Two elections continue DFL gains
12/29/2005
DFL margins were large for two St. Cloud-area legislative seats, following 2004 election advances.
Conrad Defiebre,
Star Tribune
Last update: December 28, 2005 – 9:48 PM
When Tim Pawlenty won the governor’s office amid a Republican near-sweep of the 2002 elections in Minnesota, he cautioned those who predicted GOP hegemony as far as the eye could see that “in a democracy, in America, the pendulum swings.”
After a pair of lopsided triumphs for the DFL in legislative special elections Tuesday in the St. Cloud area, the political pendulum seems to many to be swinging back to the left. The victories by DFLers Tarryl Clark and Larry Haws followed a DFL special-election upset in the Twin Cities suburbs in November and the party’s gain of 13 House seats in the 2004 elections.
“They’re on a roll,” Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, R-Owatonna, acknowledged Wednesday. “We got our butt beat, and we’ve got to regroup.”
DFLers were more than happy to agree.
“These decisive election victories show the wisdom of what Democrats have been doing,” House Minority Leader Matt Entenza, DFL-St. Paul, said at a State Capitol news conference with Rep.-elect Haws at his side. “Democrats are going to talk about education, health care and transportation, and that’s why we’re winning. Republicans talk about divisive social issues, and that’s why they’re losing.”
The outcomes on Tuesday weren’t close. Clark, a lawyer, lobbyist and nonprofit executive, had lost twice to former Sen. Dave Kleis, R-St. Cloud. She won this one with 55 percent of the votes to Republican Dan (Ox) Ochsner’s 37 percent and 6 percent for Dan Becker of the Independence Party.
Haws, a three-term Stearns County commissioner and longtime St. Cloud director of parks and recreation, was unopposed on the ballot after Republican nominee Sue Ek was disqualified by the state Supreme Court because she hadn’t lived in the district long enough. Her mother, Kay, got 26 percent of the vote as a last-minute GOP write-in, but was swamped as Haws rolled up 71 percent.
Some Republicans blamed the outcome on confusion over Sue Ek’s aborted candidacy, but Day disagreed. “The margin was too big for that,” he said.
How big a shift?
Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said recent DFL advances are more “leading indicators” than proof of a major shift in the electorate.
“I’m not sure there’s a political tsunami on the horizon,” he said. “Yes, the DFL has won several kind of off-year by-elections. But is it a trend or is it better candidates?”
Jacobs also noted, however, that time and the tides of public opinion have eroded some recent advantages for the GOP.
“After 9/11, things were generally favorable for the Republicans,” he said. “Homeland security and smaller government were on people’s minds, and the Republicans appealed to that. Today voters seem more concerned about government services, the cost of the war in Iraq and health care costs. These are not Republican issues.”
Meanwhile, some DFLers argue that the rout they suffered in 2002—losing a U.S. Senate seat, six incumbent state senators and all constitutional offices but attorney general while ceding a mighty 81-53 majority to the House Republicans—was not a pendulum swing but a wild aberration caused by voter backlash to the political fervor of parts of the public memorial service for U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone.
“Today there’s a Bush backlash,” Day said. “Let’s hope next November there’s a little different climate.”
Showdown in November
On Nov. 7, barely 10 months ahead, Minnesotans will face a general election ballot crammed with contests for all 201 legislative seats, the governorship and all other constitutional offices, an open U.S. Senate seat and all eight U.S. House seats.
“We’re the solid favorites now,” said Sen. Dick Cohen of St. Paul, a senior DFL strategist.
But Jacobs noted that Pawlenty’s approval ratings have rebounded and that U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, the presumptive Republican nominee to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, is “down a little in the polls, but certainly not in danger.”
State Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson, DFL-Willmar, was basking Wednesday in a comfortable new 38-29 edge for his DFL caucus, up from 35-32 after the 2002 election. But he acknowledged that the political winds can shift again.
“This is not a time to be arrogant,” he said, “but to govern, to unite and to be efficient with the taxpayers’ money. We’re not going to rest on our laurels.”