DFL backs Kelley for attorney general

08/13/2006

BY PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press

Steve Kelley easily won endorsement Saturday as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s candidate for Minnesota attorney general.

But the endorsement came with an asterisk: Both the other candidates who will oppose Kelley in a Sept. 12 primary boycotted the endorsing convention.

Those opponents — former U.S. Rep Bill Luther of Eden Prairie and state Solicitor General Lori Swanson of Eagan — said Saturday they planned to continue aggressively campaigning for the DFL nomination that will officially be decided in the primary.

“Nothing’s changed,” Swanson said in a telephone interview shortly after Kelley won the endorsement. “I’m in the primary.”

Luther said he would not drop out of the race and was “moving forward” with his primary campaign.

And Mike Hatch, the current attorney general who is the DFL-endorsed candidate for governor, said through a spokeswoman that he would not personally endorse any of the three Democratic candidates for attorney general.

All three candidates hurriedly entered the race for attorney general last month after Matt Entenza, who had originally won the endorsement in a June convention, abandoned his campaign. Hatch had encouraged both Luther and Swanson to challenge Entenza.

Under Minnesota law and campaign practice, party endorsement is a stamp of approval that often carries with it significant support in the form of advertising, sample ballots and volunteers. But if more than one major-party candidate files for an office, the September primary determines who represents the party in the November general election.

The Republican-endorsed candidate for attorney general is state Rep. Jeff Johnson of Plymouth. John James, a former state revenue commissioner, was endorsed by the Independence Party. Like Kelley, Johnson and James face primary contests.

Kelley won the endorsement Saturday on a voice vote by about 400 members of the party Central Committee meeting at the Sauk Rapids-Rice High School. There was only a smattering of “no” votes, although a few members of the crowd had opposed making any pre-primary endorsement.

In interviews before the vote, several Kelley supporters said they hoped Luther and Swanson would cease any active campaigning if Kelley won.

“They should just leave their names on the ballot and not campaign,” said Carl Halverson of East Bethel. Polly Philblad, a Kelley backer from Fridley, said Luther and Swanson should “step down, make an announcement — the press would be all over it — throw their support to Kelley.”

But Diane Bourgeois, a Swanson supporter from Minneapolis, said she liked Swanson over Kelley, regardless of the endorsement.

“Steve Kelley believes we need party unity,” Bourgeois said. “I believe Democratic values are more important than party unity.”

Kelley, 53, is a lawyer who has served in the Legislature since 1993. He ran for governor this year, but promised from the start that he would not wage a primary fight if he lost the endorsement. He lost the gubernatorial endorsement to Hatch at the DFL state convention in June.

Kelley grew up in the Twin Cities’ western suburbs, graduated from Columbia University’s law school, and practiced commercial law for Mackall, Crounse & Moore, a Minneapolis law firm, until late 2004. Since then he has been a full-time legislator and candidate.

After winning the endorsement for attorney general, Kelley denied that the party’s backing was devalued because Luther and Swanson did not seek it.

“It’s the party saying ‘This is the candidate we want to stand up for our principles,’ “ he said of the endorsement.

After the vote, Brian Melendez, the DFL state chairman, said he would prefer that Luther and Swanson now support Kelley. But he said they could not legally remove their names from the ballot, and he indicated he did not expect them to stop campaigning.

Johnson, the Republican endorsee, said in a statement: “When the DFL’s first candidate, Matt Entenza, left the race, we expected that we would not know who our opponent would be until after the September primary. The DFL Central Committee’s endorsement of Steve Kelley doesn’t change that.”