Gaertner drops out of governor’s race
Monday, April 26, 2010 at 2:56 pm
- 1 Comment
Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner has dropped out of the race to become Minnesota’s governor. Following this weekend’s DFL endorsement of House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher in the race, Gaertner said Monday she didn’t want to “be the spoiler” in Kelliher’s bid to become Minnesota’s first woman governor.
“This is the closest Minnesota has yet to come to electing a female governor,” Gaertner said at a Capitol news conference, according to the AP. “That would be history-making.”
Kelliher will face DFLers Matt Entenza and former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton in the Democratic primary in August.
Update: Monday afternoon, Gaertner sent this email to supporters:
Dear Friends & Supporters:
After careful analysis of the DFL gubernatorial endorsement, I have decided to end my campaign for Governor of Minnesota.
Two important facts weighed heavily in my decision: 1) That the endorsement of Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher would pit two women against each other in the primary, and 2) with two self-financed and well-funded male candidates, the resulting struggle would make it extremely difficult to raise sufficient funds for an effective campaign.
Since the day I entered this campaign I always believed there was a path to victory. Today, that path is not clear. What is clear is that if I stayed in the race I could hurt the chances of a woman surviving the primary. Because this is the first time in more than a century of effort that a woman has come this far, I don’t want to be any part of keeping us from achieving this important milestone for Minnesota women.
While I am truly sorry the campaign didn’t work out, I have no regrets. I ran because I believe at this difficult time in Minnesota’s history my leadership and values would have been good for all Minnesotans, including the least among us.
I will be forever grateful for your support and friendship. In my years as a public servant in Minnesota, nothing I have done has touched me more than your loyalty to my campaign for Governor.
When I started this campaign, I used a quote from Minnesota’s first Governor, Henry Hastings Sibley, to express my most basic value as a candidate. As I end this campaign, I still believe it to be true:
“I have no object and no interest which are not inseparably bound up with the welfare of the state.”
Thank you.
Sig
Susan Gaertner
1 Comment
Comment posted April 30, 2010 @ 6:50 pm
What bull hockey! Gaertner’s campaign was dead in the water. She had no money, no supporters, no staff!
If R.T., Marty or Rukivina had won the endorsement and she actually stayed in the race, she would have been run over like a rabbit on I-94. Kelliher’s endorsement gives her the cover to drop out of the race, nothing else. She would have no more split the female vote with Kelliher, than my cat Smudgy would have.
Gaertner tried to run for Governor, as a Law and Order candidate, on the backs of the 8 kids she indicted at Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher’s behest. She first claimed they were “terrorists” and when that failed, she claimed they were “violent offenders”, even thou not one of them has been linked to a single violent act. Now even that is falling apart.
Gaertner wanted to try all 8 defendants separately, but the trial Judge denied her motion. Now that her campaign for Governor is dead, the only question is, will she have the decency to stop the prosecution of these young people, whose only crime was organizing against the Republican Party?
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