Tag Archive for 'Matt Entenza'

2010 Gubernatorial Fundraising Cheat-Sheet [Updated x2]

by Matt Martin | 17 Comments

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.

January 26, 2010, 11:55 am | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Entenza Cycling Campaign Managers

by Matt Martin | 27 Comments

Sean’s currently in car limbo, but he called me up with a little tid-bit:  Dana Houle has left the Entenza campaign after a 5 month stint there as the campaign manager.  Probably best known for his blogging at Kos, Dana was briefly picked up by the Tinklenberg campaign before he dropped out of the race in CD6 and then picked up by Entenza.

Word is the departure was mutual, but I really don’t know much more than that—not that it’s all that big of news anyway; campaigns are liable to switch CMs before the big-show begins.

Until the campaign settles on a permanent replacement, Bob Hussey will serve as the temporary manager.  You can read all about Hussey here, but here’s a quick highlight reel: Clinton ‘92, DOJ, private public relations, freelance writer, Minnesotan.

January 13, 2010, 5:43 pm | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: .

Rasmussen Poll Is Worthless, But Let’s Pretend Its Not

by Zack Stephenson | 4 Comments

Let me give you a few reasons to disregard the Rasmussen poll that is grabbing attention around the Minnesota political universe today:

  1. They only interviewed 300 people for each horse-race, so the margin of error is very high.
  2. They only conducted interviews on one night, which is considered bad methodology.
  3. 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.
  4. They misspelled R.T. Rybak’s name in the release (R.T. Ryback?)
  5. 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:

  1. 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.

More »

January 13, 2010, 10:31 am | Category: General | Tags: , , , , , .

Entenza Raises Over $300K in 2009

by Matt Martin | 19 Comments

I just received a press release from Entenza campaign manager Bridget Cusick:

Matt Entenza’s campaign for governor announced today that it raised more than $300,000 in the 2009 reporting period.

Only two gubernatorial candidates have cleared this threshold in the off-year under the current campaign finance laws: Ted Mondale in 1998 and Mike Hatch in 2006.

The Entenza campaign also notes that this came from more than 1700 donors with no PAC money and “just over 1% in lobbyist contributions.”

These are impressive numbers but it’s difficult to assess just how impressive before seeing the sort of numbers the other candidates put up.  I would expect, however, that Entenza’s 2009 numbers will be field-leading because he’s been the most prominent fundraiser of the early-announcers. Entenza announced in January while Kelliher announced in September and Rybak just last month.  Meanwhile, Dayton hasn’t appeared to be pushing very hard on the fundraising front and I wouldn’t expect either Gaertner or Kelley to match Entenza here.  Thissen’s a bit of a wild-card, but Entenza’s $300K is going to be tough to beat in this busy field.

I think the much more interesting (and relevant) number will be Q4 2009, with the first real comparison of all the major candidates not coming until Q1 2010. That all being said, don’t put too much stock in the money game just yet — it’s very important that these guys show an ability to connect with voters’ and their wallets, and Entenza certainly deserves a feather in his cap for demonstrating as much, but it’s a bit early in an off-cycle state race for anyone to post any game-changer numbers.

The only other candidate I’ve seen that has numbers posted is Rep. Tom Rukavina with $125K in 5 months, which is truly impressive in its own right.  But we’ll have to wait a while to really be able to compare these candidates’ fundraising numbers in any meaningful way.

January 6, 2010, 2:20 pm | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: , .

The AFSCME Debate

by Zack Stephenson | 44 Comments

AFSCME hosted a debate among the DFL candidates for Governor up in Duluth the other day, and MPR was kind enough to post the audio.  Overall, the debate was very civil, and most of the candidates did not engage each other.  The one exception to this was R.T. Rybak, who took a shot at the all of the current and former legislators in the field, saying “This is not a legislative job, its a chief executive.”  Rybak also slammed Dayton (and possibly Entenza) for their positions on the DFL endorsement.

Below are my impressions for each candidate:

Steve Kelley: Kelley didn’t show me anything new in this debate.  That’s not a criticism, just an observation.  He’s the same candidate he was in 2006.  He did have a couple of odd moments.  He  took a question about the state budget deficit and ended up talking about the public option in the national health care bill.   Later on he stumbled a bit when asked how he would deal with Pawlenty’s disastrous record with the Department of Human Serives.  Kelley said he has not decided on whether to abide by the DFL endorsement.

R.T. Rybak: Came right out of the gate strong and was the feistiest candidate by far.  I already mentioned his hit on the legislators, but he also took a direct shot at Dayton at the end of the debate when all of the candidates were asked whether they would abide by the DFL endorsement.  Dayton had called the endorsement process undemocratic and said he would not abide on principle.  Rybak responded, “I will absolutely abide. No games, no equivocation.  I don’t get this baloney that a party endorsement process isn’t a democratic process.  I don’t get that.”

Mark Dayton:  This was Dayton at his best, passionate and articulate.  He had a great line when asked about jobs, “Pawlenty believes the solution to the jobs problem is to furlough [AFSCME members] from their jobs and then not show up for his own.”  Zing.  As previously noted, Dayton will not abide.

Matt Entenza: He opened up the debate by noting that he is from Worthington, which is so far south that he “doesn’t like Iowa jokes.”  I’m not sure I can support a candidate who doesn’t like Iowa jokes.  On a more serious note, Entenza did a great job of using his compelling personal story to his advantage.  It was a strong performance from Entenza.  When asked about the DFL endorsement, Entenza gave his standard answer, which is that he will abide if everyone else abides.  Of course, he said this just minutes after Dayton said he would not honor the endorsement and would run in the primary.  Pretty obnoxious.  Closed circuit to Matt, just say you are not going to abide.  You are not scoring any points by playing this little game.

Tom Rukavina:  Was entertaining as always.  Described himself as “the love child between Paul Wellstone and Jesse Ventura” and then bragged about his union made underwear.  He had a great moment later when talking about Norman Borlag.  Said Borlag only graduated from the U because of financial aid.  Asked, “how many Norman Borlags are we cheating?”  Said he would abide by the DFL endorsement.

John Marty:  What struck me most about Marty was that he is clearly stuck in the past.  He took every question and used his time to talk about budget votes in the 90s and was also the only candidate to bring up the Time “the state that works” magazine cover.  Get into this decade Marty.  Will abide (and said if he didn’t get the endorsement he’d return to the Senate).

Paul Thissen:  If you are wondering why everyone has been talking about Paul Thissen, you should listen to this debate.  Thissen sounded sharp, engaging and fresh.  Had a nice moment talking about his kid’s struggles with the health care system.  Will abide.

Susan Gaertner: Did a nice job using stories from her time as County Attorney and her personal life.  My favorite line of hers was, “I’ve raised three teenage girls, you think I’m going to have a hard time making the hard decisions?  I’m not.”  Will abide.

Tom Bakk: Spent the whole debate touting his union credentials.  Maybe not a bad strategy given this was a union audience.  Otherwise, he was pretty forgettable.  Said, “my plans are to abide by the DFL endorsement.”  Does that leave the door open just a bit? UPDATE: Sen. Bakk’s campaign emails to say “Sen. Bakk will abide by the endorsement.  The door is not open.”

Margaret Anderson Kelliher: This was not the same MAK I’ve seen in dozens of Capital press conferences.  She was very strong, sharp and showed some passion.  (that’s not to say she isn’t good in the pressers, she just usually doesn’t show a lot of passion).  She had a great answer when asked about the deficit.  A very nice performance.  Will abide.

The Bottom Line

Top performers:  Kelliher, Thissen, Entenza, Dayton, Rybak

In the middle: Rukavina, Gaertner

Not very good:  Bakk, Marty, Kelley

October 10, 2009, 2:34 pm | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Sources: Ellison to Endorse Entenza

by Zack Stephenson | 18 Comments

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.

May 3, 2009, 1:11 pm | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: , .

And it’s official: Entenza Announces Run for Gov

by Matt Martin | 17 Comments

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.

Again, the full press release is below the fold.

More »

April 23, 2009, 8:43 am | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: .

Entenza to Formally Announce Run for Gov Tomorrow Morning

by Matt Martin | 2 Comments

Matt EntenzaTom Scheck at Polinaut has the info:

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.

More analysis to come.  But in the mean time, you can read about what Entenza has been up to or what has been going on in the race for Governor in general.

April 22, 2009, 11:36 pm | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: .

Entenza Lines Up Support

by Zack Stephenson | 33 Comments

Matt Entenza has released a list of endorsements:

Sen. Dick Cohen
Rep. Jeanne Poppe
Rep. Gene Pelowski
Rep. Bobby Joe Champion
Rep. Carlos Mariani
Rep. Cy Thao
Rep. Tim Mahoney
Rep. Sheldon Johnson
Former Rep. Shelley Madore
Former Rep. Connie Bernardy
Former St. Paul City Council Member Jay Benanav
Former St. Paul DFL Chair Stu Alger
Former DFL Feminist Caucus Chair Mari Pokornowski
Minneapolis School Board Member Peggy Flanagan

Cy Thao is also a co-chair of the Entenza campaign, along with Deb Hogenson of Nobles County.

This is an interesting list of endorsers. Mostly urban electeds, but some suburban and rural figures as well. Entenza has been beating the bushes and, as I noted earlier today, that kind of hard work pays off in an endorsement race.

March 25, 2009, 6:38 pm | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: .

Entenza Announces Campaign Team Via Facebook

by Zack Stephenson | 17 Comments

Matt Entenza has announced 11 additions to his gubernatorial exporatory campaign.  The new staffers include veterans of the Franken and Walz camps, but what might be even more interesting than the who is the how.  Entenza made his announcement via a Facebook note - the first time I’ve heard of a candidate making a news announcement on the social networking site.  This could be a sign that Entenza plans aggresive use of online organizing.  We are still waiting, however, to read the former Minority Leader’s 25 things.

Entenza’s note is after the jump:

UPDATE: Just wanted to clarify that the 11 “additions” mentioned above include five paid staffers and six unpaid interns.

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February 27, 2009, 9:30 am | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: .

Campaign Finance Reports

by Zack Stephenson | 83 Comments

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.

February 2, 2009, 2:13 pm | Category: MN 2010: Governor | Tags: , , , , , , , , .

Exclusive: Entenza Meeting Details

by Zack Stephenson | 19 Comments

Yesterday, Mike Kaszuba of the Star Tribune put out a great piece chronicling the political maneuverings of various prospective DFL candidates for Governor in 2010. Of particular interest was the news that former State House Minority Leader Matt Entenza has been setting up meetings with other prospective candidates.

I have spoken with two Democrats who have knowledge of what was said at these meetings (but are not in the Entenza camp).  They both, independent of the other, told remarkably similar stories:

They said Entenza told the other prospective candidates that he plans to announce his gubernatorial candidacy in January of next year. He also told them that he would be running in the primary regardless of the outcome of the DFL Convention. Finally, Entenza told his fellow DFLers that he was prepared to spend $6 million of his own money on his campaign.

Both DFLers I spoke to thought that the Entenza meetings were an attempt on the former Leader’s part to push potential candidate out of the race. Both DFLers also indicated that the conversations actually had the opposite effect - it made the other candidates want to run even more.

Earlier today, I spoke with a Democrat close to Matt Entenza.  This Democrat disputed some of the details of the story I heard from non-Entenza sources.  According to this source, Entenza has not yet decided whether to run for Governor.  In fact, this source put the odds of Entenza running at around 50-50.  This source also told me that Entenza did not commit to spending $6 million, but rather sought to impress upon the other prospective candidates that the 2010 gubernatorial race would be very expensive, perhaps requiring 6 or 10 or even 12 million dollars.

Will Entenza run?  How much will he spend?  I leave it to you to decide.  This much is clear: the race for Governor of Minnesota is already on, if under the radar.

October 8, 2008, 12:15 pm | Category: Misc. Local Politics | Tags: .

Zooming in on 2010 (and Attempting to Focus)

by Matt Martin | 2 Comments
March 1, 2007, 1:26 pm | Category: White House '08 | Tags: , , , , , .