State senate hopefuls already on move

08/21/2005

Dane Smith,
Star Tribune
August 21, 2005

It’s 443 days until Minnesota picks a new U.S. senator, but real estate developer and neophyte politician Kelly Doran already has put up 31 billboards and is working full time to build name recognition in his pursuit of the DFL nomination.

Children’s advocate Patty Wetterling and Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar are working just as hard, if not quite as publicly, and have traveled thousands of miles this summer trying to nail down commitments from activists at DFL steak fries and picnics.

Wetterling and Klobuchar, unlike all others in the race, have pledged to abide by party endorsement, meaning they won’t run in a primary if somebody else gets the endorsement—a commitment considered nearly essential if one hopes to win endorsement.

Nonprofit executive Ford Bell, like Doran an unknown walk-on who has never run for elected office, is working the same circuits and trying to raise enough money to stay viable in the DFL hunt.

Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy appears to have pulled off an extraordinary early capture of the Republican nomination but is campaigning as if he hadn’t.

Nearly every elected office in Minnesota is up for grabs in 2006, but perhaps no contest in the state’s political history has generated as much early and frenetic activity as the high-stakes Senate race.

It’s an open seat being vacated by DFLer Mark Dayton, and the control of the closely divided U.S. Senate could be on the line.

National money will be pouring in, and all the candidates will be working the State Fair as if the election were this November.

The field may not yet be complete. Lawyer Mike Ciresi, who led the state to its big financial settlement over tobacco companies and who nearly won DFL endorsement in 2000, appears to be waiting offstage.

A Senate candidacy “remains of great interest to me, and I’ll be making my decision very shortly,” Ciresi said last week, declining to comment further.

Here are thumbnail summaries of the candidates’ activities and themes, along with the advantages and disadvantages in the early going.

Ford Bell

A veterinarian and president of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, Bell has to be rated a dark horse. His main asset is a thick résumé of community service and nonprofit activism.

“I’m the only candidate who has spent his whole life working in the community,” he says.

His speeches sound a lot like those of the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, the party’s spiritual hero. Bell claims to be the most specific and clearly progressive on the issues. He calls for universal health care, prompt withdrawal from Iraq and a national crusade for energy independence on the same level as the race to the moon.

Height is another distinction: “I’m the candidate with the longest body and the shortest name,” Bell says.

Kelly Doran

Doran is largely self-financing in the early stages and already has run a flight of radio ads attacking Kennedy’s vote in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement and its effect on Minnesota’s sugar beet industry.

The son of a single mom from the Iron Range and a bootstrap success, Doran says, “Nobody makes it on their own. My four kids will be fine, but I worry about everybody else’s kids.”

He’s positioning himself as a moderate on such issues as guns and environmental regulation and as a DFLer who understands business.

“We need people in the Senate who have created jobs,” he says. “I’m a fiscally conservative guy.”

Doran has veteran operative John Wodele in his camp and claims to be making inroads in northeastern Minnesota.

Amy Klobuchar

“I have experience, and I’m a tough fighter,” Klobuchar says.

Many say she’s the front-runner for endorsement, and no shy denial is forthcoming from her.

Klobuchar has the advantage of serving as a prosecutor and crime fighter to offset her liberal profile. She claims to have cut serious crime 20 percent in the state’s largest county.

Klobuchar has support among key former Wellstone staffers and already has corralled the endorsement of about 60 percent of DFL legislators.

She says she won’t make the mistake of focusing only on the endorsement and is doing lots of campaigning geared toward the general electorate. She is the only DFLer in the race who has won elections and served in office.

“There is some value in having served in office and representing people and the public good,” she says.

Patty Wetterling

The well-known children’s advocate does not have a lot of differences with Klobuchar on the issues and acknowledges Klobuchar’s advantage among liberal DFL activists.

But Wetterling says a private poll shows she beats Kennedy by 9 percentage points, and she claims to be better known statewide than any of the others and is therefore the most electable.

“I’m not an insider’s insider, but I’ve got 12,000 donors already and I’m bringing a lot of people to the party,” she says.

Wetterling stresses that she alone has Kennedy-fighting experience, losing the Sixth District race in 2004 by 8 percentage points but doing better than presidential nominee John Kerry in one of the state’s most conservative districts.

Mark Kennedy

“I am not relaxing,” the Sixth District congressman says. “I’ve been to all the [local district] Republican conventions, barbecues and picnics ... meeting as many people as possible, building a strong grass-roots effort and I’m continuing to talk about issues.”

He had a presence, usually as a member of his large extended family, at 50 parades this summer. Kennedy still has to represent his district and political base, the northern suburbs and the St. Cloud area, and he says he is spending about half of his time in the district.

He will be making a northern Minnesota campaign swing this week and will have his own booth at the State Fair.

Mike Cavlan

A candidate for Green Party nomination, Cavlan is a nurse in the burn unit at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. His theme is “peace, nonviolence, economic justice, ecological wisdom and grass-roots democracy.”

He has been trying to round up support at folk music festivals and peace vigils. Greens are preoccupied now with mayoral races, but Cavlan says he expects to recruit supporters.

The Greens lost major party status in 2004, but he insists they are “better organized in every cycle.”

“We’re planning to run strongly and aggressively throughout the state,” Cavlan says.