Cheney visits Minnesota to back Kennedy

07/23/2005

Rochelle Olson, Star Tribune
July 23, 2005

Vice President Dick Cheney made a stealth visit Friday to a Lake Minnetonka luncheon fundraiser for Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kennedy, while the DFL Party and national Democrats put on a dog show.

About a quarter-mile from the GOP campaign contributors-only event at TCF Chairman Bill Cooper’s lakeshore mansion, a couple dozen DFLers held a news conference depicting Kennedy, the Republican Sixth District congressman, as a lapdog for President Bush.

The Cheney visit, which was closed to reporters and the public, and the DFL’s dog hijinks - more than a year before the actual election - demonstrate how high-profile and expensive Minnesota’s 2006 U.S. Senate race is going to be.

Kennedy jumped into the Senate contest as soon as first-term Democratic Sen. Mark Dayton said he wouldn’t seek reelection. The DFLers in the race are foundation executive Ford Bell, real estate developer Kelly Doran, Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar and child-safety advocate Patty Wetterling.

At Friday’s fundraiser, steak salads and wine were served to those who paid $1,000 to attend. For $4,200, a couple could pose for photos with Cheney. The event raised about $300,000, said a source close to the Kennedy campaign.

At the DFLers’ news conference, three real dogs and a human in a furry costume were there to underscore the point. The latter wore a sign reading, “Hi, my name is Kennedy, Bush/Cheney’s lapdog,” and a leash around his neck held by a man wearing a Bush mask.

Other DFLers carried signs that read, “Lapdogs deserve treats, not U.S. Senate seats” and “Mark Kennedy, Dean’s list, W’s School of Obedience.”

“We’re not interested in another lapdog for the extreme right-wing agenda,” DFL associate state chair Donna Cassutt said.

The Cheney fundraiser was heavily secured by Secret Service agents and police from several Twin Cities jurisdictions. Parking wasn’t allowed on two-lane Ferndale Road W. for at least a quarter-mile in each direction. Agents and police shooed passersby away from the end of the driveway because it was “inside the secure perimeter.” A handful of neighbors moved about 25 yards down the road, hoping in vain to catch a glimpse of Cheney.

Guests parked their cars about a quarter-mile away, then rode shuttle vans to the event.

A lone protester stood on the street outside the Cooper house for a couple of hours with a sign that read “Close military bases in Iraq, not the U.S.”

Cheney wasn’t visible to anyone outside the event. A Kennedy spokeswoman initially promised to answers questions after the event, but instead issued a brief statement by the congressman.

“It is disappointing that some Democrats continue to offer nothing but negativity and childish name-calling rather than providing meaningful solutions,” the statement said.

Kennedy also was quoted as saying he was pleased to work with Cheney on tax relief and having made “America safer since the attacks on 9-11 by fighting terrorists overseas, so we don’t have to fight them here at home.”

His campaign wouldn’t say how many attended or how much was raised. Kennedy himself was in congressional session in Washington, D.C., and unable to attend the fundraiser.

Michael Gorman, a venture fund manager who attended the event, said Cheney was behind the scenes much of the time posing for photos with top donors, then came out to speak about the importance of electing Kennedy to the Senate.

Gorman called Kennedy an “outstanding candidate” because of his business experience, his fiscal acumen and his background as a family man and long-time Minnesotan.

As for the contention that Kennedy votes too often with Bush, Gorman said, “People should look at any candidate based on his character and his record.”

Cooper, a former state GOP chairman, didn’t return calls to his home or office.

On the attack

While the Kennedy camp was mostly silent, Cassutt had plenty to say.

She said Kennedy “takes his cues from the Bush-Cheney administration” and voted 98 percent of the time with the president. She noted that Cheney handpicked U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman to run in 2002.

“Today, Norm Coleman is the lead defender of Karl Rove,” she said. Rove, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, has come under scrutiny in the investigation of the leak of a CIA agent’s identity.

Cheney arrived about noon at the Cooper house in a motorcade that included two black limousines, several trucks and an ambulance. He reportedly didn’t stay more than 45 minutes and didn’t partake of the luncheon.

Meanwhile, two national Democratic groups stepped into the media vacuum with attack-dog news releases about the event. The Democratic National Committee’s broadside was headlined: “Karl Rove Scandal Machine Comes to Minnesota.”

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee offered up ideas for how to spend $4,200 instead of having a picture taken with the vice president: immunize 420 children, pay a teacher’s salary for a month, buy 2,400 school lunches, provide 14 bulletproof vests for police or pay for a semester’s tuition at the University of Minnesota.