Minnesota Connect

As Jesse Ventura announced he would not challenge Norm Coleman in the 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race, two new polls were released revealing vastly different results.

Ventura, before Larry King’s national audience on CNN, stated he would not seek Coleman’s Senate seat, giving a variety of reasons along the way. Ventura’s fear of how such a campaign would affect his family – indicting the Minnesota press once again for how they treated his son during his gubernatorial reign – was the foremost reason he gave for staying out of the race. Ventura also suggested his disgust with politics generally – claiming he has no one to support in the presidential race and may not even vote. In the 30 minute interview, Ventura went on to attack, sometimes subtly, sometimes not, politicians who wish to stop illegal immigration, the media for covering the controversy involving Barack Obama’s former church, the Democrats for passing the FISA legislation last week, and, of course, George W. Bush and his ‘religious inspiration.’ In the end, Ventura stated he preferred a life of surfing, because “the ocean does not lie” but his government does.

Although the impact of the Libertarian Party in presidential elections has been muted since first appearing on the ballot in 1972, the expectations for the Party are high in 2008.

This election cycle, the LP has nominated its most high profile candidate to date – former Georgia Republican Representative Bob Barr. Barr is also the Party’s most controversial figure: Democrats remember him (not so fondly) from his days as one of the outspoken House managers in the impeachment trial of President Clinton. The Republican Party resents him, naturally, for leaving the GOP. And the Libertarian Party establishment did not embrace him warmly – what with Barr announcing his candidacy just a few weeks before the Party’s National Convention (it also took Barr six ballots to earn a majority of the vote to secure the nomination).

In the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush won 31 states while John Kerry won 19 plus the District of Columbia.

According to the most recent public opinion polls, Barack Obama is currently in a strong position to win all of the “Kerry states” and is running strong enough in a few “Bush states” (e.g. Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Virginia, Montana) as well as leading in the national polls to make him the favorite (at the moment) to win in November.

Of the 31 states Bush won in 2004, 22 were blowout victories by double-digit margins, while 9 were competitive contests decided by less than 10 points. In an interesting twist this election season, Obama is faring much better than Kerry did in the 22 deep red ‘blowout states,’ but faring poorer than Kerry in the reddish-purple ‘competitive Bush states.’

Here’s the evidence:

When I was on Sirius Satellite Radio’s “The Blog Bunker” yesterday I was asked how the Democratic-led U.S. Senate approval of the latest FISA legislation would have on the presidential election – and whether the left wing of the party would feel betrayed (by Barack Obama’s support of the bill).

I explained to the host that the Democrats that supported the measure (including Obama) realized that they would risk losing the center of the country (political independents) by voting against a high-profile piece of legislation with ‘national security’ ramifications. The vote was smart politics.

And what will happen to the potentially disaffected far left who are seemingly bashing Obama all over the blogosphere? I told the host that Obama has little to worry about in the end, as the risk of these liberals flocking to Ralph Nader is very slim.

The filing deadline for candidacy papers closed last week in Madison and Democrats, who took control of the state Senate in 2006, appear poised to do the same in the Assembly in 2008.

Republicans will face an uphill battle holding onto their current 5-seat majority in the lower legislative chamber (52 to 47). Republicans have controlled the Assembly since the election of 1994, and their advantage grew with every election cycle from 1994 (3 seats), to 1996 (5 seats), to 1998 (11 seats), to 2000 (13 seats), to 2002 (17 seats), to 2004 (21 seats). In 2006, however, that advantage fell to just 5 seats after the Democrats gained 8 seats (Smart Politics projected a 7-seat gain for the minority party).