The Official Politics in Minnesota 2008 Election Predictions: Part II

So much for my track record, on to 2008.

President. Wishful thinking led me astray in 2000 and 2004. Minnesota may have flirted with being identified to the nation as a swing state heretofore this millennium, but those days will be over with Barack Obama beating John McCain here. Not by double digits as polls would suggest but by six points or so.

Senate. What a race this has been. GOP U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman beats DFL challenger Al Franken by three points. For your GOP publisher, Franken's race has been deeply gratifying, particularly the last few days with Franken's sleazy ads ending with, "I'm Al Franken, and I approved this message." So much for Franken's moral high ground in previous years about GOP being the party of sleazy ads.

Franken loses because (1) He's a carpetbagger, and Minnesotans, unlike New Yorkers, don't believe in handing outsiders U.S. Senate seats (should be fun to see how long Franken hangs on to his Minneapolis condo after the election); (2) The jokes and Playboy pornography essay were in that carpetbag, making Franken a candidate full of conduct unbecoming a U.S. Senator; and (3) the vast majority of newspaper endorsements for Coleman and against Franken is historic and overwhelming. Kudos to MinnPost's David Brauer for keeping tabs on the endorsements. 

Coleman wins because all those endorsements were on to something:  Coleman does, indeed, have a bipartisan track record of getting things done.  There's nothing in Franken's long-time, myopic, bitter, partisan record of Republican bashing to indicate he could ever hope to accomplish same. 

And Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley? Contrary to polls giving Barkley an average of 18 percent of the vote, in the end, Barkley gets much less than that, but meets the five percent threshold to keep the Independence Party viable as a major political party in Minnesota eligible for public financing of campaigns. This is no small legacy in Minnesota politics:  Barkley's 5.4% in the 1994 Senate race in which GOPer Rod Grams bested DFLer Ann Wynia paved the way for the 1998 Jesse Ventura victory. 

1st CD. DFL U.S. Rep. Tim Walz easily defeats GOP challenger Brian Davis. In so doing, Walz becomes THE favorite in the large field of DFLers looking to run for Governor in 2010. 

2nd CD. Incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. John Kline will handily defeat DFL challenger Steve Sarvi and Kline will prevail by double digits. Kline internal polling shows Kline doing exceedingly well and don't forget that Kline won his last two races by 16 percentage points. Look for Kline to become a GOP hero for winning this race in a bad GOP year, but also for his principled solid leadership fighting the good fight against earmarks. 

3rd CD. DFLer Ashwin Madia narrowly bests GOP former Rep. Erik Paulsen mostly because the 3rd District Republican party scared better, more ideologically moderate GOP candidates out of the race. This is a painful loss for the state GOP which has proudly held this seat for decades with strong, smart, social issues-moderate leadership in Bill Frenzel and Jim Ramstad. The good news for Republicans going forward is that because the Democratic National Congressional Committee spent so much time and effort on this race, Madia will be beholden to casting liberal party-line votes, making 2010 an attractive run for Republicans who opted out in 2008. 

MN House. The DFL House Majority stays intact but doesn't pick up enough seats to make the magic 90 number needed to override a gubernatorial veto. The two people most delighted by this outcome are Sen. Maj. Leader Larry Pogemiller (DFL-Minneapolis) and House Speaker Margaret Kelliher (DFL-Minneapolis). If GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty had become irrelevant by virtue of veto override power, Pogemiller and Kelliher would have found themselves in the horrifying position of having to say no to powerful state spending groups like Education Minnesota.  The looming likely several billion dollar budget shortfall in 2009 would have become a DFL problem, not a state one.

6th CD. DFL challenger Elwyn Tinklenberg beats one-term GOP incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and sends Chris Matthews a bottle of Dom. What were Bachmann's advisers thinking by allowing her to go on MSNBC with Matthews? What was Bachmann thinking by using "anti-American" in her words? Channeling former GOP WI Sen. Joseph McCarthy was red meat on a platter for the left. Let the 2010 GOP fun begin on who will run against Tinklenberg in a seat he should never have won. And John Wodele ,as Tinklenberg's chief adviser and spokesperson, picks up experience managing a major campaign that he can apply to his wife's, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner's, campaign for Governor in 2010. 

4th, 5th, 7th and 8th CDs. Incumbent DFLers easily keep their seats: U.S. Reps. Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Collin Peterson and Jim Oberstar.