The Fix weighs in on the governor's race

Posted at 12:33 PM on October 16, 2009 by Tom Scheck (2 Comments)

The Washington Post's The Fix examines the most competitive governor's races in 2010. Here's what Chris Cillizza says about Minnesota:

11. Minnesota (R): The fields on both sides of the race to replace Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) are packed with candidates -- most of whom have a limited profile statewide. But, Democrats appear to have an ace in the hole in Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak who is widely expected to get into the contest in the near future. Republicans may well have to wait until next year to find out whether former Sen. Norm Coleman will run but given the Democratic trend in the Land of 10,000 Lakes in recent years, it may not matter who the GOP puts up. (Previous ranking: 11)

Question of the day: What are your thoughts on Cillizza's assessment?

Comments (2)

Allowing that THE FIX's analysis is to list which party is likely to takeover the governship held by the current party, then the ranking is probably about right ... since there is not an incumbent, it makes for a more iffy race. Personally, I think the Republicans probably have a better chance of retaining MN then the Democrats have of retaining Iowa, Colorado, or Wisconsin ... so I would have ranked MN as a tie for 15th.

Regarding Chris Cillizza's assessment of the MN field, he's probably right. It currently is a field that most Minnesotans don't know .... the Rybak "ace" characterization makes a lot of sense considering that he has already has gotten an endorsement without even putting his name in as a candidate. The Coleman comment seems to be a what one would hear from Washington not Minnesota ... remember he lost the Governship to Ventura ... and underperformed McCain by 63,209 votes in the 2008 elections ... Republicans have proven that they are willing to put their votes on IP candidates rather than Coleman. The question is, are you hearing that Republicans are clamoring for Coleman to get in the race ? IF not, then let's just bury that story.

Cillzza's final assessment poses an interesting thought -- "given the Democratic trend in the Land of 10,000 Lakes in recent years, it may not matter who the GOP puts up". The trend that should be a concern is the the DFL has continued to put up unappealing or flawed candidates (Humphrey, Moe, Hatch and Franken) giving the voters options to look at Ventura, Penny, Hutchinson and Barkley. The MN-GOP candidate will tell the voters what they want to hear ... no tax increases. Thus, Cilzza may be right (unless they put up Representative Bachmann), it may not matter who the MN-GOP puts up, they will win.

Posted by Minnesota Central | October 16, 2009 4:13 PM

I find that national pundits are usually behind the events going on inside Minnesota. That doesn't mean they're always wrong, but they do often miss some things.

On the DFL side, I agree that Rybak is going to have a strong presence at the convention. His facebook profile has 6,100+ friends on it, more than all the other DFL candidates combined, and he's not even officially in the race yet. I know that not all DFL activists belong the facebook demographic, but presumably they'll be some kind of force at the caucuses.

I'm pretty lukewarm about Rybak myself, but he clearly has a large liberal fanclub, two polls have showed him running competitively in a statewide race, and I don't think the Minneapolis connection is as big a bugaboo statewide as the GOP thinks it is. He's probably the best candidate in the DFL field, although I doubt whether he'd be the best Governor.

In the end, it's going to be a multi-candidate field come late April, and the dynamics of that in a convention fight can be tricky. Assuming that Rybak gets endorsed, his biggest strengths in a primary and general election would be his energy, media skills, and winner's mindset. Potential problems would be all his property tax hikes over the years, and what happens to all those police officers being kept on the MPD payroll with one-time stimulus money that's set to run out some time next year.

I have trouble handicapping GOP endorsement contests, since they're not trying to appeal to me, and any candidate that did appeal to me wouldn't have much chance of getting endorsed. But as for Norm Coleman, the guy has relied heavily on GOP establishment figures really going to bat for him in all his prior contests. They muscled out any potential challengers in '02 and '08, and IIRC, Bill Cooper and others were clearly playing favorites in his '98 endorsement fight. I don't see that kind of support materializing for him again, do you?

Posted by Chris | October 16, 2009 5:02 PM

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