Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42099-0 — The Party's Primary Hans J. G. Hassell Excerpt More Information 1 The Primary Of Political Operatives and Academics The people can vote for whom they please if they let me do the nominating. —Boss Twead1 The 2006 Minnesota Senate Republican primary race promised to be a good one. Although he had lost his reelection campaign in 2000 by about five percentage points, former Republican senator Rod Grams saw an opportunity to regain his seat again in 2006 from the man to whom he had lost it in the previous election cycle. Infamously dubbed “The Blunderer” by Time magazine, many of Democratic Senator Mark Dayton’s failures and bumblings were clearly visible to the public (Time 2006), and by early 2005 his approval ratings had sunk into the low 40s (New York Times 2005).2 The perceived electoral vulnerability of incumbent Senator Mark Dayton was also evident by the quality and quantity of the potential challengers 1 This quote and a number of variants of it have been attributed to Boss Twead. The earliest source I could find was this version of it, cited in a speech given at the City Club of Los Angeles by Francis J. Heney, who was an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney of San Francisco. Heney’s speech was covered in the Los Angeles Herald. 1908. “Great Welcome Is Given Heney” (May 3) Pg. 3. 2 Dayton, like a smart politician, recognized that he would face an uphill reelection battle and ultimately decided to pause his political career and not seek reelection to the Senate. It was not clear whether he enjoyed being in the Senate either. Just hours before his term ended, he mused that he would be a better fit for a more “proactive” political job, rather than the deliberative position of US Senator, which he considered too focused on political gamesmanship and procedural maneuvering (Diaz and Doyle 2010). The more “ proactive” job he had in mind was the office of Governor, which he would run for and win in 2010 after winning a close primary and then a tougher general election and would then win re-election in 2014 (Grow 2011). 1 © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42099-0 — The Party's Primary Hans J. G. Hassell Excerpt More Information 2 The Primary who expressed interest in running for the seat. By early 2005, in addition to Grams, two of the three sitting Republican Congressmen from Minnesota, Gil Gutknecht (R–MN1) and Mark Kennedy (R–MN6), had expressed interest in running, as well as Minnesota Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer, former Republican gubernatorial candidate and successful businessman Brian Sullivan, and an up-and-coming conservative State Senator by the name of Michele Bachmann (Black 2005; Hotakainen et al. 2005).3 Yet the contested, expensive, and divisive primary that many in the Democratic– Farmer–Labor (DFL) Party eagerly anticipated never happened.4 While the former Senator and other potential candidates were originally optimistic about their chances, these aspirants to the Senate quickly found that there were serious obstacles to their candidacy. For Grams, those obsta- cles were neither the challenge of persuading voters nor the problem of ral- lying grassroots conservative financial support, which he generally enjoyed. Instead, Grams found that, despite the media coverage of his early cam- paign, the support among grassroots activists, and his previous tenure as US Senator, he struggled to garner the support of the political elites within the party. Grams discovered that party leaders had coalesced their support around another candidate, Congressman Mark Kennedy, who announced his candidacy a short time after Grams (Black 2005). With tacit support from the Bush White House, party leaders, including Governor Tim Pawlenty, moved quickly to support Kennedy. Only days after Kennedy announced his candidacy, state Republican Party Chair Ron Ebensteiner, referring to Kennedy, remarked, “I think we are going to know very shortly who will be the obvious choice” (Hotakainen et al. 2005; Stassen-Berger 2005a). Other candidates felt similar pressure from the party. When fellow Congressman Gil Gutknecht announced in March of 2005 that he was not going to run for the Senate and instead would seek reelection to the House, breaking his previous pledge to limit himself to six terms, he explained that he would not be endorsing Kennedy, stating, “I don’t really believe in some of the king- maker stuff that has been going on here in the last three or four weeks” 3 The third member of the Republican congressional delegation, John Kline (R–MN3), might also have expressed interest; however, he had only recently won election to the US House of Representatives during the previous election, after his third attempt in three consecutive election cycles, and was not inclined to run for higher office at that early point in his political career (von Sternberg 2002). 4 In Minnesota, the Democratic party is known as the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party formed as a result of the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party in 1944 (Haynes 1984). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42099-0 — The Party's Primary Hans J. G. Hassell Excerpt More Information The Primary 3 (Diaz 2005).5 This statement came as a surprise to many party leaders, including state party chair Ron Eibensteiner, who explained, “As I heard it, that was the plan (to endorse Kennedy)” (Diaz 2005). It was Eibensteiner who would draw Grams’ wrath only a few days later. When asked by reporters, more than a year before the party convention and primary, about the state of the nomination contest, Eibensteiner remarked that with so many key party leaders supporting Kennedy, “it appears right now that the Republican endorsement is a fait accompli. There is no race” (Diaz 2005). Grams took offense at Eibensteiner’s comments and responded forcefully, objecting to what he perceived as heavy-handed attempts to clear the field. “It’s an attempt to sabotage the process. He’s trying to pick the slate,” remarked Grams when asked about Eibensteiner’s take on the race. “What kind of third world politics does he want to impose on the Republican Party? The delegates won’t be elected for another year. The con- vention is 18 or 17 months away and Eibensteiner wants to have a single name on a slate. That’s kingmaking. I thought the role of the party . was to encourage all good candidates to run” (Homans 2005; Stassen-Berger and Salisbury 2005). In response, almost ironically, the Minnesota GOP issued a statement clarifying Eibensteiner’s remarks and explaining that “Chairman Eibensteiner and the Republican Party of Minnesota are currently, and have always been, neutral in the race for the Senate” (Forliti 2005). While the Minnesota Republican Party maintained a façade of neutrality in the primary, behind the scenes the party and party leaders were unmistakably working to clear the field for their preferred candidate.6 5 Gutknecht’s announcement that he would not be running for the US Senate also coincided with his announcement that he would be running for his House seat again, breaking his original pledge that he would seek to serve no more than 12 years. He did not, however, get a chance to serve his seventh term because he lost a tough reelection campaign to DFLer Tim Walz. After that loss, in a difficult cycle for Republicans, he was asked if he had any future political aspirations. To this inquiry he retorted, “That’s a little like asking a woman who’s just come out of a 38-hour labor and delivered a 12-pound baby, ‘Well, don’t you want to get pregnant again?’ Not today” (Frommer 2006). 6 Party involvement can have negative side effects (Herrnson 1988). The clear visibility of the party’s machinations in Minnesota would not be costless for those involved. It was Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Eibensteiner’s perceived lack of neu- trality that would play a significant part in his inability to win reelection as party chair that summer. Challenged by a number of candidates who decried the involvement of the official party in the nomination process prior to the official party endorsement process, Eibensteiner was defeated after several ballots at the meetings of the Party’s State Central Committee in 2005 by businessman Ron Carey who, as part of his platform, promised to maintain the party’s neutrality until the party’s official endorsement process had occurred (Shaw 2005; Smith 2005). © in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42099-0 — The Party's Primary Hans J. G. Hassell Excerpt More Information 4 The Primary Yet, in spite of his rants, Grams soon realized that without party sup- port he had little chance of winning. Just a month after he had accused the party of engaging in kingmaking, Grams dropped out of the race for the Senate nomination, citing a desire not to “tear the party apart” with a divisive primary that would hurt the eventual nominee’s chances. In dropping out of the race, Grams vowed to support the party’s nominee and turned his sights to the race for the House in Minnesota’s 8th con- gressional district (Forliti 2005).7 Such insider political maneuvers are not uncommon in electoral poli- tics, nor are they unique to the Republican Party. At the same time that the Republican Party of Minnesota was uniting behind a single candidate and dissuading viable alternatives from competing for the nomination, the DFL in Minnesota was doing almost the exact same thing in the exact same election cycle for the exact same seat.