NAME-CALLING HIGHLIGHT OF DFL CANDIDATE FORUM
It will be tough for the DFL to refute Mike Krueger's comments.
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Candidate forum may be preview of fall campaign
DFL governor hopefuls criticize Pawlenty
In their first joint appearance of the 2006 campaign, three of the four DFL Party candidates for governor, plus a stand-in for the fourth, pledged Sunday to fight for health care for all Minnesotans, preschool education for children as young as 3 and a guarantee that abortion will remain legal and available.
Most of all, the three candidates and a representative of Attorney General Mike Hatch vowed to defeat Gov. Tim Pawlenty in the fall.
"This is not a campaign between Democrats who raise taxes and Republicans who do not," said state Sen. Steve Kelley of Hopkins. "It's a campaign about which taxes are fair."
In a sign of how bitter the gubernatorial campaign is likely to become, both Kelley and Sen. Becky Lourey of Kerrick accused Pawlenty of racism.
Lourey labeled Pawlenty's attempt last year to force American Indian tribes to share their casino profits with the state as racist, and Kelley made the same charge about Pawlenty's recent efforts to curtail illegal immigration.
A spokesman for Pawlenty's campaign committee said that Kelley's and Lourey's accusations of racism take away from legitimate debate on important issues.
"It is our sincere hope they would debate the merits of issues, rather than resort to name-calling," said Mike Krueger, the committee spokesman.
Kelley, Lourey and Kelly Doran, a shopping center developer from Eden Prairie, appeared before about 125 people at a Minneapolis forum sponsored by the DFL Feminist Caucus. Hatch, the fourth big-name candidate in the race, was represented by Lori Swanson, one of his top assistants as attorney general.
One key political issue that divides the four Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidates is their stands on whether they will move on to a DFL primary election in September if they fail to win their party's endorsement this spring.
Doran, a millionaire political outsider who touts his appeal to independent voters, repeated his previous promise to wage a primary campaign regardless of who gets the DFL endorsement. And Lourey emphatically said she would be in that primary with Doran.
"Was I clear that I plan to go to the primary, no matter what?" Lourey asked the audience at one point. "It's clear that there is going to be a primary, and I want to be there."
Kelley promised he would not run in September if he fails to win the endorsement. And Swanson said she believed Hatch would honor the endorsement and not wage a primary campaign without it.
All the candidates talked about their significantly different life experiences as just the thing Minnesota Democrats need to win back the governorship for the first time since 1990.
Doran predicted former state finance commissioner Peter Hutchinson, who plans to run for governor as an Independence Party candidate, could deny Democrats a victory if he were to receive as much as 5 percent of the vote in the November general election. Doran said that, among the Democratic contenders, he was best equipped to attract independent voters who might support Hutchinson.
Lourey, the only woman in the campaign for the DFL nomination, stressed her background, which combines a very liberal voting record with experience as a small-business owner.
"I present the sharpest contrast, the clearest choice," Lourey said. "Think about those debates in November."
All three of the candidates promised to preserve legalized abortion in Minnesota — a key issue for the DFL Feminist Caucus — regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court might do.
"I'd veto any anti-choice legislation the Legislature was dumb enough to pass," Kelley said. Swanson called Hatch "pro-choice," but she was less explicit than the three candidates about Hatch's stand on abortion. Source: Pioneer Press, January 16, 2006
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Candidate forum may be preview of fall campaign
DFL governor hopefuls criticize Pawlenty
In their first joint appearance of the 2006 campaign, three of the four DFL Party candidates for governor, plus a stand-in for the fourth, pledged Sunday to fight for health care for all Minnesotans, preschool education for children as young as 3 and a guarantee that abortion will remain legal and available.
Most of all, the three candidates and a representative of Attorney General Mike Hatch vowed to defeat Gov. Tim Pawlenty in the fall.
"This is not a campaign between Democrats who raise taxes and Republicans who do not," said state Sen. Steve Kelley of Hopkins. "It's a campaign about which taxes are fair."
In a sign of how bitter the gubernatorial campaign is likely to become, both Kelley and Sen. Becky Lourey of Kerrick accused Pawlenty of racism.
Lourey labeled Pawlenty's attempt last year to force American Indian tribes to share their casino profits with the state as racist, and Kelley made the same charge about Pawlenty's recent efforts to curtail illegal immigration.
A spokesman for Pawlenty's campaign committee said that Kelley's and Lourey's accusations of racism take away from legitimate debate on important issues.
"It is our sincere hope they would debate the merits of issues, rather than resort to name-calling," said Mike Krueger, the committee spokesman.
Kelley, Lourey and Kelly Doran, a shopping center developer from Eden Prairie, appeared before about 125 people at a Minneapolis forum sponsored by the DFL Feminist Caucus. Hatch, the fourth big-name candidate in the race, was represented by Lori Swanson, one of his top assistants as attorney general.
One key political issue that divides the four Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidates is their stands on whether they will move on to a DFL primary election in September if they fail to win their party's endorsement this spring.
Doran, a millionaire political outsider who touts his appeal to independent voters, repeated his previous promise to wage a primary campaign regardless of who gets the DFL endorsement. And Lourey emphatically said she would be in that primary with Doran.
"Was I clear that I plan to go to the primary, no matter what?" Lourey asked the audience at one point. "It's clear that there is going to be a primary, and I want to be there."
Kelley promised he would not run in September if he fails to win the endorsement. And Swanson said she believed Hatch would honor the endorsement and not wage a primary campaign without it.
All the candidates talked about their significantly different life experiences as just the thing Minnesota Democrats need to win back the governorship for the first time since 1990.
Doran predicted former state finance commissioner Peter Hutchinson, who plans to run for governor as an Independence Party candidate, could deny Democrats a victory if he were to receive as much as 5 percent of the vote in the November general election. Doran said that, among the Democratic contenders, he was best equipped to attract independent voters who might support Hutchinson.
Lourey, the only woman in the campaign for the DFL nomination, stressed her background, which combines a very liberal voting record with experience as a small-business owner.
"I present the sharpest contrast, the clearest choice," Lourey said. "Think about those debates in November."
All three of the candidates promised to preserve legalized abortion in Minnesota — a key issue for the DFL Feminist Caucus — regardless of what the U.S. Supreme Court might do.
"I'd veto any anti-choice legislation the Legislature was dumb enough to pass," Kelley said. Swanson called Hatch "pro-choice," but she was less explicit than the three candidates about Hatch's stand on abortion. Source: Pioneer Press, January 16, 2006
6 Comments:
Can you provide direct quotes about what Lourey and Kelley said? And perhaps a way for readers to check for accuracy?
I heave heard some pretty wild things from republicans claiming racism. For example when Condoleezza Rice was going through the senate conformation process, people who were critical of her record were accused of being racist. Distract. Bait. Switch. A republican tactic used for years.
You know that saying these candidates accused Pawlenty of being racists it will make them look out of the mainstream. Even if they never said such a things or if you chose to interpret it in a negative light.
Duhrock6 said:
"Can you spoon feed me some direct quotes so I can dispute them out of hand? Oh, and please provide a way for me to dispute your accuracy because, well I'm just too lazy to go out and dig up information like that for myself."
Oh yeah, get right on that won't you MDE?
Both Lourey and Kelley used the term racist to refer to Pawlenty's policies on gambling and immigration respectively. I think it's fair to say that the ads that Pawlenty used in 2002 on the issue of immigration were pandering to the worst in people.
The forum was taped by Inside Minnesota Politics - so I assume the podcast will be up soon.
ps: Here's a clue for duhrock6..
These candidates ARE out of the mainstream, which is why they have no compunction about making such goofy statements.
We're all looking forward to hearing much, much more of this kind of nonsense from lefty candidates this summer..heck, leftwing bufoonery is one of the things that makes politics so interesting, know what I mean?
Minnesota rejected the bait and switch move by the GOP in 2004. After hearing nothing of gambling all election season, in the last two weeks voters started seeing ads portraying DFL candidates as bought and paid for by Indian tribes, whether or not they even took money from tribes. Remember, my side won 13 new seats that year.
Kelley and Lourey said the policies were racist and/or appealing to people's fear. If a Governor uses racist tactics, does that make him a racist, or just a skeezy politician?
Swiftee you don't even know what was said, unless you were there?
Matter of fact I did check the link to the Pi Press and contacted the Becky Lourey campaign. I also looked for a transcript on the dfl feminist website. So far no transcript seems to be available.
Mr. MDE was there and I would just like to know his thoughts on it. So please grow up.
If your going to attack, fine but please do it with facts not "name calling". You just stooped to the same level and these "name calling DFLers" you despise so much.
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