Kennedy offers a plan for ‘right kind’ of change

08/13/2006

The GOP Senate candidate’s 13-point agenda contained few details and some long-held positions.

Warren Wolfe,
Star Tribune
Last update: August 12, 2006 – 11:11 PM

Promising to be a U.S. senator “who won’t be an obstructionist,” Rep. Mark Kennedy released a 13-topic agenda Saturday that he pledged to pursue if he is elected to succeed Sen. Mark Dayton. Dayton, a Democrat, is not seeking reelection.

“For almost six years now, Senator Dayton has spent his time out on the liberal fringe, lobbing partisan bombs, but not getting things done for Minnesota,” Kennedy said at a State Capitol news conference in St. Paul.

Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, the DFL-endorsed Senate candidate, “seems to agree with Senator Dayton pretty much on everything, as far as I can tell,” he said.

The U.S. House, where the Sixth District Republican has served since 2001, “has done its work, but in some years there have been 40 major bills passed by the House that are not passed by the Senate,” even though both bodies are controlled by Republicans.

“Both sides in this campaign talk about change. But to make the right kind of change, you need to know what needs changing in the first place. ... [Klobuchar] complains a lot. But complaining doesn’t get anything done.”

Klobuchar has sought to paint Kennedy as a yes-man for the Bush administration, a charge Kennedy vigorously denies.

A spokeswoman for Klobuchar said Saturday that she has offered far more in-depth positions on important issues than has Kennedy during the campaign.

“Congressman Kennedy’s rhetoric about ‘change’ rings hollow to Minnesotans who know that he’s spent six years in Washington voting in lockstep with the president’s failed policies,” spokeswoman Tara McGuinness said.

Campaign swing

Kennedy declined to discuss specifics of his plan Saturday, saying he’ll do that on a three-day campaign swing through Minnesota late this week.

Much of the “Plan to Bring the Right Kind of Change to Washington” incorporates positions Kennedy has taken before and are in line with those of congressional Republicans. For instance, he would eliminate the estate tax, make tax cuts permanent and withdraw troops from Iraq only after military commanders advise it.

Other previous positions included in Kennedy’s plan—not on the Republican agenda—include opposing expansion to high schools of the No Child Left Behind education program and support for temporarily suspending the gasoline tax to lower fuel costs and stripping tax breaks from oil companies and redirecting the money to renewable energy sources such as ethanol and hydrogen.

The plan offers 100 proposals in 13 categories: education, agriculture, energy, family values, health care, jobs, lobbying reform, retirement, the environment, outdoor heritage, border security, traffic congestion and the war on terror.

ON THE WEB

To read more about the candidates’ positions, go to http://www.markkennedy06.com and http://www.amyklobuchar.com