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)
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.
Let me give you a few reasons to disregard the Rasmussen poll that is grabbing attention around the Minnesota political universe today:
They only interviewed 300 people for each horse-race, so the margin of error is very high.
They only conducted interviews on one night, which is considered bad methodology.
I am skeptical of their likely voter model. As Joe Bodell points out, we haven’t had a competitive statewide primary in Minnesota for a while, so modeling is going to be very difficult.
They misspelled R.T. Rybak’s name in the release (R.T. Ryback?)
And the most important reason: a poll this early in the campaign probably only measures name recognition.
The counter-argument to all of this is:
Polls are fun!
Very persuasive. So, assuming for the sake of this post that Rasmussen’s numbers are more predictive than those you might pull out of a hat, what do they mean? Find out after the jump.
Margaret Anderson Kelliher announced her 2009 fundraising total today. So far, the Speaker has raised $254,000 for her gubernatorial campaign. I don’t have time to do any real analysis, but my very quick take is that this is an impressive, but not earth shattering total.
While its true that Kelliher raised less in 2009 than both Paul Thissen and Matt Entenza, she’s also been in the race for a much shorter period of time than either Thissen or Entenza. Kelliher has been raising money for about four months now, while Entenza has been in the race since April and Thissen since 2008.
In addition to announcing her total take, the Kelliher campaign noted that they raised some $80,000 in the month of December alone. That is a great month for a gubernatorial campaign, especially considering how tough this December was for political giving across the country.
On the other hand, Kelliher’s haul is certainly not enough to frighten the other candidates in the race. The bottom line is that Speaker had a productive fall on the money front, but she’ll need to keep it up considering the deep pockets in this race.
Sure, we all knew it was coming, but it’s fun to get all official about it.
This just hit my inbox:
What: Margaret Anderson Kelliher for Governor Campaign Announcement When: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 Details: Announcement at 11:00 AM. Picnic to follow, press is welcome.
Following the announcement, Margaret will be available for interviews. Where: Anderson Family Farm, 21998 Fernwood Lane, Mankato, MN 56001 Directions: From north – take Highway169 south to Mankato. Towards the southern end of town, take the Highway 68 exit and head east. Approximately 3 miles down Highway 68 is Fernwood Lane (there will be signs). Make a right and head down the road to the announcement location.
I think all DFLers, regardless of allegiance (and, by the way, if you are a DFLer who has an allegiance this early in this stellar field, you must be married to a candidate), can get excited about having yet another incredibly potent candidate throw her hat in the ring. Are you getting excited yet?
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make the event due to the timing, but if any of our readers are attending make sure to bring a camera and send in some pictures!
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.
Courtesy of The UpTake, the DFL leaders’ press conference from yesterday. At the press conference, Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson-Kelliher made the argument that’s going to be the focal point of the rest of the session: Even the Governor admits that we will need to raise additional revenue. The Governor proposes $1 billion in borrowing, while the legislature proposes $1 billion in tax increases.
The main question at the end of this session isn’t whether we will have revenue increases or spending cuts. As Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller says, the DFL bills will make greater cuts than the Governor’s proposal. The question isn’t whether we will raise new revenue — both Pawlenty and DFL leaders would raise around $1 billion. The question is simply how we raise that revenue.
Kelliher makes that argument at around 2:05 in the video below, but the whole thing is worth a watch.
If you’re the Governor, there’s an easy way to make your budget proposals look better than they really are: Staff your budget office with lackeys and yes-men who don’t actually produce accurate budget estimates. That way, your Department of Management and Budget can massage the numbers to make your budget look far more responsible than it really is.
That can be a problem, though, when you come across legislators who actually know what they’re doing. One such legislator is Larry Pogemiller, the Senate Majority Leader, who excoriated Finance Commissioner Tom Hanson yesterday.
Pogemiller had a simple argument: Spending shifts are not at all the same thing as budget cuts. Shifts, obviously, need to be paid back. They’re not true savings, they’re just procrastination. That’s why Minnesota law now requires the budget to be balanced over four years, not just two. Over four years, the Governor’s budget runs a deficit of $2.6 billion.
The Governor says that he can fix the budget without raising revenues, but the fact is that he can’t. He has only “balanced” the budget if you ignore billions of dollars in spending shifts and new borrowing, and pretend that we’ll never have to pay for them.
Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher also chimed in, saying the Governor’s budget was not ready for prime time. Watch that video after the break.
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.
While most of the legislators, lobbyists and reporters that I talk to at the Capitol speculate that it will take a special session to pass a budget, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher today said lawmakers could wrap it up by the May 18 constitutional deadline.
“I think we can make it,” Kelliher, DFL-Minneapolis, said in remarks at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.
I worked at the legislature during the last budget session. All spring long, everyone thought a special session was inevitable. In the last few days of the session, an on-time ending seemed impossible. But then it happened and for the first time in I don’t even know how many budget sessions, the legislature adjourned on time. In the aftermath, Speaker Kelliher got a lot of the credit from both Poggemiller and Pawlenty. Same thing happened after the 2008 session ended on time - Kelliher was lauded for managing to wrap things up on time.
This time, the Speaker has a much tougher task. The size of this deficit is catastrophic. Once again, it seems absurd to think that the DFL legislature and T-Paw will be able to come to an agreement by mid-May. But if - and its an enormous if - Kelliher gets the hat trick (ends three sessions in a row on time), I think she’ll be in a great position to run for Governor. Talk about a real record of compromise and getting things done.
MN House Speaker, and potential DFL gubernatorial candidate, Margaret Anderson Kelliher will be the guest of Keith Ellison tonight in the U.S. House chamber as Barack Obama addresses Congress for the first time. In other news, I am very jealous.
Tis the season for state level campaign finance reporting. In the 2010 gubernatorial race (which will occupy much of this blog’s attention in short order) we’ve got a couple of filings of note:
Tim Pawlenty
T-Paw raised $750k last year. That’s a lot of money. There are a couple of ways to look at this. Most obviously, it could be a sign that Pawlenty plans to run again. I have to admit the potency of this argument, but I’m still a skeptic. As we have noted time and time again, if Timmy has national ambitions (and he does) it makes very little sense for him to run again in 2010. So why would he raise all that money if he’s not running for re-election. One question to answer first: how much of that money can be transfered into a federal account? I actually have no idea, but my gut tells me that most of it should be transferable (Minnesota has tighter campaign finance laws than the feds). If it can be transfered, then the fact that T-Paw has a huge chunk of money sitting around means nothing in terms of his re-election prospects.
The DFLers
Susan Gaertner raised just $46k despite being in the race since 2003 (and that is just a small exageration). I am already ready to write off her campaign. John Marty raised $30k “in the last nine days of December.” I actually have very little to say about this - I think a thirty point loss (even if it was 14 years ago) should probably be a disqualifier. Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza both did not file, but we wouldn’t really care even if they had because they both can self-fund. This brings us to the big surprise of the reporting period: State Representative Paul Thissen raised $115,000 in “the last seven weeks” of 2008. For a heretofore unknown state legislator, that is pretty damn impressive. In fact, Thissen’s campaign has been pretty impressive overall during the last few weeks. If he can keep it up (and you have to wonder if he can - how much of that 115k came from the Minneapolis legal community? How much more can he raise with such a narrow financial base?), he might be able to make some waves in this contest.
Of course, the big fish have still yet to get into the race. Some other commenters have suggested that Chris Coleman and R.T. Rybak’s mayoral re-election bids will prevent them from running for Governor. Don’t believe it for a second. Coleman and Rybak will stay quiet until sometime in the late spring or early summer (when it would be too late for a serious re-election challenger to emerge) but I would be SHOCKED if at least one of them didn’t get into this race by this time next year. Speaker Kelliher is also a good bet to run, but she won’t make a move until the legislative session is over.
A couple of days ago Mr. Flash over at Centrisity reported that Representative Margaret Anderson Kelliher is rumored to be considering jumping into the Senate race. I’ve been hearing some of the same rumblings and after asking a few questions around the capitol, it seems as though this rumor is getting to be a well-circulated rumor. And while it’s been difficult to establish the veracity of the rumor, I can say at this point that I’m pretty sure the Speaker is thinking about thinking about a run. How’s that for certainty?
Prior to the public entrance of Al Franken into the Senate race I had said on several occasions that Franken’s presence would almost guarantee the entrance of a legislator. While Franken has much to offer delegates in return for their vote (including an impressive fund-raising machine), he simply cannot meet the bar for experience that many people demand (that, and he makes a lot of people very nervous). So, there is a strong push among some sectors of the DFL party to root out and field a local politician who can present an experience grounded alternative to the Franken machine. For better or worse, there’s a market for an anti-Franken candidate in the race for the endorsement and Speaker Kelliher fits those shoes pretty nicely. Join me below the fold for an explanation as to why. More »« Less
Sure, we all knew it was coming, but it’s fun to get all official about it.
A couple of days ago Mr. Flash over at Centrisity 
People Are Shouting
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