GOP launches early ad campaign against SOS Ritchie

Posted at 3:29 PM on July 16, 2009 by Tim Pugmire (1 Comments)

Minnesota Republicans say they've begun the campaign to elect a new secretary of state in 2010.

The state GOP is buying radio ad time for the next week to criticize the record of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, a first-term Democrat. Chairman Tony Sutton claims Ritchie failed to properly train local election officials and switched his position on absentee ballots during the recent Senate recount. Sutton says he thinks Ritchie is vulnerable and he's been talking to several potential candidates. Sutton says the party will also work to unseat the DFL attorney general and state auditor.

"In the past I think once an incumbent has gotten in people have pretty much given them a free ride until the seat got opened up," Sutton said. "We going to be very agressive in these constitutional office races."

The Minnesota DFL Party responded with a news release that accused Republicans of launching a smear campaign. Ritchie wouldn't respond to the specific GOP allegations. But he said the ad is a bad signal about the tone of the 2010 campaign.

"This sounds like the kickoff of somebody's campaign to run against me," Ritchie said. "And it sounds like the intention is to make it a dirty, negative, in the gutter type campaign. And I'll just do everything in my power to keep that campaign next year positive."

Comments (1)

This is no surprise. Republicans hate Ritchie so intensely --- and frankly they hated him even before the recount --- that it seems obvious he would be their main target in secretary of state races, even above bigger or more purple states. I could even see him being a bigger target than the governor race. I expect a swiftboat campaign will be forthcoming next year, and there will be an attempt to overwhelm the usually small spending on this race with independent expenditures. They'll try to make Ritchie out to be the biggest villain in Minnesota, after Franken.

Posted by Eric Ferguson | July 17, 2009 10:41 AM

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