| Susan Gaertner: Ramsey County Attorney Gaertner has been roundly derided by the peace activist community for her role in prosecuting the "RNC 8" -- eight people who may or may not have been involved in rioting, destruction of public property, and violence during the 2008 Republican National Convention. We've been over this before, but I think there's a pretty good analog at the federal level: the Defense of Marriage Act. Recently, the Obama Justice Department was forced to defend DOMA in court despite the fact that the President opposes it in principle. Unfortunately, that's what Justice Departments and County Attorneys do: they're given a set of laws, a set of evidence that those laws were broken, and prosecute trials based on that evidence. They don't really get the privilege of saying "well, I don't agree with this law or that arrest, so I'm not going to prosecute."
Chris Coleman: Ditto Coleman on the RNC. Coleman is a soft-spoken but funny and engaging Mayor, and he was NOT sitting in a smoke-filled room handing out the orders for the cops to go hog-wild in their crowd control assignments during the RNC. How about actually listening to Coleman and Gaertner talk about the issues before attaching some comic-book innuendo to their roles in the RNC disaster last year?
Steve Kelley: With the caveat that I briefly worked for and supported Kelley's 2006 gubernatorial bid, a lot of the issues with his politics have been hashed out, and a lot of them center on the new Twins Stadium and how it's being paid for. Minnesota is not unique in being blackmailed by Major League Baseball into contributing funds to new ballparks; that being said, the bill Sen. Kelley carried was a relatively better deal than a LOT of other states have gotten.
Good luck proving it's a net negative to have a beautiful new outdoor baseball stadium in Minneapolis.
As for Kelley's electoral history, let's lay it all out there: he's lost three bids for statewide office. The 2000 U.S. Senate field was divided heading into the endorsement, and no one without the endorsement had a chance against Mark Dayton (sounds familiar...). All right, he lost. He went back to work in the legislature. Then in 2006, he barely lost the endorsement to Mike Hatch, who, for all his personality and anger issues, was a force of nature in DFL politics. That was one hell of a floor fight, and it was a genuine tossup for a while.
And then the AG's race, in which we finally have some mainstream speculation about Hatch's role in that race, designed perhaps not to screw Kelley over, but simply get "Hatch's person" into the AG's office.
Difficult to see how that's Kelley's fault.
Bottom line: Kelley has come a long way as a political personality, is still on the right side of the vast majority of issues, and might well be running for reelection to the Governor's office today had things gone a little differently in June 2006. He is far from the perennial loser as which some are lampooning him.
John Marty: Marty is a bit of a stretch -- I don't really see a reasonable path to general-election victory for him, and he has the ignominious distinction of having been crushed -- like, really badly -- in a statewide general election. Nevertheless, he fills an important role in the debates leading to the endorsement and primary -- that of making sure that as many candidates as possible are hewing to the progressive line on the issues. We need that voice in the room.
Mark Dayton: The Republican Party's attack machine was getting ready after the 2004 elections to launch a huge barrage against Dayton in an effort to get Mark Kennedy into the Senate. Dayton's decision to step aside in favor of Amy Klobuchar may have been a key part of the DFL keeping the seat (to say nothing of Klobuchar's political skills or the 2006 Democratic tsunami). It cannot be denied that Dayton didn't have a great six years in Washington -- he spent nearly all of it in the minority, and as a junior Senator at that. No good. But this is a guy who has put his family's fortune and his personal reputation on the line several times for the sake of service to Minnesota. It's tough to argue with Dayton's commitment to political service, and he deserves a lot of respect for it, whether he wins the DFL gubernatorial nomination or not.
Matt Entenza: ah, the piece de resistance. Many electrons have been spilled discussing Entenza's past issues -- the 2006 AG's race, an oppo research snafu involving Mike Hatch, his family fortunes...let's break them down one by one:
1.) Mike Hatch is believed by many in the DFL to be one of the most vengeful political operators in the state's history. For my part, I've never spoken directly with him -- I hear he's a nice guy in person. But someone's personality and their political image are two separate things, and crossing Hatch has not worked out well for many. That's what happened with Entenza in '06, and it ended badly.
2.) Ethics scandals? Campaign finance violations? Entenza recently made a self-reported error -- his campaign notified the Campaign Finance Board, returned the erroneous donation, and paid a fine. In the past, he got knocked with a larger fine by the CFB. Of course, so has Tim Pawlenty (an even HUGER fine). So have many candidates for statewide office. In short, this stuff happens. We could be focusing on Minority Leader Entenza's successful round of Chicken played against Gov. Pawlenty during the 2005 legislative session, in which Pawlenty wanted to kick 30,000 people off of MinnesotaCare, Entenza refused, and Pawlenty blinked first. But no, that doesn't seem to be very important to some on both sides of the aisle.
3.) Lois Quam. Entenza's wife worked at and was paid handsomely by United Health Group while that company was doing some questionable things in the health insurance industry. Of course, the group she headed was largely clean, and she has been a pretty strong advocate for health insurance reform for a very long time. The image of a health insurance executive near the top of the state's government is too scary to consider all the other facts in play, apparently.
But never mind that for a moment -- how many of us were complaining back in 2004 when John Kerry was making an emergency $6 million loan to his campaign ahead of the Iowa caucuses? Are we complaining when people like Mitt Romney, John Edwards, and others employ their family fortunes as a tool in their political arsenals? Did we complain when Mark Dayton spent huge sums of his own money on winning previous statewide races? It's pretty revolting to me when people on both sides of the aisle talk about "Entenza's wife's money," because it's both a misnomer and laden with all kinds of inaccurate innuendo. Here's another guy who could sit back, live off the fat of the land, and enjoy life, but no, he's starting think tanks, and running in a competitive statewide race, because he wants to serve.
-----
And here's the thing about all these points: I'm not wrong. With the exceptions of Sen. Marty and Mayor Coleman, I have spoken at length with each of these candidates, and I think I have a pretty good feel for their personalities, their political approaches, and why they're running. So it makes me a little angry when someone comes out and calls one of them a douchebag without making a phone call, or sending an email, or doing any kind of due diligence to make sure they're posting facts in context rather than their filtered, opinionated views of the candidate based on who knows what.
You want answers from a candidate about an ethics violation? Ask. If you don't get an answer, that's as good as getting a bad one. If you get a bad one, publish it and tell us why you think it's a bad one. If you get a good one, be honest enough to say yeah, this is a pretty good answer. I was uncomfortable with the optics of this situation, but there's another reasonable side to the story.
Otherwise, you're just feeding the reactionary beast that's designed to mess with us and send the state down a deep, dark rabbit hole for another four years. We're better than that. We need to be better than that. |
