SANDE'S BIG MISTAKE

Christian Sande will regret this press conference for the rest of his short and failed campaign. This article is very critical of Sande's false attack on Kiffmeyer.

##

2006 campaigns start early

ST. PAUL - Christian Sande stood in front of a nearly empty room, accusing Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer of being too partisan.

Sande told the few reporters who showed up at his news conference about ethics that Kiffmeyer wrote a letter on behalf of President Bush during last year's campaign and was a Bush campaign official. Such actions, the DFL secretary of state candidate said, bring into question how fair Kiffmeyer can be as the state’s top elections official.

None of what Sande alleged is true, an angry Kiffmeyer responded minutes later. In fact, she said, she personally told Bush she could not campaign for him - and didn't.

"If you are going to talk about a code of ethnics, you should not lie in the press release," Kiffmeyer said.

The exchange sounds like one a couple of months before an election, when campaigns are in the heat of battle. But, no, it came Tuesday, more than 14 months before the election.

The Sande-Kiffmeyer episode is an example of Minnesota campaigns starting early, in many cases more than a year earlier than normal.

Those who visited the State Fair especially noticed the phenomenon. Five 2006 U.S. Senate candidates manned booths at the fair. Candidate booths are common in election years, unusual in other years.

U.S. Representative Mark Kennedy started a flood of candidate announcements in February when he said he would seek the Republican nomination to replace U.S. Senator Mark Dayton, who plans to retire. Democrats interested in the Senate felt compelled to get into the race early.

People like Sande and another DFL secretary of state candidate, Mark Ritchie, got involved early, too, in part because the large number of 2006 races makes it more important to get their names in front of voters early or risk being lost when the media turns most of its attention to the big races - U.S. Senate and governor.

Kiffmeyer said the big drive for early and fierce campaigning is the fact that Minnesota voters have nearly equally divided elected politicians between Democrats and Republicans.

"Since Minnesota became a battleground state, this is one of the things that is happening," she said. Minnesotans are about equally divided among Republicans, Democrats and independents. That produced a Legislature with 101 Democrats, 99 Republicans and one Independence Party member.

The governor is Republican, and the other three statewide offices are divided 2-1, with Republicans holding the edge. The state's congressional delegation features five Republicans and five Democrats.

Kelly Doran thinks an early start will help draw attention to his campaign in such a politically divided state. Doran, a Twin Cities shopping center developer, has waged the most visible early U.S. Senate campaign. Paying for much of the campaign out of his own deep pockets, he already has erected 31 billboards introducing him to Minnesotans. The Democrat also bought radio commercials in the Red River Valley to decry Republican support for the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which many think will hurt sugar beet growers. But Doran's booth at the State Fair was not exactly flooded with visitors.

When he announced support of a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget, two reporters showed up and the only spectators were his and friends' children, his wife and campaign workers.

Before the fair, Doran visited 50 towns in 45 days. "As a candidate who does not have the name recognition other candidates do, I have to get my name out." With two straight years of gridlock, including a partial government shutdown because lawmakers could not finish the state budget on time, the Independence Party hoped it would be seen as the solution to legislative problems.

But voters were much more interested in the cheese curd stand next door. "I'm not here to tackle people on their way to the cheese curd booth," Party Chairman Jim Moore said. A high school girl stopped by and asked how she could get involved in the party, and a couple of others asked questions in a half hour.

On days when the Independence booth featured an ice sculpture, lots of fair-goers stopped to see it melt (as in legislative melt down). Moore's party had no legislative or statewide candidates to show off.

The party does have what Moore considers a strong governor candidate, Peter Hutchinson, but he was tied up winding down business affairs before starting a campaign. While Moore was discussing Hutchinson, his target, Governor Tim Pawlenty, was making the rounds of the fairgrounds, where he arrived at about 5 a.m. and stayed well into the afternoon.

Pawlenty, a Republican, made television and radio appearances and posed for pictures throughout the day. "It's an opportunity missed, but I don't think it hurts," Moore said about Hutchinson's absence. Missing the fair a year before most elections would not be an issue, but campaigns in other years have not started this early. Source: Echo Press, September 3, 2005