ROCHESTER-POST BULLETIN: "HOLY SMOKES" SAYS LARRY JACOBS
One of the entertaining things about reading press coverage about the Walz-Gutknecht race has been reading the opinion of experts who repeat the conventional wisdom about the First. The Rochester Post Bulletin's Matt Stolle caught the reaction of one such expert yesterday to new polling data:
A new national poll shows the congressional race between GOP Rep. Gil Gutknecht and DFL challenger Tim Walz in a statistical dead heat. The poll called Majority Watch by RT Strategies and Constituent Dynamics shows Gutknecht with a 48 percent to 47 percent lead, with a margin of error of 3 percent.
If reliable, the numbers would be a "shocker," one state political observer said, given Gutknecht's record of beating DFL opponents by more than 20 percentage points. The poll was conducted Oct. 8-10.
"I've got two takes. One is 'holy smokes.' If Gutknecht's race is tied, Republicans have a lot more trouble than I thought," said Lawrence Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.
But Jacobs added that he was taking the poll "under advisement" and wasn't yet prepared to "go to the bank on it," because of questions he still had about the poll's methodology.
The Walz campaign sent out a press statement Thursday, touting the poll as confirmation that voters in the 1st Congressional District were ready for a change.
"These results confirm exactly what we''ve been hearing from the people of the 1st Congressional District," said Meredith Salsbery, Walz's communication directior, in a statement. "Voters in southern Minnesota believe Congress has the wrong priorities and are ready for a change."
Bryan Anderson, a spokesman for Gutknecht, declined to speculate whether the poll has validity, but expressed confidence that Gutknecht would prevail in the Nov. 7 election.
"We know this is a tough climate, and the American people are frustrated, but the Congressman is confident that people of the First District know him, like him and will vote to send him back to Washington," Anderson said.
The poll also showed DFL candidate Patty Wetterling with a 50 percent to 45 percent lead over Republican candidate Michele Bachmann in the Sixth Congressional District.
The poll appears to underscore how bleak the national mood has become for Republicans, which control both the House and Senate.
MANKATO FREE PRESS: HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER CAMPAIGNS WITH GUTKNECHT
Mark Fischenich at the Mankato Free Press covered the Gutknecht-Boehner press conference yesterday in "House majority leader campaigns with Gutknecht." Some excerpts:
. . .Boehner said his stop in Mankato isn’t an indication that national Republican leaders are concerned about Gutknecht’s race against first-time candidate Tim Walz, who appears to be the running the most formidable Democratic challenge to Gutknecht in at least a decade.
Boehner said he was working with other candidates in Iowa and Minnesota.
“While in the neighborhood, why not stop?” Boehner said. “... I think Gil’s running a very good race.”
Gutknecht, a Rochester Republican who is seeking his seventh term in Congress, noted that Boehner is a friend and has campaigned for him in previous campaigns, although that was before he became majority leader.
Despite a growing number of political analysts predicting that the Democrats will pick up the 15 seats they need to take control of the House in the Nov. 7 general election — primarily because of the unpopularity of President Bush, the Iraq war and the scandal-plagued Congress — Boehner said the GOP will retain the majority.
Republicans have cut taxes, reformed pension laws and passed legislation to combat terrorism, Boehner said. He conceded that congressional leaders have some repair work to do on Congress’ reputation.
“There are a lot of things we have to do to restore that trust,” he said.
Still, the Ohio Republican deflected any suggestion that Americans are losing faith in the GOP-controlled House, which has faced a string of scandals in recent years and has seen few of its major initiatives enacted into law in the most recent congressional session.
Recent polls have shown public disapproval of Congress reaching the levels of 1994 when Gutknecht and dozens of other Republicans won seats previously held by Democrats, ending that party’s 40-year run of controlling the House.
[snip]
Before leaving, Boehner said the big difference between now and 1994 — when a scandal-plagued Democratic majority was washed out of power by a Republican tidal wave — is that Democrats aren’t offering a specific legislative plan if voters give them control of Congress.“They can’t tell you what they would do if they were in charge,” he said.
Democrats are offering nothing comparable to the Republicans “Contract with America” — the 1994 pledge to cut taxes, balance the budget, force Congress to abide by the same laws as average Americans, vote on imposing term limits and other reforms. They had a shared vision to offer voters, according to Gutknecht.
“The only thing that unifies Democrats, as far as we can see, is that they will raise taxes,” Gutknecht said.
Walz campaign spokeswoman Meredith Salsbery said voters need only to look at each candidates’ Web site to see that Walz is offering much more detailed proposals on a broad range of issues. And Salsbery said Democrats are offering a better approach than the Contract with America.
“That didn’t work out so well for them,” she said. “They didn’t keep a lot of their promises.”
In contrast, Democratic candidates will bring grass-roots-generated solutions to the nation’s problems, according to Salsbery.
“Newly elected members of Congress are going to go to Washington and say ‘This what the people want,’” she said.
Truth be told: Salsbery is too kind. Visit the Walz campaign site and read extensive material about Walz's campaign and policy proposals. A visit to the Gutknecht campaign site Thursday revealed a press release touting the scandal-tinged ATF's approval of Gutknecht, attacks against Tim Walz, and the slightest hint of an issues page.
One other difference: The Walz campaign site leads with Tom Hauser's interview with Walz. It was supposed to be a debate. KTSP had partnered with the League of Women Voters to sponsor a televised debate between Walz and Gutknecht. Gutknecht turned the sponsors down.
MANKATO FREE PRESS: PROTESTERS TAKE ISSUE WITH REPUBLICAN POLICIES
In a side article, MFP's Robb Murray reports that "Protesters take issue with Republican policies; Higher education policies, connection to Foley scandal highlight concerns":
While congressmen met privately Thursday with the College Republicans upstairs, College Democrats waved placards and passed out protest pamphlets downstairs
A dozen or so students, lined up in the hallway of Minnesota State University’s Centennial Student Union, held up signs that read “Family Values” and “Students for Honest Government” and “Protect your children first, reputations second.” Others passed out leaflets decrying the large tuition increases that have hit college students during the last six years.
In general, the group is simply anti-Republican for all the predictable reasons of an election season. But this particular gathering had specific reasons to be upset with the Republican gathering upstairs:
They believe Republican policies on higher education have strapped students with more debt than any previous generation of students. They think Gil Gutknecht (one of the congressmen upstairs, and the man who represents them in Washington) is out of touch with young people. And they’re not happy at all with the actions of the fellow who accompanied Gutknecht — Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio — whose name has been somewhat prominent in the scandal surrounding Mark Foley. (Foley is the representative from Florida who allegedly sent sexually explicit e-mails to male pages working on Capitol Hill.)
“What (Boehner) represents to a lot of us is the problem with the Republicans in power,” said senior Colin Laughlin, a political science major from South Dakota. [there's more]
MANKATO FREE PRESS: POLL SHOWS GUTKNECHT, WALZ IN A DEAD HEAT
Fischenich also covers the new polling results, gathering responses from both camps:
It’s a virtual toss-up in the 1st District congressional race between Rep. Gil Gutknecht and Mankato school teacher Tim Walz, according to a survey earlier this week by an independent national polling project.
Gutknecht, the six-term Republican incumbent from Rochester, was preferred by 48 percent of the more than 1,000 southern Minnesotans interviewed. Walz, a Democrat making his first run for elected office, was favored by 47 percent
“Obviously it’s very exciting,” said Walz campaign spokeswoman Meredith Salsbery. “It does confirm our internal polling.”
The poll was conducted Sunday through Tuesday by Majority Watch, a partnership set up by two independent polling firms to look at competitive House races nationwide in an effort to predict which party will win control the House on Nov. 7. A total of 1,024 likely voters in the 1st District were interviewed in the automated telephone survey. The margin of error was listed at 3.08 percent.
Gutknecht campaign spokesman Bryan Anderson said he hadn’t seen the methodology of the poll, which was released Thursday afternoon.
“With polls, a lot of time the devil’s in the details,” Anderson said.
He was suspicious, however, that the poll showed Democrat Patty Wetterling leading Republican Michelle Bachman (50-45 percent) in Minnesota’s 6th District.
“That’s sort of contradictory to everything else we’ve seen,” he said, referring to earlier polls in that race.
There has been a change this week in the Gutknecht campaign’s characterization of the race. Campaign officials previously predicted that the contest was not particularly competitive.
“We certainly know this is going to be a tough race,” Anderson said Thursday. “It’s a tough climate (for Republicans).” [emphasis BSP]
Jeepers.
MANKATO FREE PRESS: BOEHNER SAYS HE ACTED APPROPRIATELY IN FOLEY MATTER
In a sidebar article, Fischenich proves he asks the tough questions. We appreciate the end of the article:
After the news broke, Boehner told the Washington Post that he, after being informed of inappropriate contact between Foley and the boy, reported it to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who assured him “We’re taking care of it.” Shortly after the Post sought comment from Hastert’s office, Boehner called the Post back to say he couldn’t recall whether he had talked to Hastert about the matter.
“I believe I went to the Speaker and told him,” Boehner said at Thursday’s Mankato press conference. “I did what I thought I should do.”
A Republican member of the House board that oversees the page program testified Thursday that House leaders never told her anything about the problems with Foley. Boehner said that the reason the information wasn’t shared was because House leaders didn’t know about the severity of Foley’s conduct.
“I didn’t know anything about this until it broke in the news,” he said.
House Republican leadership at its finest.
Team Gutknecht certainly generated a lot of earned media from this event, though the political maxim: "If you're explaining, you ain't gaining" comes to mind. Contrast the coverage above with stories from Mankato, Winona and Austin about Max Cleland campaigning with Walz on Tuesday.
AUSTIN DAILY HERALD EDITORIAL: EXCITEMENT GROWS AS ELECTION NEARS
The Austin Daily Herald's editorial looks at the mid-term contests in "Excitement grows as elections near":
Most mid-term elections can be humdrum affairs - just another chance to reaffirm support for incumbents.
Not in ‘06.
This year promises to be an election to shake Washington up, to remind the American voters that their votes really do make a difference.
With low support for Republicans in power, Democrats have a chance to make a sweep that will rival the 1994 “house cleaning” by Republicans, when many of the GOP legislators facing tight races, including Rep. Gil Gutknecht, were first elected.
According to an Associated Press-Pew poll, the level of excitement this year outpaces the level of excitement at this point in 1994.
The poll indicates that 70 percent of those surveyed said they are talking politics with family and friends, and 43 percent are debating political issues at work.
U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said during a visit to the Austin Daily Herald last week that he doesn't sense the anger toward Republicans that the press has been reported. However, the poll seems to correct him, indicating that Democrats are far more enthusiastic about this year's elections than Republicans.
More news and views below the fold.
LA CROSSE TRIBUNE/HOUSTON COUNTY NEWS LTE : I'M FOR TIM
Caledonian Lyn Bissen writes in support of the DFL slate in her area in a letter published in papers published by the River Valley Newspaper Group:
Ads, Web sites, campaign literature — all give information about political candidates. I learned in 2004 and again this year that face-to-face contact through participating in political activity (e.g. caucuses, debates, parades) is helpful as well. As a result, I am writing in support for Democratic candidates Sharon Ropes, Ken Tschumper and Tim Walz.
[snip]
After meeting Tim Walz, I am impressed with his interest in and commitment to improving the “broken” political system in Washington. His integrity is sorely needed as an antidote to the increasing number of scandals implicating our federal politicians, and his years of experience as a veteran may help address the ever more apparent problems with the Iraq war and the “war” on terrorism. . . .
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