Al Franken

Even before today’s official deadline for federal candidates to report their fundraising numbers, one thing is abundantly clear: the left is raking in big money.

That’s true nationally and it’s the case in Minnesota, too.

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Al Franken is enjoying being on the receiving end of this leftist largess.

Meanwhile, Sen. Norm Coleman and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, both Republicans, are on the receiving end of the spending by leftist groups. They’re both the targets of new television or radio ads critizing them over Iraq (Coleman) and the children’s health insurance battle (Bachmann).

The advantage the left is enjoying is highlighted at OpenSecrets.org, which tracks political money. The OpenSecrets overview is here. From the presidential race to Senate and House races to issue-oriented groups, the left comes out on top.

Norm Coleman

Consider:

Democratic presidential candidates raised an average of $2.2 million to the Republicans’ $1.2 million.

The top two Democrats – Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama — raised a combined $122 million. The top Republicans — Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani — raised $80 million.

Nine out of 10 of the top overall donors have given more than half their money in 2007 to Democrats.

However you slice it, the Democrats end up with the biggest piece of the pie.

And that money is flowing into Minnesota in a big way. OpenSecrets ranks the Minnesota Senate race as the second most expensive in the nation. The Texas Senate race ranked first with $18.5 million raised by the candidates combined, and Minnesota followed close behind with $16.2 million. A distant third was Massachusetts with $8.2 million.

In the most recent quarter, Franken, the Democratic challenger, achieved the rare feat of outraising the incumbent, Coleman. Here’s the Star Tribune story about Franken and Coleman’s fundraising, and here’s our story about money raised by Mike Ciresi.
The radio ad aimed at Coleman is the work of Keeping America’s Promise, which is Sen. John Kerry’s political action committee. Coleman is one of six Republican senators targeted. You can find out more about Kerry’s effort here. And here is Coleman’s campaign website and here is the page we’ve created about him here on Politically Connected.

Michele Bachmann

While Coleman is being hit by a well-known figure, Bachmann is in the sights of a group that isn’t a household name, but it is one of the biggest left-leaning money groups — the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), with 1.9 million members. The SEIU is part of the coalition paying for the TV ads pressing Bachmann to vote later this week to override President Bush’s veto of the children’s health insurance program.

The SEIU’s advocacy arm (a 527 organization), has raised more money than any other 527 group this election cycle, with $6.7 million, according to OpenSecrets. The closest right wing 527 group: GOPAC with $3.7 million. Here’s SEIU’s website and here’s Bachmann’s campaign website and here’s GOPAC’s site.

OpenSecrets cites the fact that Democrats control Congress as a key reason for their fundraising advantage.

Do you think that explains what’s happening? And why do you think the Minnesota Senate race is drawing so much money?

Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Today’s Star Tribune Minnesota Poll — here it is — showing Sen. Amy Klobuchar with a 61 percent job approval rating is a clear sign that she hasn’t made any missteps in her first 10 months in Washington. The job approval rating is about the same as her vote total when she was elected last year — with 58 percent of the vote.

But there’s no question that Klobuchar’s high standing is unusual.

Consider these Minnesota Poll job approval ratings for the last four U.S. senators from Minnesota when they were approximately a year into their first term. Only one other senator — Republican Norm Coleman — had a rating higher than 50 percent:

Norm Coleman, R: 12 months in (Jan. 2004) — 54 percent
Mark Dayton, D: 13 months in (Feb. 2002) — 46 percent
Rod Grams, R: 9 months in (Sept. 1995) — 37 percent
Paul Wellstone, D: 12 months in (Jan. 1992) 50 percent

The Grams findings were striking because they showed that 36 percent of Minnesotans had no opinion regarding his job performance. Only 27 percent disapproved.

Wellstone’s 50 percent rating represented a quick rehabilitation from his first job approval just three months into his term — 35 percent. His vocal protests against the Gulf War, including at the Vietnam War Memorial — drew lots of criticism.

(No, I didn’t forget Sen. Dean Barkley. Because he served only a matter of weeks to fill out Wellstone’s term, we don’t have any job approval polls on him.)

Here’s another way to look at Klobuchar’s numbers — in comparison to other members of her freshman senate class. Here are poll numbers I was able to find:

Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.: 54 percent in a Survey USA poll in September.
Robert Casey, Jr., D-Pa.: 49 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll in August.
Jim Webb, D-Va.: 46 percent in a Survey USA poll in September.
Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio: 45 percent in a Survey USA poll in September.
Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.: 41 percent in a Brown University Taubman Center poll in September. That poll asked people to rate his job performance, and 7 percent said excellent and 34 percent said good.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty

If anyone knows of job approval polls for the other freshmen — Democrats Ben Cardin, Md., and Jon Tester, Mont.; Republican Bob Corker, Tenn.; and independent Bernie Sanders, Vt., — please add them below.

What do you make of Klobuchar’s high ride in the poll? I also wonder whether Klobuchar’s 61 percent and Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s 59 percent job approval make them the highest-regarded Senator/Governor duo from opposite parties in the country.

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

Today

Sen. Norm Coleman testifies before a Committee on Environment and Public Works oversight hearing on the condition of the nation’s bridges. 9 a.m. (CDT). Webcast available on Coleman’s website: http://coleman.senate.gov/ 

Public hearing on new I-35W bridge, 5:30 p.m.,Thrivent Financial Auditorium, 625 4th Ave. S., Minneapolis 

Democratic presidential candidates debate live in Davenport, Iowa, 7-8:30 p.m., TPT Ch. 17.

Sunday

U.S. Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and John Conyers, D-Mich., hold a health care forum at the Historic Heights Theatre, 3951 Central Ave, N.E., Columbia Heights, at 1 p.m. 

U.S. Rep Jim Ramstad proved he can keep a secret. There wasn’t a whiff about the possibility of his retiring until his campaign issued an alert shortly before noon, saying that the congressman would be making a major announcement about his future. The release didn’t say what Ramstad would announce, but the Microsoft Word attachment detailing the time and location of the press conference had this name: “retire_advisory.doc”

Here’s the Star Tribune story about his announcement and the mad scramble that’s developing to succeed him.

Plus, The Big Question provides a more detailed look at those who are planning to or thinking about running.

The Star Tribune’s editorial praises Ramstad for his ability to reach across party lines.

Other coverage:

• The Hill points out that Ramstad is the sixth Republican House member to announce a retirement, and calls the Third District a “bona fide swing district.”
• Roll Call described the development as “another swing-seat headache for” Republicans.
• Power Line says that “headache” is probably a fair characterization, given that while Bush carried the district over Kerry, Clinton won it twice.
• MnPublis argues that Ramstad’s departure will mean fewer votes from the Third District for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in his reelection bid next year.
• Ed Morrissey at Captain’s Quarters headlines his post: Should I move to Minnetonka?

Ramstad’s own websites haven’t been updated with the news. But if you want to learn more about him, here’s his congressional site and his campaign site.

And if you want to look back at his voting record, this Washington Post site will keep you busy.

What do you think are the ramifications of Ramstad’s retirement, and who — or at least what kind of candidates — do you think would make the strongest contenders for his seat?