Otto, Ritchie unseat incumbents in ‘lesser’ races

11/08/2006

In the “down ballot” state contests for auditor and secretary of state, DFL challengers beat GOP incumbents.

Mark Brunswick,
Star Tribune
Last update: November 08, 2006 – 1:24 AM

DFLer Rebecca Otto was elected state auditor Tuesday, defeating incumbent Republican Patricia Anderson, and Mark Ritchie, the DFL secretary of state candidate, won over Republican incumbent Mary Kiffmeyer in hard-fought campaigns for often-overlooked offices.

The races included sparring this year over extreme partisanship and even basic competence. Ritchie, in his first run for elected office, and Otto, a former state legislator, held double-digit leads throughout the night, although Kiffmeyer closed the gap in later returns.

These are often called “down ballot” offices, suggesting less interest than other races.

But voters who headed to the polls Tuesday may have heard more about them this year than usual.

During the campaign, Otto accused Anderson of skewing audits to promote the conservative tax agenda of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a fellow Republican.

The auditor’s principle responsibility is oversight of local government finances, and Anderson’s hard-hitting reports concerning such things as the definition of an essential service have ruffled feathers among city and county officials.

Otto said Tuesday night that she believed that her campaign themes of working proactively with local governments rather than punishing them resonated with voters stung by local aid cuts and pledges of no new taxes.

“People remembered my message,” Otto said, referring to her campaign advertising that showed her finding mistakes in Anderson’s reports. “ ‘You’re the lady that circles the numbers in red.’ “

In a twist on the race, former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson, himself a former state auditor, endorsed Otto, saying Anderson had lost her independence.

Independence Party candidate Lucy Gerold, on leave from the Minneapolis Police Department, argued that Anderson would rather issue tough press releases than work with local governments to avert financial problems.

Anderson made no apologies for her pugnaciousness, unveiling an inflatable bulldog during her campaign to portray herself as a tough watchdog of taxpayer money.

Secretary of state

The secretary of state race was equally contentious, featuring a frontal attack on Kiffmeyer’s basic competence and integrity as the state’s chief election judge, even though voter turnout under her has been some of the highest in the nation.

Ritchie led a coalition that registered low-income people and minorities during the 2004 election and made attracting new voters a key to his campaign, generating endorsements from a host of progressive and labor groups that have targeted Kiffmeyer.

“What I heard everywhere was people saying they wanted a return to nonpartisanship in the office,” Ritchie said late Tuesday.

Kiffmeyer has been dogged by criticism throughout her tenure. Much of it has focused on accusations that she has seemed obsessed with voter fraud in a state where very little evidence of it exists.