Things have once again gotten out of control on the GOP side in the run up to the 2014 elections. A primary to decide who the candidate is to be after an endorsement fails to unite the activists brings back unpleasant memories. Think of this as the return of the Brian Davis strife from 2008, but with the potential to get uglier.
What I’m about to write will make some enemies (if anyone actually bothers to read this post), but some harsh truths need to be said even if it appears to give the Democrats ammo. It doesn’t, they already have more than enough thanks to ham fisted politicking already under way.
Over the past decade, the Republicans of Congressional District 1 in Minnesota have indulged in circular firing squads and tribalism to the point where sitting Democratic Congressman Tim Walz has become all but unbeatable. A large part of it has been the result of an influx of Ron Paul supporters into the caucus system exacerbated by the purging of too many old hands who understood how to fund raise and campaign. Paul supporters for the most part aren’t willing to do the work required to elect candidates once things go to the general election and that continues to astound me.
Why? Because of all the work and effort they put into getting said candidates endorsed and taking over of party leadership positions. They are really good at that, then pretty much vanish into the ether other than doing an occasional phone bank. There seems to be a fundamental disconnect from the reality of politics reminiscent of the underpants gnomes from South Park:
- Collect endorsements and BPOU leaderships
- ?
- Victory!
So what does this have to do with Jim Hagedorn reentering the race to contest endorsed candidate Aaron Miller in the primary?
After a surprise win by Miller, who drew his base support heavily from the Paul supporters, there was a promise made to aggressively campaign to get his name out. That promise wasn’t kept the way it should have been. Oh Miller’s name got out, however it wasn’t due to hard campaigning. Instead he became national news (hitting the Huffington Post) with a story about evolution being taught in school causing his daughter to come home crying.
While red meat is expected to be thrown to activists, there are some things that are poison for a general election, especially in a bluish purple district. No matter where a candidate is, he or she needs to watch their words carefully.
Efforts at damage control did not go well and a prominent regional reporter was actually blacklisted by the campaign and another had to get a personal visit from Miller to undo a possible blacklisting there. Most of the campaigning being done at the time was Twitter based rather than pressing the flesh, meet and greets, and press interviews nearly every day. Those are the absolute basics when you are running for office, especially if you are a challenger nobody knows.
Getting back to the social media emphasis, in 2012 only 2% of U.S. adults followed campaigns on Twitter! Even if 25% of Americans are using the service, that’s still small especially for an aging district. But that’s fodder for a long post in itself, so I’ll move on after pointing out that wearing out your shoes does more for a campaign than anything else.
These are bush league mistakes and even worse than what I saw happen with the Brian Davis campaign, which was also run by politico Brad Biers. Watching that campaign alternate between incompetency and using highly questionable methods permanently soured me on a lot of political doings, since I don’t believe the ends justify the means. It too was a campaign that didn’t do enough while committing too many mistakes.
A profound sense of history repeating itself is what I’m feeling here.
Part of the problem is that there is a mythical creature being sought by the Miller campaign: the young voter willing to vote for a GOP candidate. Republicans never get this age group and even if they did, this is the wrong year to be pursuing them. The 18 to 30 year old block only comes out in large numbers for presidential year elections, not off years such as 2014. Frankly, hunting down unicorns that fart Skittles is more likely to succeed.
The push that it is time for younger candidates for young people to identify with is interesting since the 1st District is growing older in demography rather than younger. It’s also one of the things used to destroy Hillary Clinton’s candidacy by Obama supporters. Think about that for a bit. Suffice it to say the argument that younger is better doesn’t fly with me after six years of the current president.
As you can tell, I’m very disappointed with what the Miller campaign has been doing. I backed Hagedorn but could not commit to being a delegate due to my father’s health issues, but I was willing to abide by the endorsement since the CD1 Republicans have been so divided the last six years. Watching another candidate fail to properly campaign and making multiple serious mistakes right out of the gate changed my mind. So I am backing Hagedorn again.
Any attempt to unseat Walz is going to be a very difficult endeavor, for he is far more popular than GOP activists are willing to admit. Yes he votes with Pelosi more than 90% of the time, but his PR portraying him as a moderate is excellent as is his money machine which has nearly five times cash on hand as Miller. It would take a scandal to mortally wound most incumbents, so any candidate taking him on is going to have to work like a madman while not coming off as one.
This difficulty is still a factor despite 2014 shaping up to be a wave election like 2010. A peculiarity of Minnesota is that recent waves assisting Republicans only assist state legislature candidates, not federal or constitutional ones. I’d like to be wrong about that this year, but knowing Minnesota went for Mondale when the rest of the country didn’t is not comforting. Neither are the elections of Mark Dayton, Jesse Ventura, and Al Franken…
More gruesome realities to face are the results of past CD1 elections by percentage of the vote:
2008
- Brian Davis R 32.93
- Tim Walz D 62.50
- Gregory Mikkelson I 4.48
2010
- Randy Demmer R 44.05
- Tim Walz D 49.34
- Steven Wilson I 5.34
2012
- Allen Quist R 42.33
- Tim Walz D 57.52
Davis and Quist were the candidates backed by the Paul followers and lost by 29.57 and 15.19 points respectively. Demmer is often maligned by a good number of current activists and only lost by 5.29 points, the closest we’ve gotten to Walz since he was elected back in 2006. He also got Walz below the 50% mark.
I think the numbers show that a desire for firebrands has cost us dearly. Activists love them, but the general public of southern Minnesota run from them. What wins an endorsement race does not win a general election, yet the campaigning has tended to stay the same. Sigh.
I did not want to write this post. Given the state of everything going wrong in the country, a nice and clean endorsement process resulting in an energetic candidate taking the fight to Walz was what I was hoping for. Yet I find myself at the keyboard typing out of quiet frustration that the Republican party has become a such sad joke in the congressional district and the state as a whole. It’s become such a familiar pattern that I no longer can generate any anger over it.
It’s the final nail in the coffin for the caucus process to me. I’ve felt it wasn’t working due to a lack of participation by the public and now it seems to cause nothing but trouble due to fringe groups being able to take over. The lack of awareness of the candidates and their positions by many of the delegates is alarming, given the fact that they are far more politically involved than the population at large.
Things are very broken right now.
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