State Rep. Melissa Hortman has confirmed that she will not be a candidate for Congress in the 3rd District in 2008.
I just got off the phone with Rep. Hortman, who told me that she didn’t want to spend so much time away from her family.
“I’m young, I have a young family. My heart is in the work in State Capitol.”
Hortman has two children, ages 10 and 12. A run for the 3rd District would require a candidate to devote their whole life to the campaign trail for the next year. The end of the campaign brings no relief. A sitting Congressman spends 4-5 nights a week in Washington and away from their family.
More analysis tomorrow.
Oh well. Melissa still rocks.
Yes she does!
What I’m hearing from Zack’s post is that Hortman is young, with a young family and her heart is in the work in the State Capitol. I didn’t need an exclusive newsflash to figure that out, a cookie-cutter state house bio page would tell me that.
“I’m young, I have a young family. My heart is in the work at the State Capitol” does not translate to “I will not run for Congress in 2008”.
Hortman is awesome, regardless. I can’t blame her for not wanting to run right now. She’s a rising star in the legislature, her seat’s up this cycle, and she has a young family that would be stressed by the job.
Bonoff has to be pleased by this, though.
I think she feared a meltdown from being under the microscope. Not surprising though.
Hortman would be a better candidate than Bonoff. This is good news for my side of the aisle…(GOP)
If you think Bonoff will be a weak candidate you do so at your own peril. That is good news for my side “DFL”.
I can understand someone wanting to see their kids every night. I can also understand wanting to stay at the state capitol. When someone isn’t proudly vetoing bridge money, some real good gets down there. Its not as vast as DC and one is closer to one’s constituents, and I could see that being someone’s preferences.
this is good news for dflers for 2 reasons:
1) it makes it more likely we hold onto that leg seat
2) terri bonhoff can consolidate support quickly
i find “loveit“‘s happiness a little funny since all the gop blogs have been chirping about what a bad candidate ms. hortman would be.
i’ve noted a nagging theme on both progressive and conservative blogs of “is this all we’ve got?”
for gopers, they say “erik paulsen, fine…but we want more choices” and for dflers they wonder why not more candidates are stepping forward. i follow congressional races across the country on swing state, senate guru, cook report and sabato, and in many swing district open races, candidates are settled on very quickly. paulsen and bonhoff are mainstream candidates for their parties, and clearly are ready to work hard for the seat since they are already lining up support and raising money.
it would be fine if more good candidates wanted to challenge for the endorsement on either side, but it is certainly not necessary. i guess you could always get a better more perfect candidate, but we could get a lot worse candidates as well. this looks like a good race and either side can win.
Can we move on to candidates now, how about Jim Hovland….
I am startled that this is already down to a 2-person race. I have respect for Paulsen and Bonoff, but neither one has even put out one position paper yet! They haven’t been involved in one debate! They haven’t had any forum where we get to know their stance on federal issues.
Some will say that since both are legislators, we know them well enough. I disagree! There is an entirely different layer of issues at the federal level, many issues which you would never spend time working on at the state level. Conversely, there are state issues on which you may become a rock star on, but will never once deal with those issues at the federal level.
Plus, representing a legislative district and representing a congressional district are different ballgames from an organization standpoint. A MN legislative district has 35,000 people. A US Congressional district has 650,000. There are aren’t needed in one case but could help in another, and vice versa. We shouldn’t simply assume that being proficient at the state level translates to success in Congress.
I think we are about to get to a 2-candidate race with ZERO vetting having gone on. That is not how the system is supposed to work.
Southlaketonka Blogger,
So you read the other posts?
Not criticizing Bonoff in my previous post. Just saying that Hortman would likely be a better candidate. I believe that Bonoff would be better than Hovland, but not as good as Simon.
???
1) there is still time to get in
2) there is more than two in this race already
loveit makes a a good point. what happened to simon? for a while there, it sounded like he was getting in, and now we don’t hear anything.
I totally buy the family excuse that we heard from Hortman, Michel, and others. This is one thankless job. Sure, you get a great title and many people look up to you. But you are on the road all week, which by itself is a handful. Then you get home and you are committed to meet with people / present to groups / go to ceremonies all weekend. Then on Monday, you go back to DC.
Did I mention that you spend every evening on the phone raising money for your party?
The MN State Legislature sounds downright charming compared to that!