McFadden v. Franken

Don’t wait! The campaign between Al Franken and Mike McFadden begins now. The issues are already making themselves clear and the battle is on! A Minnesota seat in the U.S. Senate is the prize!
by Charlie Leck

Michael McFadden, a Minnesota millionaire who lives in the St. Paul suburb of Sunfish Lake and a mergers and acquisitions business advisor, will run against incumbent U.S. Senator Al Franken.

You can find strong agreement among politicians and political polling organizations in Minnesota that our state’s voters put two considerations about a candidate first and foremost. They are: (1) Is the person a strong leader? (2) Does the candidate care about people such as I?

I think this year’s race will come down to the same two factors. I think McFadden will prove himself a strong leader, even as Franken already has, so, on that question, there will be a draw between the two candidates.

McFadden will have a hard time convincing the little guy that he really cares very deeply about him. McFadden will sing the old song about not raising taxes and removing some of the entitlements the government already gives to people with needs. And here, on the issue of preserving the strength of the middle class and attacking rampant poverty, the crux of the battle will be waged.

Candidate McFadden will have to attack Franken from the right. He’ll have to complain about Obama (who is still remarkably popular in Minnesota) and he’ll have to go after government spending – especially on entitlement programs. He should bear in mind that Obamacare is also popular in Minnesota (but he probably won’t).

And, a major strike against McFadden with a large, large percentage of Minnesotans, is his connection with retiring Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. It was the Congresswoman’s endorsement that put him over the top and took the endorsement away from a couple of long-time Republican regulars in the state. By all reports, the Tea Party is losing some of its gusto in Minnesota and that isn’t going to help any candidate endorsed by Bachmann. That endorsement will, however, send some of Bachmann’s old funding sources running to McFadden. Just remember, at this point, what happened to Bachmann the last time she tried stepping out of sixth district politics on to a bigger stage. She doesn’t function well on that bigger stage. I hope McFadden uses Bachmann extensively in the campaign – sending her everywhere in the state to speak for him – because that will be extremely damaging to his campaign.

Reports from the Republican’s state endorsing convention indicate that Tom Emmer, Republican candidate for congress in the sixth district, worked the crowd hard for McFadden. Emmer was a very divisive force in the last Republican campaign for governor here in Minnesota and he drove thousands to an alternative party in that election. He’ll be just as divisive in McFadden’s race and, like Bachmann, he’ll drive many voters away from the party’s regular candidate

So, the early betting is that Franken will win back his Senate seat in spite of huge amounts of money that McFadden will spend on this campaign if the dems can turnout a big percentage of their voters. This is the biggest worry about the election right now and it’s why Republicans have tried in every which way to make it more difficult for people to vote. I imagine a big part of Franken’s campaign will be a “get out the vote” effort. It has to be!

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Going Out in a Blaze of Glory

I’m going out in a blaze of glory folks. I’m moving closer and closer to two thousands blogs. That was the original ticking point for retiring from blogging. I’ve changed my perspective and goals a little bit and I’m now setting my retirement date (whatever number of blogs that will amount to). It’s 5 November 2014. On that day I’ll write my final blog here on Ad Astra.
by Charlie Leck

Most of you have already figured out why I’ve changed my exit strategy. It’s simple. I can’t walk away from carefully watching and writing about the upcoming election. I’ll hang around and write my last blog on the day after the election. Then I’ll tip my hat and say au revoir et bon chance!

During the 2008 election I wrote blogs from Mississippi, Chicago, Georgia, Texas, Oregon and France. From July through October, 90 percent of those blogs were about the presidential election and the race between John McCain and Barack Obama. During September and October of that year I averaged over 5,000 readers per blog. Also during that period, I was called by readers everything from “hate monger” to “idiot” to “prophet.”

The coming election features no presidential race, so the numbers of readers will not likely be so high. Nevertheless, this is an election that I intend to watch with as sharp and as careful an eye as I can. The major contest has nothing to do with a couple of individuals and everything to do with the two parties. The major question is: Can the Democrats hold their control of the Senate? If they do, Barack Obama will be able to continue to function somewhat comfortably in the White House. If the Republicans take over the Senate, the President’s remaining time in office may be absolute hell.

I did a pretty good job of reading the polls in 2008 and my predictions concerning the presidential race turned out to be basically perfect. I got very familiar with virtually every polling organization in American and I learned which ones I could trust, which ones tend to lean toward one party or the other, and which ones generally blew hot air.

It was very different in 2012 and it will be even more different this year. Now, you see, we have Nate Silver and 538. This is probably the only political analyst and poll watcher who can possibly claim 100 percent accuracy in the last two elections (2010 and 2012). So, the temptation is to simply read Nate Silver and take him as gospel. I’m certainly going to keep in very close touch with his polling analysis, but I’m not going to stop analyzing the polls myself.

Beginning this week, I will write at least weekly about what the polls are telling us about the 2014 U.S. Senate races. There will be several that will be watched very closely. I’ll have my eyes glued on the races in Georgia and Kentucky. There will also be important and hotly contested races in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia; however, I’ll keep you informed about each and every single U.S. Senate race happening this fall (including the one right here in Minnesota between our incumbent Senator, Al Franken, and his conservative, businessman challenger, Mike Mcfadden).

And, oh yes, I’ll also be very closely watching one House race; and that will be the contest to take over Ms. Bachmann’s seat in Minnesota’s sixth congressional district. Tom Emmer, a politician I just detest, will be trying to take over Representative Bachmann’s seat. He will probably succeed unless he makes terrible, terrible mistakes (something of which he is very capable).

I look forward, nervously, to these elections.

Then, on the day after the election, I will happily bow out of the blogging world – and get back to reading more.

Those of you who get any inside information on these races, be sure to pass it along to me.

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it,send me an email if you’d like.