FROM THE ARCHIVES: BLACKSHAW STAFFER ON FAILED MOE CAMPAIGN
Moe campaign gets shakeup;
Campaign manager resigns, other workers fired by DFL candidate
Remember that stock car that accompanied Roger Moe in parades around the state this summer? It's gone.What about the 5,000 Moe bobblehead dolls that campaign workers had planned to sell at the State Fair? They've been shelved.
About a dozen campaign workers employed either by the Moe-for-governor campaign or paid by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party to work mainly on his campaign also are gone. They resigned or were fired late last week as Moe and his new campaign manager tried to bring life to a struggling and expensive campaign less than 11 weeks before the general election.
The reason for the shakeup: DFL phone bank workers were finding that any Minnesota Democrats who strongly favored Paul Wellstone for Senate were choosing Tim Penny, the Independence Party candidate, over Moe -- a legislative leader with a 31-year resume.
"The campaign hadn't gotten off the dime," Mike Erlandson, chairman of the state DFL Party, said Monday. "They weren't making progress. Roger was very frustrated."
Erlandson said Moe originally chose Pat Forciea, the ousted campaign manager, for a three-way race that was expected to include Gov. Jesse Ventura. Erlandson speculated that Moe hired the new campaign manager -- Bill Harper, a top aide to U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum -- to help the campaign adjust to Penny, a very different opponent.
In addition to Forciea, major players in the campaign who resigned or were fired last week include John Blackshaw, a financial consultant; Pat Sellner, Moe's scheduler; and Gretta Lilleodden, the campaign spokeswoman.
Except for Forciea, who resigned last Wednesday, all the job changes came late in the week after Harper asked staff members to fill out a one-page form listing their job descriptions, present salaries, the salaries they were willing to accept and their visions for how Moe could win the governorship.
Campaign finance reports filed Monday showed Moe and Republican Tim Pawlenty nearly tied in the amount of cash they had on hand as of Aug. 19. Both Moe and Pawlenty were well ahead of Penny. But Moe also reported $118,352 in unpaid bills, far more than either Penny or Pawlenty.
Moe downplayed the unpaid bills, saying he was confident he would raise enough money to spend the full $2.1 million allowed by state law. And he described Forciea's replacement and the other firings or resignations as a normal mid-campaign course correction."It's a sign that we're kicking into third gear, that's what it's all about," he said. "Campaigns, as you know, they come in phases."
Harper said his goal is to put an end to "gimmicks" like the stock car and the Chinese-made bobbleheads, spend far less on salaries and begin buying TV time to promote Moe to traditional DFL voters.The bobblehead dolls, which Ventura's campaign committee also had sold, did not fit Moe's image as a serious candidate for governor, Harper said.
And the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which the campaign leased from a Lakeville racing team for $7,500, seemed designed to appeal to 20- to 40-year-old white males, a group that does not vote in big numbers or for Democratic candidates, he said."We've got a problem in that we need to bring our DFL base back to Roger Moe," Harper said. "They need to know who Roger Moe is and the leadership he has demonstrated."
"There is a falloff," Harper said, referring to the Wellstone backers who showed support for Penny. "We've got to bring our base back home."Harper defined the DFL base as women, senior citizens, minorities, union members and voters -- both male and female -- whose top issues are abortion rights or education.
Forciea, who earned a reputation as a political mastermind when he managed Wellstone's upset victory in Wellstone's first campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1990, said he could have stayed on at the Moe campaign as a consultant but chose not to because he would have felt like an unwelcome in-law at a family gathering.He defended the campaign's spending as appropriate and said he believed Moe must appeal to voters outside the DFL base."A winning Democratic gubernatorial candidate needs to reach far beyond the DFL base, which we found in 1998 could come down to 28 percent," he said.
And Forciea said he believed the bobbleheads, which cost the campaign $1.50 each and were supposed to be sold for $10, would have been effective, both as a media attention-grabber and as a fund-raising item, if Harper had not halted their sale at the fair Thursday. "They sold about 120 in the first 90 minutes, and then Bill decided not to do it," he said.
Erlandson said the Democratic phone calls to voters show Moe and Penny in a virtual tie with Pawlenty lagging in third place. "He's not behind, he's just behind Wellstone," Erlandson said of Moe. Source: Duluth News-Tribune, August 27, 2002
Campaign manager resigns, other workers fired by DFL candidate
Remember that stock car that accompanied Roger Moe in parades around the state this summer? It's gone.What about the 5,000 Moe bobblehead dolls that campaign workers had planned to sell at the State Fair? They've been shelved.
About a dozen campaign workers employed either by the Moe-for-governor campaign or paid by the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party to work mainly on his campaign also are gone. They resigned or were fired late last week as Moe and his new campaign manager tried to bring life to a struggling and expensive campaign less than 11 weeks before the general election.
The reason for the shakeup: DFL phone bank workers were finding that any Minnesota Democrats who strongly favored Paul Wellstone for Senate were choosing Tim Penny, the Independence Party candidate, over Moe -- a legislative leader with a 31-year resume.
"The campaign hadn't gotten off the dime," Mike Erlandson, chairman of the state DFL Party, said Monday. "They weren't making progress. Roger was very frustrated."
Erlandson said Moe originally chose Pat Forciea, the ousted campaign manager, for a three-way race that was expected to include Gov. Jesse Ventura. Erlandson speculated that Moe hired the new campaign manager -- Bill Harper, a top aide to U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum -- to help the campaign adjust to Penny, a very different opponent.
In addition to Forciea, major players in the campaign who resigned or were fired last week include John Blackshaw, a financial consultant; Pat Sellner, Moe's scheduler; and Gretta Lilleodden, the campaign spokeswoman.
Except for Forciea, who resigned last Wednesday, all the job changes came late in the week after Harper asked staff members to fill out a one-page form listing their job descriptions, present salaries, the salaries they were willing to accept and their visions for how Moe could win the governorship.
Campaign finance reports filed Monday showed Moe and Republican Tim Pawlenty nearly tied in the amount of cash they had on hand as of Aug. 19. Both Moe and Pawlenty were well ahead of Penny. But Moe also reported $118,352 in unpaid bills, far more than either Penny or Pawlenty.
Moe downplayed the unpaid bills, saying he was confident he would raise enough money to spend the full $2.1 million allowed by state law. And he described Forciea's replacement and the other firings or resignations as a normal mid-campaign course correction."It's a sign that we're kicking into third gear, that's what it's all about," he said. "Campaigns, as you know, they come in phases."
Harper said his goal is to put an end to "gimmicks" like the stock car and the Chinese-made bobbleheads, spend far less on salaries and begin buying TV time to promote Moe to traditional DFL voters.The bobblehead dolls, which Ventura's campaign committee also had sold, did not fit Moe's image as a serious candidate for governor, Harper said.
And the Chevrolet Monte Carlo, which the campaign leased from a Lakeville racing team for $7,500, seemed designed to appeal to 20- to 40-year-old white males, a group that does not vote in big numbers or for Democratic candidates, he said."We've got a problem in that we need to bring our DFL base back to Roger Moe," Harper said. "They need to know who Roger Moe is and the leadership he has demonstrated."
"There is a falloff," Harper said, referring to the Wellstone backers who showed support for Penny. "We've got to bring our base back home."Harper defined the DFL base as women, senior citizens, minorities, union members and voters -- both male and female -- whose top issues are abortion rights or education.
Forciea, who earned a reputation as a political mastermind when he managed Wellstone's upset victory in Wellstone's first campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1990, said he could have stayed on at the Moe campaign as a consultant but chose not to because he would have felt like an unwelcome in-law at a family gathering.He defended the campaign's spending as appropriate and said he believed Moe must appeal to voters outside the DFL base."A winning Democratic gubernatorial candidate needs to reach far beyond the DFL base, which we found in 1998 could come down to 28 percent," he said.
And Forciea said he believed the bobbleheads, which cost the campaign $1.50 each and were supposed to be sold for $10, would have been effective, both as a media attention-grabber and as a fund-raising item, if Harper had not halted their sale at the fair Thursday. "They sold about 120 in the first 90 minutes, and then Bill decided not to do it," he said.
Erlandson said the Democratic phone calls to voters show Moe and Penny in a virtual tie with Pawlenty lagging in third place. "He's not behind, he's just behind Wellstone," Erlandson said of Moe. Source: Duluth News-Tribune, August 27, 2002
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