OK, I hear a lot of people saying that Patty should run for the 6th CD, the district that Kennedy is vacating, and my home district. It's hogwash, and a lot of it is from people who don't understand the realities of MN-6. The only reason it only "leans" Republican is that it had a weak incumbent in Mark Kennedy. This is serious pro-life country up here, folks. Let's put this one to bed.
People don't seem to have all the facts. I hear a lot of people saying, "Patty should run for the 6th! She did really well there!" True, Patty got 46% in the 5 counties where Wellstone got 36% and Roger Moe got 35%. A great job, and not something to underestimate. But did any of you actually read the Mark Mellman poll that is out there? She has 48% negatives in the 6th, with 46% positives. That's not 48% "don't know," or "undecided," that's 48%
negative. If you looked at a poll that showed 48% of voters had already lined up against you, what would you want to do?
Yet everyone in the state saw those negative Kennedy ads, and she still has 2:1 favorables over unfavorables statewide. To me, 46% in the 6th is an incredible base to draw from, but for a pro-choice candidate, she has squeezed every last drop of support out of the district.
I know that a lot of pro-life Republican women crossed over and voted for Patty last time. The leading candidates for the Republican nomination in the sixth are Cheri Pierson Yecke and Michele Bachmann. Do you really think she has a better chance against a credible (though certainly extreme) female candidate? I don't buy it. Sure, Kennedy was an incumbent, but he was a much weaker than average incumbent. The man can barely speak in complete sentences.
"Yeah, but Patty didn't know enough about issues in the congressional race." Get real here, it was a 6-month race that she was essentially thrust into unprepared. We're far enough out that it's not an issue. I would be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that she's reading as much as she can right now, preparing herself. Don't worry. And even WITH all those concerns about her campaign, she still outperformed Kerry by 4% in the most conservative district in the state.
Come on, people, based on geography ALONE, Patty makes more sense for the Senate. Hennepin County will go for the DFLer whether it is Patty or its own county attorney. Patty's been to every little town and school across the state, and she will certainly outperform Klobuchar in areas outside the metro, and shouldn't our focus be on putting the candidate forward for the Senate seat with the best chance to win? People (mainly from the Cities) talk about Klobuchar for Senate and Patty for the Sixth, but why not Patty for the Senate and Klobuchar for AG? As Minnesotans, we must keep Tim Pawlenty in check, and losing the Attorney General slot to a Republican would be awful. Hatch has all but announced for Governor, so I'd prefer to see Klobuchar take on his job and take on Norm in 2008. This should be about who's the right person to beat Mark Kennedy. And that person is, without a shred of doubt in my mind, Patty Wetterling.
Not to be a poll junkie, but that same Mellman poll (MoE +/- 4) showed Wetterling beating Kennedy by 9 points, Klobuchar beating Kennedy by 2 points, with Ciresi and McCollum both losing to Kennedy. And among people who knew both Wetterling and Kennedy, that lead expanded to 14 points. Granted, it's early, and I take all polls with a grain of salt, but this comes on the heels of a hotly contested House race that garnered national interest, so the numbers have some value.
Like I said, I'm from the 6th district, and I would love to be represented by a Democrat. But I'm also a realist, so please believe me when I tell you that SHE SHOULDN'T RUN HERE. Hell, our own CD Chair, Greg Hansen, is pushing Patty to run for the Senate. A Democrat can win the 6th, but Patty is not that Democrat. If Klobuchar beats her for the nomination, it'd be too late for Patty to get the nomination for the 6th anyway, so stop wasting your breath. Besides, she's said to local democratic groups that she's not running for the 6th. She's running for the Senate. End of story.
I think Amy Klobuchar's a loyal Democrat, and her fundraising numbers in the first quarter are certainly impressive, but calling her campaign grassroots is misleading at best, as it ignores her connections to big Minneapolis money (not that this is bad; I'd love to have connections to Minneapolis money). Let's take a look behind the numbers, too. Patty's been fundraising for 3 weeks. Amy Klobuchar's been fundraising for 8 weeks (she was on the phones the day that Mark Dayton decided not to run--I know, she called my brother, a lawyer in Mpls, that day to contribute). Patty has over 4,200 donors. I would be absolutely shocked if Amy had a quarter of that.
Amy's a good prosecutor. But she's got a record to attack, and we're all kidding ourselves if the Republicans aren't going to tear that to shreds. They threw everything they could find at Patty this last time, and all the Republican smear machine came up with was that she was inexperienced, and that she was supported by MoveOn and trial lawyers. And if I may remind you, that was good enough to outperform John Kerry by 4 points in the district.
And all I hear about Amy Klobuchar is her experience, but the only contested race she's ever had was for Hennepin County Attorney in 1998. I think Amy will be a great candidate someday. I just have serious doubts that she, as a liberal lawyer from Minneapolis, can beat Mark Kennedy. Independents and moderates decide Minnesota statewide elections, and Amy just can't match Patty's appeal to them. Go for Attorney General first, Amy. AG first.
The bottom line is this: With so much at stake, we must run our strongest candidate for the highest seat. And that, my friends, is Patty Wetterling.