The Associated Press

For state Democrats, the coming election will mean more than a tally of wins and losses.

Monday, October 30, 2000

For state Democrats, the coming election will mean more than a tally of wins and losses. This year is about redemption.

By any measure, the 1998 election was a disaster for state Democrats. The embarrassments piled high: Endorsed gubernatorial candidate Mike Freeman lost the primary to Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III, who saw a formidable lead dissipate on the way to a third-place finish.

The party also lost control of the House for the first time since 1986, failing to unseat a single incumbent Republican running for re-election.

Democrats lost control of the secretary of state’s office and failed to win the state auditor’s race from a GOP incumbent. Party leaders resigned in the aftermath.

This year, leaders are hoping for better. They are aiming to retake the House or at least close the gap. They are ebullient about the prospects that Democrat Mark Dayton can wrest the U.S. Senate seat from Republican Rod Grams. Polls have shown Dayton with a double-digit lead.

DFL House Minority Leader Tom Pugh said the lesson learned in 1998 was to have the party’s candidates run local races on local issues.

"We’ve gone away from the sort of cookie-cutter approach, where you take a picture of each candidate and essentially plug it into the same campaign literature," he said.

Chris Gilbert, a political scientist with Gustavus Adolphus College, said that tactic might be good politics, but it is a sign the party’s issues aren’t clearly defined.

"The Republican agenda is fairly clear," he said. "The image of the DFL is maybe a little more scattery when people look at it in the large picture."

Republicans ended the session holding the House by 70-63 with one independent.

In the House, nine DFLers are retiring versus five Republicans and one independent. Two DFLers are unopposed, while 13 Republicans have no DFL challengers. Among the unchallenged is a freshman, who in theory would be easier pickings for Democrats.

Democratic analyst D.J. Leary, a co-editor of the newsletter Politics in Minnesota, said the only overarching state lesson for Democrats from 1998 was to beware of the unpredictability of third-party candidates.

Gilbert said he and colleague Dave Peterson have conducted research showing that Ventura voters tended to vote for Republicans down the ticket in ’98.

He said enough races are in play this year that Democrats have a shot at taking back control of the House.

The party has high hopes this election, but it faces some major hurdles. That includes the fact that, according to a recent poll, Democrat Al Gore is struggling in Minnesota. The state is usually a reliable supporter of the Democratic presidential candidate.

DFL officials, however, have worked to cast the poll results as a blessing in disguise. U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone said the close contest will energize DFL voters and volunteers.

In the fight over the Legislature, Democrats face an additional challenge because more incumbents than usual are not running for re-election. In the Senate, the party is losing seven incumbents to a combination of retirements, office holders seeking other posts or party switches.

Republicans, meanwhile, are losing one incumbent to congressional aspirations and another who lost a primary. But they may pick up the Senate’s lone independent, who joined their ranks for this campaign. When the Legislature adjourned in May the DFL had 16 more members than the GOP did.

Republicans are fielding candidates against all but one of the Democrats running in the Senate. Only Sen. Randy Kelly of St. Paul is unopposed.

Pugh and Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum, of Kenyon, each accuse the other of funding big-money advertising campaigns in their battle for control of the House. The parties are allowed to spend unlimited sums while individual House candidates are limited to $25,320 and Senate candidates $50,630 if they take public campaign subsidies.

But in addition to the standard-issue campaign ads, both parties have sought to lay out the agenda voters can expect from them in the next session.

Sviggum says his party will work to lower the state’s tax burden as compared to other states. He also promises to try to make some parts of the legislating process, such as formulating the budget, less partisan.

Pugh says the DFL will work to regulate HMOs, extend prescription drug coverage to seniors, slow the deregulation of electricity and protect the privacy of customers in their dealings with banks and insurance companies.

Already, there has been some good news for Democrats since the 1998 debacle. They split victories in the four special elections in the Senate. Special elections are traditionally good territory for Republicans because they have organized voters better for the shorter campaigns.

Also, state Auditor Judi Dutcher and former Senate Minority Leader Dean Johnson of Willmar each switched parties to become DFLers, citing differences with Republicans on particular issues.