Us Congress

Heard beneath Friday’s hubbub over the vote count in Mountain Iron, Minn., was the advancement of a related Republican argument — that by offering reasons why a recount in the U.S. Senate election should go forward Democrats are insulting Minnesota’s election system and its election officials. What was implicit in U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s remarks Nov. 5, prominent Republican commentator Sarah Janecek made explicit Nov. 7, first by writing that when Democrats say they want to “ensure votes properly cast are properly counted,” they’re really out to “smear our elections process.” Later, she told a public television audience, “I’m pretty sickened by that.” In the meantime, Coleman’s campaign manager applied words like “dubious” and “tainted” to the current canvassing process.

On Nov. 4, Minnesota Republican Party Chair Ron Carey introduced U.S. Rep. John Kline at the Republican election night party with praise for Kline’s support of “real Americans.” This comes just two weeks after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin praised “these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America” and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann postulated the [...]

Is the Republican Party of Minnesota unaware of current demographics in the West Metro congressional district it has held for 50 years? U.S. Census data suggests that the suburban-identity politics that Republicans advanced last week writes off a third or more of the 3rd district’s residents.

If Terri Bonoff wants to know where her lavishly anointed campaign for Minnesota’s Third District Congressional seat went all wrong (here’s that list of all-star endorsements again), the answer lies as close as the nearest mirror.

Minnesota Democratic insiders have been making worried sounds about Bonoff’s performance on the stump since the start of her campaign. [...]