Strib on the First: Golly, gee, how could it be?

The Strib covers the race in the Fighting First in a pair of articles, which continue to ascribe interest in the race to "buzz." 

Kevin "Dictaphone" Diaz dutifully records the latest take on the race by America's favorite Wikipedia-tweaking politician.  To read Diaz's article, you'd think that Gutknecht never voted over 90% of the time with his party nor brought in GOP leadership to campaign for him.

Typical passage from Diaz's article:

Political analysts differ as to whether Gutknecht, who ran for office as "the Minnesota equivalent of Newt Gingrich," has anything to worry about in a year of Republican angst.

The Rothenberg Political Report says the race "doesn't look particularly competitive," while National Journal's Hotline rates it in the top 50, reflecting a national shift toward Democrats.

Nowadays, Gutknecht is more likely to be heard talking about his populist "Teddy Roosevelt Republican" tendencies than about Gingrich, who suffered a messy fall from power.

This is truly astonishing reporting, given that Gutknecht brought Gingrich in to campaign for him in Rochester at a $1000 per plate fundraising dinner in Rochester within the last month.    The Rochester Post Bulletin's Matt Stolle reported at the time:

GOP Rep. Gil Gutknecht and DFL challenger Tim Walz brought in a couple of political heavyweights on Sunday in the latest sign that the U.S. congressional race is shaping up to be a dogfight.

Rep. John Murtha, a 16-term Pennsylvania Democrat and former Marine, stumped for Walz during a political rally at the home of a southwest Rochester couple. Meanwhile, former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was the main attraction at a Gutknecht fundraiser in the Radisson Hotel in downtown Rochester.

Their speeches and comments reflected the political divide over the four-year-old Iraq war and its relationship to the war on terrorism. They also underscored the issue's prominence in political races across the country, including Minnesota's 1st Congressional District, where the 12-year incumbent Gutknecht is fending off a challenge by political newcomer Walz.

There's a companion article about Tim Walz by Bob von Sternberg. It's slightly longer than Diaz's article on Gutknecht, but that can be attributed to the lead and conclusion being handed over to Walz's daughter Hope. Von Sternberg's article is competent, if scattered. It is haunted by the same "Golly gee, how can this buzz be?" take that characterizes the Strib's coverage of Walz. Some passages:

Despite the advantage enjoyed by any incumbent, Walz, 42, has generated enough buzz nationally that the race is considered competitive, if still leaning Republican, by many organizations. A poll released last week by Constituent Dynamics shows the race as a tossup with Gutknecht at 48 percent to Walz's 47 percent.

          [snip]

In a way, Walz is something of an accidental candidate. A Nebraska native, he taught geography and coached football at Mankato West High School for the past decade. He got his political initiation in 2004 when campaign aides for President Bush tried to keep him out of a campaign event and tossed out two of his students.

"That got me started," he said. "I called the party and asked what I could do for Kerry's campaign," he said. "I took over Blue Earth County and the campaign got me into the mechanics of it and made me think I could do this. I was incredibly naive."

Chris Gilbert, a political science professor at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., said, "By all rights this race shouldn't be competitive, but it's being watched nationally. It's more about the condition of the Republicans in general than Gutknecht in particular. That could give the Democrats their best chance since the late '90s. There's a glimmer of hope for them."

The district isn't a deep red one, Gilbert said. "You've got two solid DFL centers in Austin and Mankato, and Rochester is more DFL than it used to be."

[snip]

Back at the pig roast on Diane Berge's farm just outside of Kasson, hundreds of Walz supporters were mostly milling around, not talking politics, while Walz performed an affable, somewhat self-conscious, grip-and-grin routine among them.

"When you watch him campaign, 'polish' is not the word that comes to mind," Gilbert said. "But I'm not sure polish is much of an asset in a year like 2006."

Diane Berge turned her farm over to the candidate after listening to him speak at a house party.

"He's not a politician, and I like that," she said. "He's not afraid to try changing things. He had my vote after I listened to him for 10 minutes. I am fed up with this administration, this Congress, the whole thing in Washington."

Von Sternberg at least allows Walz to deflate the "strong maverick streak" that Diaz puffs for Gutknecht:

Iraq could prove to be one of Walz's most potent issues, because Gutknecht created a stir last summer when he said the situation there was worse than he had believed and called for troop withdrawals.

"I decided to stay away from that issue at first, to see if he had really changed his mind," Walz said. "But he ran right back to the president."

 

Comments

[Ollie Ox]

Yes, he is a reporter, not a columnist, but part of a reporter's job is to check facts. To write that Gutknecht avoids the subject of Gingrich is to write against the fact of Gutknecht's embrace of Gingrich within the boundaries of the district.

This tweaking of fact would be acceptable in a column, but in a news report, it's just bad reporting.