(D-MN) Sen. Mark Dayton expected to bow out of re-election bid

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Very interesting. I had never heard anything of this. This would be too bad, but we could hold it.

Kiffmeyer pissed a lot of people off last election, and she's never topped 50% for the Sec. of State position, I have to say she's far too polarzing to win now.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Especially if we get Alan Page to run. The GOP can forget about this seat in that case.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Very interesting. I had never heard anything of this. This would be too bad, but we could hold it.

Kiffmeyer pissed a lot of people off last election, and she's never topped 50% for the Sec. of State position, I have to say she's far too polarzing to win now.

Mary Kiffmeyer would be better suited to run for the 6th district if Mark Kennedy decides to run for the senate.

Mary Kiffmeyer has never topped 50% in any election, but topping 50% is not a barometer for winning a Minnesota senate seat.  If that were the case than a Paul Wellstone would have never been elected to U.S. Senate. Wellstone never had been elected to any public office before he defeated Rudy Boschwitz. And Paul Wellstone is not the exception either.

yeah, but the point is she couldn't even top 50% before she sent out those stupid terrorist warning posters and dug up an obscurish law to kick third parties off the ballot.

If Arnold can win, Franken can win.

Franken is not on the same level as Arnold.

Right now, I'm hoping for either Mark Kennedy or Rod Grams as the nominee for the Republicans and Franken for the Dems.

lol, nominate Grams for sure! That's a surefire way to keep it in our column.

nominating Grams is the stupidest thing the GOP can do. The second stupidest would be to nominate someone like Alan Quist or Michele Bachmann, which is possible but sadly not likely.

I wonder if my state sen. John Hottinger will jump into this. He'd  has aspirations for higher office and would be a prety good candidate. He's liberal enough to win the primary and satisfy the base, but he's from outstate so the GOP can't claim he's some Twin Cities liberal elitist.

I wonder if Betty McCollum would run. She'd be a great senator but she might too liberal to win statewide, then again Kerry did. She'd have no problem beating Grams, Quist or Bachmann for sure though, so if the GOP is stupid enough to nominate one of them she'd be my favorite.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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And what about Mark Kennedy?

Like I said, he's pretty generic. No real strengths or weaknesses, except that he's never topped 60% in his district and came within 6 points of losing to a political novice last election.

The best GOP candidate like I've been saying forever would be Jim Ramstad. But he is very unlikely to run since he wants to keep his House position, and the conservatives would hate him since he's basically an Arlen Specter Republican.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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And what about Mark Kennedy?

Like I said, he's pretty generic. No real strengths or weaknesses, except that he's never topped 60% in his district and came within 6 points of losing to a political novice last election.

The best GOP candidate like I've been saying forever would be Jim Ramstad. But he is very unlikely to run since he wants to keep his House position, and the conservatives would hate him since he's basically an Arlen Specter Republican.

Then let's keep Ramstad out of the picture. 

What about Gil Gutknecht? (Just trying to get your opinion of the possible candidates' chances.)

he's my congressman. I'd like for him to run to get him out of the house seat because he is absolutely worthless and does nothing for the people in the district who don't live in Rochester. However he would be stronger than Kennedy since he comes from a swing district. Outside of that though, pretty generic. He'd be stronger than Kennedy and the other clowns I mentioned but would still stand no chance against Alan Page or Dean Johnson.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Let's get rid of more bad Senators from Minnesota...COLEMAN OUT IN '08!

Nooooo!

what makes Coleman a great Senator? Let's ssee, there was that time, he, ummmm, oh wait he hasn't done sh**t because rubber stamp the GOP agenda.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It would be great if Dean Johnson ran. He'd be almost impossible to beat, and would almost certainly be Al's favorite senator once he won

I really doubt he will though, especially since his wife just died last month.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Oberstar is too old and would probably rather keep his seniority. Peterson could never win a primary and wouldn't want to give up his House seat since he just became ranking Democrat on the Ag committee.

The only Rep I can see running is McCollum, who like I said I'd like but she might be too liberal to win statewide. Although she'd win easily if the GOP nominates a far right winger.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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And what about Mark Kennedy?

Like I said, he's pretty generic. No real strengths or weaknesses, except that he's never topped 60% in his district and came within 6 points of losing to a political novice last election.

The best GOP candidate like I've been saying forever would be Jim Ramstad. But he is very unlikely to run since he wants to keep his House position, and the conservatives would hate him since he's basically an Arlen Specter Republican.

Then let's keep Ramstad out of the picture. 

What about Gil Gutknecht? (Just trying to get your opinion of the possible candidates' chances.)

but would still stand no chance against Alan Page or Dean Johnson.

And they are...?

Page is a state Supreme Court justice and former Vikings player. He is very well known and well loved all over the state.

Johnson is Senate Majority Leader and a populist Democrat from outstate. He's also an ordained ELCA minister (and he's a Democrat! Take that religious right.) He's pro-life but I don't care since he's done a good job so far and he would play very well outstate making it almost impossible for the GOP to cancel out the urban margins.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

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And what about Mark Kennedy?

Like I said, he's pretty generic. No real strengths or weaknesses, except that he's never topped 60% in his district and came within 6 points of losing to a political novice last election.

The best GOP candidate like I've been saying forever would be Jim Ramstad. But he is very unlikely to run since he wants to keep his House position, and the conservatives would hate him since he's basically an Arlen Specter Republican.

Then let's keep Ramstad out of the picture. 

What about Gil Gutknecht? (Just trying to get your opinion of the possible candidates' chances.)

he's my congressman. I'd like for him to run to get him out of the house seat because he is absolutely worthless and does nothing for the people in the district who don't live in Rochester. However he would be stronger than Kennedy since he comes from a swing district. Outside of that though, pretty generic. He'd be stronger than Kennedy and the other clowns I mentioned but would still stand no chance against Alan Page or Dean Johnson.

I'm new here...but i thought I'd get some input from minnesota experts...

While I think Alan Page is clearly the best Dem candidate (and I hope he runs!), I'm hearing that its not likely that he will.  Names like Ciresi and Judy Dutcher are being bandied about.  What are their chances in a primary/general?

If Gutknecht enters the race, what does the field for his congressional district look like?  Right now, I'm guessing Kennedy has a decent shot at clearing the field and will be a formidable nominee for the Rs, leaving his seat as a competitive race with Wetterling v. whoever.

I'm not sure who Ciresi is.

Judy Dutcher is the former State Auditor and a former Republican who switched parties shortly before the end of her term to run for governor in 2002. She lost the primary though. She'd have a great chance though.

If Gutknecht runs, my state Senator John Hottinger is very likely to be the DFL nominee for his House seat. I'm not sure about who the Republican would be, although it'ld likely be another State Senator.

And if Kennedy ends up running, Wetterling would likely run again and have a better chance, especially if she faces Bachmann. It's a fairly GOP leaning district, but Bachmann is extremely polarizing and a complete loony.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Article in the StarTrib on this today didn't mention Franken even once.

Ciresi is almost a given. He lost the primary narrowly to Dayton in 2000 and said he'd jump into a race "in a nanosecond" if Dayton dropped out. He's a huge attorney who won a $6 billion case against the tobacco industry, and has the huge plus of being able to finance his own campaign.

The other mentioned candidate is Hennepin county attorney Amy Klouboucher. She's actually pretty high profile and was a speaker at the DNC, and has a strong record of a prosecutor of being tough on crime. Her dad was also a well known columnist giving her name recognition. But I think she's more likely to run for Attorney General since Mike Hatch is almost certain to run against Pawlenty.

I can't remember the third profiled guy's name, but he's a legal counsel for the U of M who's been hinting he's interested in a run at quite some time. He was the chair of Lieberman's campaign in MN so he must be a moderate, but that means I won't be supporting him in the primary for sure. I don't mind moderates, but supporting Lieberman runs me the wrong way.

Dean Johnson, Betty McCollum and Alan Page were all mentioned as possibilities. It also said Alan Page couldn't be reached for comment yet.

I just realized I have almost 2 years until the primary so that's plenty of time to make up mind, but out of the mentioned ones, I'd be supporting Ciresi now. But there's a LOOOOOONG way to go.

Also, apparentely Rod Grams is officially in now. Let's just hope he wins the nomination.