Norm Coleman’s razor-thin lead over Al Franken keeps getting even tighter. We’ll update the tally as it changes.
Maybe Norm the Shopper heard about the clearance sale at the Obama campaign’s online store. As of Wednesday, the Coleman for Senate Web site greets visitors with…
On today’s Star Tribune cover Patricia Lopez makes a case that Minnesota voters who don’t intend to vote a straight party line at the top of the ballot could play a critical role in the outcome of the state’s U.S. Senate race. If that sounds familiar it’s because the Strib printed essentially the same story two years ago about voters who backed Democrat Amy Klobuchar for U.S. Senate and Republican Tim Pawlenty for governor. The difference is that in 2006 the poll numbers justified the fuss.
Newspaper election endorsements are out — some packing a wallop as bracing as a stiff winter wind in October, others playing it as safe as pre-Halloween trick-or-treating at a local strip mall. Here’s a roundup of candidate preferences for the U.S. Senate and House that Minnesota papers have so far put in print. The recession sees the major dailies’ editorialists cutting back on costly opinions — either picking favorites without naming the issues they like them for, as both the PiPress and Star Tribune have done in the U.S. Senate race, or beating a wholesale retreat from making a pick at all, as the St. Paul Pioneer Press has done in the presidential contest.
Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Dean Barkley shouldn’t be expecting any gift baskets from Norm Coleman between now and election day. That’s because everybody’s conventional wisdom about the contest — i.e., a strong third-party candidate means six more years for Norm — doesn’t seem to be panning out. In fact, it’s becoming clear that the emergence of Barkley as a factor in the race is disproportionately hurting the incumbent.
During Sunday’s U.S. Senate debate, Norm Coleman touted his record of job creation during eight years as Mayor of St. Paul. He forgot to mention that the city’s job-growth rate during those heady economic times was less than half of that experienced statewide.
The redoubtable folks at the Uptake have posted the entire U.S. Senate debate between Norm Coleman, Al Franken and Dean Barkley. You can watch the whole thing in one dreary sitting if you’re a glutton for energy policy discussions and political bickering. But they’ve also made it available in a more palatable question-by-question format. I thought the most interesting part of the evening was the two questions focusing on foreign policy, with Barkley and Franken taking turns teeing off on the pinata presented by the incumbent’s unflagging support of the Iraq war. Watch the clips after the jump:
With recent polls offering starkly different assessments of the the U.S. Senate race, the three major party candidates squared off at University Center Rochester last night in the first of five debates. Democrat Al Franken and incumbent Republican Norm Coleman frequently sparred, while Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley took shots at both opponents and portrayed himself as an effective alternative to the broken two-party system.
Everyone who has seen Rep. Betty McCollum’s comments from yesterday — reported this morning at the Star Tribune, Pioneer Press, AP and Politico — already knows that May 29…
In politics there are races that someone wins and races that someone manages not to lose for the simple reason that not everyone can lose. The Minnesota US Senate contest is shaping up to be one of the…
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