MN Gov: Mike Hatch (D) 47%, incumbent Pawlenty (R) 42%

Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty continues to trail DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch. The latest Rasmussen Reports election poll of the gubernatorial contest shows the governor trailing 42% to 47%.

Incumbents are regarded as vulnerable if they don't reach at least a 50% level of support; worse, obviously, is to consistently trail the challenger, as Governor Pawlenty has been doing for most of the year.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2006/State%20Polls/June%202006/minnesotaGovernor.htm

I know a few Diebold Defeatists will want to post that there is no hope, but this seems like a very likely pickup for dems.

I hate that little cross-eyed weasel Pawlenty with all of my heart - he has ruined the infrastructure, education, and health care in this state with his fucking rabid income tax cuts for the wealthy (that resulted in tax increases everywhere else, of course).

read "Don't Think of an Elephant" by George Lakoff. Especially if you are a candidate. For instance when we say tax cuts or tax relief we are playing their game. We need to point out that taxes are the dues we pay to Club America for a good infrastructure, good schools for everyone, health care for all of us which keeps everyone safe (remember polio?). If we want to win more than just 2006 we need to start thinking about more than the elephant that is crushing us.

that Pawlenty "won" election with just 45 percent of the votes. The majority of people voted for one of the two Democrats running against him (one running as an Independent - the idiot). Little Timmy started in a hole and has only pissed off people.

I didn't know that.

Tim Penny was a conservative Democrat and former US Representative. He ran on the Independence Party ticket (think Jesse Ventura). Still to this day don't understand why, unless he really wanted Timmy to win.

the big picture: saving our constitution, saving the middleclass, saving democracy.

If we had that, so many more political parties could be involved... and 3rd party candidates (curse you, Nader!!!) wouldn't be spoilers, actually hurting the cause they seek to support.

This crap where people win office with less than 50% of the vote just irritates me. Instant run-off elections! It's not that hard, it really isn't!

I think that TP thought that he could skate by just like Bush, by catering to the taxophobic RW nut cases while smiling and pretending to be a "nice guy". He forgot that when we start to slip in ranking in one quality of life category after another, we Minnesotans might just begin to wonder why.

as many Republicans out of as many statehouses as we can find.

He couldn't be too much more of a weasel

It'd be great to see Feelenty, Bachman and Kennedy all go home with a loss in November.

originally wanted the Senate, and Norm Coleman wanted the statehouse. Darth Cheney corrected their thinking right away, anointed them to their positions, and he and Chimpy have blown in to Minnesota on a regular basis since. Pawlenty is presiding over a disintegrating infrastructure in the state, but we never hear him talk about corporate responsibility. He's passed all of the federal and state cuts to the local communities, and they are struggling mightily. Let's hope he goes down!

Pawlenty is nothing if not a very skilled self-promoter. He's probably the best state-wide campaigner the Republicans will have in this generation. I'm not madly in love with Hatch, but he's the horse we're going to ride to the Governor's mansion if at all. We're going to have to work our tails off this fall to make sure that happens.

Both the Green Party and the Independence Party are running very strong candidates in this race. They are both likely to get a fair number of votes, and it remains to be seen how that will effect the race.

On edit: The fact that it appears that this poll did not even ask about either of these candidates makes this poll worthless to me. Hutchinson in particular has been getting lots of media attention and I don't think you could find a single political observer here who would rule him out as a factor in the race. I may not like the guy particularly, but his name should be asked by the pollsters.

these idiot RW freaks are so despised that we're going to see huge shifts of power this time. Thank God, and it couldn't come at a better time, when our country is teetering on the brink of large famine in the "working" class due to higher prices on everything, and insane warfare that never ends, and global warming...

God help us.


VICTORY in '06!




www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<<--- check it out!

Mike Hatch is a great candidate on paper, but if you've ever watched his appearances on Almanac, you know he's got a bad case of 'lawyer-itis'. Never one word where ten will do, never a small word where a big one could fit instead. He has hard edges, and I'm concerned that when it finally comes down to the wan, Muppety smile of Pawlenty vs. the gruff, lawyerly Hatch, Pawlenty is going to squeak by.

And this doesn't even touch on the issues. I think Mike Hatch and Becky Lourey have two good but very different approaches. Mike Hatch looks at what advancement is possible within the confines of the system and works toward achieving it. His fundamental focus is on pragmatic results. Becky Lourey looks at the system itself, and tries to change what's broken about it. Her primary focus is on what is morally right.

In healthcare, for instance, you can compare and contrast Mike Hatch's position paper with Becky Lourey's Healthcare Security Plan. Both are big improvements on what we have now, but Lourey's explicitly stems from a progressive commitment to universal health care. She proposes amending the State Constitution to establish health care as a basic right, for example, and expanding MinnesotaCare's income limits. Hatch's position paper proposes a denser, more incremental view of how accessibility to health care in can be increased, including amending the statutory definition of Dependant to include children up to 25, and by passing legislation authorizing the State to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies.

Both have good plans which will help Minnesotans. I think Mike Hatch has been a fantastic Attorney General, and will be a fantastic governor if he gets elected. I feel almost embarrassed writing something so critical about someone I have such great respect for. But I have some concerns about his ability to communicate his ideas and connect with the voters. I like Becky Lourey's style, I like her ideas, and I feel that she's simply the better candidate.

and right after his endorsement the Repukes were already whining that that mean Mike Hatch was beating up on Mrs. Pawlently's sweet little boy, Timmy. BUT, I think most people remember and like how Hatch has used the AG's office to protect the interests of the people, not corporations -- especially the way he watch dogs the HMOs in the state.

Mike's not the most liberal candidate, but he's honest and nobody is going to run him; including the party.

I totally agree with you. I respect what Hatch has done as Attorney General, but Pawlently and Cheney will eat him alive. They can't touch Becky.

I'm not surprised. Pawlenty has done a repuke number on the state and people have noticed...well, more than that, at least to the ones I talk with. Up here in the northern lakes area we have watched the tourists dwindle.

The logging industry has been destroyed. The independent loggers who built my area in the early 1900's (Longville is celebrating our centennial year) have dried up in the take over process of the paper mill companies.....sad. We put our business/home up for sale---the sign went out this morning.

Barely a month after the Minnesota legislature wrapped up its session... a session it seemed wholly devoted to the damn taxpayer-funded stadiums (replacing one middle-aged dome with 3(!) seperate open-air stadiums!!!) and didn't do things like address the transportation infrastructure and other critical items, Less-than-plenty starts trumpeting his plan to give the top 25% high-school grads free public college for 2 years, and if they study math, science, or engineering they get an additional 2 years.

How nice of him to front-burner the plan.

And did I mention that his play for paying for the extra tuition seems to be "Oh, we'll find it in the budget somewhere"?

He recently decided that the best way to finance a massive interstate restructering plan worth hundreds of millions of dollars, for which federal money was due in FY2008, was to have the construction companies start the work on their own dime, and then the state will pay them when the federal dough comes in. The governor and his staffed gushed enthusiasm for the new plan like a sieve when it went public a couple of months ago.

A couple of weeks ago, the head of MinnDOT sat down and opened the bids. It really was an easy job, because NOT A SINGLE BID WAS SUBMITTED.

<snip>

After promising to get the Crosstown highway reconstruction started this summer, the Minnesota Department of Transportation is making no predictions now about when the work will get underway.
Set to start in August with completion in late 2008, work on a new interchange at Crosstown Hwy. 62 and Interstate Hwy. 35W was delayed indefinitely Friday because no road builders bid for the $250 million contract.

Builders were turned off by the state's requirement that they front about $90,000,000 to keep work going until the state received federal funds and could pay them back. MnDOT proposed the unorthodox financing to get the project started after years of delays, though the agency didn't have all the money in hand to pay construction bills.

<snip>

The message to commuters who slog through the congested interchange daily is: "We are working as hard as possible to get that project out as soon as possible," McFarlin said.

<snip>

McFarlin's the head of MinnDOT or something.

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/503180.html