Minnesotas Dissatisfied With Republicans
Things I wanted to point out in this article:
#1: If Amy Klobuchar wins the DFL nomination for Senate, barring a meltdown of epic proportions, she will win the election in November hands-down. Kennedy would have faced a tough race for re-election, and his job is all the more difficult now that he's running statewide. In a Kennedy vs. Klobuchar race, Klobuchar will win. Klobuchar, a Hennepin County elected official and a U.S. Senate candidate, has an approval rating in the same neighborhood as Laura Bush, a non-political First Lady of the United States. That's astounding.
#2: A fair number of DFL-held legislative seats may be lost in the next election, but the fallout from the special session and shutdown will be worse for the GOP. Many of the DFL House members elected in 2004, especially, will be extremely vulnerable, while many swing districts currently represented by Republicans will probably dump those incumbents. The Senate will almost certainly see some incumbents beaten, but I think that the split will be fairly even.
#3: At this point, Gov. Pawlenty has to be considered endangered. The special session and shutdown were his fault, and his "they did it to embarrass me" line is weak and whiny. Yeah, right, Tim, the DFL did something unprecedented in state history just to embarrass you. He's going to have to answer a lot of questions about his actions over the past four years and his record is going to come back and bite him. He's shown absolutely no leadership on any of the issues that really matter to Minnesotans, and little enough even on the issues that don't.
#4: Most Minnesotans continue to support Roe v. Wade. Period. They're for reasonable restrictions? Great, so are Democrats. We're just not for restrictions that put the most vulnerable women into a corner. When people understand that, the choice debate (pro-choice vs. anti-choice) will have a lot more people on our side.
#1: If Amy Klobuchar wins the DFL nomination for Senate, barring a meltdown of epic proportions, she will win the election in November hands-down. Kennedy would have faced a tough race for re-election, and his job is all the more difficult now that he's running statewide. In a Kennedy vs. Klobuchar race, Klobuchar will win. Klobuchar, a Hennepin County elected official and a U.S. Senate candidate, has an approval rating in the same neighborhood as Laura Bush, a non-political First Lady of the United States. That's astounding.
#2: A fair number of DFL-held legislative seats may be lost in the next election, but the fallout from the special session and shutdown will be worse for the GOP. Many of the DFL House members elected in 2004, especially, will be extremely vulnerable, while many swing districts currently represented by Republicans will probably dump those incumbents. The Senate will almost certainly see some incumbents beaten, but I think that the split will be fairly even.
#3: At this point, Gov. Pawlenty has to be considered endangered. The special session and shutdown were his fault, and his "they did it to embarrass me" line is weak and whiny. Yeah, right, Tim, the DFL did something unprecedented in state history just to embarrass you. He's going to have to answer a lot of questions about his actions over the past four years and his record is going to come back and bite him. He's shown absolutely no leadership on any of the issues that really matter to Minnesotans, and little enough even on the issues that don't.
#4: Most Minnesotans continue to support Roe v. Wade. Period. They're for reasonable restrictions? Great, so are Democrats. We're just not for restrictions that put the most vulnerable women into a corner. When people understand that, the choice debate (pro-choice vs. anti-choice) will have a lot more people on our side.
