Political Party

Wade for Congress?

Local Republicans say Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce President John Wade is considering running for the 1st Congressional District seat currently held by Democrat Tim Walz.

Here is a link to today's story. When asked whether he was considering a run for Congress, Wade said "I am not ruling anything out." He did add that his focus for now remains on his job as chamber president.

"Right now I am focusing on what I do, and that is focusing on building jobs in this community," Wade said.

But an online search shows the Wade did buy the domain name "wadeforcongress.com" on Nov. 17, 2006 -- shortly after Walz won re-election. Republican Party of Olmsted County Co-chair Bruce Kaskubar said Wade had announced a few weeks ago at a Christmas dinner that he was considering running for the seat.

"He has good name recognition, at least in our corner of the district," Kaskubar said. "He has got experience. He was a key member of Gil Gutknecht's staff, so he knows the political territory."

So far, four Republicans have announced they're running for the seat: Assistant House Minority Leader Randy Demmer of Hayfield, Jim Hagedorn of Blue Earth, retired military veteran Frank McKinzie of Rochester, and former state Rep. Allen Quist of St. Peter.

Rochester businessman to challenge Lynch

Jim Gander, owner of Superior Plumbing & Heating, is planning to challenge Sen. Ann Lynch for the Senate District 30 Seat.

Gander filed his paperwork last week to establish a campaign committee with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.

Gander is a well-known figure in the Rochester business community. He started his business in 1982 selling water treatment products out of his Rochester home. Since then, his business has swelled to more than 150 employees. He is the past president of the Minnesota Builders Association. Gander will be seeking the Republican endorsement for the seat.

The Post-Bulletin interviewed Gander recently about his concerns with the Democrats' health care reform proposal. Here is also a light-hearted question and answer with him from Rochester Magazine.

Lynch, a Democrat, is completing her first-term in the Minnesota Senate after winning election in 2006.

Bradford vows to stay in House race this time

Two years ago, Republican Chuck Bradford voluntarily dropped his bid for the Minnesota House 29A seat to support fellow Republican Rep. Randy Demmer.

Bradford has jumped into the race after Demmer announced he was running for the 1st Congressional District seat held by Democratic Rep. Tim Walz. But when he lost the GOP endorsement to Rochester Dr. Brian Davis, Demmer decided to run for re-election to his House seat. And Bradford, a Demmer supporter, stepped aside.

Once again, Demmer has announced he is running for Congress. The Hayfield Republican has said this time he has no intention of seeking re-election to his seat. But even if Demmer changes his mind, Bradford vowed he is staying in this time.

"I am focused on this race, and I am going to see it through," he said.

He said he plans to stick in the race until the Republican endorsement made and that he will honor that process.

Bradford, 44, currently serves on the Mantorville City Council. He has been an active member of the Republican Party for 20 years and is a member of the Rochester Tea Party Patriots.

If elected, Bradford said he would focus on slicing state spending to address projected budget shortfalls.

“We need to step back and say, ‘Why are we going to continue to expand the growth of government by 20 percent over the biennium over the last 20 years when our citizens income has not grown in that same fashion?’”

So far, no Democrats have announced plans to run for the seat.

More candidates jump into local House races

December has proven to be a busy month for candidate announcements.

Republican Chuck Bradford is expected to announce Tuesday in Rochester that he will run for the House seat currently held by fellow Republican Rep. Randy Demmer of Hayfield.

Demmer is seeking the Republican endorsement for the 1st Congressional District seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Tim Walz. Demmer has already said he does not plan to run for re-election.

Bradford, of Mantorville, ran for the seat during the last election but dropped out after Demmer failed to get the GOP endorsement for the congressional seat and decided to run for re-election to the House
District 29A seat. Bradford current serves on the Mantorville City Council and is chair of the Dodge County Republicans. He is also an active member of the Rochester Tea Party Patriots.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, veteran DFL state Rep. Gene Pelowski is getting some competition from within his own party. The Winona Daily News reports that Winona City Councilwoman Debbie White plans to challenge Pelowski for the District 31A
House seat.

The Winona Daily News quotes a statement from White as to why she is running.

“At this time of great economic challenges, we need a leader who will
listen to the needs of the people in the district. We can no longer afford
to ignore the needs of the people of our district — it is time for new
leadership.”

Rhett Zenke has announced he will seek the Republican endorsement for the
seat.

Sen. Dick Day to resign seat to lead 'Racino Now'

Owatonna Republican Sen. Dick Day announced this morning he is resigning his seat effective Jan. 8 to become president of a new organization called "Racino Now."  Here is the press release:

Day will become president of Racino Now, a grass roots coalition of
business leaders, horse racing fans and citizens who want to bring
racino to Minnesota

St. Paul - Minnesota State Senator Dick Day (R-Owatonna) will resign
his senate seat to lead a newly organized effort to achieve legislative
approval for slot and video games at Canterbury Park and Running Aces
racetracks.  His resignation is effective January 8, 2010.

“Anyone who knows me knows that a racino at Canterbury Park has been
one of my top legislative priorities for 12 years, since 1997 when I
first proposed the idea to fund a new Twins ballpark.  Every year I have
tried to get the legislature to see how the people of Minnesota could
benefit from my plan, to see the various ways we could use the hundreds
of millions of dollars the state would earn from racinos.

“Now I have the opportunity to work full time toward this end, and I
look forward to traveling throughout the state to talk to Minnesotans
about the many ways we will all gain from these two racinos,” Day
said.

Day further said, “Racinos will bring thousands of jobs and $250
million a biennium in revenue to our state.  The money could be used for
programs such as education, transportation, health care or to fund a
stadium. With the recent news of a $1.2 billion budget shortfall, it’s
clear we need racino now.”

Racinos are currently legal in twelve states where they bring in $2.5
billion a year in revenue from gaming for state and local governments.
Racinos around the country employ over 29,000 people.

Day was first elected to the Minnesota Senate in 1990.  He served as
minority leader of the Republican caucus from 1997-2006, longer than any
other minority leader in the state’s history.

“I am grateful to the people of Rice, Waseca and especially Steele
County and my hometown of Owatonna for the confidence they have shown in
me over my many years in elective office. They have deserved - and I
hope feel they have received - my very best effort to serve their
interests,” Day concluded.

Senator Day has accepted the position of president of Racino Now.

Tea Party attracts more voters than GOP, new poll finds

Here is an interesting new survey that finds candidates identified with the Tea Party movement draw more voters then the Republican Party.

A new Rasmussen Reports Poll found that in a three-way generic ballot test, a national survey found Democrats attracting 36 percent of voters. The Tea Party candidate drew 23 percent and Republicans finished third with 18 percent. Another 22 percent were undecided.

But perhaps even more significant is the Tea Party's popularity with the all important independent voters. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party garners the most votes. Thirty-three percent of voters questions preferred the Tea Party candidate and 30 percent were undecided. Twenty-five percent said they would vote for a Democrat and 12 percent preferred the Republican.

Here is a link to the new poll.

Hagedorn scrubs blog posts

Minnesota bloggers have discovered that 1st Congressional District Republican candidate Jim Hagedorn appears to have sanitized his blog "Mr. Conservative" in advance of his announcement yesterday that he is running. Bluestem Prairie notes that it appears all entries prior to 2004 have been scrubbed.

A Bluestem Prairie blog post from October includes some of these deleted posts. The Minnesota Independent also has a story about the removed posts that mocked Wellstone mourners and Rod Grams' infidelities.

Here is one example of a deleted post about the funeral for former Sen. Paul Wellstone who died in a plane crash:

"About the memorial service. Was it just me or did it not seem as if someone bailed out the union thugs; tree huggers; abortion rights feminists; peaceniks; citizens for gay animal rights; NAMBLA members and the other Marxist sympathizers who protested at last month’s IMF meetings, and transported them to Wellstone’s memorial in a slew of green busses? Talk about lefties all in one convenient location. Hopefully after the ceremony they fumigated the arena."

There is another interesting post regarding the 2002 race in South Dakota and efforts to register Native Americans to vote.

"The race has been highlighted by a Democrat drive to register voters in several of South Dakota’s expansive redistribution of wealth centers…err…casino parlors…err…Indian Reservations. Remarkably, many of the voters registered for absentee ballots were found to be chiefs and squaws who had returned to the spirit world many moons ago. What is truly astonishing is not that the Democrats would cheat, but that the FBI and other law enforcement types actually took the initiative to catch them.

Voter backlash against the Democrat’s (typical) election-stealing maneuvers will be the margin of victory for Thune. Leave it to liberals to ruin John Wayne’s* wisdom of the only good Indian being a dead Indian."

Hagedorn announces run for Congress

Republican Jim Hagedorn made it official this morning that he is running for the 1st Congressional District seat held by Democrat Tim Walz.

Hagedorn is the son of former Minnesota Congressman Tom Hagedorn. The junior Hagedorn recently moved back to his hometown of Blue Earth to run in the race.

In a news release, Hagedorn is quoted as saying "The greatness of America is under assault by the liberal politicians who run Washington D.C. The big government agenda of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Tim Walz is in direct conflict with our free enterprise system and the enduring principles of liberty, individual opportunity, personal responsibility and traditional cultural values."

He goes on to call Walz a "thoughtless liberal" and voices concern that the U.S. is headed toward "European socialism."

Hagedorn has spent the past 25 years working on Capitol Hill. He was a former legislative assistant to Minnesota Congressman Arlan Stangeland. He also worked for two agencies of the U.S. Department of Treasury. He is currently working as director of government relations and corporate development for Eltromed,

The news release also outlines Hagedorn's priorities.

"Hagedorn cites his congressional priorities as implementing Reagan/JFK economic policies to help small business create jobs; slashing federal spending through top-to-bottom reviews of all federal agencies, beginning with the Pentagon; limiting government by returning power to the states; restructuring foreign entanglements and defunding “nation building;” and defending the American way of life and traditional culture."

Here is a link to the Web site.

He joins former state Rep. Allen Quist of St. Peter and state Rep. Randy Demmer of Hayfield who have already announced they are running for the Republican nomination.

DFL attacks Demmer for opposing "jobs and growth"

Minnesota DFL Party Chair Brian Melendez released the following statement regarding Hayfield Republican Rep. Randy Demmer's announcement he would run for the 1st Congressional District seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Tim Walz.

“As a state representative, Randy Demmer gladly accepted federal Recovery Act money for southern Minnesota. But now he is speaking out against all the jobs created by federal recovery money to gain favor with the Tea Baggers and ultra conservatives — even calling the 7,000 teaching positions created or saved a waste. He believes the construction jobs created by highway work in Rochester were a waste; he believes the jobs created by replacing Highway 169 in St. Peter were the result of a free-for-all, and he believes that the jobs created by rebuilding the water plant in Waseca simply weren’t worth it. Do voters in southern Minnesota really want a representative who opposes jobs and growth?"

The statement goes on to praise Walz.

“Representative Walz is working to create jobs, fire up the economy and curb out-of-control health-care costs. He is focused on getting the job done and delivering for southern Minnesotans. Representative Walz has a proven record in Congress as a leader for Minnesota values, and his constituents will remember that record when they reelect him in November.”

Demmer said "worst fears" pushed him to run for Congress

In an interview this afternoon, Hayfield Republican Rep. Randy Demmer said concerns about the growth of government prompted him to jump in the 1st Congressional District race.

“The worst fears we could imagine about government intervention, about government growth not just in terms of spending and taxation but just even the intervention in our lives is too much for me to take,” he said.

Demmer is expected to make his bid official tomorrow morning at an 8:30 a.m. press conference at the Olmsted County Government Center in Rochester. He said he does not plan to run for re-election to the legislature and instead will focus all of his energy on the congressional race.

This marks the second time Demmer has sought the seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Tim Walz. He launched a campaign bid in 2007 but lost the GOP endorsement to Rochester Dr. Brian Davis. Davis ended up losing to Walz, with the Democrat garnering nearly 63 percent of the vote.

Demmer joins former state Rep. Allen Quist of St. Peter, who has already announced he is seeking the Republican endorsement in the race. The local Republican said he intends to abide by the GOP endorsement, although he would not shut the door completely to running without it.

“My plan right now would be to seek that endorsement, and I guess at this point in time I would plan to abide by it. I think it would be extremely difficult to not (abide by it), but one thing I’ve learned is never say never,” he said.

He cites the Democrats' health care reform plan as a prime example of government going too far. He said he believes it is a first step toward a single-payer health care system. He added it is also time to curb federal spending adding that "under the term 'stimulus,' anything and everything goes."

Demmer said he also opposes the cap-and-trade bill aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions saying it would harm the state's agricultural industry.