Author Archive for Matt Martin
On Minnesota Matters tonight: Publius Radio! Tune in at 6 PM to AM 950: Mayor Rybak on the state of Minneapolis, T-Paw’s budget, and why Minnesota desperately needs a DFL Guv. As always, tune into AM 950 or point your browser here to listen online. And, hey, we’re taking calls for everyone who wants to ask the Mayor about when that pothole outside your house is getting fixed: 952-946-6205.
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This is so good:
“That brings me to the second thing I want to tell you. In 2008, America elects a black man President.”
“What? Really? Like Morgan Freeman in ‘Deep Impact’?”
“No, you anachronistic goober. That movie doesn’t even come out until 1998.”
“So, he’s like Disraeli or Thatcher, right? Only Nixon can go to China? He’s really conservative? Please tell me you don’t elect Alan Keyes President.”
“No, no. His name is Barack Hussein Obama.”
“OK, now you’re just screwing with me.”
“No. Totally serious. He’s liberal, intelligent, deliberative, pretty much everything the country needs after Bush.”
“Bush? But Bush is President now. Please don’t tell me that he’s still around in 2008!”
“Oh, no. You’ve got the good Bush. The other one is who Obama is cleaning up after.”
“Wow! That’s awesome. That’s wonderful to hear. People must be really— Oh. You’re going to do that thing again, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am. A lot of his supporters are disappointed.”
“With what? A liberal black guy got elected President!”
“And in his first year, he prevented a second Great Depression, has stopped torture as official policy, is winding down an unnecessary war, has dramatically opened up the transparency of government and has gone a good way towards restoring America’s place in the world.”
“And people are disappointed?”
“They want more.”
“Like the people disappointed with the computer?”
“Yes.”
“So people in 2010 are dicks?”
“They’re cynics.”
It all comes down to the next couple weeks folks. If GAMC has any shot of surviving, it has to happen in the next couple weeks. Come on down to the Capital Rotunda. I’ve been to rallies before and let me tell you, it’s much harder for a legislator to ignore a thousand people than one hundred. I know it’s a pain to head over to the capital in the middle of the day, but this really is the best shot at making your voice hear. We need you, thousands of your neighbors need you, and Minnesota needs you.
WHO: You, and hundreds of others who want to protect the poor and vulnerable
WHAT: Rally and community action to save
GAMC WHERE: The Minnesota State Capitol, St. Paul
WHEN: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM
Update: I’m down here and it’s packed! Get on down to the Capital if you can.
Update 2:
Everyone is taking a moment to hold up signs of those they know who will be affected by the elimination of GAMC. Quite powerful. It’s tough to see the signs in this dinky iPhone picture so I took a pic of the woman next to me as well.
Update 3:
This is my favorite sign so far. So true.
Update 4:
Yep, it’s packed in here.
Senator Marty showing his support
Wonderful piece in the Economist about how absurd Bill Kristol’s arguments against allowing gays to serve openly in the military are: “Fisking Bill Kristol”
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I’m not going to attempt to update this regularly—that’s what the SoS’s site is for—but here’s where we’re at with 47.3% of the precincts reporting the straw-poll results:
Alright, fine, one more update before I go to bed. This is with 77.02% of precincts reporting:
| Candidate | Totals | Pct | Graph | |
| TOM BAKK | 1290 | 6.13 |  |
|
| MATT ENTENZA | 1444 | 6.86 | |
|
| SUSAN GAERTNER | 441 | 2.09 | |
|
| STEVE KELLEY | 878 | 4.17 | |
|
| MARGARET ANDERSON KELLIHER | 4216 | 20.03 | |
|
| JOHN MARTY | 2052 | 9.75 | |
|
| FELIX MONTEZ | 17 | 0.08 | |
|
| TOM RUKAVINA | 1517 | 7.21 | |
|
| R.T. RYBAK | 4589 | 21.80 | |
|
| OLE SAVIOR | 21 | 0.10 | |
|
| PAUL THISSEN | 1541 | 7.32 | |
|
| UNCOMMITTED | 3045 | 14.46 | |
Sure is interesting so far…
Pre-slumber preliminary thoughts: Straw polls aren’t worth much. After all, there’s a long way and a lot of steps between here and the convention (not to mention here and the general). Big things can happen—momentum can shift, scandals can surface, unions can endorse, and all that fun jazz. So, the most important thing to remember is to take anyone’s analysis (especially mine) with a huge grain of salt—no one knows how this will end up just because a straw poll of approximately 25,000 party activists was conducted. All that being said, there is one pretty glaring take away from the results tonight: Rybak and MAK are the main events. It’s surprising how big the drop off is to 3rd place and how crowded the bottom is. Does that mean the field will thin and the race for the endorsement will coalesce around those two? Almost certainly not. But it does mean that they get all the attention from being the two front runners—and I guarantee that not all of that will be good attention.
I get the feeling that the shivs are going to start coming out… please, please, please, prove me wrong.
On Minnesota Matters tonight: Publius Radio! Tune in at 6 PM to AM 950 to listen to yours truly spout off about the SCOTUS campaign finance ruling (Professor David Schultz will be joining me to add some actual expertise) and discuss caucus night expectations with MNpublius’ very own Zack Stephenson. As always, tune into AM 950 or point your browser here to listen online.
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I have a few updates on gubernatorial fundraising this afternoon and instead of dribbling the out piece-meal, I think I’ll just go through them rapidfire. First up: Tom Emmer
Republican Tom Emmer has finally released his fundraising numbers and it’s now apparent why it has taken him so long — these are miserable. To be fair, he raised a somewhat respectable total of $114,852 in 2009, but he spent $79,312 of it! (I’ll do the math for you: that only leaves him with $19,154 on hand) Given that his main opponent, Marty Seifert, raised $262,753 and has $133,072 in cash on hand, things don’t look to good for the E-Dog… Bottom line: Seifert has nearly 7 times the resources of his nearest opponent.
Next up: Pat Anderson. Sure, she dropped out of the race, but these fundraising numbers may finally reveal why: her Gubernatorial campaign ended the year over $30K in the hole! A press release from State Auditor Rebecca Otto’s campaign dishes the details:
Anderson’s Gubernatorial campaign fared worse. She raised just $29,659, which included a personal loan of $3,250, but she spent $65,596, ending the year with $39,174 in unpaid bills.
For those interested, Anderson’s new Auditor campaign has only $149 on hand…
And then we have Mark Dayton. For anyone who thought the former United States Senator wasn’t serious about this race, think again. Mark Dayton loaned his campaign $570,000! What’s more, he raised $72,000 in donations for a total of $641,821 in 2009!! But what’s more, he only has $16,772 left in the bank!!! Meaning he spent well over $600,000 on his gubernatorial bid last year!!!! Alright, I’m out of exclamation points. For those who remember, Dayton spent $12 million on his Senate race in 2000.
One’s thing for sure folks: This is going to be one rip-roarin’ roller coaster!
The 2010 Gubernatorial Fundraising Cheat-Sheet has been updated with the above PLUS new information from Entenza, Gaertner, Kelley, and John Marty.
Mayor RT Rybak released his fundraising numbers today, which is a bit odd because Fridays are usually dumps for bad news and these numbers are pretty good. But, whatever the strategy, here’s the important part of the release (emphasis mine):
R.T. Rybak’s campaign for governor announced today that it has raised a total of $278,000 in less than three months. This includes $138,000 raised during the last eight weeks of 2009 and $140,000 raised to date through January 2010. The Rybak for Governor Committee was created on November 5, 2009.
In addition, the Rybak for Mayor Committee, a separate committee, will report raising $389,000 from 2,457 donors in 2009. In total, Rybak has raised $667,000 in 13 months through these two separate committees.
Rybak was long assumed to be running for Governor but only formally entered the race at the tail end of 2009, making him one of the latest entrants on the DFL side. This is obviously why the campaign chose to shore up the numbers with additional information about his Mayoral fundraising. Regardless, raising $278K in 12 weeks firmly places Rybak in the ranks of the more impressive fundraisers in this race.
Again, fundraising is not everything — by a long shot — but it is an important indicator both of the candidate’s ability to connect with voters and his or her ability to access the resources to mount a serious statewide campaign. That being said, every single DFL candidate has posted numbers that should leave little worries on either front—especially given the dense field. The only candidates’ fundraising that I’d be worried about are Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert. And, well, that makes me happy.
The 2010 Gubernatorial Fundraising Cheat-Sheet has been updated.
I won’t go into all the details surrounding the absolutely bizarre situation unfolding down in Louisiana—you can read about it at the NYTimes, TPM, or basically anywhere—but the Star Tribune notes today that there’s a Minnesota connection to all right-wing bag of nuttiness. Namely, one of the four men charged with tampering with the phones of a United States Senator (if there’s ever an appropriate time to use the “gate” suffix for a political scandal, this is it) cut his conservative teeth at the University of Minnesota-Morris:
Basel was the editor of a conservative magazine published at the Morris campus and one of more than a dozen College Republicans who attended the 2005 presidential inauguration.
Basel also was the campaign manager for Minnesota Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, R-Alexandria, three years ago. Ingebrigtsen said he’s talked to Basel only a few times since then and was “baffled” by his former aide’s arrest.
I’m not going to paint with broad-strokes here—these kids are just absolutely nuts. I’ll wait on the reporting of others before I decide on what the broader connections mean…
[NOTE: The WordPress plugin that powers this poll tracks people via IP address. Unfortunately, this means that if you’re in an office building (for example) that shares one IP address, only one person in the building gets to vote. There’s really nothing I can do about this, sorry. If you can get to a different IP address (a phone, for example), you will be able to vote]
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I fully intend on participating in precinct caucuses next Tuesday night (find your caucus location here). I don’t dare miss caucuses because I want to be part of my DFL party unit and, basically, I just want to be involved. But this presents me with a bit of a pickle when it comes to candidate endorsement time. See, I’ve been trying my darndest to stay above the fray on this one—this website gives me a bit (read: very small) of a megaphone and I think our slate of possible candidates is just too good for me (or any DFLer, for that matter) to start a mud-fight (I want to throw mud across the aisle!). As I’ve said many times before, I’d enthusiastically support any one of the candidates who has a hat in the ring. Of course, I have my own private feelings about each, but I truly don’t have an overriding favorite.
So, with all that being said, I have two polls for you.
[EDIT: I’ve reversed the order of the polls because I think it makes more sense to have the catch-all first; and that might reduce overvoting on the caucus-goer poll]
For the first poll, everyone should vote. The title of this post is a bit misleading because I won’t actually defer to the poll, but I am interested to see where people are at. And I sincerely will take it into consideration when I caucus, so if you can’t attend, this is your chance to influence the outcome from your computer.
Loading …For the next poll, you’re on your honor: please only respond if you plan on caucusing. Obviously you can be a sourpuss and respond even if you’re not caucusing, but that kind of ruins it and it makes you a big jerk.
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Tonight on Minnesota Matters: Publius Radio. We’re gearing up for the GAMC fight! Rep. Thissen joins me to hash out the politics, the strategy, and the legislation aimed at restoring GAMC funding. Then Take Action Minnesota comes on to discuss how to get involved in the fight and make an impact!
Join me on AM 950 or on the net from 6 to 7 PM. And call in at 952-946-6209.
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Re-reminder: If you live in SD 26, vote for DFLer Jason Engbrecht in today’s special election! Polls close at 8 pm.
Not sure if you live in Senate District 26? Check the Secretary of State’s handy district map.
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After getting Bakk’s numbers this morning, I was in the process of compiling where all the various candidates are in their respective fundraising efforts when I noticed that Tom Scheck over at Polinaut had beat me to the punch [UPDATE: Scheck has an even better list now]. So, in the interest of saving myself the effort, I’m augmenting Mr. Scheck’s summary with additional information I had been compiling:
Tom Bakk (D):
- Total: $361,927 (began fundraising in mid-2008)
- 2009 Total: $208,682
- Cash on Hand: $133,000
- Other: none reported.
Mark Dayton (D): [NEW]
- Total: $641,821 (committee registered in early 2009)
- 2009 Total: $641,821
- Cash on Hand: $16,772
- Other: He loaned $570,00 to his campaign (!)
Matt Entenza (D): [UPDATED]
- Total: Over $400,000 (began around January)
- 2009 Total: $405,286 from contributors in 2009.
- Cash on Hand: $73,917
- Other: Matt made a $10,000 contribution to the campaign and loaned the campaign $70,000.
Susan Gaertner (D): [NEW]
- Total: $200,411 (began in 2007!)
- 2009 Total: $110,828
- Cash on Hand: $4,347
Steve Kelley (D): [NEW]
- Total: About $200,ooo (he never closed out his 2006 committee, so there are nominal contributions in 2007 and 2008, but he didn’t really start his push for this cycle until 2010)
- 2009 Total: $187,249
- Cash on Hand: $39,541
- Other: Loaned $16,400 to his campaign
Margaret Anderson Kelliher (D):
- Total: $254,000 (formally announced in September, not sure when she began fundraising)
- 2009 Total: $254,000 from contributors in 2009.
- Cash on Hand: $81,000
- Other: She made a direct contribution of $250 to her campaign.
John Marty (D): [NEW]
- 2009 Total: $105,895
- Cash on Hand: $18,910
- Other: None reported.
Tom Rukavina (D):
- Total: $135,000 (announced exploratory committee in the summer of 2009)
- 2009 Total: $135,000
- Cash on Hand: $60,000
- Other: None reported.
R.T. Rybak (D):
- Total: $278,000 (started fundraising at very end of 2009)
- 2009 Total: $138,000 (additional $140K raised in January, 2010)
- Cash on Hand: $25,000
- Other: None reported.
Paul Thissen (D):
- Total: $370,000 (began fundraising in late 2008)
- 2009 Total: $233,000
- Cash on Hand: $85,000
- Other: He also loaned his campaign $20,000
Marty Seifert (R):
- Total: $262,753 (stepped down as minority leader in June to form exploratory committee)
- 2009 Total: $262,753
- Cash on Hand: $133,072.
- Other: He also loaned his campaign $20,000 and transferred $20,000 from his now defunct MN House campaign
Tom Emmer (R): [UPDATED]
- Total: $114,852 (began this summer)
- 2009 Total: $114,852
- Cash on Hand: $19,154.
- Other: via Scheck: “His spokesman said he loaned the campaign and gave in-kind contributions that amount to roughly $10,000.”
I said it once, and I’ll say it again: The DFL numbers are blowing the GOP numbers out of the water. In fact, just for fun, let’s compare totals here:
Party Totals (so far): [UPDATED]
- DFL Candidates: $1,849,761 ($2,419,761 counting Dayton’s $570K loan to his campaign)
- GOP Candidates: $429,463 (includes GOP candidates I didn’t bother listing above)
Let’s not get overly-confident, but let’s also not fall for the argument that our cluttered field has dampened enthusiasm, because that is obviously not the case.
The numbers are coming fast-and-furious this morning. State Senator Tarryl Clark has announced a fundraising total of over $600K in her bid to unseat Michele Bachmann in CD6. Let me break down the numbers that just popped into by my inbox:
- Clark’s total fundraising to date: “more than $600,000 from a grassroots network of more than 5,000 individual donors in just 22 weeks.”
- Q4: “$293,953 from an incredible 2906 donors – including 2622 new donors.”
- Cash on hand: $389,000
No matter how you look at those numbers, they’re pretty stunning. This is an off-year, people are hurting, Dems are in a bit of mud nationally, and yet Senator Clark has managed to energize supporters across the country. Sure, this speaks to the dislike of Rep. Bachmann, but it also clearly indicates the Clark Campaign’s fundraising prowess.
Similar to the Gubernatorial campaigns, one has to look at the field as a whole to see the true breadth of support for Dems in this race. Sure, there are 2, not 12, potential DFL candidates here, but one has to look at both to see the whole impact. Maureen Reed, also vying for the DFL endorsement, recently posted her numbers:
- $574,600 total in 2009
- $207,800 in Q4 2009
- $388,000 cash on hand.
The numbers coming out of either of these campaigns are impressive on their own, but combined they send a strong message that there is national interest in this race and DFLers aren’t going to let it slide by without a fight. Don’t get complacent though, because this will be a fight. There’s been an unfortunate attitude in the last couple CD6 cycles among Democrats: Bachmann is nuts, how could we possibly lose? Well, nuts or not, she’s won the last two with decent margins and this is not going to be a friendly year for us nationally. So, we need to dig our heels in, get out the boxing gloves, and duke this one out every inch of the way—don’t get complacent or cynical about this one!
And as one last addendum: Please, please, please, someone keep the IP party out of CD6; I am SO sick of them ruining this. I promise that the average IP voter will be happier with the DFL candidate than with Bachmann, and that’s the reality. An IP candidate WILL NOT WIN in CD6; all they will do is make Bachmann win. </ end rant>
Bakk’s press release announces another amazing fundraising number for a DFL gubernatorial candidate:
With $137,830 cash on hand, Sen. Tom Bakk said he is in a solid financial position to win the DFL endorsement for governor in April. A legislator from Cook, who represents the Arrowhead Region of the state, Bakk is chair of the Senate Tax Committee.
“Between raising $153,245 in 2008, $208,682 in 2009, and meeting the fundraising goal for January 2010, I will have $400,000 to spend on the endorsement process,” Bakk said. “Throughout my campaign I have focused on the economy and my determination to create jobs. I’ve had an honest conversation with Minnesotans about the serious financial challenges we face. I’ve stressed that by working together we can rebound the economy, create jobs, and make the tough choices necessary to build a stronger Minnesota.
Without diving into candidate-vs-candidate analysis here (and, really, there’s not much to say on this—Bakk’s number is incredibly similar to both Thissen and Entenza’s impressive fundraising totals), I want to repeat what I said when Thissen released his similarly impressive numbers:
That DFL candidates will collectively break $1 million in 2009 gubernatorial fundraising is a fore-gone conclusion at this point [with Bakk’s numbers, it’s now a reality]. This is simply amazing and a testament to the fact that an admittedly crowded field has not interfered with, but perhaps enhanced, the appeal of these individually tremendous candidates. I truly mean this (and this is why I haven’t made a decision which to support over the others), I would be ecstatic throwing my support behind any one of these guys or girls: Entenza, Dayton, Kelliher, Rukavina (how fun would that be!?), Gaertner, Bakk, Thissen, Kelley, Marty, Rybak, the list goes on—these are all amazing individuals with very Minnesotan visions of how to govern this state and the direction we need to head to survive in this increasingly competitive world.
The DFL is fired up and ready to go. If I were the GOP and I saw the numbers these guys are posting, I’d be shaking in my boots.
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