Articles
Information for Journalists about the US Senate Race Results
by Peter Tharaldson
We knew that if we did not win we would have to explain the “spoiler issue” despite the fact that it was Coleman and Franken who spoiled this race with the most negative, issueless US Senate Campaign in state history. This is version B of the explanation. If Franken got 500 more votes, then we would be using version A for a the disgruntled and whiny Republicans instead.
1) Most Barkley voters would not have voted without him in the race.
According to the National Election Pool exit polls, 45% of Barkley supporters would not have voted at all in the Senate race without Dean
(StarTribune). Given the stigma attached to saying that you would not vote, we are inclined to thing the percentage may be somewhat higher. Question: Do you want to disenfranchise these voters?
According to the Secretary of State, over 25,000 people who voted in the Presidential Race did not vote in the Senate Race.
Norm Coleman and Al Franken ran the dirtiest, most expensive campaign in the United States. There was less than 1/80th spent on Barkley and yet he got 15%. Look in the mirror candidates. Parties: pick better candidates! By the way Al, if Dean benefited from negative ads, imagine what would have happened had you been a nice guy!
2) The AP says that Dean Barkley pulled evenly from both sides:
Click
here for the story.
Exit Poll data says the percentage of Dems and Republicans who voted for Dean was equal. This jives with nearly every previous poll, which had the pull the same or varying between the two.
Moreover, Franken lost far more votes to Coleman directly than he did to Barkley.
3) The IP pushes Minnesota over the top on voter turnout.
Minnesota has had the highest voter turnout rate for years. The media concentrates on same day voter registration, but completely forgets Minnesota’s multi-party system. Without the Independence Party, we would not lead the nation in turnout.
4) Our support is going up.
We can reasonably say that our base is now at 10% or above. This is astounding. We are not as big as the other two major parties, but we are much more than a typical 3rd party with growth and staying power.
5) Hey- we support like-minded politicians….you don’t care to report!
This year we experimented with cross-endorsing Steve Sarvi, a conservative Democrat for Congress in order to give him a boost. The media ignored it, and did not allow Sarvi to cite cross-endorsement in the paper. We also endorsed El Tinklenberg and Representative Ron Erhardt (Republican). The media stuck their head in the sand and ignored this as well. That’s too bad.
History of Minnesota Federal Races:
2000
Tom Foley (IP) CD4- Democrat wins
James Gibson (IP) Senate- Democrat wins
2002
Jim Moore (IP) Senate- Wellstone was ahead and climbing before tragic death
2006
Tammy Lee (IP) CD5- Democrat wins
John Binkowski (IP) Senate- Republican wins (but John pulls libertarian votes in NW part of district.
Robert Fitzgerald (IP) Senate-Democrat wins
2008
Greg Mikkelson (IP) CD1 Democrat wins in swing district
David Dillon (IP) CD3- Republican wins in a historically Republican seat
Robert Anderson (not endorsed) CD6- Republican wins while Anderson picks up same NW parts of the district that are libertarian in background
