Today's Rochester Post Bulletin editorializes on how Minnesota's junior senator takes a stand on DM&E. The board is pleased with Coleman's move:
. . .This is the kind of support Rochester needs from Coleman. That he took some time getting here is less important than where he is now. . . .
The paper looks at a possible motive for Coleman's new-found support of the Rochester Coalition:
. . What is certain is that Coleman has, at some point around the time of the last election, had a moment of enlightenment. Perhaps he sees a connection between Rep. Gil Gutknecht's decision not to support Rochester's opposition to the DM&E project and Gutknecht's election defeat. Gutknecht, after all, failed to even carry his home county, Olmsted.
But why and when Coleman came to support Rochester is not what matters. What's important is that the city has gained the vocal support of an important player in the process. Now Coleman has to put his words to action.
Over at the Minnesota Monitor, Leigh Pomeroy has dug up some enlightening election returns from the past few elections that demonstrate why Norm Coleman might be concerned about not letting the Republican base in Rochester slip out of his hands. Go over to Minnesota Monitor to check out the numbers.
Coleman won the Senate in 2002 with 49.53% of the vote to Walter Mondale's 47.34%; the next contest may well be decided by as close a margin.
According to the Minnesota Secretary of State's website, Coleman received 27564 votes, or 52.93 percent of the vote in Olmsted County. In the same election year, Gutknecht received 33323 votes in Olmsted County, while he lost to Tim Walz in his home county this year. Surely, the willingness of Rochester's voters create such dramatic movement based on this issue can't be lost on Senator Coleman's campaign strategists.
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