In an amazing piece of journalism, Pat Doyle of the Minneapolis Star Tribune researchs and writes about the Minnesota Senate race. This is a rare occurence at the Strib. Due to the cutbacks, there aren't enough writers around to thoroughly cover this race, so it doesn't get the coverage and analysis it deserves. Also, they tend to toss a story to whomever has a few spare moments. The writer slaps something together without any background knowledge of the race and often provides threadbare or distorted analysis.
Doyle is the latest writer to be tossed a MN-SEN story which happens to be about the fundraising of the three big campaigns. Doyle does a good job researching and analyzing the race in a meaningful way. If Doyle were given the sole assignment of covering this race, I would stop my incessant moaning.
-- cross-posted from mnblue.com, home of the Norm Coleman Weasel Meter --
More so than in recent elections, Minnesota's U.S. Senate race is being financed by people who don't live in Minnesota.
Together, the three major candidates get a much greater share of their contributions from out-of-state residents than did Senate candidates in 2002 and 2006.
It's a reflection of the unusual celebrity drawing power of DFLer Al Franken and the power of incumbency for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. But it also is a sign of what some observers say is the nationalization of state politics.
"Because the agenda and the institutions have become more partisan, people understand that they have a stake in elections that are outside their own," said Michael Malbin, executive director of the Campaign Finance Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Washington, D.C.
"Lobbyists have always understood it," Malbin said. "Now average people understand that."
(Star Tribune)
Doyle touches upon the understanding among progressives across the nation have about how conservatives like Norm Coleman and Joe Lieberman as well as the Bush Dog Dems like Ben Nelson and Dianne Feinstein undermine anything we progressives want done in the Senate. They are the enablers of an imperial presidency. They are enablers of torture of prisoners of war. They are the enablers of the worst administration in the history of the United States.
We progressives want them gone.
Al Franken is simply taking advantage of this understanding to build a campaign that will dump Norm Coleman into the dustbin of political history. Mike Ciresi and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer are not capable of tapping into the mindset. Ciresi only discovered internet fundraising when Franken received the Blue America endorsement. Jack barely registers outside of the Twin Cities let alone in other parts of the country.
Many, many people want Norm Coleman gone. They see Al Franken's campaign. They give to Al. Al is outraising Norm and I'm all for it.