Tim Pawlenty. Photo: Facebook

Democratic leaders in the Minnesota Legislature urged Gov. Tim Pawlenty Tuesday to apply for $236 million in federal health care money. In a letter to the governor, Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Senate Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich wrote that it would be “irresponsible” for the state to not seek the funds when many patients in Minnesota are struggling with the tough economy, adding, “You cannot let political ambition get in the way of doing what’s right for Minnesota.” They join the Minnesota Medical Association and the Mayo Clinic in calling for Pawlenty to secure the funds for Minnesota.

A continuation of the Federal Medical Assistance Percentages was signed into law in early August and would result in $236 million in funds for Minnesota. But, under the law, Pawlenty — and other state governors — must request the funds.

“Failure to accept the funds would result in residents paying federal taxes to pay for Medicare programs in other states,” the legislative leaders wrote to Pawlenty. “In fact, you have previously raised the concern that Minnesota is a donor state, and receives only 72 cents for each $1 sent to Washington. Also, these funds do not increase the size of the federal deficit and are entirely paid for within the legislation.”

Minnesota Medical Association president Dr. Benjamin Whitten released a statement on Friday urging Pawlenty to ask for the money.

“Gov. Pawlenty, the physicians of Minnesota strongly encourage you to request these funds. With the state facing an enormous deficit in 2011, the state desperately needs these funds to continue to care for Minnesotans and avoid further health care cuts,” he said.

The Mayo Clinic also urged Pawlenty to request the funds.

Here’s the letter legislative leaders sent to Pawlenty on Tuesday:

FMAP Letter

The ad, which documents its research at the site missedvotes.com, states that Emmer missed 20 percent of votes, or “142 missed votes in 2010 alone. Votes on education, veterans’ affairs, and jobs.”

“The Alliance for a Better Minnesota gets its numbers right,” reports MPR’s Poligraph, later concluding that “most of those votes were indeed on significant issues facing the state, including education funding, taxes and the environment.”

But it offers this context:

This year’s session lasted a little over 14 weeks, and Emmer missed votes on 15 of those days. So, that’s roughly equivalent to one day for every week the legislature met. However, he was present for some votes on eight of those days. Furthermore, Emmer missed most of those votes on a few days clustered at the end of the session; he did not take one day off every week for the entire session as the ad implies. Emmer’s campaign manager Cullen Sheehan didn’t say where he was on those days, only that he takes his job “very seriously.”

KSTP’s Tom Hauser’s fact-check found the ad to be “attention grabbing and for the most part accurate. However, it’s also misleading.”

It’s true, says Hauser, that Emmer went from missing 4 percent of votes in 2009 to 23 percent of votes this year. But viewers should note, he adds, that other gubernatorial contenders, including Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Rep. Paul Thissen, missed a higher percentage of votes compare to the previous year. (Kelliher went from 4 percent in 2009 to 11 percent this year; Thissen went from 5 to 13 percent — both still well below Emmer’s House-leading missed-vote rate.)

Hauser also takes issue with the ad’s narrator, who asks, “What would happen if you missed one out of every five days of work for a year?”

That’s misleading, because it incorrectly equates one vote for one day of work; the Minnesota Legislature sometimes has multiple votes on a given day.

Over six years as a U.S. Senator, Hauser says in closing, Mark Dayton missed 3 percent of votes.

KSTP is owned by Hubbard Broadcasting, which donated $100,000 to MN Forward, the conservative PAC that has produced ads supporting Emmer (Hauser gave that ad a B+ grade).

Margaret Anderson Kelliher and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar greet diners at Midtown Global Market. Photo: Jon Collins

The morning’s early mugginess had blown out in a late morning storm, and DFL candidate for governor Margaret Anderson Kelliher was working her way through the tables of diners at the Midtown Global Market in south Minneapolis, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar at her side. Flanked by campaign workers, the pair sympathized with diners’ concerns, shrugged off indifference and soaked up praise, sometimes pausing to pose for pictures with supporters before moving on to the next table or vendor.

Kelliher and her opponents, Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza, are making a last-ditch effort to grab any remaining votes in the hard-fought contest for the DFL nomination for governor.

Kelliher, who is at a financial disadvantage compared to her two self-financed DFL opponents, and who largely pinned her election hopes on a grassroots turnout, was especially aggressive. After Midtown Market, Kelliher and her running mate, John Gunyou, were scheduled to make a showing at the Nurses Union phone bank in St. Paul, before retiring to Jax Cafe with U.S. Sen. Al Franken in St. Paul to watch returns.

Kelliher has trailed Dayton in recent polls, but her press secretary, Matt Swenson, said the campaign was optimistic that the polls have shifted, with Kelliher’s momentum during the debate making it a one-point race between Kelliher and Dayton. ”We were just at the campaign officies, every phone line at the campaign office was full, people were calling on their cell phones,” Swenson said. “We feel really good about today.”

Mark Dayton, who’s enjoyed a lead in most polls, cast his vote at 10:30 a.m., but planned to spend the day with his sons before joining supporters at his campaign headquarters to hear returns.  Dayton Campaign Manager Katharine Tinucci said volunteers were still working the phones and door-knocking.

But Matt Entenza managed to pack 12 meet-and-greets, mostly in the urban core, into his day. Jeremy Drucker, Entenza’s director of communications, said the campaign was focused on moving voters to the polls in this likely low turnout primary election. ”Matt has a long history in urban communities working for constituents of color, working for communities over on the north side and Rondo, the Latino communities and Somali communities,” Drucker said. These communities “have aways been a big part of our outreach, bringing new voters into the process.”

At Midtown Market, Kelliher and Klobuchar attracted some attention, although most diners, like in a primary election, ignored the red-shirted swirl of activity around the candidate, focusing on their pastry from Salty Tart or sandwich from Manny’s Tortas. Toni Gerard, who was eating lunch with a friend, had earlier been swayed by the campaign’s argument that Kelliher’s candidacy would be made up of historic firsts, as well as her approach to education.

“I’ve enjoyed watching Margaret’s career in the legislature, and I think she’s a great leader, and I’m hoping she’ll be our first female governor,” Gerard said, before noting: “Regardless of her gender, she’s an excellent leader.”

But just down the street at Hans Christian Anderson Open School, which was serving as Ward 9, Precinct 3, only a slow drip of voters made their way into the air-conditioned school, giving some credence to the campaigns’ optimism that, in the end, it could come down to just a few voters.

reNEW’s long-term plan to hold candidates accountable

Since the convention theatrics ended, reNEW members have been toiling behind the scenes to back candidates who support their values. But election isn’t the last step for the group, which envisions what TakeAction Minnesota Executive Director Dan McGrath calls an “integrated approach to electoral politics” that sets up the structures to engage candidates even after they’ve taken office.

“A flaw of progressive politics is we elect tremendous leaders and set them adrift once they go to governing,” McGrath told the Minnesota Independent. “We’re not going to make that mistake. We’re already thinking about what are the sorts of issues, campaigns and policies that we want to work with candidates on [after they take office].”

To get their chosen candidates elected, the group uses TakeAction Minnesota’s community organizing muscle. By Tuesday’s primary election, reNEW volunteers will have called the phones or knocked on the doors of 40,000 people. It’s a strategy similar to that used by DFL powerhouses like unions, who exert influence on the DFL Party by providing masses of campaign volunteers.

“In a primary, where to win it you might need 180,000 votes, that’s not a lot of people,” McGrath said. “A well-organized, disciplined grassroots field campaign can make the difference.”

The effort, which is a project of TakeAction Minnesota, has built its efforts around beliefs, rather than candidates. Each of the DFL gubernatorial candidates for governor met with reNEW members early in the campaign to hash out their stances, and reNEW leadership teams are active in 63 of the state’s 67 senate districts.

“We’ve done our largest organizing events, had more people turn out, when we’ve been talking to them about what’s really in their guts, not just about cynical partisan attacks or dry partisan positions,” McGrath said. “We know taking the long view in terms of politics is not only good for building the power to govern, it’s also a shrewd electoral strategy, it gets more people turning out to volunteer and knock on doors.”

Vang Lor, a candidate for St. Paul's Senate District 67 and TakeAction endorsee.

Vang Lor, a candidate for St. Paul’s crowded Senate District 67, has been a part of the reNEW effort since it started in early 2009. Just a few weeks back, Lor earned the endorsement of TakeAction, which he said is helping his campaign with volunteers and strategy.

“One of the things I really like about TakeAction Minnesota is how much they invest in leaders, giving them the proper tools and skills to work on issues. That’s something I want to pass on to my volunteers,” Lor said. “I don’t want them to come in and just be a volunteer, I want them to come in and be transformed with me through this process.”

That vision of political empowerment is fundamental to reNEW’s mission, McGrath said. The organizing machinery and leadership that’s created during the current electoral campaigns will shift to issue organizing as candidates take office and move into the 2011 legislative session. Hypothetically, that mutual support between the candidate and group will allow candidates to stick to their campaign promises after they take office instead of “governing scared.”

“That’s the guts of reNEW Minnesota,” McGrath said. “It’s individual people claiming a stake in this campaign and making it their own and recognizing that we need good candidates to get elected to office so we can advance good change, but that just electing a candidate isn’t the end-all, be-all.”

Test will come for reNEW Tuesday

Hamline University Prof. David Schultz said reNEW’s effort to connect “electoral strategy” to “public policy strategy” makes political sense at a time when progressives who worked to elect Pres. Barack Obama are frustrated by his administration’s lack of progress on their core issues.

“Oftentimes, for both the right and left, they’ve often been disappointed that they’ve put in all this effort only to see candidates not deliver on their promises,” Schultz said. “If you’re going to spend millions and thousands of hours on an effort, you want to make sure the effort pays off.”

These sorts of groups tend to transform from social movements that protest, to political movements that organize, to a more potent force that can become an influential wing of a political party, Schultz said — a good example would be the farmer and labor forces that make up two-thirds of the DFL Party’s namesakes.

But the real test about whether reNEW can achieve this sort of party institutionalization will come Tuesday, as Kelliher, the group’s endorsed candidate, faces off against the better-financed Mark Dayton for the DFL nomination. “If they can actually pull it off,” Schultz said, “that might speak to a lot in terms of actually forging a more lasting progressive coalition.”

Even after the primary election passes, McGrath said the reNEW’s efforts will be dedicated to building relationships with candidates like Lor, who intimately understand the group’s long-term vision and approach.

“After this election, we’re going to continue to put candidates in front of our members. Our members are going to continue to ask for candidates to step up, for elected officials to step up and take strong stances,” McGrath said. “Our goal is to seek bolder change, to seek bolder leadership and to be the grassroots force to stand behind those bold leaders.”

It’s part of a strong push, including grassroots campaigning, by Kelliher, who has consistently trailed former Sen. Mark Dayton in the polls.

The video prominently features praise for her by U.S. Sen. Al Franken and other DFL luminaries like Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, who was bested by Kelliher’s campaign for the DFL endorsement.

In a campaign where wonky solutions to the expected $6 billion deficit next biennium have loomed large in the DFL debate, the video focuses on the historical nature of Kelliher’s candidacy as the first woman to gain the DFL endorsement for governor, and the possibility that she’d be the first female governor (and first DFL governor in two-and-a-half decades).

"The Emergence of Man Through Steel" in Chisholm. Source: pmarkham

The Mesabi Daily News endorsed Mark Dayton for the DFL nomination for governor this weekend, giving Dayton yet another advantage in an important corner of the state for DFL politics.

The MDN cites Dayton’s commitment to jobs, and service as a member of the administration of Gov. Rudy Perpich, who hails from the Iron Range.

But the editorial also addresses the touchy issue of mining — the region’s historical bread and butter – calling out Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Matt Entenza for “anti-jobs” and “anti-Iron Range” votes that complicated the opening the Mesabi Nugget plant in 2005, which MDN points out was championed by Dayton’s running mate, Sen. Yvonne Prettner Solon.

The endorsement came right before a DFL debate Sunday, where all three candidates were critical of mining; each candidate refused to say whether they support the controversial PolyMet project, a non-ferrous mine currently facing permitting. Instead, they talked about the need to balance environmental concerns with economic development. Only Kelliher tipped a hat to Iron Range complaints that the permitting process takes too long: “I think our laws are strong in the state of Minnesota but I think this permitting process has been bungled by the DNR, been bungled by the administration.”

Dayton has already received the endorsement from the United Steelworkers of America, an organizing powerhouse on the Range. He’s got a long history there and knows how important the region can be to DFL politics (he hired an Iron Range field director). The region is economically liberal and socially conservative, but the union influence has helped maintain it as a DFL stronghold that typically has turnouts higher than any other region of the state, giving Rangers an outsize influence in primaries. In 2006, the Iron Range primary voting rate was three times the state average.

This editorial endorsement helps solidify Dayton’s longtime support in the region (although it’s important to note that many of the region’s legislators are backing Kelliher, including Rep. Tom Rukavina, Rep. Tom Anzelc and likely incoming House Speaker Rep. Tony Sertich).

[Disclosure: I covered the Minnesota legislature for the company that owns MDN, American Consolidated Media, for the last two years].

Margaret Anderson Kelliher. Photo: WikiMedia.

MedCity News, an online venue for medical news, rated Minnesota’s DFL gubernatorial candidates today, with Minnesota Bureau Chief Thomas Lee (formerly of the Star Tribune) putting House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at the head of the pack, despite bitter complaints that none of the campaigns have especially focused on bio-sciences or the medical industry.

Margaret Anderson Kelliher, B+: Lee wrote that the grade was largely due to her support of the angel investor tax credit, which supporters said would attract investment in innovative technological areas.

Matt Entenza, C: Little mention of health programs, despite the fact that his wife, Lois Quam, was formerly a UnitedHealth Group executive.

Mark Dayton, D-. Dayton earned this grade through a combination of neglect of the medical industry and his “tax the rich” policy, which MedCity worried would impact investment in startup medical technologies.

Earlier, Rep. Tom Emmer, received an F from the publication.

Dayton’s 10-point advantage appears intimidating at first glance, but it is still within the margin of error for the poll, which was +/- 7.8 percent for the primary portion of the survey. And this weekend’s Strib did contain some good news for Kelliher. The paper endorsed her for the DFL primary in a Saturday editorial. The paper focused on the budget crisis facing the state’s next governor, and wrote that “Kelliher exhibits more ability to unify than do her chief rivals.” The editorial praised Kelliher’s outline for her budget plan, and disparaged Dayton’s over reliance on taxing the rich.

Both Dayton and Kelliher would hold wide leads entering the general election against presumed Republican candidate Tom Emmer. Dayton out-polled Emmer 40-30 percent, and a Kelliher-Emmer match up also gives the DFL the edge, 38-29 percent. Even Entenza leads Emmer in the poll, though by the narrower margin of 36-31 percent.

Though he does not face a competitive primary, Emmer’s campaign has been in damage control mode for much of the last few weeks dealing with his proposal to slash the minimum wage for restaurant servers (which he has since walked back), his DWI record and LGBT groups protesting Target Corp.’s contributions for pro-Emmer ads. Emmer will also start the general election at a financial disadvantage, holding less money than Kelliher and lacking the personal wealth of millionaires Dayton and Entenza.

GOP-endorsed gubernatorial nominee Tom Emmer trails every potential Democratic candidate in a new Rasmussen poll.

Former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton — who polls have shown leading the DFL primary — leads Emmer 40-36 percent. State House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher beats Emmer by almost the same margin, 40-35 percent. Matt Entenza is the only DFL candidate who doesn’t hold a substantial lead over Emmer, though he still beats the GOP nominee by one point. Independence Party candidate Tom Horner receives between 10 to 12 percent in the poll, depending on which Democrat is included.

Most recent polls have shown Emmer running behind the Democrats in the race, but the new Rasmussen numbers should be especially troubling for the candidate since Rasmussen is now to have a house effect slightly favoring Republicans. The new survey shows a large shift in favor of the Democrats from the last time Rasmussen polled the race back in May.

Margaret Anderson Kelliher

Minnesota’s chapter of the National Organization for Women surprised some when it endorsed DFLer Matt Entenza over Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the first woman endorsed by a major party for governor. Yesterday the group changed course, endorsing Kelliher as well.

“The Minnesota National Organization for Women (Minnesota NOW) proudly endorses two outstanding feminist candidates for Minnesota Governor, Matt Entenza and Margaret Anderson Kelliher,” Minnesota NOW PAC wrote in a release yesterday (pdf). “The Minnesota NOW PAC rates each candidate on her or his own merit which may result in endorsing more than one candidate in a race.”

“Unfortunately, Minnesota cannot have both of these candidates serve as governor at the same time,” the group acknowledged, “so Minnesota NOW would be thrilled to have either one in the Governor’s Mansion.”