At least 10 challengers have filed papers with Minnesota’s Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board since Election Day announcing their intent to run for the state House or Senate. Not surprisingly, given the strong Democratic majorities in both legislative bodies, the bulk  of these early contenders (seven) are Republicans.

Rudy Takala, a veteran GOP activist and chair of the Pine County Republican Party, intends to run against Rep. Tim Faust in House District 8B. Faust has squared off against Judy Soderstrom in the previous three elections, winning two of the contests.

Takala believes it’s time for someone else to take a stab at the seat. He expects gay marriage and high taxes to be important issues in the 2010 contest and argues that the state Republican party has strayed too far from its conservative roots.

“I don’t think they look at who the best candidates are,” he says. “They look too closely at whose turn it is. I think that needs to change if we’re going to get better candidates.”

Another swing district that’s likely to see an electoral battle in 2010 is 41A in Edina. Rep. Keith Downey survived a tough three-way contest last year to keep the seat in the GOP column, winning with just 37 percent of the vote. Downey got the Republican endorsement over nine-term incumbent Ron Erhardt, who was shunned by his party after voting to raise the gas tax.

Doug Pagitt has already signed up to run on the DFL side of the ledger in 2010. He’s motivated in part by the ugly manner in which local Republicans dispatched Erhardt after nearly two decades of service.

“I think that they shouldn’t be rewarded for that kind of behavior,” Pagitt says. “I think it’s mean-spirited and narrow-minded.”

The fledgling politician is the founder of Solomon’s Porch, which is described as a “holistic, missional Christian community,” and the author of numerous relgious books. Although he filed to run for the House, Pagitt could alter his plans and take on GOP Sen. Geoff Michell. Either way the early filing will allow Pagitt to begin raising money and establishing name recognition.

“It takes a while,” he notes. “It’s not easy starting from a dead stop.”

Another candidate with a religious background has filed to run in Senate District 31, currently held by Democrat Sharon Erickson Ropes. Paul Ibisch is the pastor at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in La Crescent, and also chair of the Republican Party in Houston County.

“I’m an ordinary person who lives from paycheck to paycheck,” says Ibisch, in explaining why he filed so early. “I have to really establish a grassroots support system for my campaign.”

Social issues, including opposition to abortion, will be a focus of his campaign. “We’re very concerned about family values and the well-being of the family in our community and our state,” he says.

Democrat Lisa Fobbe won her Senate race by just 84 votes in District 16, which leans heavily toward the GOP. She almost certainly benefited from the write-in candidacy of disaffected Republican Mark Olson, who garnered almost 1,500 votes.

Not surprisingly Fobbe has already attracted opposition for 2010 — Republican Jason White, an emergency room nurse, fiscal conservative and political neophyte.  “The consensus is if you get your name out there early you have a better shot,” White says.

In Senate District 52, Dennis Hegberg is the only candidate registered to run as an independent. The Washington County Commissioner has historically been a Republican, but the local party refused to endorse him for re-election last year after he voted to enact a transit tax.

Hegberg says he probably won’t run if incumbent Sen. Ray Vandeveer decides to seek another term, but by filing early he can begin to raise money.

“If I go as an independent, it’s a very difficult task to do,” he notes.

]]> http://minnesotaindependent.com/25777/gop-already-eyeing-legislatures-swing-districts-in-2010/feed 2 http://minnesotaindependent.com/18168/recount-roundup-rigged-results-ritchie-the-red-and-more http://minnesotaindependent.com/18168/recount-roundup-rigged-results-ritchie-the-red-and-more#comments Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:34:05 +0000 Paul Schmelzer http://minnesotaindependent.com/?p=18168 A roundup of recent recount tidbits: The Strib on why Republicans may claim “we wuz robbed,” the resurgence of the Ritchie’s-a-Commie attack, Norm Coleman’s forced hockey metaphor, and more. Star Tribune editorial-page editor Scott Gillespie says Al Franken…]]> A roundup of recent recount tidbits: The Strib on why Republicans may claim “we wuz robbed,” the resurgence of the Ritchie’s-a-Commie attack, Norm Coleman’s forced hockey metaphor, and more.

Star Tribune editorial-page editor Scott Gillespie says Al Franken just might win the race, but a large number of Americans will believe the recount was rigged. Why?

Because the stolen-election drumbeat has started, and it will only get louder as the results of the recount get more national attention. Ignoring Minnesota law, talk-show hosts are already questioning why any ballot that’s not marked properly in the first place should be valid in a recount. Intent is a concept they would rather not grasp.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, bringing her unique view of reality to Fox News on Wednesday night, said Franken “wants to stuff the ballot box with rejected ballots,’’ which “calls into question what the record is and who’s watching the books.’’

Another reason: While Bachmann took to Fox to impugn the recount process, the network’s judicial analyst, Andrew Napolitano, took a potshot at the recount’s top official. Apparently reading off the recently unearthed GOP talking points, he described Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie as “a Democrat and a former communist — former member of the Communist Party,” although he offered no evidence to support the claim. He may have been taking liberties with a line from a year-old Star Tribune story (cited in the GOP’s memo) by Mark Brunswick, who wrote that the “Communist Party USA wrote encouragingly of [Ritchie's] candidacy.”

On a conference call with Sen. Mitch McConnell Thursday morning, Norm Coleman, the man “who brought hockey back” to St. Paul, rallied troops with a puckish metaphor, one that seems to ignore the fact that at this late stage in the game, the final score is largely up to recount officials and the state Canvassing Board (and, let’s not forget, campaign lawyers): “We’re on the ice and its time to put the puck in the net.”

Senators will have to wait a bit longer to see if they’ll get upgraded office digs in Washington, D.C. CQ reports that the biennial process of doling out office space is on hold until results come in for the Coleman/Franken recount and the Dec. 2 runoff in Georgia between Saxby Chambliss and Jim Martin. Freshmen senators, low in the pecking order, are forced to “camp out in makeshift work spaces longer than usual.”

Another tight race in Minnesota has been settled through recount: State Rep. Al Doty, the incumbent Democrat from Royalton, won a second term over Mike LeMieur by a slim 76 vote margin. Two other state nailbiters are awaiting recount results, according to The St. Cloud Times:

In House District 16A, DFL challenger Gail Kulick Jackson led Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, by 89 votes on Nov. 4.

In Senate District 16, DFLer Lisa Fobbe led Republican Alison Krueger by 85 votes before the recount began.

But that’s not to say that Olson didn’t play a vital role in the contest. In fact, his influence was sufficient to help knock off the Republican candidate in a district that’s dominated by the GOP. Allison Krueger, who defeated Olson in the Republican primary, received 22,260 votes — 93 less than Democrat Lisa Fobbe. (Strangely there were an additional 1,366 write-in votes that are not attributed to Olson.)

Just how Republican is Senate District 16? Bush won it by 22 points in 2004; Pawlenty won it by 20 points two years ago. Even McCain-Palin took it by 20 points yesterday — among the highest margins in the state for the Republican ticket.

But perhaps Senate District 16, which includes Big Lake and Princeton, is trending a tad blue. One of the two state House seats in the area was also taken by a Democrat yesterday. Gail Kulick Jackson, in her third try, knocked off seven-term incumbent Sondra Erickson by just 99 votes.

Both contests will be subject to recounts under state law owing to the extremely close vote tallies.

But in August Republicans in Senate District 16 — which tracks Highway 169 from the northern suburbs (Big Lake, Zimmerman) up to the Mille Lacs area — endorsed Olson for a senate seat. The decision resulted in strident criticism from GOP pooh-bahs, including (bizarrely) Sen. Norm Coleman.

Grassroots Republicans were outraged by the meddling in local affairs. In August, for instance, I attended a meeting of Pine County Republicans, and there was a vigorous discussion of the Olson matter. “There is no excuse for party elites who believe they have more power than the grassroots,” said Michael Monte, the group’s secretary, at the time. The Pine County GOP passed a resolution commending party officials in Olson’s senate district for their actions.

The controversy seemed to be over, however, last month when Olson lost a primary battle to Allison Krueger. Even news that Olson iintended to mount a write-in campaign seemed merely an indication that he’d joined the ranks of fringe candidates forever tilting at electoral windmills.

But now comes the rather remarkable news over the weekend that Republicans in Senate District 16 — by an overwhelming 61-18 margin — have endorsed Olson’s write-in campaign. According to the St. Cloud Times, local GOP chairman Dave Wilson, had this to say about the decision: “People on the Olson side are going to be pushing as hard as we can with limited financial means to get him elected.”

All of which must be taken as remarkably good news for Democratic candidate Lisa Fobbe in a strongly GOP-friendly area. While the senate district voted narrowly for Amy Klobuchar in 2006 (48.3 to 47.6 percent), Gov. Tim Pawlenty crushed Mike Hatch by a 20-point spread that same year, and in 2004 George W. Bush received support from 61 percent of voters.

Fobbe says she wasn’t entirely surprised by the latest twist in GOP saga. “He has actually been active ever since losing the primary,” she says of Olson. “I’ve seen him more than I’ve seen Allison.”