Residual Forces

For decades Rep. Sabo has held the same office, and of late, has won the elections with nary an effort. They were more of a formality than anything else. As long as I can remember, he hasn’t faced much if any of a serious challenge. So his stepping down, mysteriously after Caucus, leaves one asking the question. Can a Republican win, or even place in the race to replace Sabo?

I find the timing of the announcement suspect to cronyism. I think he waited until after the Caucuses to avoid any and all risk of a straw poll picking someone other than his handpicked successor, longtime sidekick/Chief of Staff, Mike Erlandson. Don’t forget it was Erdlanson who was moonlighting as DFL Chair and Sabo’s Chief of staff recently, not to mention Erlandson just happens to be a regular fill in and weekend host on local liberal radio. Him not being in the MN Legislature this election cycle means no embarrassing votes that could be exploited in a Congressional run.

If I was a betting man, I’d say Erlandson will be THE candidate on the ballot in November. I think Sabo will simply hand off the keys to the kingdom to Erlandson.

That gets me to the important part of all of this. Can Republicans capitalize? In order for Minnesota to turn Red this cycle, we need more votes! In both of the last 2 major elections, the Republicans, Pawlenty in 02 and Bush in 04, came up well short of 51%. All indicators are pointing for the 06 election to be back to the 2 party system, where a majority will likely be needed since there doesn’t seem to be strong support for a third party candidate. (I concede this is arguable, but work with me here.)

The US Senate race is clearly a 2 party race between Amy Klobuchar, who is shrugging off a tough fighter in Ford Bell, and Mark Kennedy who has little chance of not securing the endorsement. If there is a 3rd party candidate, I couldn’t tell you their name.

In the Governor’s race: The DFL is hashing out who will be their candidate, and that will most likely end up being decided in a Primary deep into the election cycle, rather than by Party Endorsement early in the summer. Republicans are rapidly getting behind their incumbent Governor, Tim pawlenty. There is some clamoring for 3rd Parties in this race, but I think it is merely token at this point. Peter Hutchinson and Sue Jeffers are trying to rebuild the 3rd Parties from scratch, in essence, that were gutted and demoralized by the previous candidates while they are trying to campaign, and I do not see them as a serious contender in this one.

In order for Mark Kennedy and Tim Pawlenty to win, I think they will need 51%. In order to do that, they need to get into the urban markets. There are very few pick up votes in the out-state, or suburbs anymore. I used to think that getting someone to take out 4th District Rep. McCollum was the key to swinging the state Red. I thought that she was the most vulnerable of the 2 Metropolitan DFLers, and the vote margins were much more realistic to deal with. (80,000 needed in the 4th, 141,000 in the 5th)

So now that Sabo has opened up the 5th, the potential for a Republican to at least place in the contest is very very good. I do not believe that the 5th District is as Liberal (or anti-Republican) as Sabo’s vote tallies would lead you to believe. It was more out of habit that he kept getting the voter’s blessing every year. They were just so used to marking his name after all the years, and with out a serious alternative, what else were they to do. I think that if the Republicans could get a good solid well known person to run, they’d have a great chance of winning, or more realistically, pealing off enough votes to win the state wide race.

Remember everyone, the Governor and US Senate race are state wide, and the margin of victory or loss in each Congressional District matters. If the Republicans could at the very least be competitive in the 5th, we have a great chance of being a Red state by the end of the year. Kerry beat Bush by 100,000 votes, so if we can flip 50,001 voters, we’re a Red state. Now that the Republicans are not forced to take on the franchise candidate in Sabo, this really makes that great possibility a reality.

If we can pick up just marginal votes in these 2 Districts, we’ve done it. We”ll be a Red State, with a Second term Republican Governor, and 2, count them, 2 Republican US Senators.