That Sucking Sound

Conventional wisdom is that Saint Paul mayor Randy Kelly dug himself a deep, deep hole when he broke DFL ranks and endorsed President Bush in in the '04 election. Saint Paul, of course, is Democrat in the same way that Paris Hilton is vacuous.

And yet, bit by bit, things are tidying up for the mayor. First, the Saint Paul Police Federation endorsed the mayor.

Now, the Minneapolis police federation has reached across the river and done the same.

First Ringer has a lot of excellent insights into the St.Paul mayoral race so far:

Has the Coleman camp passed the point of no return? Not yet and it still may never. Coleman is the far superior general election candidate while Ortega represents the same mindset that endorsed an uber-liberal candidate in Jay Benanav in 2001 and lost (albeit very narrowly). Kelly’s Bush Baggage might be enough to sink him against any opponent, but Ortega’s progressive past isn’t a slam dunk at the November ballot box otherwise Benanav and many other DFL endorsed mayoral candidates would have won in elections past. Given the DFL’s horrible history with mayoral endorsements in St. Paul (the last endorsed candidate for mayor won in the late 80’s), Coleman might consider running in a primary in which he’d fair better. That’s most likely a step farther than he’s willing to go, although he’s done it in the past. In fact his endorsement history is probably the reason why he’s struggling against a mediocre opponent.

By the way, if you're not reading First Ring for Minnesota politics analysis, you need to.

Posted by Mitch at April 13, 2005 06:58 AM | TrackBack