Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report - Vol. 3, Issue 46 - 5/30/2008
The Republicans In Rochester
The Politics in Minnesota crew is in Rochester, today, reporting live from the GOP state convention. We're also making our first official joint appearance with our sister publication, the Saint Paul Legal Ledger -- which has been renamed the Capitol Report. We published a special joint print edition with the following note from the Capitol Report's Bill Clements and PIM's Sarah Janecek.
Welcome to the GOP Convention!
And welcome to the marriage of the Saint Paul Legal Ledger Capitol Report (but go ahead and call it "Capitol Report," because we do) and Politics in Minnesota. The two publications exchanged vows this past March when Dolan Media Company, which already owned Capitol Report, acquired Politics in Minnesota. The groom, an 80-year-old St. Paul native, wore and will continue to wear a tuxedo made of two print editions per week plus a website. The bride, a 26-year-old St. Paul native, wore a gown composed of weekly and morning report e-mail publications and a website.
Given the groom’s age, his vows tilted toward gravitas: The Capitol Report will provide the policy behind the politics.
Given the bride’s youth, her vows promised cheekiness: Politics in Minnesota will provide the politics behind the policy.
Seriously, we’re delighted to announce that Capitol Report and Politics in Minnesota are officially in cahoots. And not a moment too soon. We’ve all witnessed the dramatic decline in public affairs coverage in Minnesota’s largest two newspapers, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Star Tribune, as well as in daily newspapers and on television stations across the state. Not to worry.
Capitol Report and Politics in Minnesota together will pick up where the major media have left off. We will combine to cover Minnesota’s Capitol like a tough, fair, informative and occasionally even funny community newspaper (funny on purpose, hopefully). For political and government professionals, we will provide policy information and analysis to help you do your jobs. For political junkies, we will provide information that’s essential for you to feed your addiction.
We will provide commentaries from the right and from the left, but our reporting and analysis will be straight down the middle. Of course, that doesn’t mean we won’t resort to gravitas, cheekiness and maybe even snarkiness on occasion.
So, in the coming months, look for exciting changes in both publications. Meanwhile, enjoy our convention coverage in the Capitol Report and at the Politics in Minnesota website, politicsinminnesota.com.
Your comments, criticism and suggestions are always welcome and much appreciated.
To our Republican readers, hope you have a great convention!
Best Of The PIM Liveblog
Trees sacrifice their lives for the GOP by Betsy Sundquist, Staff Writer, Saint Paul Legal Ledger Capitol Report
The piles of paper on the Republican convention floor by midday Friday were approaching "inadvertent avalanche" level, and anyone who was looking for entertaining reading material had only to pick up a pile and start paging through it. Most of the handouts were soliciting votes for would-be Republican national convention delegates and alternates.
Coleman critique by Charley Shaw, Staff Writer, Saint Paul Legal Ledger Capitol Report
As Minnesota Republicans prepared Friday afternoon to endorse U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's reelection bid, Coleman's detractors were making their presence known outside the convention.
Time to vote for delegates; The Pat Anderson delegate mystery by Dan Feidt
Former State Auditor Pat Anderson is prominently featured on one of the large "Minnesota Conservative Delegate Team" banners, which are hung from the ceiling, flanking both ends of the front of the convention center. However, we heard from one of the Ron Paul people that she's also supported by them, as well.
Keeping Score -- on taxes by Bill Clements, St. Paul Legal Ledger Capitol Report managing editor
The Taxpayer's League has “scored” every legislator based on how they voted in 11 bills in both the House and Senate. Mark Giga, director of outreach, says the average number of winners in the 12 scorecards the group has done is about 10 – this was a pretty tough year.
Politics for Sale by Betsy Sundquist, Staff Writer, Saint Paul Legal Ledger Capitol Report
A group of tables in Presentation Hall is covered with merchandise hyping September's Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The big sellers so far Friday: sweatshirts and jackets to ward off the chill.
BPOU delegate slates coming up a bit short of 100% by Dan Feidt
The grand total arrives: with a little more than 2000 delegates allocated, more than 1100 delegates present, and more than 500 seated alternates, the result is a total voting strength of around 1600.
For more posts, check out our website.
Much More From Rochester
We're providing live coverage throughout the rest of the convention on our web site. Check back often for our real time coverage. Of course, we'll be back in Rochester next week for the DFL convention. Given the conventions, we profiled the two state party chairs, the GOP's Ron Carey and the DFL's Brian Melendez.
Carey: Criticism Part Of The Job
Ron Carey can’t remember a time when politics wasn’t a part of his life. His father was politically active, and he grew up in a household where politics was discussed at the dinner table. But what he calls his first "real political memory" came on Halloween night in 1964, in Fredericksburg, Iowa. The presidential election that year pitted Republican Barry Goldwater against Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, who had assumed the presidency less than a year earlier following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Carey remembers proudly wearing a "Goldwater for President" T-shirt that fall and drinking Goldwater soda pop (a novelty soft drink that billed itself as "the right drink for the conservative taste" and which vied for popularity with LBJ's "Johnson Juice"). On Halloween night, just a week before the presidential election, pranksters who knew of the Carey family’s political leanings soaped "LBJ" repeatedly on the windows of their house.
"My father was furious," Carey recalls. "I don’t know if we ever found out who did it, but he was just irate."
The experience didn’t sour Carey on politics. More than 40 years later, the chairman of Minnesota’s Republican Party is preparing for this weekend’s state convention in Rochester, and the Republican National Convention in September in St. Paul. And he’s still no stranger to controversy, even though he’s never run for public office. "I respect people who serve in elected public offices, but it’s a very tough job to be an elected official, whether it’s city, state, county or national government," he says. "I wouldn’t wish that upon myself.
"My forte has been working behind the scenes with candidates and committees and trying to make things happen. As important as candidates are, they’re just the tip of the spear; without good organization, all candidates will fall short. That’s where I truly value my ability to affect what’s happening in Minnesota and across the country by working in the party process." Carey’s been involved in the Republican Party on the organizational level since he was 13, when he joined a Teenage Republicans group in Iowa. He worked on his first campaigns in 1972, and voted in his first election in 1976, the year that 18-year-olds got the right to vote and, coincidentally, the year he turned 18.
Carey arrived in Minnesota that year to attend Northwestern College in Roseville, and he quickly immersed himself in Minnesota politics.
That fall, a few months before the presidential election, he decided to hold a political forum at Northwestern. He and a friend lined up speakers from different parties, and reserved the college gym on a Saturday night. "It was my first attempt at putting together a political event," he says. "I had big plans." Unfortunately, most of Northwestern’s students had other plans. Though organizers confidently set up 200 chairs in the gym, only five people showed up. Carey says he "survived that shame" and didn’t let it dampen his enthusiasm. If anything, he says, it added a layer to the thick skin necessary for someone in a high-profile political organization. Carey, 50, was elected chairman of the state GOP in June 2005 in a contentious contest that ousted Ron Eibensteiner, who had led the party for six years. Eibensteiner went into that election with the support of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, Gov. Tim Pawlenty and U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, but the majority of the party’s 347-member central committee supported Carey and dumped Eibensteiner.
Carey said at the time that many delegates were unhappy with Eibensteiner’s leadership style. But it didn’t take long before Republicans were leveling the same kind of criticism at Carey.
Most recently, in January, Carey drew fire from the party’s executive committee for publicly endorsing presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who withdrew from the race in March. Critics said Carey’s support of a candidate a month before Minnesota’s precinct caucuses undermined party unity and caused discord among GOP activists.
Carey is philosophical about the criticism.
"You’re the most popular the day you’re elected," he says. "Once you start making decisions, someone will disagree and you’ll lose popularity." But he dislikes it strongly when the fight turns personal.
"One of the most disappointing parts of this job is that you have to endure unfair attacks by your opponents," he says. "There seems to be no decency. If it’s policy issues, that’s one thing, but being attacked without the facts is just wrong."
Carey closely guards his personal life, identifying himself as a resident of Ham Lake, married to his wife, Sue, for 27 years. They have two sons, ages 9 and 10, but Carey declines to give their names.
He acknowledges that there are times when he wishes he had a lower profile, particularly when political slings and arrows are being flung, especially from inside his own camp.
"You always face internal attacks, because you’ll never have the 100 percent support of everyone in your party," Carey says. "But that goes with the territory. If you don’t have very thick skin, you’d never want this job."
DFL's Brian Melendez Prefers To Stay Off Radar
For his role as chairman of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Brian Melendez gets generally high marks, though he doesn’t escape criticism for some of the choices he’s made.
Melendez, 43, who’s a partner at Faegre & Benson, as well as president of the Minnesota State Bar Association, faces the challenging job of running the party that has control of both the state Senate and House — so expectations are high.
He declined to be interviewed for this profile, but some of his DFL colleagues did express their opinions about Melendez.
On the record, DFL observers mostly praise Melendez and express confidence in his abilities to take the DFL into the future. Off the record, several express concerns.
While he’s seen as careful and ethical, some say Melendez hasn’t raised funds for the party as aggressively as he could, and some disagree with how he prioritized races in the 2006 election cycle.
Working hard to build a professional career from a modest background, Melendez graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1991 with a Masters in Theological Studies (focusing on ethics), while also earning his JD at the same time.
Melendez moved to Minnesota soon after to work at the law firm of Faegre & Benson, and became chairman of the DFL’s Senate District 59 in 1998. He rose to partner at Faegre & Benson in 1999, and became chairman of the Minneapolis DFL the same year.
In the aftermath of U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s (D-MA) defeat in the 2004 race for president, Melendez leveraged his Minneapolis connections — and strong links with Howard Dean organizers — to vault into the state DFL chairmanship in early 2005.
Secretary of State and relative DFL newcomer Mark Ritchie says his divinity school training is “reflected in how he comes across” as party chair — Melendez has a particular concern for ethics. Typically, Ritchie says, a strong feeling for ethics and ethical behavior is “not the first thing that comes to mind” when thinking of people like political party chairs and lawyers at big firms.
Ritchie adds that Melendez was engaging younger voters with the DFL “before that was cool.”
Melendez doesn’t seem to seek much publicity, and he’s chosen to play a role more focused on the organization.
DFLers give him high marks for keeping an appropriate, detached approach to the DFL’s always-contentious primary contests: he stays out of primary battles, is always strongly supportive of endorsed candidates, and deals fairly with those not endorsed. Within the DFL, the 2006 round of endorsements was challenging, with several hotly contested, sometimes awkward races, including those for governor and attorney general.
According to some on the inside, DFLers are generally happy with his leadership. Melendez works along a more activist-focused tangent than his higher-profile predecessor, Mike Erlandson. Maintaining less of a public figure, he’s chosen to work more through the dynamics of the DFL’s executive and central committees. Melendez doesn’t choose to offer a prominent public face of the party; instead, he looks after the inner circle — and that has been key to Melendez’ successful approach from the start.
Insiders say that instead of centralizing control over campaigns and messaging, Melendez has let those teams operate more on their own than they have in previous election cycles. One of Melendez’ critics within the party thinks this is good, because the party has made big mistakes with negative messaging in the past.
Party chairs have to decide where to throw their attention: some focus on presidential and senatorial races, expecting the top of the ticket to pull along local votes, while others focus on turning voters out for legislative contests. Melendez has taken a broader approach and improved the DFL’s ground game dramatically, observers say. Under his leadership, the DFL achieved sweeping victories (along with some squeakers) within former GOP strongholds in 2006.
However, some in the senior DFL ranks criticize Melendez for choosing to focus more on the ground game than fundraising. They also believe Melendez focused too much in 2006 on U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s campaign to the detriment of the more difficult governor’s race.
To this criticism, DFL spokeswoman Kelly Schwinghammer responds that 2006 DFL gubernatorial candidate “Mike Hatch himself has publicly stated that he was very pleased with the support that he got from the party in his campaign.”
But while some criticize Melendez for not focusing more on fundraising, there’s broad agreement that he’s good at galvanizing the base, getting the DFL ready for the 2008 presidential race, growing local campaigns, empowering under-represented groups and getting down-ticket races secured.
Working at the state bar is an honorable contribution, Ritchie adds: “This doesn’t get [him] more business,” he says, “it’s public service.”
As leader of the state bar association, Melendez helped garner support for a major judicial-election reform proposal designed to ensure the state’s well-regarded judiciary remains independent and nonpartisan.
Melendez, who is single and has no children, is an avid reader. In fact, he has a public Amazon.com profile page featuring his book reviews. And in September 2005, just a few months after settling in as DFL party chairman, Melendez created a list for “Obscure post-apocalyptic fiction.”
Minnesota's 4th Congressional District
In our continuing series about the key staff in the state's major campaigns, we head to Minnesota's 4th Congressional District, which includes St. Paul and a a few of its inner ring suburbs. Long a DFL stronghold, the 4th is represented by U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum (MN-4), who won the district by an astonishing 40% in 2006. Standing between McCollum and a fifth term is GOP challenger Ed Matthews, a CPA and former Minnesota Supreme Court Law Clerk.
Will Blanvelt and Melissa Jamrock are the major players on the McCollum campaign. Blanvelt, officially the political director, has worked in politics since 2002 and for Buck Humphrey, Judy Dutcher, Steve Kelley, and most recently, Sen. Terri Bonoff's (DFL-Minnetonka) failed bid for the DFL endorsement in the 3rd Congressional District.
Blanvelt splits many of the campaign managing duties with Jamrock, who grew up in Chicago (in fact, right across the street from Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb). Jamrock previously worked for the DFL party in the 4th and interned in Wisconsin during the 2004 Presidential elections before joining McCollum's run for reelection that year.
Calls to the Matthews campaign were not returned.
Bits & Pieces
Come join the Jewish Community Relation Council on Sunday, June 1st as they gather for their annual event featuring Judy Woodruff. Woodruff is Senior Correspondent for PBS's New Hour with Jim Lehrer and will giving a short program on the 2008 Presidential election. The event in open to the public and starts at 5:30 p.m. Tickets start at $36.
2008 Republican National Convention President and CEO Maria Cino announced the appointment of Rachel Card Kahler as Director of Official Proceedings. Kahler brings much convention experience, having worked every GOP convention since Houston in 1992.
'Wave the Stars & Stripes,' the essay contest for the GOP National Convention has announced its finalists. The 10 lucky finalists are; Victoria Blackstone, Erin Cichanski, Thomas D'Agostino, Christopher Fiore, Katharine Golightly, Brendan Halleron, Emily Hoffman, Sandra Opokua, Sam Roden, and Mark Rugnetta. The winner will be announced June 13th in honor of Flag Day.
Minnesota's Bookstore will be offering several themed items in honor of Minnesota's sesquicentennial. Stoneware mugs, handmade by Grey Fox Pottery, commemorative medallions authorized by the State Legislature, and a book about Minnesota's history entitled Hail to Thee: A Sesquicentennial History, are among the featured items. To view or order any of historic prizes visit the link above.
The AP noted that Sen. Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook) has filed an exploratory campaign for Governor in 2010. His treasurer is Kris Swift.
Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner is also running for governor in 2010: she's got a spiffy website up at susangaertner.com. The chairman of her campaign is David Potter and her treasurer is Amy Anderson.
Lobbyist Watch
From the Minnesota Campaign Finance & Public Disclosure Board:
Morning Reports
