Is Wetterling about to leave Senate race?

01/20/2006

The DFL candidate has scheduled a news conference today amid speculation that she will be ending her campaign.

Patricia Lopez,
Star Tribune
Last update: January 19, 2006 – 11:29 PM

DFL U.S. Senate candidate Patty Wetterling has called a news conference for today, and may drop out of the race. Such a move could alter the landscape for as many as three high-profile 2006 campaigns.

Ron Teicher, campaign spokesman for the nationally known children’s advocate, said Thursday that he “won’t confirm” whether Wetterling is dropping out, but that there would be “an announcement” at 2 p.m. today.

In the Senate contest, Wetterling’s absence would clear a path for DFL front-runner Amy Klobuchar, the Hennepin County attorney who has held the edge in the race for dollars and been gaining ground among delegates to the party’s June endorsing convention. Klobuchar would be the only female DFL candidate, facing veterinarian Ford Bell, and the only candidate offering an unqualified promise to abide by the DFL’s endorsement decision.

Wetterling is said to have been wooed as a gubernatorial running mate and has been urged by some to enter the congressional contest in Minnesota’s Sixth District, where she lost a hard-fought race against Rep. Mark Kennedy in 2004. Kennedy is now the presumptive GOP nominee in the U.S. Senate race, and has been amassing funds for what many say could be the most expensive race in state history.

The Republican race for the Sixth District seat features several high-profile legislators, but none with the public recognition of Wetterling, who became a nationally known advocate for missing children after her 11-year-old son Jacob Wetterling was abducted in 1989. Jacob has not been found.

GOP candidates include House Taxes Chairman Phil Krinkie, R-Lino Lakes, House Ways and Means Chairman Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud, and Sen. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater.

Wetterling, who came within 8 percentage points of Kennedy in 2004, has already thrown her support to the only announced DFL candidate in the Sixth District race, Elwyn Tinklenberg, former mayor of Blaine and transportation commissioner under independent Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Tinklenberg on Thursday said Wetterling had assured him repeatedly that she would stay in the Senate race. “I take her at her word,” he said.

Sen. Wes Skoglund, DFL-Minneapolis, who called Wetterling on the day U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton announced his retirement to urge her entry into the race, said Thursday that he hoped she was not being pushed out.

Skoglund said that he did not know whether she was going to withdraw, but that “if it makes her happy [to withdraw], that’s fine. I just don’t want to see her pressured out. There’s been pressure on her to get out from the start.”

Political newcomers, he said, “are a bit more vulnerable to that than people who’ve been around.”

Skoglund said the Senate race would be an especially tough proving ground for any novice. “Candidates sometimes don’t realize how big this state is and how all-encompassing a statewide race is. They don’t realize how many hours it takes. She was doing a good job on the money, but with these big campaigns you have to hire staff and pay them.”

Klobuchar holds finance edge

Wetterling’s last report to the Federal Election Commission on her fundraising through Sept. 30, showed she had raised $965,855, but had only $289,233 in cash, reflecting her emphasis on small donors, a costlier approach to fundraising.

By comparison, Klobuchar had raised $1.75 million and had a bankroll of $1.36 million. The candidates are due to file end-of-the-year reports by Jan. 31, and political observers have said Wetterling was struggling to keep pace in the money chase.

Wetterling has suffered several other blows in recent weeks. Klobuchar has been racking up endorsements by large labor groups and was endorsed this week by U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, whose northern Eighth District is a pivotal one for DFLers.

In addition, EMILY’s List, the women’s fundraising group that typically supports all Democratic, abortion-rights female candidates, reached into the Minnesota race early to back Klobuchar over Wetterling.

EMILY’s List President Ellen Malcolm said in a recent interview with the Star Tribune that after talking to the two candidates, “we concluded that on every measure Amy Klobuchar was the strongest Democrat and best able to win the general election.”

Jennifer Duffy, of the Cook Political Report in Washington D.C., said recently that while Wetterling has her strengths, Klobuchar “is the clear frontrunner. I tend to be with those who wonder why Patty Wetterling is still in the race.”