"COUNTDOWN TO A FLIP-FLOP" #7

This is the seventh installment of a "Countdown To a Flip-Flop," a special 10 day event exposing the lengthy record of Mike Hatch in the run up to what promises to be his third failed gubernatorial run.

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Hatch says he can't imagine running against Perpich

Commerce Commissioner Michael Hatch said Tuesday that he knows of no circumstances under which he would challenge Rudy Perpich for the governor's seat.

But he said he's gratified by a straw poll of state DFL central committee members taken by the Star Tribune, in which 43 percent named him as their choice for governor if Perpich does not run again. Seventy-two percent said Perpich should not run again; 23 percent said he should.

Hatch supporters have formed a 1990 Fund political committee to raise money for his candidacy, and are urging him to get into the race whether or not Perpich runs. Hatch has said he has not authorized the committee and has nothing to do with it.

"I can't imagine running against him," he said yesterday of his boss. "I support him . . . I'm not running." Hatch has said he'd like to run if Perpich doesn't. He told the state central committee in Winona Saturday to be patient and give Perpich time to make a decision. He said yesterday that he won't make a decision until Perpich does.

Barbara McClure, a leader of the 1990 Fund effort, said that if Perpich is going to step down, he should say so now. She said Hatch should run even if it means challenging the DFL governor.

Meanwhile, Hatch supporters plan to be "walking billboards" for their candidate at the Minnesota State Fair. McClure said about 150 people will appear at the fair next Saturday and the following Saturday wearing Hatch hats and T-shirts, to create "a Hatch presence."

Other potential DFL candidates are waiting to see what Perpich does. Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe, DFL-Erskine, has said he'll announce what he's going to do by early November, amid speculation that he is inching toward a decision to run for governor even if it means opposing Perpich.

Tension is mounting between the Hatch and Moe camps, and each side worries that the other may gain an advantage. Moe took the time during a legislative report to the central committee Saturday to denounce an anonymous flier criticizing him that some DFLers had received in the mail. Hatch supporters denied that they had anything to do with it.

It contained a reprint of a letter written by Mike Hickey, state director of the National Federation of Business in Minnesota, to Moe's hometown newspaper in Erskine, praising him as a friend of small business on workers' compensation reform and for opposing a payroll tax to finance mandatory health insurance. A hand-written notation read, "Roger Moe may be a friend of the National Federation of Independent Business. But he is no friend of the DFL."

Moe called the letter "low-road" politics. He said no one can look at his 19-year legislative record and challenge his commitment to organized labor, farm groups, education, families, the environment and other DFL causes. Source: Star Tribune, August 23, 1989

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Hatch did run against Governor Rudy Perpich, someone he once called his political mentor.

If Hatch will stab his political mentor in the back, what will he do to Minnesota?