Independence Party

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s announced plans to axe state refunds for political contributions of $50 or less has set off an email stampede as candidates urge donors to give before the program dies July 1.

Last used as a metaphor for Norm Coleman’s dwindling odds at winning back his old U.S. Senate seat, Monty Python’s Black Knight is again being conjured as a political metaphor — this time by the Independence Party, which likens itself to the tenacious fighter who, despite getting all his limbs lopped off by King Arthur, [...]

UPDATED Well, they do call it the Independence Party. It turns out the party’s candidate in the 3rd Congressional District race, David Dillon, has donated a considerable sum of his own money to his campaign through Sept. 2: $122,000. That’s 81 percent of his campaign’s $150,513 war chest, which according to a fresh report from the Center for Responsive Politics’ opensecrets.org, makes Dillon the eighth biggest self-funding candidate for the U.S. House or Senate this year, by percentage of total money raised.

They say that numbers don’t lie. If so, then there are three numbers that tell a dismal tale for the Independence Party: 37, 16 and six. That’s the share of the vote Independence Party gubernatorial candidates won in 1998, 2002 and 2006. The numbers tell the tale of a party that has waned significantly in [...]

Rallying around 2006 gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson’s exhortation that “the campaign’s not over,” the Independence party’s central committee worked Sunday to chart their course for the next two years.

Hutchinson’s speech, delivered after extensive discussion on possible restructuring of the party, emphasized that despite his only polling 6% in November, his ideas were getting across.

“Senator Tom [...]

Despite its generally lackluster performance in Tuesday’s elections, the Independence Party will wake up Wednesday morning positioned to make a move against the major parties in ways it has never been before. The party has build a solid fundraising mechanism, a significant base of new volunteers, and can boast some of the state’s most intriguing [...]

Cross-posted at Vox Verax.

I’m sick and tired of politics, particularly negative advertising and public broadsides coming primarily from the GOP side. But the Dems are not innocent either, and when they start slinging mud it makes me doubly sick since theoretically they should know better.

As far as I’m concerned, any candidate that deals in deceptive [...]

Tim Penny brings the IP ticket to town

Cross-posted at Vox Verax.

Early in his remarks Saturday evening, gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson introduced some of those in attendance at the house of Tim Penny in Waseca. He pointed out former 24-year State Representative Rod Searle, Waseca Mayor Roy Srp and of course Penny. “What is it about [...]