Hold onto your furry winter hats, folks; a poll conducted by the University of Minnesota shows comedian-turned-Democratic-activist Al Franken edging out the incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman, 43% to 40%. Granted, that is still within the margin of error . . . but it is the first time Franken has led. It goes to show that the comedian is no joke, and that we just might be able to take back the seat that belonged to the late, great Paul Wellstone.
In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, state Rep. Erik Paulsen, the leading Republican candidate to replace retiring Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-MN), offers his thoughts on the coming Congressional campaign:
“This is absolutely another wonderful opportunity to enter public service at a different level, focusing on issues like globalization and issues that I think that I genuinely care about and I think have learned a lot about some expertise on now and try to carry that to a new level as we do try to educate our kids for a global economy,” he said. “So that’s something in the back of my mind that definitely interests me and the opportunity, and I think I would do a good job.”
This guy needs to re-take “Soundbytes For The Media 101”.
I’ve been giving alot of thought in recent months regarding next year’s Minnesota Senate race. It’s very difficult to predict how it will unfold as there are a variety of converging forces in play. Have the second-ring suburbs that helped elect Norm Coleman to the Senate in 2002 tired of him enough to vote him out? Will anybody outstate be willing to take Al Franken seriously? Would Mike Ciresi put more of the state in play than Franken would? It’s a crap shoot across the board. Minnesota has clearly taken a leftward turn since 2004 and I expect that to continue next year. On the other hand, I’m not confident in the positive coattail capacity of Hillary Clinton if she’s at the top of the ticket, which the odds seem to favor at this point. For the first time in years, I really don’t know what direction this could go, but I’ll give it a shot nonetheless with thoughts on the candidate’s personal and demographical strengths and weaknesses.
I closely track Minnesota political demographics and go into every election cycle confident that I can guess how each region of the state will vote. Some years my predictions are dead-on, such as 2004, while other years I’m not nearly as clairvoyant. The 2006 midterm elections fit the latter. At this point in 2005, I had predicted close races would ensue in both the Senate and gubernatorial elections. The Senate race, in my estimation a year in advance, would be a classic Old Minnesota vs. New Minnesota slugfest in which Klobuchar would dominate Hennepin and Ramsey Counties, along with northeastern Minnesota, while Kennedy would be competitive by scoring stratospheric numbers in outer suburbia and western Minnesota farm country, both of which he had represented in Congress and which I expected to bristle at “big-city lawyer” Klobuchar. Needless to say, I botched that prediction badly, as did most of the pundits who also expected a close Senate race in Minnesota, failing to foresee that alleged wunderkind Mark Kennedy would run the worst Minnesota Senate campaign in recent memory. Meanwhile, in the gubernatorial race where I expected Democrat Mike Hatch to do well outstate and for Tim Pawlenty to score the same boffo numbers in the nonurban metro area that he did in 2002, the Old MN vs. New MN contest I expected to see in the Senate race actually did play out. Needless to say, it was a humbling experience for a guy who thought he had it all figured out.
Hopefully, I fare a little better this year, but the campaign dynamic doesn’t strike me as being as clearcut this year. With that in mind, I’ll start with the incumbent and cite scenarios where each of the three candidates could win or lose next year….
Norm Coleman–The 2002 Senate election was very much an Old MN vs. New MN election, with Coleman compensating for his deficiencies among elderly outstate voters by sweeping through suburbia with absolutely astounding numbers. Conventional wisdom is that Coleman will need to hang onto the same Democrat-trending second-ring suburbs (Bloomington, Minnetonka, Shoreview, Eagan) if he’s to be re-elected in 2008. That might be correct, but not necessarily so, as Coleman’s outstate numbers in 2002 were below-average for a Republican, based partly on Mondale nostalgia among the area’s older voters, but also the perception that Coleman was a city slicker disconnected with rural values. It’s not clear whether that perception will hold outstate next year, particularly if Al Franken is the Democratic nominee.
Given that 2008 is a Presidential election year, it’s likely that turnout will be disproportionately higher compared to 2002 in the urban DFL strongholds of Minneapolis and St. Paul, which produces an immediate math challenge for him. Assuming that prediction is correct, Coleman will have to pick up votes elsewhere to compensate for the deficit. Potentially key to Coleman’s chances is the increasingly unpredictable white-collar city of Rochester in southeastern Minnesota, formerly a Republican stronghold but growing significantly less so in recent election cycles. Nonetheless, certain kinds of Republicans (like Governor Tim Pawlenty) still do very well in Rochester, and if Coleman can adeptly portray himself as a centrist with growing doubts about the war in Iraq, Rochester voters might be inclined to hang with him.
Al Franken–The ultimate wild card of a candidate. On the basis of fundraising alone, he’s a force to be reckoned with, and will have every opportunity to revamp his image. But at least so far, there is little evidence voters are ready to take him seriously. His funnyman history poses a unique challenge in that he can’t simply come across as the class clown slumming in politics, but will also be expected to produce moments of levity during the campaign so he doesn’t disappoint people as “just another boring politician”. From my observations, he has a hard time with that balance and can be less than riveting when speaking on meat-and-potatoes issues in front of crowds. But if his ground game and political skills prove as effective as his fundraising skills, he has a helluva good chance against an incumbent with a 45% approval rating, but that’s a big “if”.
Franken needs to run at least 50-50 in the aforementioned second-ring suburbs to have a chance, because he’ll be smashed in the fast-growing exurban doughnut and will most likely face a struggle outstate, particularly if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Outstate Minnesota has never had much of a fondness for Coleman in the past, so it’s not a lost cause for Franken, but he’ll have to earn his chops by touring some dairy farms and iron mines yet still avoid a “Dukakis in the tank” moment in the process. That’s gonna be a tough needle to thread with Republicans chomping at the bit for an opportunity to portray him as “out of touch with Minnesota”. I can’t say I’m optimistic, but am certainly not to the point where I can’t be persuaded to take Franken’s campaign seriously.
Mike Ciresi–In the interest of playing it safe, I would prefer to see Ciresi get the nomination over Franken, but I’m increasingly doubtful that will happen unless Franken makes a gaffe. Ciresi is the “safe” candidate on every front, particulalry his self-financing ability, but there’s a fear he will be too safe, failing to excite the base enough to take down Coleman. He was the presumptive favorite in the crowded field of candidates in 2000, but failed to seal the deal……against the uber-dreary Mark Dayton! If Ciresi lacked the fortitude to hold back Dayton seven years ago, it’s worth asking whether he has what it takes to topple Coleman, who’s a much better politician in his sleep than Dayton. Nonetheless, Ciresi hits the right buttons on the issues and could have a Klobuchar-esque ability to court GOP-leaning independents. That’s just speculation, but back in 2000, Rod Grams was most worried about facing Ciresi compared to the handful of other contenders.
Demographically, Ciresi seems like an easier sell to second-ring suburbanites than Franken…..and these voters will almost certainly decide the outcome. Ciresi’s “big-city lawyer” background is not a natural fit for outstate voters, but that didn’t hurt Klobuchar nearly as much as I expected last year…..and Coleman is much less loved outstate than what former country boy Mark Kennedy was expected to be, so I won’t take anything for granted. Again, however, it’s almost a certainty that Minnesota’s outer-suburban growth zones will produce huge margins for Coleman, so Ciresi (and every Dem for that matter) will have to continue to improve their numbers in the rest of the state to compensate for the tens of thousands of new Republican voters coming out of the doughnut every four years. In a hotly contested Presidential election, turning out the urban base and shaking out those “compensatory” votes doesn’t seem like it should be a problem.
That’s my early handicap of the 2008 Minnesota Senate race. Expect to see this analysis expand and evolve as the campaign unfolds, and feel free to provide me any information I may have missed that falsely colored my thoughts at this stage.
Eric Black over at the Minnesota Monitor has the scoop: apparently, the NRCC is working fast and furious to convince retiring Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad to reverse his decision to retire… and, according to inside sources, Ramstad is seriously considering it. And this decidedly non-Shermanesque statement from one of Ramstad’s aides leaves the door wide open for a change of heart:
“Jim has been overwhelmed by the huge number of Minnesotans urging him to reconsider, but he has no plans to run for re-election.”
“No plans” is legendary Washingtonspeak for “I haven’t made up my mind” or “I won’t tell you yet”. It’s no surprise that the NRCC would make the effort to reverse Ramstad’s decision. Without him on the ballot, Ramstad pushes what was once a safe seat into toss-up territory for the GOP, forcing national Republicans to spend precious resources defending the district that Bush carried by a narrow three point margin against Kerry in 2004.
And in an update, Eric Black writes that a second source believes that Republicans have a good shot at changing Ramstad’s mind:
A second and very reliable source, with insider knowledge of National Republican Congressional Committee efforts to get U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad to run for reelection next year, says the committee believes there’s a better than 50-50 chance Ramstad will do it.
Democrats have a strong contender in state Sen. Terri Bonoff, who reportedly raised $90K in about a week after jumping into the race. Does Ramstad figure that she’ll withdraw her bid if he decides to run again? If not, why on earth would he want to turn down retirement and face one of the more competitive races of his career?
(That title sort of sounds like the name of a rejected Who compilation.)
If you haven’t been following the absurdly-long list of potential Democratic challengers to fill the seat of vacating Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad in Minnesota’s 3rd District, here’s an update on the latest action.
Former Congressman Bill Luther told MN Publus that he would pass on the race.
Hubert H. “Buck” Humphrey IV (grandson of the vice president) is out as of late last week:
Hubert H. (Buck) Humphrey IV, who has been widely identified as a likely frontrunner in the race for the DFL nomination for the open congressional seat in the Third District has decided not to run.
“I will verify that,” Humphrey just told me when I called him to check out the rumor.
Humphrey, grandson of a vice president and presidential nominee, son of a Minnesota attorney general and gubernatorial nominee, and himself a one-time candidate (for Minn. Secretary of State) said that while he was quickly pulling together financing, an organization and a plan to run for the nomination, he and his wife decided that right now, with two daughters ages five and two, was not the time to make the full-time, full-family, full-body commitment necessary to succeed in a campaign like the one ahead for Congress.
Former Hennepin County attorney candidate Andy Luger is also out, despite earlier rumors suggesting he was committed to the race.
Other possible candidates include state Reps. Melissa Hortman and Steve Simon, former US Attorney David Lillehaug, and even former gubernatorial candidate Steve Kelley.
For a comprehensive overview of all the potential DFL candidates, check out this MN Publius candidate report.
U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., will not seek a 10th term, said two state Republican officials.
The officials spoke on the condition that they not be identified so as not to pre-empt Ramstad's announcement. Ramstad's office had scheduled a news conference for 3 p.m. in Minnetonka.
Ramstad's district is seriously competitive for Democrats. The district has a PVI of R+0.5 and supported Bush over Kerry by only 3 points. This seat should quickly become a top DCCC target.
Minnesota is a Democratic-leaning state and has no real love for the war, but if this is a strong enough primary challenge, Coleman will have to move to the right on the war in order to win a Republican primary, this is defintely a good sign.
For those who are looking for an alternative to Al Franken, Mike Ciresi has officially thrown his hat into the ring.
Minneapolis attorney Mike Ciresi (sir-EE’-see) is expected to announce today whether he will run for U.S. Senate.
Ciresi announced in February that he was looking into the D-F-L nomination for the Senate seat now held by Republican Norm Coleman.
Comedian Al Franken is already in the race for the D-F-L nomination.
Ciresi is best known for winning a 6.1 billion dollar settlement with the tobacco industry on behalf of the state of Minnesota. He made an unsuccessful bid for the D-F-L Senate nomination in 2000.
Personally, I would prefer Betty McCollum. Stay tuned.
Cross-posted from Minnesota Campaign Report – check back for more news on Franken’s kickoff. Robin Marty is liveblogging Franken’s final show on Air America here at Minnesota Monitor – check that out too!
Today, entertainer Al Franken has made official his candidacy for the DFL nomination for U.S. Senate.
In his announcement, Franken discussed his background and focused on what government can do for families: namely education assistance and social security:
Your government should have your back. That should be our mission in Washington, the one FDR gave us during another challenging time: freedom from fear.
Franken’s announcement follows that of fellow DFLer and trial lawyer Mike Ciresi, who announced the formation of an exploratory committee earlier this week. Some twenty months from now, the DFL nominee will face off against incumbent Republican Norm Coleman for the seat once held by Paul Wellstone.
Some other choice quotes:
It’s different for middle-class families, too. These families are being squeezed harder and harder every year. Maybe you know what it’s like to be one health crisis away from bankruptcy. Maybe you, or your parents or grandparents, can’t afford prescriptions. Maybe you have kids, and you’re worried about paying for their college. Maybe someone you love is in Iraq, and you don’t know how long they’ll have to stay there, or what will happen when they come home.
…
President Clinton used to say that there’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America, or, as I would add, by what’s right with Minnesota. We can lead the fight against global warming and dependence on foreign oil by developing new sources of renewable energy-and create good Minnesota jobs in the process. We can lead the nation in finding life-saving cures by harnessing the potential of stem-cell research. We can lead the nation by sending someone to the Senate who’ll be a voice for a strong and responsible America, one that uses its relationship with our allies to create a better and more secure world for ourselves and for future generations.
You’ll find the complete text of Franken’s announcement speech in the extended entry.
Hi, I’m Al Franken. I’m running for the United States Senate here in Minnesota.
I’d like to talk to you about why I’m running.
I’m not a typical politician. I’ve spent my career as a comedian. Minnesotans have a right to be skeptical about whether I’m ready for this challenge, and to wonder how seriously I would take the responsibility that I’m asking you to give me.
I want you to know: nothing means more to me than making government work better for the working families of this state, and over the next twenty months I look forward to proving to you that I take these issues seriously.
Today, however, I want to take a few moments to explain to you why I take these issues personally.
My family moved to Albert Lea from New Jersey when I was four years old. My dad never graduated high school and never had a career as such, but my mom’s father, my grandpa, owned a quilting factory out East and gave my dad a chance to start up a new factory in Albert Lea. After about two years, the factory failed, and we moved up to the Twin Cities.
Years later, I asked my dad, “Why Albert Lea?” And he said, “Well, your grandfather wanted to open a factory in the Midwest, and the railroad went through Albert Lea.”
So, I asked him, “Why did the factory fail?”
And he said, “Well, it went through Albert Lea, but it wouldn’t stop.”
That was my dad – great guy, terrible businessman. He got a job as a printing salesman, and my mom worked as a real estate agent. The four of us – I have an older brother, Owen – lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park.
That was my childhood. I grew up in a hard-working middle class family just like many of yours. And as a middle-class kid growing up in Minnesota back then, I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And I was.
My wife, Franni, whom I met our freshman year of college, wasn’t quite as lucky. When she was seventeen months old, her dad – a decorated veteran of World War II – died in a car accident, leaving her mother, my mother-in-law, widowed with five kids.
My mother-in-law worked in the produce department of a grocery store, but that family made it because of Social Security survivor benefits. Sometimes there wasn’t enough food on the table, sometimes they turned off the heat in the winter – this was in Portland, Maine, almost as cold as Minnesota – but they made it.
Every single one of the four girls in Franni’s family went to college, thanks to Pell Grants and other scholarships. My brother-in-law, Neil, went into the Coast Guard, where he became an electrical engineer.
And my mother-in-law got herself a $300 GI loan to fix her roof, and used the money instead to go to the University of Maine. She became a grade school teacher, teaching Title One kids – poor kids – and so her loan was forgiven.
My mother-in-law and every single one of those five kids became a productive member of society. Conservatives like to say that people need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps – and that’s a great idea. But first, you’ve got to have the boots. And the government gave my wife’s family the boots.
That’s what progressives like me believe the government is there for. To provide security for middle-class families like the one I grew up in, and opportunity for working poor families like the one Franni grew up in.
By the way, I stole that boots line from Tim Walz, our great new congressman from Southern Minnesota. Tim’s father died when he was a kid, and he and his brother and his mom made it because of Social Security.
Last year I traveled all over the state of Minnesota on behalf of Tim and other Democrats: from Waseca and Wabasha up to Fergus Falls and Detroit Lakes, over to Bemidji and the Iron Range, from Duluth down to Albert Lea, I was in Hastings and all over the metro, up in St. Cloud a few times, eating a lot of beans and buns and burgers and maybe a few too many Dairy Queens along the way. But most importantly, I talked to Minnesotans and listened.
They told me that they’re sick of politics as usual-and they’re sick of the usual politicians.
And I’ll tell you what else they told me. It’s different now than it was for me and Franni. When Franni’s sisters were using them to go to college, Pell Grants paid for 90% of a college education. Today, they pay for 40%. And President Bush, with the help of his Republican allies in Congress, have even tried to privatize Social Security. You should have heard Franni when they tried to do that.
It’s different for middle-class families, too. These families are being squeezed harder and harder every year. Maybe you know what it’s like to be one health crisis away from bankruptcy. Maybe you, or your parents or grandparents, can’t afford prescriptions. Maybe you have kids, and you’re worried about paying for their college. Maybe someone you love is in Iraq, and you don’t know how long they’ll have to stay there, or what will happen when they come home.
Middle-class families today struggle with that feeling of insecurity-the sense that things can fall apart without notice, outside of your control.
Your government should have your back. That should be our mission in Washington, the one FDR gave us during another challenging time: freedom from fear.
Americans have never backed away from challenges. And Minnesotans have always led the way. Our state has sent strong, progressive leaders to Washington-from Hubert Humphrey to Walter Mondale to Paul Wellstone, and now to Amy Klobuchar. Minnesota’s public servants might not always look and sound like typical politicians, but they stand by their principles and lead by their values.
That’s the kind of leader I think we need more of these days, and that’s the kind of Senator I’ll be.
President Clinton used to say that there’s nothing wrong with America that can’t be fixed by what’s right with America, or, as I would add, by what’s right with Minnesota. We can lead the fight against global warming and dependence on foreign oil by developing new sources of renewable energy-and create good Minnesota jobs in the process. We can lead the nation in finding life-saving cures by harnessing the potential of stem-cell research. We can lead the nation by sending someone to the Senate who’ll be a voice for a strong and responsible America, one that uses its relationship with our allies to create a better and more secure world for ourselves and for future generations.
My political hero is Paul Wellstone. He used to say, “The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard.” I may be a comedian by trade, but I’m passionate about the issues that matter to your family because they mattered to mine, too. And I’m ready to work as hard as I can to help us build a better future together.
Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you on the trail.
The National Journal (subscription req’d) recently dug into disbursement records for Congressional and Senate candidates in the 2006 election to answer an interesting question: How much did a given candidate spend on each vote he or she eventually received? Alternately, how efficiently did candidates spend their hard-earned warchests?
As noted, this is an interesting question, especially when it comes to Minnesota. The 2006 U.S. Senate race between Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar and Sixth District Congressman Mark Kennedy saw nearly $20 million in candidate committee disbursements, and the race between Michele Bachmann and Patty Wetterling to succeed Kennedy in his Congressional seat was quite expensive as well.
But there’s something missing from the National Journal’s analysis. Even in an underfunded position, a certain number of voters are always going to vote a certain way – what’s usually known as “the base”. The Republican base was never going to vote for Amy Klobuchar in statistically significant numbers, nor was the DFL base going to defect in droves to the Kennedy banner. It’s the votes beyond the base – the marginal votes earned – that might yield more insightful data.
Likewise, there’s a margin in terms of dollars spent. Even marginally competitive candidates are going to raise and spend at least a certain level of money – it’s what they raise and spend beyond that level that we can focus on as a measure of their effectiveness.
This Marginal Dollars per Marginal Positive Outcome has been used by Baseball Prospectus in analyzing clubs’ efficiency in spending – high-revenue teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, and Dodgers pay dearly for each win above what a team of rookies, each paid the league minimum, would achieve.
Enough baseball – more political statistics!
Some definitions:
—Net Disb: Net Disbursements from the candidate’s primary campaign committee, courtesy of FEC.gov
—dBP: District Base Percentage. This is a somewhat fudged figure, based on convention wisdom about the political dynamics in each district and statewide. It accounts for a slight DFL tilt statewide, conservative tilts in the Second and Sixth Congressional Districts, a heavy tilt toward the DFL in the Fifth, and a generally even balance in the First.
—dTV: District Total Votes. Total number of votes cast in this race for competitive major-party candidates. Fifth District candidate Tammy Lee counted in this analysis, as did John Binkowski in the Sixth, but Robert Fitzgerald and others did not.
—Bvotes: Base votes. Candidate’s vote total times their base percentage – again somewhat fudged due to conventional wisdom.
—Mvotes: Marginal votes. Total votes minus base votes – this is an attempt to represent votes the candidate earned over the course of the campaign beyond those that would vote for a carrot with the right letter after its name.
—Mdisb: Marginal Disbursements. This is another somewhat fudged figure. In the several competitive congressional races in Minnesota, I defined the minimum spending level as that of Alan Fine, Republican candidate in the Fifth District, who raised and spent a shade under $200,000. For the Senate race, I defined “competitive funding” as a cool $3,000,000 – in an inexpensive media market, three million should provide at least a modicum of competitiveness in a statewide federal race. If anyone has a better figure for this, I’m all ears.
—mD/mV:Marginal Dollars Spent per Marginal Vote Earned – the mother lode.
Caveats: There are several fudge points in this analysis, including the base percentages and disbursement levels. I hope they’re generally accurate. This analysis also does not account for larger political events and trends, including hurricanes, wars, and ineptitude leading to popular dissatisfaction. Nor does it account for independent expenditures by political parties and outside organizations, the effects of which are difficult to quantify.
Nevertheless, in the aftermath of 2006, this analysis may further clarify who spent money well and who did not.
The chart above reveals some interesting trends. Many of the mD/mV numbers make sense – Mark Kennedy spent a lot of money on each vote he earned, because he didn’t get many beyond his base. Tim Walz, in defeating entrenched incumbent Gil Gutknecht, spent his smaller warchest efficiently. Although Keith Ellison had a natural advantage in a DFL-friendly district, it turns out that he spent a fairly high dollar amount for each vote beyond the hardcore DFL vote, and Tammy Lee spent efficiently, if only to achieve a 25% finish. And fittingly, the Sixth District race saw two candidates spending massive amounts of money for each vote beyond their bases.
Given the final outcome, it appears that this was an extremely inefficient race on which to spend money.
