Rep. John Kline

We’ll be recording a new Pig’s Eye Podcast this morning. We hope to have it posted by about 10 a.m. Once we get in front of the microphones, anything is possible, but here’s what we expect to be talking about.

A fugitive on the lam takes the time — bless his felonious little heart — to post a comment on Politically Connected about our podcast.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s enviable 59% job approval rating.

More stirrings in the Minnesota congressional races, including an intriguing Democrat stepping forward to run against John Kline.

The U.S. Senate race, where Al Franken edged out Sen. Norm Coleman in the third-quarter money race.

By the way, if you have a question for the Pig’s Eye Podcast crew — Doug Tice, Lori Sturdevant and me — or want us to address a certain topic, leave a post here, or send an e-mail to politicallyconnected@startribune.com.

Al Franken had some good news to report Thursday. So how did he get the word out?

YouTube.

Al Franken

We’ve seen politicians routinely announce their candidacies on YouTube, instead of at a speech/press conference on the lawn in front of their humble childhood home. We’ve seen them use YouTube to tap into popular culture, as Hillary Rodham Clinton did with her search for a campaign theme song. And we’ve seen Mike Gravel take this rock and toss — well, you tell me what that one’s about. Whatever it is, it’s here.

And now they’re using YouTube to make news, as Franken did by announcing his third-quarter fundraising totals, which exceeded Sen. Norm Coleman’s collections. As the Franken campaign announced on its website: “We released our numbers a little differently this time around — check out our Q3 video to see how well Al did…” Franken’s video is here. And our Washington correspondent Kevin Diaz’s story is here.

So it’s time to take a quick accounting of how the 2008 U.S. Senate candidates are doing on YouTube by looking at the activity on their channels. (Note: Spellings are as their channels appear on YouTube. Numbers are as of 6 p.m. Thursday.)

ciresiforsenate
Joined: May 2007
Last time logged in: 1 month ago
Videos posted: 32
Most viewed video: 494 views
Subscribers to his channel: 7
Channel views: 562
His channel is here.

ColemanforSenate
Joined: April 2007
Last time logged in: 3 weeks ago
Videos posted: 4
Most viewed video: 494 views (Yes, the exact same number as Ciresi.)
Subscribers to his channel: 19
Channel views: 913
His channel is here.

FrankenForSenate
Joined: February 2007
Last time logged in: Thursday morning
Videos posted: 16
Most viewed video: 164,360 views
Subscribers to his channel: 544
Channel views: 7,432
His channel is here.

Two other candidates, Democrats Jim Cohen and Dick Franson don’t have YouTube channels.

How do you rate the candidates in their use of YouTube? Aside from the numbers, which candidate has the best videos? Which of their videos are your favorites?

Today we launch this new website devoted to all things political. We invite you to explore – and then let us know what you think.

A highlight of our coverage today is the 2008 U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. You’ve probably already seen the Minnesota Poll results here showing that Sen. Norm Coleman and his leading Democratic opponents — Mike Ciresi and Al Franken — all have a lot of work ahead of them to win over voters.

Sen. Norm Coleman

Al Franken

Mike Ciresi

And don’t miss the rest of the Senate race coverage, including:
–Our story about yesterday’s debate among the Democratic Senate candidates, here.
–Our video of the debate, here.
–D.J. Tice’s thoughts on the poll here, in his Big Question blog.

We’ll also be discussing the Senate poll results on today’s Pig’s Eye Podcast. That’s a weekly show about Minnesota politics that we’ll be recording and posting by mid-morning every Monday. (How quickly we get the posting up depends on how many of our mistakes Producer Jenni Pinkley has to edit out.) The show will be posted here.

By the way, if you’re not up on your Pig’s Eye lore, listen to our very first show — a rehearsal, as it were, which we’ve saved here. It provides a bit of Pig’s Eye history.

Let me point out a few other things to get you started:

Candidate pages: We’ve created separate pages for all the presidential and Minnesota U.S. Senate candidates. You’ll find a wealth of breaking news, bloggers’ comments, the latest pronouncements directly from the candidates and a record of how they’ve voted and what they’ve said on the key issues.

For the presidential candidates, we’re starting with Iraq, Immigration and Terrorism — and we’ll be adding more to that list soon, as well as posting the same issues for the Senate candidates. You can find the presidential candidate pages here and the Senate candidate pages here.

Campaign finance: Find out which Minnesotans are giving to the presidential candidates, and find out where the Senate candidates are getting their money. You’ll find the look-up box on the Home page as well as on the presidential and the Senate race pages, or you can use the advanced contributor search here.

Blogs: We’ve added two new blogs to go along with the Big Question. The Prez Fight will focus on the presidential race, with special emphasis on the Republican National Convention heading out way next summer. And my McMemo blog will direct you to the latest and the best political content on Politically Connected and elsewhere.

There’s a lot more on the site, but this should be plenty to get you started today.

Our goal is to provide you with a motherlode of political content from Minnesota and elsewhere, so you can spend less time searching — and more time reading, watching and debating.

We invite you to dig in get familiar with the site. This is just the first phase. Soon, we’ll be adding and planning more content and features. So please, give us feedback below. We welcome your reaction to the site as it is now, and your suggestions on what else you’d like to see.

Hope you enjoy getting Politically Connected.

Dennis J. McGrath
Editor
Politically Connected

Minnesota Republicans this morning took aim at Al Franken for raising money for his U.S. Senate campaign at the Washington, D.C., home of Smith Bagley, an heir to the RJ Reynolds tobacco fortune. Franken has inveighed against “big tobacco,” the Republicans point out, calling his fundraiser “big hypocrisy.”

Franken isn’t the first Democratic Senate candidate from Minnesota to visit the Bagley home in search of money. In September 1990, Paul Wellstone knocked on the Bagley’s door looking for help, and he got a cool reception.  

I was covering Wellstone’s campaign that year and I trailed along with him and his aides on their largely unsuccessful fundraising trip. Here’s an excerpt from a story I wrote after the 1990 election about Wellstone’s upset win:

The Georgetown mansion of Elizabeth and Smith Bagley is their first
after-lunch fund-raising call.

     Smith Bagley is an heir to the R.J. Reynolds tobacco fortune
who has split from the family business. Elizabeth Bagley likes to
work for and contribute to the campaigns of progressive candidates.
The couple are friends of former President Jimmy Carter, as
evidenced by a photograph of their infant daughter being bounced on
Carter’s knee. They were also big givers and fund-raisers in the
Dukakis campaign in 1988.

     Wellstone and his aides are greeted at the door by Lilly, a
maid whose salmon-colored uniform matches the marble in the foyer. A
Rembrandt hangs in the library.

     Elizabeth Bagley enters from the dining room, where candelabra
the size of rose bushes adorn the table. She is deeply tanned and
has recently returned from a vacation on Nantucket Island, off
Massachusetts, where she and her husband socialized with Sen. Ted
Kennedy - and with Boschwitz, a friend of Kennedy’s.

     Wellstone makes a brief presentation, stressing the grass-roots
nature of his campaign and his progressive politics.

     Bagley names a dozen people, asking if Wellstone has contacted
them and if they’ve contributed. Wellstone and Norm Kurz, a
Washington-based fund-raiser, admit that most haven’t been contacted
or won’t return their calls.

     Sensing that Bagley thinks he’s lazy, Wellstone tells about his
three-shirt-a-day primary campaign:

     “I haven’t been in a cafe in Minnesota in a year and a half
where there hasn’t been 30 to 35 people, sometimes 100, not for a
rally, just to talk about issues. Then I come here (Washington) and
it’s always, `I don’t know your name.’ ”

     Bagley says, “It’s a cynical town. And you’re one of many,
too.”

     Indeed, Lilly has greeted many candidates standing at her
employers’ front door with their hands out. When Kurz had asked for
an audience, Bagley says, she thought, “Oh, God, do I really have to
talk to one more person?”

      “I really have never even heard your name,” she says. “Whose
fault is that?” The question goes unanswered.

     Bagley agrees to make fund-raising calls on Wellstone’s behalf,
but she doesn’t say if she’ll write a check herself.

     She leads the group on a house tour. Through the foyer, into an
enclosed courtyard, down a flight of stairs to an underground
swimming pool, enclosed by marble columns and glass. The pool took
two years to build and is patterned after a pool at a Hong Kong
hotel.

     Then it’s through an exercise room with mirrored walls and a
ballet barre and into a casual family room with a large-screen TV.
As they walk back through the exercise room, Wellstone is so deeply
engaged in conversation with Bagley that he walks into one of the
mirrored walls.

     Outside, he laughs about it.

     “I just spent an hour and a half trying to impress this woman
and then I walk into a mirror and I almost break my nose. I’m not
used to being in places like this.”