WSJ: "Minnesota May Be Tip of Political Iceberg"

Democrats See Chance to Gain Three House Seats as Republicans Fight Back
By DAVID ROGERS
Wall Street Journal; March 30, 2006; Page A4

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- From the governor's mansion to Congress, everything's up for grabs in Minnesota this year, and if a political tidal wave is coming in November it will surely be felt here.

With the lakes still frozen white from winter, Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidates already have begun the spring ritual of nominating conventions in school auditoriums across the state. In three races in Republican House districts that Mr. Bush carried in 2004, Democrats hope for upsets given the president's faltering ratings.

To understand the currents ahead, forget about staid Scandinavians; remember this is the state that elected Jesse Ventura governor.

The Republican nightmare here in the First District is a burly, high-school teacher and coach who is running as a Democrat but evokes House Speaker Dennis Hastert as a younger man. The Democratic candidate in the Second District is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent with the maiden name of Cheney who is waging an antiwar campaign. Her Republican opponent, a Marine veteran, opined on radical Islam and attacks on the Easter Bunny while on the campaign trail recently at a Lutheran school whose sports teams are the "Crusaders."

As Minnesota suggests, the 2006 campaign is a power struggle but also a moment for Congress to renew itself after wearing thin its welcome with voters. For Democrats, who need to gain 15 seats to win the House, spring is the season for testing campaign pitches. For Republicans, who hold power, it is a time to take stock after dominating Congress for the past 12 years.

K.J. McDonald, a former Republican state legislator who now is mayor of Watertown in Carver County, recites a litany of party woes from "the ineptness of the Bush administration" to the national debt and the Iraq war. "We are due for a fall," he worries. "We're a disgrace."

Iraq hangs over the landscape: 2,600 Minnesota National Guard troops began deploying to the Mideast and the war last week; Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, up for re-election, made headlines with a trip to the region. Progress for America, a conservative political organization, in February chose Minnesota to test more than $1 million in television ads and mailings in support of the war. And in picking its candidates in May, the DFL must decide if it wants to press for troop withdrawals by a fixed date.

For the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Mark Dayton, the DFL leans heavily toward Amy Klobuchar, Hennepin County prosecutor and daughter of legendary Minneapolis newspaper columnist Jim Klobuchar [a contributor to Vox Verax] who is out of retirement to stump for his daughter -- but sometimes has to be reminded to mention her name when he gets wound up.

"She's got moxie," says Barry Bowden, a farm insurance agent and Republican. Enough so that the Republican candidate, Rep. Mark Kennedy, is no longer the favorite in the Senate race.

But most revealing are the House races. In the First and Second districts, incumbent Republicans are challenged. In the Sixth, the seat is held by Mr. Kennedy, but the race has sparked party infighting as conservatives jockey to try to succeed him as he runs for the Senate.

In all three cases, Democrats will need a lot of luck and more money. "If you can't pay the band, you can't do the boogaloo," said Patty Wetterling, a child-rights advocate and Democratic candidate running in the Sixth.

Equally important is how the party will try to win back independent voters in largely suburban and rural areas.

At the spring caucuses, party activists pick delegates to nominating conventions in May. Primaries are held in September but both Republicans and the DFL make it difficult for any loser to challenge the candidate the party endorses.

Within the DFL, divisions over the war have surfaced. Ms. Wetterling, for example, proposed last fall that the troops be brought home by Thanksgiving 2006. But another Democrat seeking the Sixth District seat, Elwyn Tinklenberg, a Methodist minister and former member of Mr. Ventura's cabinet, warns that Democrats will fail if they move too far left. "If we provide them with only two options, far right, far left, they will still pick far right," he says. "For us to be able to win, we have to provide an alternative to the extremes."

In the Second District, Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent who criticized the agency's performance before the 9/11 attacks, is outspoken in her opposition to the war. "I think most of the problems we are in right now are because people are playing politics instead of doing the right thing," she says.

But as Ms. Rowley's campaign has faltered, another Democrat, State Sen. Sharon Marko, jumped in recently to offer a more moderate approach -- and to put greater emphasis on traditional economic issues. [Since this was written, Marko has withdrawn from the race. See "Marko out of 2nd District congressional race" from Minnesota Public Radio.]

Here in the First District, Tim Walz, the high-school teacher and coach and ringer for Speaker Hastert, has the Democratic field to himself. A retired master sergeant in the Army National Guard, he served overseas during the early war in Afghanistan. When his old artillery battalion deployed to Iraq last week, Mr. Walz's emotions showed after traveling down to Mississippi to say goodbye.

"There were soldiers down there that I taught in school. They were my students in my classroom, I coached them," he said. "This is not something that is a political game or a political loss."

Mr. Walz's opponent, Rep. Gil Gutknecht, a former auctioneer, served 12 years in the Minnesota legislature before joining Congress in 1995. He emails progress reports on Iraq to constituents but prefers to talk up immigration, where he is taking a tougher line in response the influx of illegal immigrants working in agriculture-processing facilities in the district. "It's a hotter issue and it's more clear-cut," he says. Unlike Iraq, "people know which side they're on."

In the Second District, Republican Rep. John Kline is a former Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam whose son now serves in Iraq. "We never thought the Viet Cong would leave the Ho Chi Minh trail and come here," he says. "This time we're engaged in a war where I believe absolutely they will come here."

Yet, after compiling a near-perfect party unity rating in recent years, he now describes himself as a "conservative but independent" Republican and faults the White House for resisting pension-relief provisions important to bankrupt Northwest Airlines in his district. "They're wrong," he says of the administration.

Both Republican incumbents worry about voter concerns, even with Minnesota's low unemployment. "You think, 'What if I lost my job when I'm 55 or 56 or 57?'" Mr. Kline says.

Mr. Gutknecht asks: "Why is there still economic angst in the United States? The answer is the average working American hasn't had a real pay raise."

Write to David Rogers at david.rogers@wsj.com.