| When asked when "the moment" happened -- when he actually sat down, breathed deep and decided to run for Congress in Minnesota's 6th District, attorney Bob Hill has a quick answer: as soon as U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann was elected. In an interview Monday evening, Hill spoke candidly about his approach to politics and about the freshman Republican he hopes to unseat.
 "People ask me what I'm running as, and I tell them: I'm running as an American. Most of the time, they say, 'Good answer!' ... The reason I'm a Democrat is because when I look at political economy, it never works from the top down. 'Trickle down' is just a euphemism for the Roman Empire."
Such is the plainspoken tack Hill takes in conversation. The attorney has both legal and media experience to draw on, having spent considerable time as a host on Air America Minnesota, and he says that his educational pedigree in foreign policy will help him make good decisions in Congress. Hill told me that he is a middle-of-the-road political leader and decries not the partisanship of Washington, D.C., but rather the concentration of power there. He makes strong critiques of leaders in both parties, but saves his sharpest rebukes for Congresswoman Bachmann: "I grew up in Stearns County, and I knew as soon as [Bachmann] was elected, the people of Stearns County were had. They just didn't know Michele Bachmann like the people of Stillwater did. She's an extremist, not a conservative. She hasn't voted to conserve natural resources, and she hasn't voted to conserve human resources. What's conservative about that? If you're not a big farmer, big oil, or big bank, she's just not interested in you."
More after the break |
| Since her election in 2006, Michele Bachmann has made a name for herself for all the wrong reasons. From publicly and spuriously claiming a secret partition plan already in place for Iraq to grabbing President Bush's shoulder for a kiss at the State of the Union address event, she has garnered more than her fair share of negative press attention -- however, her district remains one of the most conservative in Minnesota. She defeated child safety advocate Patty Wetterling in 2006, 50 to 42, with 8 percent going to Independence Party candidate John Binkowski. Such is the challenge that presents itself to DFL challengers Bob Olson (interviewed previously here) and Hill.
Hill takes some positions that are not entirely in line with the DFL base he hopes to entice, especially on Iraq. He advocates a partition of Iraq to allow each of the major internal ethnic groups to separate themselves from one another and a continued American military presence along the Turkish and Kuwaiti borders to protect American interests. But he also advocates a strategic redeployment away from street-level police activity so "the military can get back to military missions."
On the domestic front, Hill says, "I'm not beholden to teachers' unions, the AFL-CIO or other unions -- I want to work with people. Period." He hopes to garner support from the Independence Party as well, in hopes that a united, moderate effort can isolate the extremism he sees in Michele Bachmann, even in the 6th District.
In terms of campaign strategy, Hill is blunt -- he says he has raised more than $225,000 (including $100,000 from his own pocket) and says he will need to raise an additional $800,000 by year's end to be competitive. But, says Hill, "I'm not afraid to go right into [Bachmann's] base and tell folks she's not delivering for this district or for Minnesota. It's about who's going to deliver for the people and who's going to fight the fight that needs to be fought for the people."
Hill says he has been tapping into Patty Wetterling's support network from her unsuccessful runs in 2004 and 2006, but he draws a distinction between her candidacy and his own: "There were so many times in the debates when Bachmann would say something that was demonstrably false, but Patty was so good-hearted that she didn't want to go for the jugular. This is a contact sport. The Republicans managed to paint Patty as extremist -- that's just remarkable. It won't happen to me. I'm going into every chamber of commerce to talk about health care; I'm going into church basements, into little towns -- this is not about party, this is about what kind of representative we want in Washington."
Hill, like fellow DFLer Olson, has said he will abide by the DFL endorsement and summarizes his campaign succinctly: "Revitalizing the American spirit." For Hill or Olson or any DFLer to be successful against Bachmann, it will take plenty of spirit, support, money and a little bit of political guile to boot. |
