DFLers get to work to win state for Kerry
Rob Hotakainen, Kevin Duchschere and Bob Von Sternberg
Star Tribune
August 1, 2004 BOSTON — As they gathered together for breakfast one last time Thursday, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak posed a question to the Minnesota delegates at the Democratic National Convention: “Does anybody really think we’re a swing state?”
“No!” came the response in loud unison.
Looking ahead to the fall election, Minnesota DFLers were an exuberant bunch, ready to go to work on behalf of their newly anointed nominee, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. Some were displaying signs of supreme confidence.
“It is inconceivable that he could lose this election,” said Scott Urban, 46, a social studies teacher from North Mankato.
Despite that kind of swagger, many Republicans insist that Minnesota is, indeed, a battleground state and that they’ve got a good chance of delivering its 10 electoral votes to President Bush.
The coming weeks could, in fact, be perilous for Kerry.
Until post-convention polls are conducted nationally in the next few days, it won’t be known whether Kerry picked up the bounce in public support that most new nominees enjoy.
And now that he has accepted federal campaign funding for the general election, he lives under a spending cap that won’t be imposed on Bush until after the Republican convention.
The Bush campaign has signaled its intention to wage a barnstorming campaign throughout the usually-sleepy month of August and already has begun pouring millions of dollars into a new round of ads in battleground states.
Democratic Party officials and issue advocacy groups known as 527s hope to counter that GOP advantage by launching their own barrage of ads, which by law must be independent of the Kerry campaign.
While Kerry’s campaign plans in the coming weeks are, if anything, even more ambitious than Bush’s, starting with a 3,500-mile cross-country campaign tour, polls show most Americans still haven’t formed an firm impression of him.
Olympic effect
And August remains something of a wild card for both candidates. The biggest reason it has been so sleepy in the past is the shared calculation that most voters simply aren’t paying attention. The situation is complicated this year by the Summer Olympics in Athens, which will monopolize the media’s attention for more than two weeks and could bury campaign coverage inside newspapers and the tail end of newscasts.
For their part, Minnesota Republicans dismiss the Democrats’ confidence as ridiculously overblown.
“The truth of the matter is that Minnesota is and has been trending Republican for some time,” said Sen. Norm Coleman, noting that in the last election Minnesotans elected a Republican to the Senate — himself — and to the governor’s office — Tim Pawlenty.
“The Democrats are mistaken to take Minnesota for granted,” said Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the Bush campaign. “We believe Minnesotans will reject a candidate whose record is not only out of the mainstream, but who vacillates on the important issue of national security.”
Their optimism notwithstanding, some Democrats say the party can take nothing for granted. Although Democrat Al Gore won Minnesota in 2000, he did so by the barest of margins.
“When we get back to Minnesota, we’ve got to hit the ground running, and that means running hard and doing all the fundamental work,” said Darryl Stanton, 41, a small-business owner from Eden Prairie and a first-time delegate to a national convention.
There are good reasons for Minnesota DFLers to be hopeful. A Republican presidential candidate has not carried the state since 1972, when Richard Nixon swept the country. According to the most recent polls, Kerry has a slight lead in Minnesota. A Zogby Interactive poll conducted of likely Minnesota voters just before the convention showed Kerry with a 6.4 percentage point lead over Bush. But that’s within the poll’s plus or minus 3.9 percent margin of sampling error, and the state’s DFLers are promising to work as though their nominee is behind.
“I’m not worried about whether we’re a swing state or not. I’m worried that we’ve got a job to get done these next 95 days,” said state DFL Chairman Mike Erlandson. “I’m going to treat this as if we’re 10 points behind or more until Nov. 2, so that we’re up by 2 points or more on Nov. 2.”
Specific strategies
The Minnesota delegates have specific strategies in mind. Richard Rolland, 58, a teacher from Benson, said that while everyone is talking about the importance of swing voters, he believes that the winner will be the one who energizes his base and gets all his voters out in November. For instance, Rolland and other Kerry supporters painted road signs at a seed farm recently to win over rural voters.
“Now we have 20 road signs ready to go on Labor Day weekend for Swift County,” he said.
Many said their work will begin with the basics, by telling their friends and neighbors about Kerry.
“Part of my plan is to just get John Kerry’s name out there,” said delegate Sara Kloek, 20. A student at the University of Minnesota-Morris, she wants to recruit campus volunteers and register more young voters.
“The key to the victory is going to be on college campuses, technical colleges and in high schools around the Seventh District,” said Sharon Josephson, 59, an aide to Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and a delegate from Detroit Lakes. She said she intends to go home and fire up young voters at campuses in Bemidji and Moorhead.
DFL delegates are also banking on a good showing in communities of color.
Native Americans should know about Kerry’s support for tribal sovereignty on reservations, said Peggy Flanagan, 24, of Minneapolis, a coordinator for the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches and the Kerry campaign’s Native American director in Minnesota. Flanagan said she will form a steering committee of Indians old and young, urban and rural, to chat up the Democratic candidate in households across the state.
The Rev. Doyle Turner, 60, of Waubun, Minn., and tribal chairman of the White Earth Chippewa, said he plans to register new voters and hold more house and block parties for Kerry.
State Rep. Cy Thao, DFL-St. Paul, said he will do as much as possible to turn out the vote in his area, including driving immigrants to the polls and supplying them with interpreters.
“It’s not rocket science,” said Thao, 32, another of the many first-time delegates from Minnesota. “You identify who your voters are and you make sure on Election Day that they show up to the polls.”
Delegates also say they need to answer questions from voters about who John Kerry is, and turn anti-Bush sentiment into a pro-Kerry crusade.
“Right now, the Hmong community is sort of like everyone else: We don’t want George Bush, but they don’t know Kerry yet,” Thao said.
DyShaun Muhammad, a marketing manager from Minneapolis, said he will try to pass along the positive vibes from the convention about what Kerry can do for the country. “The minute I get back, I will block out days on the calendar that will be John Kerry days, days to devote to the campaign,” he said.
Sam Kaplan, one of Kerry’s biggest and earliest fundraisers in Minnesota, said he plans to continue raising money working with Americans Coming Together (ACT), a new progressive political action committee that’s out to unseat Bush. “We’re having a very large fundraiser at our house on August 20 with Bette Midler performing,” he said.
DFLer Urban plans to host “Kerry meetups” in a local coffee shop and hold a house party for the first presidential debate. “We’ll invite friends over to watch and then to talk and share feelings,” he said.
Rybak said Kerry is sure to carry Minneapolis “but the question is by how much.” To do well in Minnesota, he said, the campaign needs record turnouts in DFL strongholds such as the state’s big cities and the Iron Range.
“Then we’re going to fan out into the suburbs,” he said.
Rybak said he will chew up shoe leather to get Kerry elected, a promise echoed by other delegates as they left Boston and prepared for the decisive stage of the presidential race.
