A lot of Republicans (and some Democrats) think that St. Rep. Laura Brod is the MN GOP’s best shot at keeping the Governor’s Mansion next fall. I don’t think Brod is all that formidable of a candidate, but if she is serious about taking a shot at the big chair, she needs to do a better job of fact checking her public statements.
laurabrod Did you know… Ontario women wait 168 days for breast cancer surgery and men wait 98 days for prostate surgery. about 2 hours ago from web
Frankly, I’m a little shocked that this passed Brod’s smell test. I would think any reasonable person would find that stat suspicious. Two Putt Tommy did the leg work proving Brod was way off the mark. Turns out the average wait time for breast cancer surgery is 34 days, and that serious cases get immediate treatment.
Canada’s health care system isn’t perfect, but to quote Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”
I’m hearing from multiple sources that Minnesota House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher is planning to announce the formation of a gubernatorial campaign committee sometime in August. The Speaker has apparently been calling her members to ask for their support. This news will not shock many who watch the Legislature - the Speaker has been a rumored gubernatorial candidate for three years now. The bigger question has been whether MAK would remain Speaker while running for Governor.
Right now it appears the answer to that question is yes. Despite speculation that Kelliher would follow the precedent set by Matt Entenza and Marty Seifert, I’m told that the Speaker plans to keep the corner office at the State Office Building for the foreseeable future.
Other sources, however, tell me that while Kelliher currently plans to remain Speaker, these plans are not set in stone. There are some who worry that the House DFL Caucus will be handicapped as they approach to 2010 election without a Speaker to raise money and recruit candidates (I’m told that Tony Sertich has already agreed to run the Caucus campaign). Others worry that Kelliher’s gubernatorial campaign will suffer because her duties as Speaker will eat up time. On the other hand, Kelliher’s departure from House leadership would create two hotly contested leaderhip races. Current Majority Leader Tony Sertich is certain to run for Speaker if Kelliher leaves (opening up his position), but no one I talked to thinks he’d clear the field. I’ll have more on the succession possibilities in a post tomorrow, but these races could get ugly fast and rob the Caucus of the unity that will be critical as they try to keep their sizable majority.
One last bit of information is worth noting: Speaker Kelliher’s standing within the House DFL Caucus is still very strong. While many are disappointed with the outcome of the 2009 session, most members still have a lot of confidence in Kelliher’s leadership.
The Republican gubernatorial field is a major source of amusement for me these days. First you have former State Representative Bill Haas, who represented Champlin for a decade and was the city’s mayor before that. I know Haas’ record pretty well, I worked on the campaign that beat him in 2004. We had a phenomenal candidate in Denise Dittrich, but even so, you have to be a pretty terrible incumbent to run ten points behind George W. Bush in Champlin in 2004. Despite this, Haas thinks he’s a credible candidate for Governor. Perhaps he’ll be running on his experience as a lobbyist for the last five years.
Then there is State Representative Paul Kohls. Now that Mark Olson is out of the legislature, Kohls probably holds the mark for the most time spent speaking on the House Floor. To his admirers (does he really have any), he’s loquacious. To the rest of us, he’s just really obnoxious.
Finally, today comes word that State Representative Tom Emmer, the King of the Crazies, is going to run for Governor. Emmer had been considering a run for House Minority Leader, but I’m told he didn’t have anywhere close to the votes he needed to win. Apparently Emmer decided that it’d be easier to win a statewide election than to pull together 24 supporters in the House Republican Caucus. Good luck to you Tom.
Sadly, there is just too much crazy in this Republican field. There is a real danger that Haas, Kohls, Emmer, et al will divide up the winger vote and allow a more moderate, sane candidate to win.
By the way, the House Republican Caucus will be selecting a new leader tomorrow night. The Strib identifies Paul Demmer and Kurt Zellers as candidates. From what I hear, Zellers is the frontrunner. Zellers will be a formidable leader, certainly a more disciplined messanger than Marty Seifert.
No one was surprised by Tim Pawlenty’s decision to forgoe a re-election campaign and I mean no one. Longtime readers of this blog know that we were predicting a open seat gubernatorial race months ago. Pawlenty only waited this long to announce in order to avoid becoming a lame duck during the legislative session. That danger was especially pronounced with the Republican Leaders in both chambers considering runs for the corner office. Of course, Pawlenty is now officially a lame duck. This means that Pawlenty is officially more concerned with wooing activists in Iowa than swing voters in Minnesota.
The list of potential candidates on the GOP side is almost as long as it is on the DFL side. I’m not going to attempt to make an exhaustive list, Tom Scheck at Polinaut is doing an excellent job of that, I just want to put down a few thoughts about a few of the candidates:
Brian Sullivan is the early frontrunner. He almost snared the GOP nod in 2002 and he is very well liked among activists. His arch-conservative views are a liability in the general election but an asset in the endorsement race, particularly given that the mood among the GOP faithful is rightward looking. Sullivan is also wealthy, though who knows how his fortune has fared in the current economy. As I alluded to above, Sullivan is way out on the right wing. If he is the nominee, the DFL will have an excellent chance of occupying the big house on Summit Ave for the first time in twenty years.
There is only one possible candidate who could outflank Sullivan on the right: Michele Bachmann. If she’s smart, she won’t run. She’s got a pretty safe seat in Congress and she’d get creamed in a general election. That being said, banking on Bachmann’s intelligence is not a safe bet. I know she sees herself as a statewide candidate someday, I’m just not sure if she has her eyes on the Governor’s mansion or a Senate desk.
Among the long list of prospective GOP candidates who have no chance of being Governor (who does Paul Kohls think he is kidding?) there are two that I think would actually be very competitive in a general election. The first is Jim Ramstad (obvious, I know) and the second is Charlie Weaver. Both are skilled politicians, moderates and have their base of support in swing suburban areas. There seems to be some doubt that Ramstad will run, and Weaver might not have a big enough of a profile to compete with Sullivan, but they are the guys that would be the strongest candidates in my book.
SurveyUSA and KSTP have released a poll on the 2010 Minnesota Gubernatorial race. Let’s get right to the numbers:
Pawlenty - 51%
Kelliher - 34%
Pawlenty - 48%
Coleman - 37%
Pawlenty - 48%
Rybak - 42%
Pawlenty - 51%
Thissen - 32%
Pawlenty - 47%
Dayton - 43%
Pawlenty - 50%
Gaertner - 36%
Pawlenty - 51%
Marty - 34%
Pawlenty - 52%
Bakk - 34%
Pawlenty - 51%
Entenza - 37%
That’s a lot of numbers. The results from the Dayton, Rybak and Coleman trial heats show that Pawlenty would be vulnerable in seeking a 3rd term as he falls below 50% against a well known challenger. I think name recognition controls all the other results.
By the way, I hope no one pollutes the comments section by trying to argue that this poll shows one DFL candidate would be a stronger nominee than another. Its just way too early for polling data to be instructive on a question like that, especially when you consider that Pawlently’s percentage only deviates 5% between his worst performace and his best.
One last side note, I am glad KSTP commissioned this poll, but couldn’t they have tossed in a couple of alternate Republican candidates? I put the odds of T-Paw seeking a third term at less than 20% and I would have really liked to see polling on a Rybak - Ramstad match up, or Kelliher - Sullivan (which, given the low levels of name recognition of those two, would effectivley be a generic Dem vs. a generic GOPer).
Jeff has written quite a bit about the end of the legislative session, but I wanted to add my own thoughts.
The Governor took a big risk by ending the session the way he did. You can judge the decision on two levels: politics and policy. I’m going to spend my time on the former, because my thoughts on the latter are pretty predictable.
This morning I got another video from the House DFL demonstrating how Governor Pawlenty’s proposed budget cuts would hurt real Minnesotans. This one startled me…
I know the man in this video. He’s not a close friend, or a family member, but I recognize his face. When I worked for Amy Klobuchar in 2006, one of my responsibilities was to walk down the street to KSTP every so often and check the public file to find out who was buying ad time and how much they were spending. The man in this video, Mark, worked at the front desk. I remember him as being an unnaturally friendly man. He seemed to know the name of every single person who came through the lobby, and he even remembered my name after only two or three visits. I am sad to learn of Mark’s misfortune. I think its all too easy, especially when you are dealing with a problem as big as a multi-billion dollar deficit, to focus on the numbers and forget the human consequences of budgeting. But when you see how someone you know will be directly affected by these proposed cuts, it really brings it home.
After watching a video like this one, its easy to understand why the DFL legislators at the Capitol are unwilling to go along with Gov. Pawlenty’s budget. Its reckless and cold-hearted.
Keith Ellison - U.S. Representative, Minnesota’s 5th District
“I have known Matt Entenza since law school at the University of Minnesota. As both Matt’s friend and his colleague in the State Legislature, I’ve been proud to watch him grow into the progressive leader he is today. I couldn’t be prouder to endorse his candidacy for governor of Minnesota.
Matt understands what makes Minnesota so special – he’s a product of a strong Minnesota community and a solid Minnesota public education. Matt’s got his priorities straight - he has a clear vision of what we have to do to keep delivering on Minnesota’s promise.
Matt has stood up time and again – and won – against Republicans who have wanted to balance budgets on the backs of hard-working Minnesotans. Matt is the kind of leader we need to make Minnesota work again. Matt is the kind of ally I need here in Minnesota to help deliver on the hard work Congress is doing in Washington.”
A member of the peanut gallery in the comments on Zack’s post argues that this is a big slap in the face to RT Rybak and the end of a potential campaign for Governor by the mayor. I don’t agree with that, and while it is a great pick-up for Entenza it isn’t a game changer, a field clearer, or a breath taker. Ellison was a member of Matt Entenza’s caucus (when he was minority leader) and he was helped immeassurably by Entenza in his pursuit of the 5th CD endorsement (backstage as Keith was coming out to accept his endorsement while he was working on his comments there was one person standing next to him, Matt Entenza).
Congrats to Entenza on getting a great endorsement.
closed circut to Team Entenza: don’t you think Keith’s endorsement deserves a little more prominence on your endorsements page? Just sayin’.
This isn’t a big surprise, but well connected Democrats tell me that Congressman Keith Ellison will officially endorse Matt Entenza’s gubernatorial campaign tomorrow.
Ellison and Entenza served together in the Minnesota House and also went to law school together. Ellison also did a funderaiser for Entenza a short time ago and I hear that they marched together in the May Day parade.
Minnesota has a historic budget deficit, our economy is in free fall and the legislative session is growing increasingly acrimonious. Given all this, one would expect that working with the Legislature would by Gov. Pawlenty’s top priority. A quick glance at T-Paw’s schedule, however, indicates that the Guv is much more worried about his national profile than coming to an budget agreement with legislative leaders.
Since the start of the 2009 session, Tim Pawlenty has met legislative leaders just three times. What’s T-Paw doing with all his free time if he’s not trying to close the budget deficit? Well, during that same period, Pawlenty has made 24 appearances on national media outlets (including 7 on Fox). That’s a stunning 8 national media appearances for each meeting with legislative leaders.
Its pretty clear that the Governor is more focused on raising his national profile than bringing the legislative session to a successful conclusion.
A list of the Governor’s legislative meetings and media appearances is after the jump.
MPR’s Tom Scheck just put out an interesting tweet on his Twitter feed:
@MAKMinnesota complained that @Pawlenty won’t allow her to follow him on twitter.
For those of you who are not Twitter-literate, that means that the Governor of Minnesota is blocking the Speaker of the Minnesota House from reading his updates (called tweets). The Speaker isn’t really missing much - T-Paw hasn’t written much interesting on his feed - but its an exceptionally juvenile gesture on the part of the Governor.
As I indicated last night, Matt Entenza officially entered the race for Governor this morning in Worthington Minnesota. First reaction: Is this the earliest official start to a Minnesota Gubernatorial campaign by a challenger? Second reaction: well, there’s not really a second reaction because we all knew this was coming, didn’t we. Still, setting the predictability of the event aside, there is some nice campaign material to sort through, like this excerpt from the official press release (the full thing is below the fold):
“Community matters. Dreams matter. Opportunity matters,” Entenza continued. “Too many years without a DFL governor in our state have taken their toll, and today we have to ask ourselves: Is Minnesota better off today than it was six years ago?
“Minnesota has a proud tradition of being a state that works – literally and figuratively: low unemployment and attention to our priorities; things that made our state work, like education. We need to make Minnesota work again.”
Entenza’s campaign will revolve around three core principles: growing jobs by focusing on the potential of the clean energy economy, providing better educational opportunities to our children and those seeking higher education, and ensuring health care for all.
You know, as far as boiler-plate campaign rhetoric goes, I really like this. If there’s been a thesis of this blog it’s been that “Minnesota has a proud tradition of being a state that works” and we need to restore that proud tradition. As such, I’m taking full credit for all of Entenza’s campaign success (but none of his failure); it’s only fair.
And in case you’re thinking, “well, that’s great, but I want more Entenza!” Well, I have a treat for you: his announcement video!
Just as a side note: we here at MNpublius are not endorsing any DFL candidate, nor do we even have a cohesive opinion behind closed doors. We will do our best to cover all the DFL candidates for Governor and maybe we’ll start backing specific candidates closer to the endorsement. This much I have said, however, and I’ll say it again: In a crowded field with a strong GOP incumbent, abiding by the endorsement is an important showing that the candidate cares more about good governance than him or herself. There are extenuating circumstances that justify non-abidance (and I’ll agree the whole process is a little fubar), but generally it is tough for people who care about winning to feel good about a candidate going renegade against his or her own party. So, yeah, just thought I’d clarify our stance as we head into the early stages of this interesting cycle.
Former DFL House Minority Leader Matt Entenza will formally announce his campaign for governor tomorrow morning. He’ll make the announcement in his hometown of Worthington.
It was widely expected that Entenza would run for governor. He set up a website, formed an exploratory committee and has been traveling the state as a part of his think tank Minnesota 2020. Entenza left his position as board chair earlier this week.
PPP has a new poll of Minnesota and the results are devastating to Norm Coleman. Let’s start with the most basic question:
Do you think Norm Coleman should appeal the decision and continue to fight in court or should Coleman concede the race?
Appeal: 37%
Concede: 63%
Ouch.
In addition, 59% think Pawlenty should sign the election certificate now and 59% think Franken should be seated immediately. Minnesotans have had enough of this Senate race and are ready to be fully represented in the Senate.
The interesting thing that comes out of this poll is the potential that the recount saga could do some serious political damage to Tim Pawlenty. Already, 48% of Minnesotans think that Republicans are deliberately trying to keep this seat vacant to “slow down the Obama agenda.” That number will only climb as time goes on. Meanwhile, Obama’s approval rating is at 60%. There is a real danger for Pawlenty here. If he is seen as playing political games to hurt Obama, he’ll be on the wrong side of the majority of the state. It puts him in a perilous spot if he tries to seek re-election. It would be fairly easy for some DFLer to say “Its time to have an adult in the Governor’s office. Someone who’ll work for Minnesotans, not just Republicans.” Of course, if Pawlenty isn’t going to run for re-election, he’ll be more concerned about what Republican activists in Iowa and South Carloina think than independents in Minnesota.
Matt Adds: (I’ve taken to adding thoughts to Zack’s post instead of writing my own…) Sack, as usual, seems relevant:
As Zack’s post yesterday telegraphed
People Are Shouting
RSS