Missteps or meltdowns?

11/04/2006

BY BILL SALISBURY and PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press

DFL gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch greets friend Shirley Lund during a campaign appearance at the Montana Cafe in Cook, Minn. Lund’s husband, Ernie, a longtime Hatch friend, died in 2003. “Ernie would’ve been so happy to see Mike run for governor,” Lund said.With two angry outbursts at reporters this week, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Hatch made his temper an issue in the closing days of the campaign.

In one of those exchanges, a newspaper chain reported that he called a male reporter a “Republican whore.” He denied using that terminology.

Whether the controversy is just a one-day flap or the political “meltdown” gleefully proclaimed by a Republican leader depends on how Hatch handles bad news.

“When the heat and lights are on, his big challenge will be whether he keeps his composure,” Carleton College political science professor Steven Schier said Friday.

At the very least, Hatch gave Republicans the opening they have been waiting for to raise questions about whether he is temperamentally suited to be governor.

The controversy began Wednesday when KSTP-TV broadcast video, shot on Tuesday by a sister station in Alexandria, Minn., in which Hatch’s running mate, Judi Dutcher, was asked about E-85, a motor fuel that is 85 percent corn-based ethanol.

Dutcher was unable to answer the question. “It’s like you asked me the college quiz bowl question,” she said. “What’s E-85?”

On Thursday, a reporter for the Forum Communications Co., which owns several outstate daily newspapers, called Hatch and asked to speak personally to Dutcher about her knowledge of ethanol.

“Hatch abruptly ended the interview with: ‘You’re nothing more than a Republican whore,’ “ and then hung up, Forum Communications reported.

When questioned by reporters Friday about the alleged comment, Hatch denied he had used that word.

“My recollection is I said he was acting like a Republican hack,” he said. “I’ve never labeled somebody by the latter term.”

The Forum Communications reporter who wrote the story was not available for comment. His boss, Forum Communications state Capitol bureau chief Don Davis, defended the accuracy of the reporter’s account.

“Our quote was accurate, no doubt about it,” he said.

Hatch also erupted Thursday in Austin, Minn., when a KSTP reporter attempted to question Dutcher’s response. He accused KSTP of taking Dutcher’s comments out of context and providing biased coverage because its CEO, Stanley S. Hubbard, is supporting Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

“Stan Hubbard is a political hack, and he’s got a news media station full of media hacks,” Hatch told the KSTP reporter.

On Friday, he told reporters that he was angry at Hubbard for founding and contributing to a secretive, 4-week-old political action committee, based in Alexandria, Va., that is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV advertising to defeat him.

Hubbard said he contributed $10,000 to the committee but was not involved in running it.

“Where’s this guy coming from?” Hubbard asked, referring to Hatch. “He’s nuts.”

Hatch acknowledged on Minnesota Public Radio that he lost his temper with regard to the Hubbard incident and his remarks were “very inappropriate,” but he didn’t apologize.

“I think I showed a temper, and I’ve got one,” he said Friday morning. “And I think I’ve got a right to express it when I do. And that’s part of who I am.”

Republicans have tried for months to show that Hatch is an “angry liberal.” But he has run a remarkably disciplined campaign and kept his emotions in check — at least until now.

After his latest outburst, state Republican Party chairman Ron Carey said, “The much-awaited meltdown of Mike Hatch has begun.”

If he called a reporter a whore, Carey said, Hatch revealed the anger he has tried to hide during the campaign.

“Hatch’s latest blowup shows he doesn’t have the temperament to lead our state,” he said.

That’s nonsense, said veteran Democratic political analyst Bob Meek. The public recognizes that politicians don’t always get along with reporters.

“I think Mike’s temperament helps him,” Meek said. “I think he needs to show his tough side to attract folks who aren’t the politically correct Democrats who are already with him. Post-9/11, I think people want leaders who are tough enough to protect them.”

Hatch may not have melted down, “but it’s pretty close,” said Republican analyst Tom Horner. “I think he’s about one blowup away from it,”

The controversy did, however, hurt Hatch’s campaign in two ways, Horner said.

“First, it takes Hatch off of his message in the critical closing days of the campaign, when he’d like to be out there closing the sale with Minnesota voters,” he said.

Second, he said, it will confirm in the minds of some voters that Hatch lacks the demeanor they want in a governor.

Any damage the controversy inflicts on Hatch’s campaign will be heightened because it occurred less than a week before the election, when voters are paying close attention, said Schier, the Carleton professor.

“Do I think this is a huge day in the history of Minnesota? No,” he said. “But timing is everything, and everything that happens in the final days of an election is of disproportionate importance.”