Brad Carlson and I were on the air until 11 last night.\u00a0 And I’m happy to see the MNGOP has finally learned to do elections for radio; the final call on the gubernatorial race came 5-10 minutes before we went off the air.\u00a0 Couldn’t have timed it better myself.<\/p>\n
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A few notes about the evening:<\/p>\n
Turnout, Schmurnout<\/strong>:\u00a0 The media – and some commentators on the right – are fretting about the “turnout”.\u00a0<\/p>\n Don’t.\u00a0<\/p>\n The goal of a primary isn’t to get a majority of the voters to come to the polls to vote about what is, at the end of the day, party business.\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s to get people who are “base” voters to turn out.\u00a0 The Secretary of State’s office says about 10% turned out – which is actually a healthy increase from previous primaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n More Democrats than Republicans turned out (although there are some nuances to that as well – see below); I’m not sure that that should be either a surprise or an omen in a stte with higher Democrat party ID.\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s Jeff<\/strong>:\u00a0 Johnson won.\u00a0 I had predicted (privately) Johnson 31%, Zellers 28%, Seifert 25% and Honour at 18%; in fact, the final results were Johnson 30%, Zellers 23%, Seifert 21% and Honour at 20%.\u00a0\u00a0 Not bad.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now that the\u00a0primary is over, I can say it; up until convention time, I was evenly torn between Jeff Johnson and Dave Thompson.\u00a0 I saw merit to Zellers, Seifert and even Honour – any of them would be a better governor than Alita Messinger – but my conservative heart was with Dave, and my pragmatic brain was with Jeff.\u00a0 After Thompson bowed out at the convention,\u00a0Jeff became my short list.\u00a0 I didn’t\u00a0talk about that in public\u00a0– I figure nobody cares about my “endorsement”, and even if they did I’d rather they made up their own minds; also, it’s hell on bookings.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While I’m a party officer (with CD4 and the Saint Paul GOP)\u00a0and am bound to either support my endorsed candidates or resign, I did firmly believe Jeff was the best combination of attributes to tackle Governor Messinger, and win – and I don’t have to say that just because I’m an officer.\u00a0<\/p>\n And now let’s hope some of that K Street money keeps flowing.\u00a0<\/p>\n In The Vacuum<\/strong>:\u00a0 One interesting result; in the Secretary of State <\/a>race, Dan Severson – one of very few candidates I ever have <\/em>endorsed <\/a>– an unopposed on the GOP side.\u00a0 The DFL endorsed candidate, And the DFL endorsed candidate got 42%.\u00a0 Each of the challengers got around 28-29% and change.\u00a0 That’s barely better than random distribution.<\/p>\nAlita Messinger<\/del> Steve Simon, ran against two challengers; perennial candidate Dick Franson, and Gregg Iverson.\u00a0<\/p>\n