Paulsen and Kline are the only members of Minnesota's delegation not supporting H.R. 1786

[dflprincess]

(the bill that funds health benefits for 9/11 First Responders and victims).

No surprise that Al and Amy support the Senate version. No surprise that the House Democrats support it. I was surprised that Emmer has signed as a co-sponsor - but kudos to him for doing so.

If you live in the 2nd or 3rd Districts call the jerks and let them know we're paying attention. (And why the DFL can't find a credible candidate to run against Paulsen is something I'll never understand.)


BTW, Paulsen has also not signed on as cosponsor to H.R. 3423 a bill that extends the benefits Agent Orange vets receive.

[Wellstone ruled]

1. Third District is

a tough one for a DFLer unless he or she is a member of the two Mega Churches in that district. That in it's self provides close to 75k votes and they are active in the ground game. Closest anyone DFLer came was 4 points in the vote. And the Campaign Manager figured he had this nailed,but for a white paper that hit on the Sunday of election week. Big chunk of outside money and the rest is History.

[dflprincess]

2. It's also never helped that the DCCC never spends any money in the district

And that voters pay so little attention that they thought that Ramsted and now Paulsen arenmoderates.

But what election are you referring to? I've lived in the 3rd my entire adult life and can't recall us ever coming close to winning and this is the first I've heard about megachurches being a problem. Though I have curtailed some of my activities so maybe I have missed something.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. My source was a Campaign Manager circa

2004. Like you have mentioned,Rammer and Paulsen did Moderate Campaigns and in 04' zero help from the DCCC. Redistricting sure did not help the DFL as well as Jesse Bots still hanging around sucking the Gravy off.

[dflprincess]

4. Just checked - that was the year Deborah Watts ran

and Ramstad was still the incumbent (and so was W - so you'd think the DFL would have been out in force that year).

As I recall she was a good candidate and could certainly have done the job, but Ramstad was nearly invincible.

She finished the election with about 35% of the vote which is pretty much par for the DFL in the 3rd District. I could certainly be wrong, but I really doubt that she was ever as close as you were told - had we been seeing polls like that, DFL types would have been positively giddy.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Stand corrected,talked to the Campaign

fellow yesterday. Final numbers were close 35%. DFL had their chance against Paulson,zero support from DCCC in the last week,needed one more Ad buy to bring it home. And the rest is History.