In Wednesday's Politics in Minnesota interview, Seifert: ‘Depth and breadth of experience,’ the former minority leader from Marshall tells Mike Mosedale:
CR: Your three rivals live in suburban Hennepin County and you’re from outstate. Does being “the rural candidate” help or hurt?
Seifert: I don’t characterize myself as the rural guy. [emphasis added] But I think by default I get pigeonholed that way. There are certain demographics characteristics that make me unique among the candidates and they are what they are. I’m the only Catholic. I’m the only candidate who has spent his whole life in Minnesota. I’m the only candidate from a rural area. I’m not campaigning on that. But when people observe that we are traveling everywhere, I think it does send a message that I’m there for everybody. I don’t see it as a chore to go to rural Minnesota, because I live there.
As avid readers of rural newspapers, we were obviously totally snookered by the headlines we'd read.
The Crookston Times reported in 2014 Minnesota Gubernatorial Election - Seifert: Rural roots set him apart:
Minnesotans haven't elected a governor from greater Minnesota since Rudy Perpich, and Marty Seifert thinks it's high time that someone who knows a thing or two about rural Minnesota is elected once again to Minnesota's highest office.
During a stop at the Crookston Municipal Airport Wednesday that was part of several stops he made in the region, the Republican who lives in Marshall focused on his rural upbringing on a farm in a town with a population of around 100. If elected in November, Seifert said he will be a governor who focuses just as much on rural Minnesota's needs as he does the needs of Minnesota's larger metropolitan areas. . . .
The St. Cloud Times noted in Seifert criss-crosses state, banking on rural support:
Marty Seifert is going all-in on being outstate Minnesota's choice in the GOP primary for governor.
Seifert, the former state House Minority Leader from Marshall, is one of five Republicans vying in a primary to face DFL Gov. Mark Dayton in November.
With the primary campaign in full swing, Seifert hopes hopping from small town to small town, as well as his outstate pedigree, will press his advantage in those areas. . . .
Other Republicans running in the governor primary — businessman Scott Honour, Hennepin County commissioner Jeff Johnson, who's the GOP-endorsed candidate, and former state House Speaker Kurt Zellers — are from the Twin Cities area.
That has Seifert seeing an opening. . . .
From the Northland News Center in Duluth, we read in Marty Seifert talks up rural roots in Minnesota Governor Race:
. . .As the only candidate for governor who lives outside the Twin Cities, Seifert emphasized his rural roots when he met with voters in Duluth and the Iron Range Tuesday. . . .
And in the New Ulm Journal back in 2013, we read in the article Seifert touts leadership, rural credentials in governor bid:
There are a lot of good reasons Marty Seifert thinks Minnesotans should vote for him for governor, but one reason should especially resonate with New Ulm voters.
"No candidate for governor drives on Highway 14 as much as Marty Seifert," the GOP hopeful said in an interview Friday. His wife has relatives in the Mankato area, and the couple makes the drive frequently.
"I"ve driven past the orange poles between Nicollet and North Mankato, and I know we need a four-lane highway." . . .
Then there's the lede in the Grand Forks Herald story, GOP candidate for Minnesota governor makes Grand Forks stop on tour:
Marty Seifert hopes his rural roots will help him become the Republican candidate for Minnesota governor this fall.
Or take the conclusion to Seifert hopes to set himself apart with travel, published in the Owatonna People's Press:
Seifert said the long campaign tours set him apart from other candidates and give him the perspective needed for the job he’s seeking. In places like Worthington and Crookston, he’s been quoted as saying those areas won’t be “flyover country” under his watch.
He repeated the phrase for Owatonna and emphasized that he’s just another southern Minnesotan.
“If people from this area are looking for someone who is the most like them, they’re probably going to vote for me,” he said.
As a resident of a small city (population 266) in Rural Minnesota, Bluestem's editor is deeply grateful that Seifert cleared this point up with the insiders who read Politics In Minnesota (the article is behind a paywall), and that he is so not running as that "rural guy."
We must now move on to the next fascinating article in PIM, Is there a First Amendment right to lie in politics? by Hamline University prof David Schultz.
Photo: Marty Seifert, who doesn't "characterize myself as the rural guy" and claims that "by default I get pigeonholed that way" according to a new interview in Politics in Minnesota.
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