Well, That Stank
By Mitch Berg
A very wise guy who works in politics (and writes occasionally on this blog) once told me one of the key psychological dynamics of working on quixotic, underdog campaigns.
“There comes a moment”, he said, “when you start to think maybe, just maybe, you can pull this off”. And then reality hits, and you end up with 40, or 30, percent of the vote.
Or less.
I hit that moment, briefly, on Monday night. We talked with a lot of people – like, every registered Republican in the district. It seemed like, with the benefit of some low turnout, we could make it happen.
Can’t win ’em all.
Greg Copeland’s Senate candidacy cratered hard yesterday, getting 20% of the vote in the special election to replace Ellen Anderson.
Let’s focus on the good news for a moment.
The Saint Paul GOP – really, much of the Fourth CD, especially the part south of County Road C – has been essentially moribund for at least a decade. Here in the city, most candidacies, especially for the legislature, but even for Congress – have been paper races; warm bodies on the ballot with no serious effort. Even the ones that put in the effort – Obi Sium’s race for Congress in 2006 – had no money. Even the ones that could raise some money had little or no help from the parties – volunteers, phone-calling, database maintenance. They were on their own.
This campaign was different. Over 100 volunteers turned out for the race – more than have worked on every other SD66 race combined in the past 10-15 years. And they knocked on a hell of a lot of doors, and the campaign called every single known Republican in the district at least once. And the fundraising, while not lavish, was very impressive by the standards we’ve seen. There were precincts that saw Republican door-knockers (at least on a legislative) for the first time in years. Maybe a decade.
The hope? The fact that there is some help available with all the scutwork of the campaign means that, with a little follow-through, we can start recruiting more, better candidates for races all up and down the chain – school boards, city councils, the legislature, Congress, whatever.
And let’s be honest – for all the exultation of the DFLers on the blogs and Twitter, an old-school DFL apparatchik winning in SD66 isn’t man bites dog, or even dog bites man. It’s dog licks dog.
The bad news? Whew. Saint Paul is pretty far gone. How far gone? A campaign whose focus was “Do the right thing for Saint Paul – work to keep the money coming from Moorhead and Minnetonka!” got 80% of the vote.
In 2008, around 8,000 people voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin in District 66 – about 30% of the vote. 10,000 voted for Norm Coleman. In 2010, about 7,000 voted for Tom Emmer. The Republican Party estimates that there are about 4,000 hard-core Republicans in the district. Candidates for nationwide and statewide races can frequently pull those kinds of numbers. The campaign figured, initially, that if they could get 75% of those Republicans out to vote, they’d have won. And they were right…
…but races for local and legislative offices never quite get to that level. Copeland got around 1,000 votes.
My theory? Republicans in Saint Paul are, with a nod to The Boss, like dogs that have been beaten too much. Most of us know that our votes, in a one-party city like Saint Paul, just haven’t mattered in local or legislative races in decades. Maybe with statewide or national races – but not in the city. Not at the capitol.
Before the campaign, I said it’d be a ten year job to rebuild the Fourth CD; to build a human infrastructure of volunteers (and, heaven forbid, paid staff) to do the back-office and street work; to build a fundraising network that can support credible races; most importantly, to build the impression that voting against the suffocating DFL machine has an actual effect.
I said ten years. I’ll stick by that.
April 13th, 2011 at 7:58 am
Mitch: CD4 and CD5 are absolute lost causes. As proven by last night and…history. When the GOP has at-risk seats, there is no reason to expend the time, money, or volunteer resources to try to change it. I know its tough to take, but I’d rather see us keep or expand in areas where we actually have more than a snowball’s-chance-in-hell.
April 13th, 2011 at 8:08 am
Been there, done that when I helped Derek Brigham as he tried to run against Education Minnesota and the DFL machine (pardon the redundancy).
Sucks, doesn’t it?
April 13th, 2011 at 9:16 am
Kermit and I share the same district. I am familiar with humiliating, pointless campaigns against entrenched DFL candidates who couldn’t think their way out of a closet. In spite of intellect, reason, principle, etc., we cannot escape the gravitational pull of the black hole called Peterson, Rest and Carlson. People should recognize the battles they cannot win and simply keep their powder dry for another day.
The lesson? Sometimes stupid wins.
April 13th, 2011 at 9:20 am
Instead of running “warm bodies” when we can’t find a Copeland couldn’t the party reach out to some moderate local chamber of commerce or pro-police dems to switch? At least those guys would have some name ID in the community and could give the lefties a tough race once in awhile. We got Blakey to switch all those years ago. Just a thought.
April 13th, 2011 at 9:26 am
Bandit,
In principle? Of course.
The problem has been that some house districts (BPOUs in MNGOP parlance) haven’t even been organized enough to hold coherent endorsement processes, much less outreach.
That’ll change with time and, of course, effort.
April 13th, 2011 at 9:27 am
When you look at the recent CD4 congressional race….the Democrats ran a lady with a questionable intelligence who has done nothing but rubber stamp Democrat votes. Basically just collects her per diem. The Republicans ran a constitutional law professor who would aggressively represent all people of the district. Yet the doofus Democrat wins 60-40%.
April 13th, 2011 at 9:34 am
Being right has nothing to do with winning. As a matter of fact, there are plenty of districts in this state where being right is a liability. Recognize these places. Don’t fight you battles there. When these districts have been abandoned and only the cockroaches are left, history can decide what went wrong.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:40 am
I just pray that they move the CD5 boundary East. Highway 100 would be nice.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:56 am
I’m with MyGuvIsNuts at some point you simply have to cut your losses and stop wasting resources and money in districts like the 4th and 5th. If marginal candidates with no support get 18% and high caliber candidates with money and volunteers get 23%, you might as well just run the marginal ones and use your resources elsewhere. I live in the 5th and this past year’s election was the final straw. Even though the GOP did great nationally and took the House and Senate here in Minnesota, our local candidates were clobbered. If we can’t win or even get close in a year like 2010, we will never win. That might sound defeatist, but I’ve been actively involved in local politics for thirteen years and it’s the reality of the situation on the ground. Like Kermit, my only hope is that we escape the 5th through redistricting. I second his motion to use HWY 100 as the new boundary line.
April 13th, 2011 at 11:05 am
You know, CD 4 and 5 might be more difficult for demagogues to control if the idea of “shame” was less shameful. People might actually be ashamed to send panhandlers to Saint Paul and Washington, DC.
April 13th, 2011 at 11:18 am
I just pray that they move the CD5 boundary East. Highway 100 would be nice.
Long since past time to combine the 4th and 5th. It’s disheartening to know that your representative never has to give a damn about anyone living north of Larpenteur Avenue.
April 13th, 2011 at 11:25 am
I experienced the same thing in Reid Johnson’s campaign in SD45 last year. He talked to hundreds, if not thousands of people in our district, and almost unanimously, he said that people agreed with him that Lyndon Carlson had to go and we had to get government spending under control. Lyndon Carlson barely did any campaigning that we were aware of. Yet when it was all said and done, easily 2/3 of the yards that had campaign signs had Carlson/Rest signs, and Reid lost 39% to 61%. That led me to make the remark that Lyndon is a “made man” and like any good member of La Cosa Nostra, the only way he will leave his seat is feet first. Sometimes you just can’t overcome overwhelming demographics. It’s times like that when the pragmatist in me starts thinking “is it really worth it to try and save this hellhole? or should I get out and save myself/my family and move to somewhere that the population isn’t so insane in the membrane instead? (notwithstanding the underwater mortgage I am dealing with right now)
April 13th, 2011 at 11:31 am
I just pray that they move the CD5 boundary East. Highway 100 would be nice.
Like Kermit, my only hope is that we escape the 5th through redistricting. I second his motion to use HWY 100 as the new boundary line.
Long since past time to combine the 4th and 5th. It’s disheartening to know that your representative never has to give a damn about anyone living north of Larpenteur Avenue.
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES! Oh it would be a great day for me to become a constituent of Erik Paulsen and get out from under Hakim X.
I believe it was you, Mitch, who suggested we combine the 4th and 5th into one district, as why should 10-15% of the population get 25% of the representation?
April 13th, 2011 at 11:37 am
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail”. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
April 13th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Who hasn’t said we should combine the 4th & 5th.
I can’t complain too much, my state congressmen are Senator Roger C. Chamberlain and Representative Linda Runbeck. 8)
April 13th, 2011 at 11:51 am
I have no mouth and I must scream! I have gone to my SD-45 “town halls” and sat amongst a sea of bureaucrats, button pushers, government acoloytes, school adminstration lackeys – and their monkeys – Peterson, Rest and Carlson. When allowed, I spoke and pinned their asses to the wall with poignant and insightful observations.
In silence.
It’s self flaggelation. I refuse to do it anymore.
April 13th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
To all you current residents of CD 5 whom are chiming in: You do NOT want the DFL to actually admit to reality and combine CD4 with CD5. It would be a GOP disaster of biblical proportions.
If you combine the districts, those first ring suburbs that are now in 4 and 5 will suddenly get shifted into CD3/CD2/CD6. As those suburbs are VASTLY more DFL than the outer rings of 3/2/6, this puts Paulsen’s district in-play, and perhaps even Bachmann or Kline…but at a minimum Bachman and Kline will have a much harder road to hoe.
By leaving CD4/CD5 as Mpls/StP centric, they will HAVE to expanded out a bit further into known DFL territory, making Paulsen/Kline/Bachmann MORE conservative.
Sorry guys, but if you want to live in Paulsen’s district, put the house up for sale and get the hell out.
April 13th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
Moving me into Paulson’s district would be a matter of shifting the line a whopping mile and a half East of Highway 169. I don’t want to move out, and given the current housing market it would be more “self flaggelation” than Big Stink’s attempts to influence local DFL zombies.
April 13th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Within the boundaries of our district, Kermit, there are more of them than there are us. We can change the boundaries, but we cannot always change their hearts. They choose to live in the chains of government slavery. It’s their choice. I accept that. What I cannot accept is that there is no end to the supply of pimps willing to negotiate the terms of their slavery – and call it compassion.
April 13th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
The boundary will move Kerm, but, CD 5 is going to get bigger. Escape while you can.
April 13th, 2011 at 6:41 pm
What we need to do is take a page from the DFL playbook and bus in some nursing home residents and a few thousand cartoon-character ballots.