Sutton officially stays on sideline

Posted at 6:00 AM on September 3, 2011 by Tim Pugmire (1 Comments)
Filed under: Campaign 2012, Michele Bachmann, Political parties

Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Tony Sutton said he has no intention of endorsing a GOP presidential candidate before there's a presumptive nominee.

Sutton's pledge of neutrality made a lot of sense when there were two Minnesotans -- Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty -- in the crowded GOP field. Now, Bachmann is the only Minnesotan still running. But Sutton said he will remain neutral, for now.

"I choose to be neutral because I think since I administer the delegate selection process in Minnesota, I think it's important to remain above the fray," Sutton said.

Party bylaws allow a state chair to offer early support to a presidential candidate. Sutton's predecessor, Ron Carey, announced in January 2008 that he would lead the Minnesota campaign for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Some Republicans were upset with Carey at the time. Sutton, who supported Mitt Romney four years ago, said he has more important things to do than create a similar drama.

Sutton said he thinks Republicans have many strong candidates running for president.

"If I were to have a personal favorite it would probably be Michele Bachman simply because I know her, I know she's strong and she's from Minnesota," Sutton said. "I have to admit I'm a homer."

Comments (1)

Interesting. Did you guys at MPR know that Tony Sutton has a legitmate claim to being one of the Republicans who got Michele Bachmann into politics?

That's according to an election judge that I interviewed (named, on the record) this year. The election judge was the ballot counter at the 2000 GOP event that led to virtual unknown Michele Bachmann knocking out long term GOP incumbent Gary Laidig to get the State Senate nomination.

According to this witness, Tony Sutton showed up in the counting area and intervened to influence the ballot counting process, to the benefit of Bachmann. (And the same witness reported that one of Bachmann's supporters also tried to interfere with the ballot counting.)

So it's interesting that Sutton's not going to take a side, now that she's up there in the stratosphere. I guess he doesn't fear her chances of coming back to Minnesota, when she's done.

Posted by Bill Prendergast | September 3, 2011 12:23 PM

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