NYT: Economic Crisis Shapes the Senate Contest in Minnesota
Posted in Uncategorized on October 27th, 2008
From the New York Times this weekend:
Senator Norm Coleman kicked off the final stretch of his re-election campaign on Main Street in this old railroad town about two weeks ago with a new theme: The Hope Express.
But the express had not even left its first stop when it hit a bump in the road in the form of tough questions from a crowd of Coleman supporters gathered in a hotel dining room.
Norman Sampson, a retired banker, asked why Mr. Coleman and his peers had not “blown the whistle” on the bad lending practices that led to the recent financial meltdown on Wall Street because, he said, “everyone knew what was going on.”
On the contrary, Mr. Coleman insisted.
“This one we didn’t see,” he said. “Who could imagine that a mortgage on a house in Red Wing, Minn., would be tied into and have an impact on the collapse of banks in London?”
Mr. Sampson, a Republican, shot back, “A lot of us did.”
There is no issue on the campaign trail more vexing for Mr. Coleman, 59 and a one-term Republican incumbent, than the financial crisis and the unpopular Congressional bailout package that he supported.
Economic turmoil is working against Republicans all across the country, but it has drowned out almost every other issue here in Minnesota, a state that could help determine whether the Democrats gain a 60-seat majority in the Senate.
…
“Franken was the question in the first part,” said Mr. Jacobs, who helped conduct and analyzed the polling data. “Now the campaign is shifting back to a referendum on the incumbent and whether he should be held responsible for what happened over the last six years. And that’s a very hard question for Norm Coleman to win.”
According to two polls by the Humphrey Institute and Minnesota Public Radio News, Mr. Coleman’s nine-point lead over Mr. Franken before Oct. 2 disappeared after that date, which coincided with the news of the financial crisis and bailout, and the vice-presidential debate. After Oct. 2, Mr. Franken’s support among likely voters stood at 41 percent, up from 31 percent. Mr. Coleman’s support dropped to 37 percent from 40 percent.
…
As for Mr. Franken’s strategy for the rest of the race, nothing is changing, he said after a news conference at small mountaineering shop in Duluth where he talked about saving jobs and doing away with tax cuts for the rich. “We’re going to be going as much as I can around the state talking to folks,” he said. “It seems to have worked pretty well so far.”
