In this week’s Schultz Report, we talk foreign policy and the presidential campaign, reviewing Barack Obama’s weekend trip to the Middle East and John McCain’s verbal excursion to the non-existent Iraq-Pakistan border; we discuss the fundraising picture in the Third District US House race to replace retiring Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad; and we start things off with the discovery of life on Planet Franken. Minnesota politics analyst David Schultz, who has long been critical of the way Al Franken’s campaign has conducted itself, says it’s begun to show encouraging new signs of finding its way in the past week.

"David SchultzThe whole rationale for Franken running was to put Coleman’s record on trial," says Schultz, "to make the argument that Coleman was simply a toady for Bush. In what appears to be a very effective commercial launched last week, Franken starts to lay out the contrast between himself and Coleman–talks about making Bush’s tax cuts permanent, talks about the differences in how they would approach high fuel prices, but then also points that Coleman has a 90 percent voting record with Bush. And the most effective thing in the commercial is [the photo] showing Bush and Coleman literally hugging each other, shoulder-to-shoulder.

"It’s the first time, I think, that Franken has really gotten his message out in terms of  saying, look, this is about Coleman. It’s about the fact he’s been an almost certain vote for Bush–supported him on the war, supported him on taxes, everything. It’s the first time in the campaign I’ve seen him go on the offensive, and that’s a good sign for the Franken campaign.

"The other sign that’s pretty good is on the fundraising front. Coleman has raised about $15 million, but Franken has raised about $12 million. It’s already the most expensive Senate race in Minnesota history and the most expensive US Senate race in the country in 2008. But if you start to look at the money, Coleman and Franken have different patterns. Coleman has taken $3 million from PACs, and Franken is now pointing that out, saying Coleman has taken money from big oil and other special interests.

"There is one downside to Franken’s fundraising. He says in a press release–which is kind of odd–that he has 114,000 donors, and of those, 18,000 are from Minnesota. The rest are out-of-staters, a lot of Hollywood [money] and traditional big  donors. So Franken doesn’t have a deep fundraising base in Minnesota, but nonetheless he’s staying pretty much toe-to-toe with Coleman on individual donors, and he’s getting his message out with a very effective commercial."

Listen: David Schultz on the new, improved Franken campaign, the Third District House race, and Obama v. McCain on the foreign policy front (18:00)

 

 

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