Mark Dayton

A Washington Post reporter has blogged his frustration (since scrubbed) over getting scooped on his own paper’s editorial pages. A recent local example of the same scenario: former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton’s December depression-and-drink rollout in the Star Tribune.

In Washington, the D.C. schools’ controversial chancellor rebuffed a WaPo beat reporter’s requests for comment, yakking instead to more sympathetic listeners on the newspaper’s editorial board.

Here, Dayton took his tale to editorial-side Strib staffer Lori Sturdevant, who presented her “exclusive interview” on the cover of a holiday-week commentary section — leaving the news staff to stoop to poorly sourced speculation about the revelations.

Dayton dug deeper into a message-control hole at a press conference to announce his run for governor last week, cutting questions short with a curt “You have my story for the day.” After an outcry, Dayton held a proper press conference on Monday, answering reporters’ questions for the better part of an hour.

The vandals left a one-line profane message and a signature — “Red Eye CREW” — that’s familiar from similar past incidents.

The UpTake lists 43 affected House websites, from both parties:

http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/

http://bachus.house.gov/

http://www.bright.house.gov/

http://mitchell.house.gov/

http://campbell.house.gov/

http://honda.house.gov/

http://hunter.house.gov/

http://www.lofgren.house.gov/

http://mcnerney.house.gov/

http://coffman.house.gov/

http://www.larson.house.gov/

http://www.chrismurphy.house.gov/

http://bilirakis.house.gov/

http://www.kosmas.house.gov/

http://www.barrow.house.gov/

http://www.davis.house.gov/

http://kirk.house.gov/

http://www.lipinski.house.gov/

http://quigley.house.gov/

http://schakowsky.house.gov/

http://carson.house.gov/

http://mikepence.house.gov/

http://olver.house.gov/

http://tierney.house.gov/

http://www.shea-porter.house.gov/

http://lujan.house.gov/

http://teague.house.gov/

http://arcuri.house.gov/

http://www.mccollum.house.gov/

http://boccieri.house.gov/

http://driehaus.house.gov/

http://www.charliewilson.house.gov/

http://www.altmire.house.gov/

http://www.dahlkemper.house.gov/

http://www.murtha.house.gov/

http://www.joewilson.house.gov/

http://hersethsandlin.house.gov/

http://www.roe.house.gov/

http://doggett.house.gov/

http://gonzalez.house.gov/

http://welch.house.gov/

http://www.baird.house.gov/

http://www.mollohan.house.gov/

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

BLOOMINGTON: This is what democracy looks like! Twenty gubernatorial candidates, sitting behind two very long tables. [Southwest Newspapers via Minnesota News Council]

LAKE SUPERIOR: This is what improper regulatory protection looks like. Viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS), the fish-killing viral invader, finally makes it to Gitchee Gumee. (Duluth News Tribune)

STATE CAPITOL: “The most to gain and the most to lose.” That’s what Margaret Anderson Kelliher’s got, as candidate for governor and state House Speaker. [Politics in Minnesota]

ST. PAUL: GAMC will survive one month longer. Now the state medical care program for the poor will die April 1. [Associated Press]

DELLWOOD: The Elephant Who Protected the Donkey. State auditor candidate Pat Anderson already let go of her own campaign for governor — but now she is helping DFLer R.T. Rybak’s. [Polinaut]

RAMSEY: City of 23,000 could get veterans hospital and train station. And a pony. [Star Tribune]

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

STATE CAPITOL: Minnesota better get mentioned during T-Paw’s big speech. Maybe those cop lay-offs and school-aid shifts too, when Gov. Pawlenty delivers his State of the State for Feb. 11. [Hot Dish Politics; West Central Tribune]

MINNEAPOLIS: Oh, “No“! Paul Thissen charges fellow DFL gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher with stealing his “Yes-No” refrain. [Polinaut]

ST. PAUL: Lucky 13. The DFL gubernatorial race sounds like so much fun, someone new has signed up. [Associated Press]

MINNEAPOLIS: City Council president defends paying for personal expenses with campaign funds. Barb Johnson’s life is a perpetual campaign, and “one bad-hair day gets published on the Internet.” [Star Tribune]

ST. CLOUD: “I’m scared of this city.” A public forum inspired by the posting of anti-Muslim cartoons could be just another in a string of “kumbaya meetings” if no action is taken.[St. Cloud Times]

ALBERT LEA: Suit filed over abuse at nursing home. The details do not live up to the name “Good Samaritan Society,” to say the least. [Albert Lea Tribune]

Photo: mikeparry.com

Mike Parry kept Minnesota’s Senate District 26 in the Republican column Tuesday, winning a plurality of the vote in a special election that pitted him against DFLer Jason Engbrecht and Roy Srp of the Independence Party.

Parry won with 43.0% of the vote to Engbrecht’s 36.5% and Srp’s 20.3%. Nearly 11,500 ballots were cast.

Revelations of Twitter messages on Parry’s account that called President Obama a “Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man” and linked Democrats to pedophiles didn’t dissuade a plurality of voters who braved the cold Tuesday to back the Republican.

Because the special election was to fill a vacancy left by Republican Dick Day, who retired to lobby for Racino Now, Parry will have to savor his victory in a hurry. He must run again next November to retain the seat — and then again in 2012 due to redistricting.

Parry, Engbrecht and Srp each gained the most votes in one of the three counties, parts of which make up the district. Engbrecht took his home county, vote-rich Rice, but only barely: 1,772 votes to 1,726 for Parry and 263 for Srp.

Srp won in Waseca county, home to the city he’s mayor of (also Waseca), with 1,055 votes, for 46%. Parry was second there with 715 (31%). Engbrecht had 514 (22%).

Where Parry cleaned up was Steele County, where he gained 2,502 votes, or 46%. Engbrecht had 1,907 (35%), Srp 1,016 (19%).

The results signaled that “2010 will be a great year for Minnesota Republicans” to state GOP Chair Tony Sutton, who added, “I look forward to electing more like minded fiscal conservatives in November.”

As voters were still at the polls, a Governing magazine blog called the contest “a not uninteresting state Senate special election” — interesting in that, had Parry won, it’d go down as possibly the first election in the country “where a Twittergaffe actually cost someone an election.” Continued blogger Josh Goodman:

The biggest reason I’ll be watching this race, though, is that I’m curious in the political environment coming after the Massachusetts special election. Are Democrats doubly despondent or was Scott Brown’s victory a wake-up call for them?

There was not much doubt about the national implications of the Southern Minnesota triumph from Sutton, who tweeted “1st Scott Brown, now Parry, next up Victory in Nov!”

Parry himself stayed silent on Twitter, as he had for five days leading up to the election.

Photo: Twitter

Updated: A Joseph Basel — possibly of Minnesota and involved in an alleged phone-tampering against Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana — follows veteran rightwing prankster James O’Keefe on Twitter.

“JEBasel” has only two tweets of his own, the latest from Dec. 18: “Minnesota needs global warming NOW! Workers of Minnesota Unite!”

But among the 35 Twitter feeds he follows are O’Keefe and two accounts associated with conservative anti-ACORN cheerleader Andrew Breitbart.

Update: JEBasel also follows Francisco Gonzalez, whose latest tweet reads: “Please pray for my friends @JamesOKeefeIII and Stan Dai. They and Joe Basel were arrested by the Feds: http://bit.ly/aHcw90.” (Another person JEBasel follows: timpawlenty.)

JEBasel’s Twitter avatar photo also resembles the avatar for a Facebook account belonging to a Joseph Basel who studied at the University of Minnesota-Morris.

Ihrke said by lunchtime some precincts had seen as many as 10 percent of registered voters at the polls.

For Ihrke, 26 is the number of the day, Jan. 26. Steele County, with more than half the land area of Senate District 26, has 26 precincts, including 10 in its biggest city, Owatonna; one each in the cities of Medford, Ellendale and Blooming Prairie; and the remainder in rural townships.

“Things are going fine,” she said, although “cold weather may be a deterrent.” Still, she expects citizens have been made aware of the election through advertisements in local newspapers and mailings.

Polls close at 8 p.m., with the first results expected by about 8:30 p.m., according to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office, which will post returns on its website.

The Senate District 26 special election pits DFLer Jason Engbrecht against Republican Mike Parry and Roy Srp of the Independence Party in a contest to replace retiring Republican Dick Day.

ABC News has a rundown of possible GOP contenders for 2012 that puts Pawlenty’s cons entirely in terms of Mitt Romney:

Con: Pawlenty’s weakness is that he does not enjoy Romney’s personal wealth and he is overshadowed by Palin’s star power. He also came under scrutiny last year when Dan Balz of the Washington Post characterized his moves to the right as being “Romneyesque.”

At Politics in Minnesota, Steve Perry ruminates on how long of a shadow T-Paw’s Minnesota shortcomings might cast over his White House hopes. If “lantern-jawed rich kid” Romney falls short as a Republican leading light, Perry writes, that could leave only Sarah Palin and these three very local things between T-Paw and the GOP nod:

The unallotment lawsuit. Pawlenty’s High Noon move to balance the budget by cutting $2.7 billion on his own has been provisionally upended by a judge’s ruling … And that could mean the mother of all balance-sheet nightmares …

Short-term borrowing. Minnesota Management and Budget (MMB) officials have been warning for a couple of months that the state could have to borrow to keep the general fund’s cash flow in the black … If the state’s credit took a hit on Pawlenty’s watch, or while his chair is still warm, it would go a long way toward unwinding his role as the national GOP’s poster boy for jeremiads about the federal budget.

The school shift. …[Pawlenty] has to maintain his reputation for putting a premium on K-12 education. This is why the governor needs the 2010 Legislature to codify the ad hoc $1.8 billion “payment shift” he cobbled together … Otherwise schools take a very public whacking and Pawlenty’s resume is tarnished as a result.

Clockwise from upper left: Dick Day, Roy Srp, Mike Parry, Jason Engbrecht

A classic Minnesota three-way election is underway today in Senate District 26, with DFLer Jason Engbrecht, Republican Mike Parry and Independence Party candidate Roy Srp vying to replace Dick Day. And classic Minnesota January weather returned just in time for the vote.

Day, a Republican in his sixth state Senate term, condemned his constituents to a cold day at the polls when he resigned effective Jan. 8 to work as a lobbyist for so-called “racino” legislation allowing casino gambling at racetracks.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered a special election for Jan. 26. On Jan. 25, Pawlenty ordered the National Guard to help with a blizzard that swept across southern Minnesota.

Senate District 26, which includes Faribault, Owatonna and Waseca (map pdf), escaped the very worst to the west, but state Hwy. 13 through Waseca was closed overnight. Road and weather conditions had improved by morning Tuesday.

Still, campaign volunteers faced a task that might be better described as thaw-out-the-vote.

Turning blue?

District 26 voters have historically favored Republicans, according to Smart Politics, and that’s true as well of special-election voters statewide over the last few decades.

But the district has been trending Democratic, with two DFL representatives making Day the district’s only Republican at the legislature at the time he resigned.

On a hurry-up timetable to fill the empty seat, DFLers endorsed Engbrecht, a St. Olaf College physics professor and Faribault school board member, while Republicans chose Parry, a former member of the Waseca City Council. Srp, Waseca’s mayor, gained the Independence Party nod.

Engbrecht and Parry raised more campaign funds, but given his job, Srp started with a higher public profile. Parry was forced to apologize for messages posted at his Twitter account, including one in which he termed President Obama a “Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man” and another linking Democrats and pedophiles.

Each has earned the backing of leaders and notables in their respective parties — U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for Parry, former U.S. Rep. Tim Penny for Srp, and U.S. Sen. Al Franken for Engbrecht.