Legalectric

Nancy Prehn speaking at Blooming Grove Town Hall about the Simon Industries 325MW natural gas plant (she and Kimber were my clients on that one — note the utility personal property tax was pushed into Host Fee Agreement mode and there is no power plant).

Handling the details

Campaign managers say they help candidates concentrate on the issues

By Pauline Schreiber

FARIBAULT – Bill Favro mailed 800 handwritten postcards Friday, which reminded people to vote on Nov. 7.

“It’s been an interesting learning experience to have served as campaign manager for Otto Luknic. I’ve learned how politics works at the grassroots level, which is really what state representative, state senate, county positions, city council and school board seats are about,” Favro said. “They are at a level where a candidate can go door-to-door and meet with voters. It’s a lot different than national candidates that depend a lot on TV ads.”

Favro considers himself an Independent when it comes to politics. But when Luknic, the Republican challenger to District 26B State Rep. Patti Fritz’s seat asked him in March to be his campaign manager, he could not refuse his former high school teacher and long-time friend.

“Basically what a campaign manager does is handle the details of the campaign so a candidate can concentrate on campaigning rather than concern themselves with preparing campaign signs, literature, ads, and also recruiting and coordinating volunteers and organizing fundraising,” Favro said.

The job is a volunteer position, so Favro’s life has been very busy since he agree to be Luknic’s campaign manager in March. He works full-time at his family’s business, the Humphrey Man-Lift Co. on Minnesota Highway 60, west of Faribault.

“The job of campaign manager really involves more time than I thought it would. I’d say that it has amounted to 10 to 15 hours of work many weeks, but other weeks (it’s totaled) just a few hours,” he said.

He added, “My wife, Jennifer, is looking forward to the election being over next Wednesday, so I won’t always have something to do for the campaign, as it seems I’ve had for the past nine months. But I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been a great learning experience. I’m not sure I’d do it again, but if I did, I could likely do it all more efficiently.”

Close at hand

Jim Fritz served as the campaign manger for his wife, Patti Fritz, when she ran two years ago and unseated Lynda Boudreau, then Republican incumbent District 26B state representative, and again this election year.

“It’s worked out very well. Who knows Patti better than me? So my job is getting her out to events and helping her door-knock,” said Jim Fritz, a retired Faribault firefighter. “I work in the background, however. I don’t like to stick out. I want Patti to be the focus.”

Eller’s manager

Nancy Prehn of Waseca found her life extremely busy, since early this year when she agreed to be Democrat Jeremy Eller’s campaign manager, also a volunteer position. Eller of Faribault is trying for a second time to unseat incumbent Republican District 26 State Senator Dick Day of Owatonna.

Prehn, a school paraprofessional with the Waseca District, defined the role of campaign manager as “working for a candidate and doing things to make it easier for him, so he doesn’t have to worry about all the details related to the campaign.”

She lined up fundraisers, arranged for units to be in community parades, and various other campaign events.

“I also recruited volunteers to help with the campaign. But often people would call me up to offer their help with putting out signs and other activities, so it really wasn’t hard to find volunteers,” Prehn said.

Something lacking is a manual for political campaign managers, she said. “I just used a lot of honesty and kindness, no matter what side of the fence people were on. Everyone’s views should be respected.”

Besides heading Eller’s campaign this election year, Prehn is herself running for a spot on the Waseca County Board.

“I’m a high-energy person to begin with. So, yes, it’s been very busy for me. However, I’m glad I did it. It’s been a wonderful experience for me. I met some very thoughtful people,” Prehn said.

No manager

Dick Day has no campaign manager, but heads up his own campaign with the help of his wife and children.

“Back when I first ran in 1990 I had a campaign manager. I spent more time talking to the campaign manager, and then to the campaign committee, it seemed a waste of time. So since then I’ve been doing it myself with the help of my family,” Day said. “I have a few friends that always help put up campaign signs. But after that, each Saturday I drove around to make sure the signs are OK.”

What helps, Day said, is that the Republican Caucuses offers help with mass mailings of campaign literature.

“We pay for it, but they have different formats and we put together what we want to say on it. My wife handles all the money, but we do hire an accountant to do the campaign funding reporting and accounting that’s required by state law. Mostly, however, we do the campaign as a family. I go to radio stations for interviews. I always like it to be me who is talking about what I believe and what issues I feel are important.”

Day said he has no opinion as to whether it’s better to do a campaign yourself, or have a campaign manager oversee it.

“For me, it just works to do it myself,” he said.

– Staff writer Pauline Schreiber may be reached at 333-3127 or pschreiber@faribault.com.

KSTP TV 5 is sitting on the street outside of City Hall and have the lights set up on the darkened lawn. They’re probably on air right now, have been walking around town with a camera this afternoon, and just before sunset I saw Gary Iocco do a drive by. What’s the big deal? Supposedly there are two voting machines here in Red Wing that aren’t working, so they’ve special ordered them to be delivered Monday. This is Red Wing, home of background checks on City candidates and the AG Opinion that told them they’re dead wrong! This is House District 28A ,one that the DFL is probably going to take, an important one if the DFL is to regain the house. And this is Hubbard’s KSTP, the Mother of All Corporate Whores, KSTP which elevated Wente’s blip about the Hatch “Republican Whore” to pseudo-news status, now I wonder… these are a lot of dots here… A Stronger America – Minnesota is dumping “hundreds of thousands of dollars” into this state to keep it from going all DFL, and Hubbard’s one of the leaders. Now his truck is outside City Hall, and they’re saying our voting machines aren’t working…

Here’s the poop from their site:

Polling machines create issues in Minnesota

Despite all the campaigning going on these final days, it won’t matter much if the voting machines don’t work.

This year, more than ever before, election officials are using new equipment to make the process go quicker and easier for everyone.

But in Red Wing, Minn., some of the advances are backfiring at the last minute.

It’s a constitutional obligation to vote Tuesday, but this year, equipment that’s supposed to make the process easier is causing extra headaches.

With just a couple of days before the polls open, Automark ballot machines are fraying the nerves of election officials in Red Wing.

There’s one in every precinct in Red Wing and in the state, designed to help disabled people would are blind or deaf vote privately, independently and easily.

But Kathy Johnson says two of them broke down and she’s still waiting on replacements that the company promised she’d get today.

“There may have been more machines having to be fixed, just from the comments they were making,” Johnson said.

The problems don’t stop there, it seems there’s technological trouble across the country as officials are trying to computerize the counting process.

This year researchers developed a virus that can reverse results in widely used diebold machines.

Diebold dismissed the study as, “unrealistic and inaccurate,” but some say without a paper trail there’s nothing to recount should something go wrong.

Meanwhile, election officials in Minnesota are hoping their Automark machines will hit the mark Tuesday.

New equipment or not, election officials in Red Wing said they’re ready to take your vote, even if they have to do it the old fashioned way.

From today’s STrib:

Fearing one party rule, business owners fund ads against Hatch

From MPR:

Suddenly campaign pits Hatch vs. Hubbard

From the Beagle, which says (AP) that Pawlenty is supposed to be in town (funny, the grrrrrls didn’t notice):

Hatch denies “whore” comment to former R-E reporter

Is anyone plotting out the locations of interest here?

Do ya think we oughtta be worried about our voting machines?

Do ya think we oughtta be worried about our elections?

Quote of the Day from Mike Hatch (via the Beagle):

“If you’re not going to have passion, you’re not going to get things changed in this country”

SNAAAARL! WOOF! GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Hmmmmmmm…. I would put it differently — methinks that “Corporate Whore” would be more accurate! It’s not party interests that are driving this, corporate interests are what’s at issue. Corporate interests are what’s driving the parties, large corporate interests are at stake in this election, and the truth needs to be heard. What’s the pay for a SWIFT move for waving the bone in front of the dog? That’s a sorry 15 minutes of fame and traveling the wrong way on the road to a Pulitzer! WOOF!

Most of the Excelsior Mesaba coal gasification project Surrebuttal Testimony is here, but some is just too big to upload. Dealing with Filezilla is like doing quadratic equations, it’s in that grey spongy mush area of my brain, and nothing my teenage computer geek says will convince me otherwise, most likely because I cannot understand what he’s saying (though his cogent thought in other areas gives me hope for this screwed up world), so I’ll limp along uploading what I can until I can bear to try that damn Filezilla again. Now remember, I’m the one who failed Intro Algebra 0999 at the U not once, but THREE TIMES, I don’t give up easily, and lo and behold, decades later I learned it was Northfield’s own Chris Ennis who failed me two of those times, but then, he didn’t know I knew about reactive power and I didn’t know he taught electrical engineering… the things we don’t know about people… but he makes a very good campaign Treasurer, even if he is fluent in algebra.

So enough digression, enough whining, on to posting this Excelsior Mesaba coal gasification project Surrebuttal Testimony:

Department of Commerce
amit-surrebuttal-1993-public.pdf