DORAN TO DFL PRIMARY VOTERS: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH PARTY YOU BELONG TO
Who goes to a DFL function and says it doesn’t matter if you’re a DFLer??
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DFLers unite in Bemidji
U.S. Senate DFL candidate Amy Klobuchar, showing her Iron Range roots, says Republican U.S. Rep Mark Kennedy "will be taking a slow-moving Zamboni out of Washington, D.C.," after Nov. 7.
Klobuchar, speaking Monday night to the Beltrami County DFL's Presidents Day fund-raiser, noted that Kennedy, the GOP heir apparent candidate for the Senate post, has had campaigning in Minnesota for him Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as President Bush on Air Force One, and now even political adviser Karl Rove.
"The more people he brings in, the better we do in the polls," Klobuchar said, indicating a 6-point lead but not citing the poll source. "The only celebrities we’ve had are the Gear Daddies Band of Austin, Minn., whose most famous song is 'I Want to Ride the Zamboni.'"
When the campaign is over, she said, it's Kennedy who will be taking the Zamboni trip home from Washington.
She brought the 200 DFLers to their feet, capping a long line of DFLers to speak and enjoy a ham dinner at the Bemidji Eagles Club. That crowd included her long-shot opponent for DFL endorsement, Twin Cities veterinarian Ford Bell, who had canceled but made last-minute arrangements to attend.
Through a scheduling quirk, both candidate Klobuchar and her father, retired Twin Cities newspaper columnist Jim Klobuchar, showed up although neither knew it until they met face to face. The elder Klobuchar has been campaigning statewide for his daughter.
But while introducing his daughter, he didn’t miss the opportunity to reminisce about the days he covered Minnesota Vikings training camps at Bemidji State University held for the team’s first six years in the state in the early 1960s.
He added that he's bringing his annual summer "Bike with Jim" tour on June 17 to Diamond Point Park, going to Kelliher the next day.
"There really isn't any magic formula for winning elections," he said. "One of the things you do is right at the beginning is to pick a good candidate and then run with it. You have good candidates in this hall here today, you have to mobilize Democrats and you have to come hard and every day."
The public does not believe the government, he said. "What it wants is a person it can trust," he added, telling the gathering that his daughter is one.
But Democrats have to appeal to more than the traditional base, said Amy Klobuchar. They have to reach out to moderate Democrats, independents and even left-swinging Republicans.
"The people of this state of tired of talking about what's right and what's left," she said. "They want to talk about what's right and what's wrong."
It's right that Social Security be guaranteed but wrong to make the program a gamble, she said. It's right to invest in our troops and bring them home safely but wrong to go to war without a plan.
"They know that it is wrong to give an oversize amount of tax cuts to the wealthiest among us and it’s right to invest in our kids," Klobuchar said. "When you start being willing to draw a line in the sand as Democrats, and talk that way, they will listen and we will win."
Bell, who has doggedly remained in the endorsement battle nearly sewn up by Klobuchar, labels health care and the war in Iraq as his key issues. A single-payer universal health care system is needed, and the troops need to be pulled home by year’s end.
While about 2,300 Americans have been killed in Iraq, more than 100,000 Iraqi citizens have died, Bell said. "The people in Washington will tell us that around the next corner, with a little more money and a few more troops and a little more time, lies victory.
"Those are false prophets," Bell said. "What lies around the next corner is more death and more destruction. I am the only candidate in this Senate race who is committed to getting our troops out of Iraq by the end of this year. It's time to bring home our troops."
Americans support their troops, but they also support the truth and that truth is that there is no end point in sight, he said.
Rising health care costs is the top domestic issue Bell hears while campaigning, and only national health insurance will solve the problem.
"I believe that in the 21st century in America, health care is a right and not a profit center for a few," Bell said. "Our health care system in this country is not sustainable. We have 46 million Americans without health care."
The fund-raiser also drew the attention of two of the four major DFL gubernatorial campaigns. Both real estate developer Kelly Doran and Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, called for a change in St, Paul - one that ousts Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Doran of Eden Prairie, who was introduced by his lieutenant governor running make, Sen. Sheila Kiscaden, DFL-Rochester, said he's running for six reasons: four of them are his four children, a fifth is for the children of Minnesota, and the sixth, "we're going in the wrong direction and we need to change the direction we’re going for all of our kids' sakes."
Minnesota needs to grow its economy, Doran said, suggesting as a successful businessman, he knows how to grow things. "I've created thousands of jobs."
Affordable and acceptable health care tops his policy agenda, and he intends to have Kiscaden spearhead that issue, with her legislative experience in health issues. Education, especially investments in pre-K education, plus transportation investments also are on the agenda.
"What I've really learned about this state, that it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, it doesn’t matter whether you're an independent, it doesn't matter whether you're a Republican," Doran said, "what the people of this are looking for is leadership. They want a leader in this state who is going to be trustable, be honest and get results.
"We don't have that in our current governor," Doran said. "I come from a business background, and you don’t rehire somebody who hasn’t performed."
"I think we are seriously off track in Minnesota, and don't think we're going to get back on track without new leadership," said Kiscaden, now a DFLer after being pushed out of the Republican Party and into the Independence Party, but caucusing with Senate DFLers.
"It's really coming back to my roots," she said of joining the Democrats, which was the party of her family.
Kelley, who is the public education expert in the Senate, would focus his agenda around kids - from investing more in early childhood programs, to providing quality education for those in high school, to lessening tuition burdens of college students.
He also told of the Senate DFL's efforts to turn back the policies of Republican Pawlenty.
"What's important about our future is our kids' future," Kelley said. "I know I'm standing up not only for them, but also for a better future for every Minnesotan."
And Senate DFLers have been standing up for kids the last three years.
"Tim Pawlenty tried to send us Intelligent Design in our science classes, and we sent that back," Kelley said. "He tried to send us vouchers to undermine our public schools, and we sent those back. And then he tried to send us Cheri Pierson Yecke - and we sent her back."
Yecke, who had education experience in the Bush administration, was Pawlenty’s nominee for education commissioner, but the DFL Senate refused to confirm her, ousting her from office.
"With help of all the Democrats in this room, in 2006, we're going to send Tim Pawlenty back," Kelley said, gaining a roar from the crowd.
Kelley called for Democrats to offer a united message, including having candidates abide by the endorsement process. That might be lacking in his own race, however, as he's the only candidate so far to pledge to do so. Aside from Doran, who will enter the primary, Attorney General Mike Hatch and Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, have been mum on the issue.
"It’s so important for our candidates to abide by the DFL endorsement,"he said of the opportunity to present a united front early. "If we're going to win this year, we need to be united in June, not in September."
The best thing to end the contentiousness in St. Paul, he said, is to elect a DFL governor and put DFL majorities in both the Senate and the House.
Also speaking were two candidates - Mark Ritchie and Christian Sande - who are seeking the DFL endorsement to run against two-term incumbent GOP Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer.
Both said she has run the office with an iron-fist, and has made the office a partisan battleground. Both said that while being Democrats, if elected, they would restore integrity to the office.
Sande, an elections law lawyer, said Kiffmeyer has been turned back in her efforts to restrict voting by not allowing tribal IDs to vote, and a new effort must be mounted to stop legislation to require a photo ID, which would further restrict voting.
"We have not had a single case of a voter illegally voting where a photo ID would fix it," Sande said. "We need to tell legislators with these proposals that we know what they are doing, that they don’t like the way people are voting, not that they are fixing a problem."
Ritchie, who led a massive non-profit organization national get-out-the-vote effort in 2004, said that "it is time to put someone with integrity in the office of secretary of state.”
County auditors "are fed up" with Kiffmeyer, he said, adding that it will take money to unseat an incumbent. He believes he's got the start, with $100,000 and major endorsements from labor and legislators.
"We also have to put together a Democratic party ticket that the public says, yes, the Democrats are ready to govern," Ritchie said. "This is the year where we put forth a unified message."
Rep. Frank Moe, DFL-Bemidji, emceed the event, which also heard from Sen. Rod Skoe, DFL-Clearbrook, Rep. Brita Sailer, DFL-Park Rapids, Senate 4 candidates Irene Folstrom and Mary Olson, both of Bemidji, and House 4B candidate Ron Berry of Walker. Source: Bemidji Pioneer, February 21, 2006
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DFLers unite in Bemidji
U.S. Senate DFL candidate Amy Klobuchar, showing her Iron Range roots, says Republican U.S. Rep Mark Kennedy "will be taking a slow-moving Zamboni out of Washington, D.C.," after Nov. 7.
Klobuchar, speaking Monday night to the Beltrami County DFL's Presidents Day fund-raiser, noted that Kennedy, the GOP heir apparent candidate for the Senate post, has had campaigning in Minnesota for him Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as President Bush on Air Force One, and now even political adviser Karl Rove.
"The more people he brings in, the better we do in the polls," Klobuchar said, indicating a 6-point lead but not citing the poll source. "The only celebrities we’ve had are the Gear Daddies Band of Austin, Minn., whose most famous song is 'I Want to Ride the Zamboni.'"
When the campaign is over, she said, it's Kennedy who will be taking the Zamboni trip home from Washington.
She brought the 200 DFLers to their feet, capping a long line of DFLers to speak and enjoy a ham dinner at the Bemidji Eagles Club. That crowd included her long-shot opponent for DFL endorsement, Twin Cities veterinarian Ford Bell, who had canceled but made last-minute arrangements to attend.
Through a scheduling quirk, both candidate Klobuchar and her father, retired Twin Cities newspaper columnist Jim Klobuchar, showed up although neither knew it until they met face to face. The elder Klobuchar has been campaigning statewide for his daughter.
But while introducing his daughter, he didn’t miss the opportunity to reminisce about the days he covered Minnesota Vikings training camps at Bemidji State University held for the team’s first six years in the state in the early 1960s.
He added that he's bringing his annual summer "Bike with Jim" tour on June 17 to Diamond Point Park, going to Kelliher the next day.
"There really isn't any magic formula for winning elections," he said. "One of the things you do is right at the beginning is to pick a good candidate and then run with it. You have good candidates in this hall here today, you have to mobilize Democrats and you have to come hard and every day."
The public does not believe the government, he said. "What it wants is a person it can trust," he added, telling the gathering that his daughter is one.
But Democrats have to appeal to more than the traditional base, said Amy Klobuchar. They have to reach out to moderate Democrats, independents and even left-swinging Republicans.
"The people of this state of tired of talking about what's right and what's left," she said. "They want to talk about what's right and what's wrong."
It's right that Social Security be guaranteed but wrong to make the program a gamble, she said. It's right to invest in our troops and bring them home safely but wrong to go to war without a plan.
"They know that it is wrong to give an oversize amount of tax cuts to the wealthiest among us and it’s right to invest in our kids," Klobuchar said. "When you start being willing to draw a line in the sand as Democrats, and talk that way, they will listen and we will win."
Bell, who has doggedly remained in the endorsement battle nearly sewn up by Klobuchar, labels health care and the war in Iraq as his key issues. A single-payer universal health care system is needed, and the troops need to be pulled home by year’s end.
While about 2,300 Americans have been killed in Iraq, more than 100,000 Iraqi citizens have died, Bell said. "The people in Washington will tell us that around the next corner, with a little more money and a few more troops and a little more time, lies victory.
"Those are false prophets," Bell said. "What lies around the next corner is more death and more destruction. I am the only candidate in this Senate race who is committed to getting our troops out of Iraq by the end of this year. It's time to bring home our troops."
Americans support their troops, but they also support the truth and that truth is that there is no end point in sight, he said.
Rising health care costs is the top domestic issue Bell hears while campaigning, and only national health insurance will solve the problem.
"I believe that in the 21st century in America, health care is a right and not a profit center for a few," Bell said. "Our health care system in this country is not sustainable. We have 46 million Americans without health care."
The fund-raiser also drew the attention of two of the four major DFL gubernatorial campaigns. Both real estate developer Kelly Doran and Sen. Steve Kelley, DFL-Hopkins, called for a change in St, Paul - one that ousts Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Doran of Eden Prairie, who was introduced by his lieutenant governor running make, Sen. Sheila Kiscaden, DFL-Rochester, said he's running for six reasons: four of them are his four children, a fifth is for the children of Minnesota, and the sixth, "we're going in the wrong direction and we need to change the direction we’re going for all of our kids' sakes."
Minnesota needs to grow its economy, Doran said, suggesting as a successful businessman, he knows how to grow things. "I've created thousands of jobs."
Affordable and acceptable health care tops his policy agenda, and he intends to have Kiscaden spearhead that issue, with her legislative experience in health issues. Education, especially investments in pre-K education, plus transportation investments also are on the agenda.
"What I've really learned about this state, that it doesn't matter if you're a Democrat, it doesn’t matter whether you're an independent, it doesn't matter whether you're a Republican," Doran said, "what the people of this are looking for is leadership. They want a leader in this state who is going to be trustable, be honest and get results.
"We don't have that in our current governor," Doran said. "I come from a business background, and you don’t rehire somebody who hasn’t performed."
"I think we are seriously off track in Minnesota, and don't think we're going to get back on track without new leadership," said Kiscaden, now a DFLer after being pushed out of the Republican Party and into the Independence Party, but caucusing with Senate DFLers.
"It's really coming back to my roots," she said of joining the Democrats, which was the party of her family.
Kelley, who is the public education expert in the Senate, would focus his agenda around kids - from investing more in early childhood programs, to providing quality education for those in high school, to lessening tuition burdens of college students.
He also told of the Senate DFL's efforts to turn back the policies of Republican Pawlenty.
"What's important about our future is our kids' future," Kelley said. "I know I'm standing up not only for them, but also for a better future for every Minnesotan."
And Senate DFLers have been standing up for kids the last three years.
"Tim Pawlenty tried to send us Intelligent Design in our science classes, and we sent that back," Kelley said. "He tried to send us vouchers to undermine our public schools, and we sent those back. And then he tried to send us Cheri Pierson Yecke - and we sent her back."
Yecke, who had education experience in the Bush administration, was Pawlenty’s nominee for education commissioner, but the DFL Senate refused to confirm her, ousting her from office.
"With help of all the Democrats in this room, in 2006, we're going to send Tim Pawlenty back," Kelley said, gaining a roar from the crowd.
Kelley called for Democrats to offer a united message, including having candidates abide by the endorsement process. That might be lacking in his own race, however, as he's the only candidate so far to pledge to do so. Aside from Doran, who will enter the primary, Attorney General Mike Hatch and Sen. Becky Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, have been mum on the issue.
"It’s so important for our candidates to abide by the DFL endorsement,"he said of the opportunity to present a united front early. "If we're going to win this year, we need to be united in June, not in September."
The best thing to end the contentiousness in St. Paul, he said, is to elect a DFL governor and put DFL majorities in both the Senate and the House.
Also speaking were two candidates - Mark Ritchie and Christian Sande - who are seeking the DFL endorsement to run against two-term incumbent GOP Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer.
Both said she has run the office with an iron-fist, and has made the office a partisan battleground. Both said that while being Democrats, if elected, they would restore integrity to the office.
Sande, an elections law lawyer, said Kiffmeyer has been turned back in her efforts to restrict voting by not allowing tribal IDs to vote, and a new effort must be mounted to stop legislation to require a photo ID, which would further restrict voting.
"We have not had a single case of a voter illegally voting where a photo ID would fix it," Sande said. "We need to tell legislators with these proposals that we know what they are doing, that they don’t like the way people are voting, not that they are fixing a problem."
Ritchie, who led a massive non-profit organization national get-out-the-vote effort in 2004, said that "it is time to put someone with integrity in the office of secretary of state.”
County auditors "are fed up" with Kiffmeyer, he said, adding that it will take money to unseat an incumbent. He believes he's got the start, with $100,000 and major endorsements from labor and legislators.
"We also have to put together a Democratic party ticket that the public says, yes, the Democrats are ready to govern," Ritchie said. "This is the year where we put forth a unified message."
Rep. Frank Moe, DFL-Bemidji, emceed the event, which also heard from Sen. Rod Skoe, DFL-Clearbrook, Rep. Brita Sailer, DFL-Park Rapids, Senate 4 candidates Irene Folstrom and Mary Olson, both of Bemidji, and House 4B candidate Ron Berry of Walker. Source: Bemidji Pioneer, February 21, 2006
1 Comments:
The Bemidji Pioneer writes the longest stories I've ever seen. They must really be trying to fill some news-print. That weird Steve Sviggum a few monthes ago was very long as well.
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