In addition to Bachmann, the ads are targeting Republican Reps. John Boehner of Ohio, Denny Rehberg of Montana, Lee Terry of Nebraska, Roy Blunt of Missouri, and Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, as well as Democrat Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania.

“Stain,” as the ad is titled, “highlights the cash from Big Oil and other special interests taken by Members who voted against the American Clean Energy & Security Act, a comprehensive clean energy and climate plan that will put America back in control of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet,” according to a statement from the Sierra Club.

Here’s the full ad:

In a Twitter message, Jonah Goldberg wrote:

?? Dems want a health system that says when you can knee surgery, but demand abortion coverage because women should control their bodies.

While its moral logic confounds liberals at Instaputz and Wonkette, Goldberg’s tweet could supply a slogan for former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s political comeback.

Coleman himself underwent knee surgery just last spring — at his own option and, in all likelihood, at government expense.

So the Coleman for Governor in 2010 campaign might be built around the specter of”government knee panels” or the Constitutional protections of “a man’s right to choose.”

Ben Smith of the Politico reports that the DNC won’t be paying for media to carry that message — yet — but will begin by sending messages to constituents who are on the Obama campaign email list.

Paulsen may have had in mind preempting such an attack when he released a statement via YouTube about his “no” vote within minutes of having cast it Saturday night.

Paulsen was one of seven GOP lawmakers targeted by a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ad campaign over health care last summer. (Another of those seven, Joseph Cao of Louisiana, cast the sole Republican vote in favor of the pending bill.)

The National Republican Congressional Committee earlier put Paulsen on its own list of vulnerable Republicans in Congress.

Paulsen’s latest campaign-finance reports show he raised nearly $1 million this year. Democratic challengers to the first-term Republican are only beginning to emerge.

“We’re not really that worried about it,” McConnell tells the Minnesota Independent. He says the sample ballot postcards are only one of several methods the party uses for communicating its list of endorsed candidates. And for people who receive their ballots today, McConnell says, they’ll serve as reminders to go vote.

The U.S. Postal Service has a system of “red-tagging” time-sensitive political mail for priority handling, McConnell says. He’s not sure how many of the approximately 70,000 intended recipients in Minneapolis didn’t receive their sample ballots on time but says party staff are trying to track which zip codes were affected.

Besides endorsements, the sample ballot contains a brief how-to on ranking choices under the city’s new instant-runoff voting system.

Minneapolis City Hall. Photo: Hennepin Co. Library

They are called “pre-general” campaign-finance reports, but with the general election in Minneapolis only a day away, many candidates’ reports have yet to be filed, according to a website maintained by Hennepin County. In select races that could be close and have reports posted, the money race gives an indication of how much the candidates have had to work with in the closing days of their campaigns.

For instance, in the mayoral race, incumbent R.T. Rybak has filed his latest finance report but Papa John Kolstad, a leader among 10 challengers, has not — rendering what would certainly be a David-and-Goliath comparison impossible to make before the election.

In Ward One, where the new occupant for one of three open council seats in Minneapolis will be decided Tuesday, DFL endorsee Kevin Reich had raised nearly 20 times as much money ($23,048) as Susan Howitz Hanna ($1,221), a rival DFLer who picked up the Star Tribune’s endorsement a week after the close of the filing period.

Larry Ranallo, a third DFLer with signs throughout the ward (and even as far as nine blocks outside the ward), hasn’t filed either a pre-primary or pre-general campaign finance report, according to the Hennepin County website.

Such filings are required once a campaign spends or receives $100. The pre-general reports were supposed to be filed Oct. 27.

In a South Minneapolis park board rematch between incumbent Carol Kummer and repeat challenger Jason Stone, Kummer raised more than $7,000 during the Sept. 2–Oct. 20 reporting period — almost twice the sum Stone took in.

Kummer was beneficiary of a maximum $300 gift from park board attorney Brian Rice and more from police union groups his firm represents — a donor constellation that also bankrolled campaigns for and against ballot referendums concerning the park board earlier in the year.

Another park candidate on Rice’s gift list is Bob Fine, who currently represents the city’s southwest corner. Fine is one of five current or former at-large park commissioners vying for the three citywide seats up for election. He had $6,000 in cash on hand on Oct. 20, more than incumbents Mary Merrill Anderson ($2,300) and Annie Young ($1,100).

Pre-general reports for former commissioner John Erwin and current park board president Tom Nordyke were not posted at the Hennepin County site as of noon Monday.

Nordyke was also among tardy filers for the pre-primary report deadline in September.

On the back of the postcard is a sample ballot that recommends the Republicans’ unconventional mayoral endorsee, Papa John Kolstad, along with candidates for all but three city council races, along with single candidates in the multi-seat races for park board and the city’s board of estimate and taxation.

Clockwise from top left: Larry Ranallo, Susan Howitz Hanna, Tom Alessi, Kevin Reich and Mark Fox.

The Northeast corner of Minneapolis is brimming with resentments and possibilities, to hear candidates for an open city council seat there tell it. A week from Election Day, a crowd of 75 packed a room at Northeast Library for a Ward One candidate forum. They were treated to a smorgasbord of back-to-basics rhetoric, with a side of chips on the shoulder.

The candidates’ table was crowded as well, with DFL endorsee Kevin Reich and DFLer Susan Howitz Hanna at one end and conservative Tom Alessi and independent Mark Fox at the other.

Noticeably absent was another DFLer: Larry Ranallo. Last time, Reich was the missing one, at a group interview with the Star Tribune editorial board. Reich told MnIndy he had a conflict and joined candidates from another ward the next day for their interview with the Strib board.

That may have hurt Reich though, for on Monday the newspaper endorsed Hanna instead, snubbing the candidate who has been seen as a frontrunner since he won DFL backing last spring.

The endorsement seemed to have given a boost to Hanna, whose self-assurance had a new swagger Tuesday not seen, for example, in her DFL endorsement speech that’s captured on YouTube (and is still her main presence online).

The candidates spent much of the forum seconding each other’s opinions, leaving Hanna and Reich to trade the evening’s sharpest jabs.

The council job “is not to be complainer-in-chief,” Reich said, on behalf of a ward, that — insert air quotes, aimed especially at Hanna — “never gets its share.”

“The job is to lead,” he said.

Hanna shot back that she doesn’t consider herself a complainer. “We have been overlooked” she insisted, in a ward that’s “not second-rate.” Earlier, she repeated a pledge to be “very selfish,” making sure that the ward gets “not only everything we deserve, but extra.”

“I don’t overanalyze or overthink,” Hanna said, a dig at Reich’s penchant for wonkishness.

Reich didn’t disappoint on that score: the somewhat obtuse phrase “project direction” constituted two of the first words out of his mouth.

But then, directing projects is both his job at the Holland neighborhood association and his calling card as a candidate who could coordinate progress for the ward at City Hall.

Hanna knows it, and bristled at one question from the audience about candidates’ direct experience with providing senior housing — one of the main points on Reich’s resume. The question “seems a little skewed to one person if you ask me,” she grumbled. Reich offered to “unskew the question,” answering in broad terms.

Alessi and Fox are more skeptical of the status quo and the way the city’s “system” operates, beyond basic services of fire, police and streets.

Fox proposes an up-ending of responsibility for development and other governmental activities that start downtown and move to neighborhoods. “I trust you more than I trust City Hall,” he said, referencing the audience and the ward’s “25,000 other people.”

Fox envisions a Minneapolis in which even currently disengaged citizens steer the city and volunteers pick up the inevitable slack when impending budget crises bring deep cuts to services.

Alessi sees a city, and particularly a Central Avenue NE, revived by businesses that stay and expand thanks to lower taxes, fees and regulation. “I’m the anti-tax guy,” he said by way of introduction.

After the forum, the missing Ranallo could be found at the bar he owns, Moose’s on Monroe. There, he told MnIndy that despite missing the event, he remained “avid” about his campaign.

Ranallo showed off a new piece of literature ready for mailing that highlighted his recent endorsement by the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. It shows a gloved hand reaching through broken glass to turn a door handle and asks, “What if you called 911 and nobody showed up?” above bullet points about proposed cuts in the ranks of cops and firefighters.

Effective — and a little ironic, considering the League of Women Voters called a candidate forum and he didn’t show up. He did have an excuse: a personal obligation intervened, he told the Minnesota Independent. (Dan Haugen, who has audio of the event, reports that Ranallo’s mother was hospitalized.)

Standing in a bar room festooned with his campaign signs, Ranallo used a phrase heard from other candidates as well — that all Northeast lacks is a lake — and vowed to bring back the vibrant community he recalls from his youth, when Central Avenue was “popping.”

Photo: governor.state.mn.us

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman caps off the long version of his new TV ad by quoting hockey great Wayne Gretzky’s advice to skate to where the puck will be. It’s a quote Gov. Pawlenty has been using for years, as Brian Bakst of the Associated Press notes. Indeed, it’s a favorite among consultants, businessmen and politicians, including former U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman. But Gretzky wasn’t the first to say it, and in any case it’s of dubious value as advice, according to people who know their way around a rink. 

Here’s how Coleman rephrases Gretzky’s maxim (at the 3:54 mark):

I really feel like the mayor of the City of St. Paul has to be a leader of all the people. We need to look to the future. We need to think about where the puck is going to be.

Pawlenty has been using the quote at least since his first year as governor. He found global meaning from Gretzky’s words in 2003, according to the University of St. Thomas Aquin (pdf):

Pawlenty compared the progress of Minnesota to his favorite hockey player, Wayne Gretzky. Pawlenty said Gretzky attributed his success to the fact that he didn’t care where the puck was; it was where the puck was going that mattered. “It’s a great metaphor for the times we live in,” he said. “We’re living in a world with enormous change, and it’s an exciting time.”

St. Paul’s other mayor named Coleman, Norm, said Gretzky’s wisdom could help the nation defeat terrorism. He cited them in 2006 to open two days of hearings as chairman of the U.S. Senate’s Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on investigations:

In the words of the hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, a good hockey player plays where the puck is; a great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. In other words, we cannot safeguard a post-9/11 America by simply using pre-9/11 methods. If we think that terrorists are not plotting their next move, then we are mistaken.

Given how frequently Gretzky’s words are repeated, it’s surprising a key fact about them is often overlooked: they’re actually his father’s, according to an extensive 2000 investigation by Fast Company magazine’s Consultant Debunking Unit.

Walter Gretzky’s original version: “Go to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”

Fast Company probed further, asking the elder Gretzky whether the adage is actually advice he’d give to pros, or the movers-and-shakers who like to cite it.

“Mama mia, no!” Walter says. “That advice is strictly for little kids. It’s just simple basics, like the ABCs. You have to know the alphabet before you can write. And naturally, going to where the puck is going is something that pros take for granted — or they wouldn’t be playing professionally.

The younger Gretzky wouldn’t give Fast Company the time of day, but his idol Gordie Howe took a swipe at the quote:

It’s not really the greatest piece of advice I’ve ever heard. Besides, sometimes you don’t want to be where the puck is going. One time, I was anticipating a pass from [Ted] ‘Teeder’ Kennedy and was leaning over to get in the way of it, when Kennedy, following through, swung his stick in my eye. I had double vision for two months and had to sit out the rest of the season.

A clear-eyed look at the saying by the late Herb Brooks, who coached Minnesota’s Golden Gophers and North Stars, resulted in a similar conclusion:

You’d have to be a real idiot to skate to where the puck used to be. On the other hand, if everyone skated to where the puck is going, you’d have one big train wreck. Sometimes your job on the ice is to take the pressure off of the guy who’s headed for the puck by drawing players away. And sometimes you want to skate to where the puck is, not to where it’s going. When you shoot the puck into the zone, it’s up for grabs — and you have to chase it.

With IRV the city saves the time and expense of holding a separate primary election in September — only to incur a comparable cost of counting every ballot by hand, some more than once, over a period of weeks that will be anything but “instant” and is bound to test the patience of an electorate still wincing from the recount and ensuing court action in the 2008 U.S. Senate contest.

Future elections will run more quickly and smoothly if the city buys equipment capable of handling IRV’s successive rounds of runoffs to find a winner by majority vote.

The city got a late start on shopping for such machines after voters approved IRV, then decided not to accept deals from either of two willing suppliers for unstated reasons — a legal challenge and equipment-certification hurdles didn’t help.

But it was the voters’ will to use IRV, and city government and citizens have been getting ready. Voters are boning up on how to cast an IRV ballot — the city’s education budget is one-tenth what San Francisco spent on a similar effort — and officials are staffing up for full shifts of tabulating votes through December.

Candidates, however, are proving slow to exploit the new system as part of their pitches to voters.

Council Member Elizabeth Glidden, who pushed for the adoption of IRV (also known as ranked choice voting, or RCV), has taken note of campaigns that mention the new voting system in their communications with voters.

“I have not seen everyone’s literature,” Glidden tells the Minnesota Independent. “The examples I have seen, including in my own race, have an RCV message such as ‘Make ________ your 1st choice.’”

Some campaigns link to the city election department’s IRV web page from their campaign sites. But candidates’ messages aren’t as forceful or attention-grabbing as they could be, in another advocate’s view.

“Where’s your ‘Number One’?” Jeanne Massey says she finds herself asking when she sees campaign literature. The executive director of IRV-advocacy group FairVote Minnesota says she has been surprised that candidates in Minneapolis haven’t made more of the new system. Most lawn signs and campaign literature look the same as in past elections, with few IRV-inspired pleas to fill in the candidate’s oval in the first column on the ballot.

Massey has made a point of collecting samples of campaign literature as FairVote helps the city spread the word about IRV. But until Friday she hadn’t seen a joint campaign ad of the sort prepared by Steve Jencha and Meg Forney, rivals for a single open park board seat in Minneapolis’ Sixth Park District. Their pitch (pdf): “Choose one of us as your #1 choice & the other as your #2 choice on Nov. 3rd!” (The ad has since disappeared from Forney’s website.)

It’s the kind of pitch that some running for the city’s at-large park board seats were tuning up last spring, when they appealed to a candidate-forum audience to vote them #1 — or #2.

That race — which includes five current or former park commissioners seeking three available seats — is likely to produce the city’s biggest pool of ballots requiring special attention from election judges. Under IRV, votes in multi-seat elections get redistributed by fractions in successive rounds of counting to find majority victors, as demonstrated with Post-It notes and scissors in this Minnesota Public Radio video.

That first-of-its-kind method of vote-tabulation can be done by machine, Massey says, but hand-counting works too — just slower. The city’s election office is allowing three days of counting for each of the city’s wards after Election Day.

The prospect of not knowing the winners of the park board’s at-large seats played into the board’s indication Thursday that they would extend the contract of Superintendent Jon Gurban, which ends next summer, by one year.

Several commissioners, including retiring commissioners Tracy Nordstrom and Walter Dziedzic, said they wanted to make the decision before a new board takes office. President Tom Nordyke noted that the board is scheduled to take formal action to renew the contract (or not) on Nov. 4 — the day after the election.

But unlike in past city-election years, at least one-third of the new nine-member board won’t be known then, making it harder for the outgoing board to ascertain what the incoming board’s wishes might be.

Whatever the political costs and consequences of switching to IRV, any financial hit to the city from doing a hand count will be negligible, according to Interim Elections Director Patrick O’Connor.

“Looks at this point to be a wash, with the savings from not having to conduct a primary,” O’Connor informed the Minnesota Independent. The cost either way: about $225,000.