|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
Is candidacy a move toward state's moderate middle?
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Race
|
| Contributor | Eric |
| Last Edited | Eric Jan 13, 2006 02:00pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | Opinion |
| Media | Newspaper - St. Paul Pioneer Press |
| News Date | Friday, January 13, 2006 07:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | The political alliance of Kelly Doran and state Sen. Sheila Kiscaden as DFL candidates for governor and lieutenant governor has the potential to change the dynamics of Minnesota's long unproductive slog toward getting its electoral politics to align more realistically with the practical centrism that seeks the common good.
Whether this ticket can succeed where a whole third-party movement has faltered in leading voters toward a moderate middle depends on an array of variables. But novice Doran and veteran Kiscaden seek to present a new path out of high partisanship's haunted forest.
It's up to the candidates and their campaign to persist in a process that is stacked against moderates in either major party. To win the DFL nomination to challenge Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty in the fall, a Doran-Kiscaden campaign has months of day-in, day-out campaigning ahead. There is a party endorsement contest that is formidable. And if they having staying power to proceed to the primary, they must mobilize voters in greater numbers than their traditional DFL opponent or opponents.
What Doran and Kiscaden have to do, in short, is animate the campaign's slogan: "More principle. Less politics." And they have to do that in the electoral environment, which is driven by politics.
After a decade of base-pandering campaigns by both Republicans and DFLers, plus wild rides through the Independent/Independence Party's ups and now downs, the state has suffered through a government shutdown, epic battles over the ideologies of governing and levels of rancor that just turn the vast majority of Minnesotans off.
But base-politics has proved effective.
Larry Jacobs, director of the Humphrey Institute's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, says, "The team that can get their troops the most fired up is winning." To manage the mobilization trend is a key challenge for the Doran campaign. "For a group playing to the middle, that's the real question," Jacobs says. |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
