Former Sen. Dean Barkley says a lot of people have been bugging him to run for the Senate seat that he was appointed to five years ago, after Paul Wellstone’s death. You can hear Barkley talk about that and his possible involvment in the presidential race in the Pig’s Eye Podcast we recorded this morning.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Barkley recently started a national political consulting firm, along with Minneapolis adman Bill Hillsman. The firm is called D’Amore, Hillsman, Oliver and Barkley, and here is its website.

And here is Barkley’s bio.

Barkley burst onto the political scene in 1992, winning 16 percent of the vote as an independent in Minnesota’s Sixth Congressional District. Republican Rod Grams won that race.

Barkley ran for the Senate twice, winning more than 5 percent of the vote, and qualifying the Independence/Reform parties for public campaign financing, which was a key factor in Jesse Ventura’s election as governor.

Question: Who is the best candidate the Independence Party could put up in the 2008 Minnesota Senate race?

The controversy over open political spying Minnesota, which I wrote about yesterday, is not the first flare-up over “trackers” this campaign season.

An even more heated clash occurred in Maine in August, when Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ staff asked the Democratic challenger to get the party to stop tracking her, because her tracker was being intrusive.

Sen. Susan Collins and her “tracker”

That case is especially illuminating because there are photos or video taken by both camps, showing the Democratic tracker at work.

First, here is the Portland newspaper’s account of how the controversy started. And here is the Bangor Daily News story.

Collins’ director of Internet strategy posted pictures of the tracker stalking Collins at a parade — standing a respectful distance at one point, but intruding into the parade and into Collins’ space in others.

Here on YouTube is the Collins’ campaign’s video of the tracker videotaping her. It’s clear that he’s walking between her and the parade-watchers.

And here is the actual video that the Democratic tracker shot, titled “Susan Collins greets her tracker.” MaineDems posted that long version and they posted a short version here.

You can see that Collins doesn’t seem to be bothered. She asks him to be sure to get her good side and says to him, in a friendly way:

“So are you my tracker, Rick?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ok, well I’ll be seeing you on the campaign trail.”

But Collins’ chief of staff, Steve Abbott, argued that the tracker invaded the privacy of regular citizens who talked with Collins and recorded her from an unacceptably close range. It’s one thing to record her speech, but this tracker crossed the line, Abbott said.

The publisher of a number of area newspapers disagreed. It said in an editorial that Collins’ protestations of being recorded in public “comes from someone who supported the Patriot Act with the attitude, ‘If you’re not doing anything wrong, it shouldn’t bother you.’”

Does this behavior bother you, or is it fair game, protected by the First Amendment? Where do you draw the line in conducting opposition research on rival candidates?

A blog posting about Al Franken campaign appearances offers a peek into the spying that politicos routinely conduct on each other — completely above board.

This headline appears (as of this moment) on the Politically Connected page for Al Franken, where we draw in the latest news stories and blog postings about the candidate: “MN GOP “TRACKER” DENIED ADMISSION TO PUBLIC EVENTS OF AL FRANKEN.”

Al Franken

The post is from Minnesota Democrats Exposed (MDE), and it said that the Republican operative who follows Al Franken around at public events has been “denied access to numerous public events where Al Franken is scheduled to appear.”

The post, by Michael Brodkorb, explains that this is a common practice by both parties. He links to a previous posting he did, noting that “J.D. from Franken’s campaign” attended and videotaped a recent Republican press conference critical of Franken.

The campaigns routinely send operatives — sometimes volunteers, sometimes paid staffers — to their opponent’s events. Videocam in hand, they capture every utterance — and every slip of the tongue — and the “highlights” are sure to show up in TV ads down the road.

The campaigns even get to know the tracker assigned to them.

Franken’s campaign refers to one GOP operative that followed the Democrat this summer as “Tracker Pete.” But Tracker Pete is now back at school in Duluth, said Franken spokesman Andy Barr.

“J.P. is the new guy,” Barr said.

“J.P. and some other people,” Republican Party spokesman Mark Drake added helpfully.

“This is the game, it’s politics. It happens on both sides of the aisle,” agreed Kelly Schwinghammer, the DFL Party communications director.

The GOP’s Drake, asked about the posting on MDE, cited three instances when the GOP tracker was turned away: A labor-union event in which Franken worked alongside a health care worker for a day; a luncheon; and an appearance before the Macalester College Democrats.

Drake acknowledged that the Franken campaign may not have directly organized and controlled all the events. But he said that Franken’s appearance at them was publicly advertised, including in at least one case on Franken’s website, giving it the imprint of a Franken campaign event. He said that if Franken’s campaign is committed to openness, it should have taken “one minute” in advance to “work with the organizers to allow admission to Republicans.”

Sen. Norm Coleman

Barr said he’s not aware of a single time the Franken campaign has turned a tracker away from an event they had control over, and said that trackers are welcome at their events. He said that Drake was setting an “unreasonable standard” in expecting the Franken campaign to instruct organizers to admit trackers to events that Franken is simply invited to himself.

The DFL’s Schwinghammer said that their trackers have been turned away from a handful of events involving Sen. Norm Coleman, since they started tracking him in August.

The MDE posting drew an interesting comment from Jason, who wrote: “I was at a DFL event. A person, from the GOP I guess, was there with a video camera. This person was younger and seemed naive and inexperienced. She was asked nicely to leave and she did. She probably didn’t have to legally but she did anyway. Does this mean she was ‘denied’ access? Or was she simply too timid?”

Barr, from the Franken campaign, extened this courtsey to the GOP’s Drake. The luncheon event that the tracker was denied access to was videotaped, and the Franken website has a link to it on its home page.

“If Mark needs the link, I’ll be happy to send it to him.”

No need for that. Here it is.

What standards should apply to how campaigns handle trackers? Are there otherwise public events that they should be banned from?

We’ve posted a new Pig’s Eye Podcast this morning, which you can listen to here.

Bachmann on Election Night

In this podcast, we discuss:

Mike Ciresi escalating his criticism of Al Franken for being a late convert to opposing the Iraq war. You can read Pat Lopez’s story about this change of tone in the U.S. Senate race here. And you can join a discussion on the issue at The Big Question blog here.

Whether Michele Bachmann made a strategic error by asking TV stations to pull an ad critical of her over the children’s health insurance program. Here’s Kevin Diaz’s story about the flap. Also, there’s been a lively discussion in a posting I did on the controversy last week, asking whether the ad was fair or not. Here’s the post.

Iowa Republicans’ decision to move their caucuses up to Jan. 3, when voters will have barely recovered from New Years Eve celebrations, and when the campaigns will have to find a way to get people’s attention during the holiday season. Here’s our story when the new date was announced.

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?

For some time, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer had been an unofficial but very visible U.S. senate candidate, and on Wednesday he made it official. Here’s our story by Bob von Sternberg about yesterday’s announcement.

As a professor of Justice and Peace Studies at the University of St. Thomas, Nelson-Pallmeyer has already made a name for himself as a speaker, writer and activist. And as a semi-candidate for the senate, he’s been invited to a number of DFL candidate debates recently. So unlike most candidates who aren’t household names, there’s already quite a bit of information available about him.

Here’s our video and here’s our story about a Sept. 30 debate at Augsburg College, which included Nelson-Pallmeyer.

And here’s his opening statement at a Sept. 5 debate sponsored by the Golden Valley Progressives. Several other videos covering the entire debate are also posted on You Tube.

Here’s a St. Thomas page about him, which includes a list of his books. Among them: a novel called “Harvest of Cain.”

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer (left), Mike Ciresi, Jim Cohen and Al Franken

Here’s his campaign website: www.jackforsenate.org (Don’t confuse it with a jackforsenate.com, which belongs to a 2004 Republican candidate in Connecticut.)

And here are a couple of blog posts about him:

MNPublius includes a copy of the campaign’s pre-announcement, and a related discussion about bean feeds.

This post on Norweigianty is about the Sept. 30 Augsburg debate. It describes Nelson-Pallmeyer as getting “the most frequent and loudest applause. He was also pandering to the audience to a certain degree.”

Nelson-Pallmeyer made waves early last year when he announced he would challenge U.S. Rep. Martin Sabo for the DFL endorsement. About a month later, Sabo surprised everyone by announcing that he would retire, and Keith Ellison went on to win the party endorsement and the seat.

Nelson-Pallmeyer has a strong following among those in the party’s progressive wing. It’s no surprise that he’s chosen the Wellstone green and white color scheme.

What impact do you think Nelson-Pallmeyer will have in the race for the DFL endorsement for the senate? Does he automatically become a major factor, or does he still have to prove that he can win over rank-and-file delegates? And if he does become the party’s nominee, how does he stack up against Sen. Norm Coleman?

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