Endorsement is only first round in GOP struggle to knock off Walz
03/24/2008
By CHAO XIONG,
Star Tribune
March 23, 2008
MANKATO - In a swath of Minnesota that's not politically safe for either party, the race to oust freshman U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., is heating up.
So far, the campaign has been overshadowed by the historic and dramatic presidential campaign season, but it's gaining steam as Republicans prepare to endorse a candidate Saturday at their First District convention in Albert Lea.
Two of the contenders, state Rep. Randy Demmer of Hayfield and Mayo Clinic doctor Brian Davis, have agreed to support whomever the party endorses.
But with greater name recognition, a rebel attitude attractive to some voters and more money than his opponents, state Sen. Dick Day is waiting in the wings.
Day, of Owatonna, is skipping the GOP endorsement process and running in the September primary.
"He's banking on there being a bigger slice [of voters] in the middle than the other candidates think there is," said Darrell Downs, chairman of the Political Science Department at Winona State University.
While Day is the assumed front-runner in a primary, according to some leaders in both parties, he isn't wringing his hands about not going after the Republican endorsement.
'A nice, clean campaign'
"I'm going to let the people have a voice," Day said of his decision to run in the primary. "It's going to be a nice, clean campaign."
Demmer declined to criticize Day's decision.
"I don't know if I can say it'll harm the party," Demmer said. "It'd be better if there was only one Republican running against Tim Walz."
Davis opened his campaign by making the rounds at county fairs last year, but no one expects the campaign to kick into high gear until after the endorsement. Day and the endorsed candidate then will have five months to make their cases to voters before the primary on Sept. 9.
In preparation for the endorsing convention, Demmer and Davis are targeting delegates, holding talks in coffee shops, meeting in homes and, in Demmer's case, wooing delegates by phone after long days at the Legislature.
Davis is at a disadvantage, jumping into the race without name recognition equal to his elected opponents, but he has cut back on his workload at Mayo so he can campaign. He said that's helped him even the playing field.
With his competitors tied up at the Legislature, some say Davis has a unique opportunity to get out and be seen, especially as the only nonpolitician challenger to Walz, who was a high school teacher in Mankato when he knocked off six-term Rep. Gil Gutknecht in 2006.
"Davis has an enormous opportunity in the change and hope of, 'Let's do something different,' that [Democratic presidential candidate Barack] Obama is campaigning on," said GOP activist Sarah Janecek.
Davis' outsider status is what appeals to Julie VonRuden of Owatonna, an undecided voter weary of the Bush administration.
"He could be a very exciting person," she said. "He could certainly bring something new to the table."
But Walz still is playing on the same appeal, emphasizing his schoolteacher roots and former participation in the Army National Guard. With little more than a year in Congress under his belt, he hopes that voters still see him as an everyman politician who is regularly spotted in town bowling with his family or holding impromptu discussions with constituents.
"He's very much a person of the people, for the people," said Kaitlin Schaefer of Mankato.
Political, business experience
Demmer and Day are campaigning on experience and publicly vetted records, which, combined with their business experience, are big pluses in the eyes of Dave Alexander of Dover, a traveling salesman.
Walz's challengers criticize him for voting more with congressional liberals than his 2006 campaign had indicated, but Downs said Walz's back-and-forth is necessary in a district that, before Gutknecht, was represented by Democrat Tim Penny, who served the southeastern Minnesota district from 1982 through 1994. Gutknecht won election when Penny retired.