:49 PM on October 27, 2006 by Bob Collins

I don't agree with Craig Westover all that often, but I sure admire his logic and ability to reason and make a relatively emotion-free case for whatever cause he has.

In that context, I think he does as good a job at sizing up the state of politics in the 6th District wrt endorsements, as anything I've read so far.

I've never worked at a newspaper -- not being particularly gifted enough in the journalism department -- so it was interesting to hear his references to how editorials are written.

I just assumed whoever the biggest, meanest, highest-ranking editor is gets to decide and write it. He makes it sound like the journalism version of the Supreme Court.

And I think the above link is the dissenting view from the minority.

I don't get the Pioneer Press anymore. Despite their ability to get the paper on the top step, I can't stand entertainment news in the A section. It's ... just... creepy. So I didn't know they had come out with their endorsement.

Fortunately, there's this cool thing called the Internet, and you can find the endorsement by following the tubes.

Speaking of the Pioneer Press, check out Tim Nelson's fine analysis of voting patterns in St. Paul for national vs. off-year elections. It's at City Hall Scoop.

Senate fundraising numbers

Posted at 5:41 PM on October 27, 2006 by Tom Scheck (4 Comments)

Republican Mark Kennedy released his numbers earlier today. Here's the latest in the fundraising race:

Democrat Amy Klobuchar raised $700,000 between October first and October 18th. She has 1.2 million dollars in the bank as of October 18th. That's more than double what Republican Mark Kennedy has on hand. He reported raising $536,87740 thousand dollars in the last reporting period and had about $561,983 left as of October 18th. Kennedy still leads in the total amount raised in this campaign cycle. He's brought in $9.1 million. Klobuchar raised a total of $8.62 million. The two candidates will meet in three more debates between now and election day.

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Legislature Voters Guide

Posted at 7:27 PM on October 27, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

The Legislature section of Campaign 2006 has opened.

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Bring on the Democratic heavyweights

Posted at 10:10 PM on October 27, 2006 by Tom Scheck

It appears that the national heavyweights want to turn out the Democratic vote in Minnesota. Illinois Senator Barack Obama will appear at a rally with Klobuchar and Congressional Tim Walz on Monday. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (the Democratic nominee for President in 2004) will be in Mankato for Klobuchar and Walz (i'm told klobuchar will not be there). Finally former Vice President Al Gore, the 2000 Democratic nominee for president, will be in Minneapolis on Thursday.