David Trinh

I have to say that the most underrated political story in Minnesota this week is Paul Thissen’s massive fundraising haul in the governor’s race.  Honestly, a little-known State Rep. who is able to bank as much as the Speaker of the MN State House should be taken very seriously.  Money is, of course, an imperfect metric to measure political success but, as it’s one of the only indicators that DFL delegates have to go off of, it’s an incredibly important one.  Thissen’s impressive warchest and his tireless campaign swings through greater Minnesota are going to make him a top-tier competitor at the state convention April.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this very excellent CityPages profile of Rep. Paul Thissen, one of the many DFLers currently vying for the Democratic nomination.  The whole thing is really good journalism and you should definitely go read the piece— if nothing else it will give you an idea of what a grueling ordeal running for statewide office is.  The only commentary I would add is that Thissen comes off as a very cerebral candidate in his profile.  As a DFL loyalist I certainly admire this quality but I must say that in the past Democrats have gotten into a bit of trouble with the electorate for running overly intelligent candidates who lacked the personal polish to sell themselves to voters.  If Thissen is actually a candidate who can bridge these two qualities, and I have to say I’m certainly impressed so far, he’s probably going to be the first DFL governor of Minnesota in twenty years.

Can’t say I entirely agree with this assessment of the GOP field of gubernatorial candidates:

State Rep. Emmer and former State Auditor Anderson are both well-known enough to garner significant support, but both are targeting the same intraparty demographics. If at any point one of these two candidates pulls away and unites the 37-39% who are supporting one of them, that could be a pretty effective counterweight to Seifert’s superior name recognition. (Bold mine-DT)

It’s always been my understanding that Pat Anderson is mostly trying to tap into the Paulite/libertarian segment of the GOP base, while Tom Emmer is more of a mainstream Republican aiming for the type of Republicans likely to vote for frontrunner Marty Seifert.  If this is true, which I’m reasonably confident it is, neither Anderson nor Emmer has access to a universe of voters that could coalesce into some sort of grand anti-Seifert coalition.

What I expect will happen over the next few months is that Emmer will struggle to peel voters away from the Seifert column and Anderson will try to cobble together enough Ron Paul supporters to overwhelm party regulars at poorly attended precinct caucuses.  Personally, I’m not putting much stock in either strategy panning out.

A few weeks ago, at the Douglas Country fair, local DFLers conducted a straw poll to gauge support for the various contenders for the DFL nomination.  The results have finally been tallied (in all fairness, it takes a bit of time to work through 151 IRV ballots), and the results are as follows:

Mark Dayton: 77
RT Rybak: 37
Paul Thissen: 18
Chris Coleman: 3
Steve Kelley: 2
MAK: 1
John Marty: 1

Seventy-seven votes were needed to win a majority; some candidates (Bakk, Gaertner, etc.) were dropped as the IRV process redistributed their support to more competitive candidates.

This poll confirms much of what I thought about the sentiments of Democrats in my corner of Greater Minnesota.  The main takeaway is that Dayton is ahead of the pack, largely because of his superior name recognition this early in the game– numerous people told me that Dayton’s name was the only one they recognized on the ballot.

RT’s strong showing may defy the conventional wisdom, but, as I’ve written before, the mayor of Minneapolis has a strong following among party activists (especially the younger cohort) owing to his early endorsement of Barack Obama, his leadership during the bridge collapse and his general good looks and good humor.  Rybak has the potential to be very competitive in Greater Minnesota, a quality that is certainly unusual among Twin Cities Democrats.

The figures for Dayton and Rybak aside, I think the most notable showing in this poll is Thissen’s.  Honestly, this guy should not be showing this level of support this early in a place like Douglas Country; after all, Thissen is one of dozens of Twin Cities politicians who ordinarily blend together in a mush of names that people from my hometown struggle to remember.  The fact that Thissen is showing this level of support really demonstrates how hard he’s working in Greater Minnesota and I stand by my opinion that Thissen is making inroads in the activist base in towns like Alexandria.

Thissen may ‘only’ have secured eighteen votes but that’s 18(!) times the number of votes that a supposed powerhouse like MAK brought in.  Further, I know that many former-state delegates (e.g. the people most likely to go to the next convention) are starting to lean towards Paul.  If Thissen can cement this support early on, these dedicated party members could help shift the votes of more casual caucusgoers. That, my friends, may be how a little-known State Rep wins the DFL nomination.

I’ve been getting quite a few emails and facebook invites over the past few weeks from the “Draft RT Rybak” movement.  I’ve also heard quite a bit of chatter from friends back home that Rybak’s campaign is going out of its way to encourage its supporters to support this proto-gubernatorial campaign.  Given all this I can only assume that RT is reasonably serious about launching a campaign for the Governor’s mansion sometime shortly after he wins reelection as the mayor of Minneapolis this November.

I’ll admit a few months ago I was positively smitten with the idea of Rybak as the DFL nominee.  After all, he’s smart, charismatic, progressive and has genuine cred with younger voters as a result of his early endorsement of Barack Obama in 2007.  I also have to give him credit for winning two election in Minneapolis (and successfully governing!) without embracing the loony fringe of Minneapolis politics.

Over the past few months though, I’ve begun to have second thoughts about a Rybak run.  In particular, I’ve begun to question whether it’s appropriate for someone to run for another term with the express intention of immediately running for higher office after winning reelection.  Rybak has clearly been planning a run for statewide office for some time now—accordingly, I am dumbfounded as to why Rybak didn’t decide to retire, concentrate on a run for governor, and allow a new leader to begin confronting the challenges facing his city.

I’ll grant that I may not be taking into account the power of Machiavellian politics— why give up a position of power, if you don’t have to? But I can’t help thinking that this particular stratagem is a bit unseemly.  This is certainly an issue that a hypothetical-Rybak campaign is going to have to address if they want to earn the support of this believer in good government.

I have a few quibbles with Dave Mindeman’s DFL gubernatorial rankings but I’m particularly flummoxed by his decision to make Fmr. Senator Mark Dayton the second strongest contender on his list:

2. Mark Dayton (formerly #1): Dayton is still doing all the right things….making lots of grass roots connections and calling in markers from many years with the party. Still you have the feeling that he needs something else…that something is missing. He has been showing some more passion in his speeches and his issues are sharpening. He has made some bold pronouncements on raising taxes on the wealthy and regarding single payer health care. I would hope that he would also be ready to make those arguments in a general election as well.

“Lots of grassroots connections,” really?  To the best of my knowledge Dayton has been running a pretty lethargic campaign—I don’t think he’s done any outreach in Douglas County—and is mostly counting on his high name recognition and fund-raising prowess to carry him across the finish line.  By and large the biggest problem that I think Dayton is going to have though, is explaining why Minnesotans should trust him with another very serious job after he blew off the responsibilities of the last high office the voters of Minnesota elected him to.  Thus far I have heard nothing in the way of an explanation about this from the Dayton campaign and, based on conversations I’ve had with our DFL activists, this is a pretty common concern among DFL regulars.

Color me skeptical that Dayton is really number two in this race; I suspect that honor actually belongs to Rybak or MAK.

I’ve been doing some light Lexis-Nexusing over the past few days trying to learn more about Sen. John Marty (DFL-Roseville), one of the many Democrats vying for the DFL’s nomination in next year’s gubernatorial race.  I’m particularly interested in Marty because I know that he was the DFL nominee for governor in ’94 and went down in a disastrous defeat—a two to one loss—against incumbent Republican Governor Arnie Carlson.     Given that such massive margins of victory are uncommon in Minnesota politics, I’m curious as to what exactly went wrong for Marty in ’94 and what (if any) implications this might have for the coming election.

I haven’t found a good long-form summation of the ‘94 race yet but what I have learned about Sen. Marty so far is that he’s an unabashed liberal in the Paul Wellstone mold (e.g. voted against a resolution condemning flag burning immediately before the ’94 election, capped his own campaign donations at $100, authored sweeping ethics reforms, etc.).  Interestingly enough though, unlike Senator Wellstone, Marty never managed to attain a level of ‘seriousness’ in the eyes of the electorate—it’s my sense that at the end of the day, Marty went down to defeat because he was seen as too goofy (even for a state that elected Jesse Ventura and Al Franken). Whereas, Paul Wellstone somehow managed to transform his quirky side into an image of honesty and genuineness, Marty seems to have always been viewed by voters as an eccentric, sort-of awkward, goofball.

Anyone have any insight into whether or not this is a fair characterization of the unfortunate fate that fell upon John Marty?  Also, is there any indication that his temperament has changed over the past fourteen years?  I suspect the answer to this question will determine whether or not Marty is able to break out of the DFL pack over the next year.

Over the past few weeks I had heard rumors that Rep. Paul Thissen had been making frequent appearances in rural Minnesota and had been impressing outstate DFLers with his keen grasp of policy, his articulate performances on the stump and his dedicated work ethic.  After meeting Rep. Thissen twice in the past ten days, color me impressed as well.

In his appearance before Douglas County DFLers during a meet and greet ten days ago, Thissen deftly fielded questions from DFL activists on a wide range of issues including energy policy, economic fairness and environmental regulation.  While Thissen never used dense wonky language, he provided details in almost all his answers (a refreshing change from the habit of some candidates [read: Entenza] to use rehashed bromides); in particular, I was impressed by Thissen’s answer to a question on economic recovery in which he made references to specific state programs and policy proposals that could spur economic development in rural Minnesota.

Thissen also gave a mature answer on a question concerning the need to boost state revenue in order to prevent crippling cuts to state services.  Although Thissen suggested he would be more inclined as governor to raise the sales tax instead of income taxes—an increase in the state’s sales tax would be much more regressive than an increase in incomes taxes—I still appreciate that he was specific about which mechanism he would use to raise additional revenue.  Unfortunately, like Sen. Bakk, Thissen was a little fuzzy on how he would go about selling this proposal to Minnesota’s voters: this is a question that every DFL candidate for governor needs to do a better job of addressing.

The only policy position on which Thissen and I diverged was his support for moving more decisions and responsibility to the ‘local level.’  In theory I can see how one can make a strong case for more local decision making; after all, local decision makers are supposed to have more knowledge about the needs and concerns of their community.  In practice, however, I think myself (and many other outstate DFLers) fear that local government, which is too often controlled by local conservatives more interested in protecting parochial interests than the public good, tends to make less than optimal policy choices.  I know you can make the case that this sort of political patronage occurs at all levels of government but owing to incredible lack of oversight at the local level (small hometown newspapers don’t exactly revel in muckraking), I think this sort of minor corruption is actually more likely to happen at the lower levels of government than otherwise.  All this said, Thissen seemed to take our pushback on this issue in stride and I hope he incorporates our feedback as his thinking on the devolution of power to local government continues to evolve.

Policy aside, when it comes to politics the Thissen campaign is doing everything right in rural Minnesota.  More often than not, DFL delegates in the 7^th CD get overlooked and ignored by statewide campaigns that prefer to concentrate on the delegate-rich metro instead of outstate Minnesota.  Judging by what I’ve heard from other DFL activists, the Thissen campaign sees things differently and is working rural Minnesota hard.  What the Thissen campaign (and others!) should know is that this strategy is working—almost every member of my county unit has good things to say about Paul—and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if come caucus-time Thissen is one of the few Minneapolis Democrats able to win a large contingent of support in the 7^th.

The first thing you notice about Sen. Tom Bakk is that he does not look like a Governor.  A large, beefy man with wispy hair, Bakk looks more like a carpenter (which he is) than an expert on state financial issues, but, rest assured, an expert he is.  Bakk impressed me last Friday with his mastery of policy, his keen understanding of the philosophical dangers of unallotment and his mature judgment that we need to look at raising taxes on all Minnesotans in order to balance a looming $5 billion budget shortfall in the coming biennium.

In was this last point in particular that really struck me as an attractive quality in a gubernatorial candidate.  Too often in recent years, I think Minnesota Democrats (as well as Democrats on a national level) have been content to endorse a ‘soak the rich’ strategy that promises to balance the budget without cutting services by ratcheting up taxes on the wealthiest Minnesotans in our state’s 4^th income tier.  Bakk rightly pointed out that while such a strategy would yield a princely sum—around $1 billion—it wouldn’t be nearly sufficient to plug a massive $5 budget hole.  If the next DFL governor is going to avoid painful cuts to government services in Minnesota, according to Bakk, we’re going to need to look at raising taxes on a much wider swathe of Minnesotans.  I agree with this assessment of Minnesota’s fiscal dilemma and I applaud Bakk for having the political courage to make this honest pronouncement.

The one area where Bakk faltered though was when I pressed him on his strategy to sell his tax hike to Minnesotan voters.   Besides a few general comments about “making people realize what government can do for them,” Bakk seemed to be a little short of specific strategies that could convince Minnesota’s middle to support a tax increase.

Bakk also repeatedly stressed that rural Minnesota was the key to winning statewide elections, his logic being because the Twin Cities was already a liberal bastion, a winning DFL campaign had to pry votes away from Republicans in outstate Minnesota.  This is false.  After all, seventy percent of Minnesotans live in the seven county Twin Cities area.  If elections are won or lost anywhere, it is in Minnesota’s suburbs, not its small towns.  Further, Bakk forgets that another DFL vote in Minneapolis matters just as much as a DFL vote in rural Douglas County—one could just as easily make a case that DFLers can only win statewide elections when they learn to run up the score in liberal enclaves.  In the end, reasonable minds can disagree about political strategy; however, given Bakk’s inability to articulate a political strategy when it comes to his tax increase, I can’t help but believe that he may be a little lacking in political acumen.

At the end of the meeting I had grown to like Bakk; he’s a smart, capable public servant who seems genuine enough and has a compelling personal story that will likely resonate with blue-collar workers to boot.   That said, I’m not entirely convinced Bakk has the gravitas or political acumen DFL delegates look for in statewide candidate.  Only time will tell if this public servant can develop the political polish necessary to serve as the Democratic standard bearer next fall.

On Friday I was fortunate enough to meet three DFL gubernatorial candidates as they swung through Alexandria in staggered appearances.  The three contenders included Fmr. State House Majority Leader (and sometimes-Attorney General candidate) Matt Entenza, State Senator Tom Bakk and State Representative Paul Thissen.

I love these meet and greets early in the campaign.  In Alexandria especially, these are great opportunities to engage candidates in small and free-wielding discussions: there were only seven other DFLers in attendance last Friday and the meetings were completely devoid of journalists.  Further, rural Minnesota is probably one of few places in the nation where you can see a county DFL chair introduce gubernatorial candidates wearing a pant-suit and pink crocs.  Good times.

Over the next few days, I’ll be posting my thoughts on these three candidates in a series of posts.  Today I’ll cover the first candidate who spoke in front of Douglas Country DFLers—Matt Entenza.

Before I begin, it’s worth noting that I wrote a few weeks ago that I did not understand the appeal of Matt Entenza and had some rather serious concerns over his ethical credentials.  Having met Entenza some of my criticisms have softened; however, I still believe his campaign needs to further refine its message and badly needs to work out a better explanation for the scandal that forced Entenza off the ballot in 2006.

The main thing you must know about the Entenza campaign is that it is ‘green.’  All of Entenza’s campaign literature was sporting some shade of the color and renewable power was the only policy issue he spent any time talking about.  This is all well and good—I too support generating more clean energy—but Entenza’s tunnel vision on the issue makes his campaign seem two-dimensional and I can’t help feeling that Entenza’s passion for the issue is a bit connived—I can’t remember him being nearly so enthused about the issue when he was in the state legislature.  Entenza’s overwhelming focus on green power also seems a bit disingenuous because of his insistence that renewable can solve nearly all of Minnesota’s environmental and economic problems.  They can help, sure, but let’s remember that even the most optimistic figures show renewables meeting only a small fraction of our energy needs—green power can’t be a complete solution.

Most troubling, however, was the moment when Entenza categorically ruled out the expansion of nuclear power in Minnesota, citing the old canard that nuclear power produces too much ‘toxic waste.’  This is true for the time being, but Entenza neglected to note that countries like France permit the reprocessing of spent-nuclear fuel which entirely negates the concern over nuclear waste.   Entenza’s willingness to almost completely rule out a promising source of energy that could actually make a real dent in America’s carbon footprint—unlike, say, wind power—is troubling for a candidate who is making energy the centerpiece of his campaign.

Towards the end of the discussion, I asked Entenza about the scandal that resulted in him withdrawing from the Attorney General’s race in 2006.  Talking to other DFLers in the room after Entenza had left, I learned that this question had been looming in their minds as well but the dialogue was structured such that it was awkward to mention this past scandal.  Awkwardness aside, I decided to press him on the matter anyways.  Entenza cut me off halfway through my question and made a special effort to emphasize that he did not hire a private investigator, but rather employed an investigative firm that gathered information on the Attorney General’s office so he could ensure that he did not make any inappropriate comments on the campaign trail about matters that the AG’s office was involved in.

Frankly, this explanation does not square with what I know about the scandal.  It was always my understanding that Entenza hired an investigator, not out of a benign interest in avoid impropriety, but because he considered Fmr. AG Mike Hatch to be a political enemy.  I’ll cede that Mike Hatch is a rather odious fellow; however, I remain uncomfortable with candidates engaging in these unsavory campaign tactics.

Finally, when I pressed Entenza with a follow-up question about whether he had any regrets about his decision to hire investigators he was less than apologetic; he even hinted that he would make the same decision again during this campaign.  Entenza also failed to offer up anything except platitudes when I asked him whether he had learned anything from his experience in 2006.

If Matt Entenza is going to be able to put this question behind him, he needs to a better job of explaining the scandal than what I saw last Friday.  I recommend that Entenza offer a sincere apology, promise to never employ such tactics again, and, above all, refrain from trying to excuse away the incident as an innocent and minor matter.  The scandal was serious enough to drive him off the ticket in 2006 and it deserves a serious explanation during this campaign.

Overall though, I was pleasantly surprised by Entenza.  Before last Friday, I never would have considered voting for him, even in a general election, based on the rumors I had heard about his temperament.  Although I won’t back his effort to secure the DFL nomination, I think I could now bring myself to support him in November if he becomes the DFL nominee.  Finally, Entenza’s campaign could show real promise if he diversifies his message and offers a better explanation about the ’06 AG race.  He certainly not my sort of candidate but I can see how he could have real appeal to DFL voters.  He was generally folksy, personable and had a compelling life story that he effectively blended into his campaign’s message.  A little polish and Entenza could be a real threat to any endorsed DFLer in a contested primary.