Almanac: At the Capitol

While looking at the snapshot of this session so far, one would believe that the Democrats are obsessed with raising taxes on all sorts people, places and things. This will undoubtedly bode ill for them with the electorate, especially moderate and suburban voters who were hood-winked into believing that the Democrats had changed from their tax & spend history.

I'd suggest that the tide can turn on the DFL quickly in 2008. Some reasons:

1. The DFL won control of the House just last year by picking up 18 seats, but by only about 8800 votes statewide out of 2 million votes cast. If they can win the House in one election cycle, why couldn't they lose it in one cycle? They ran the table on close races and even the most partisan DFLer will admit that.


2. There are many "low-hanging fruit" freshmen who are co-authoring and voting Democrat on virtually everything. They are not the "independent-minded" people that they promised to be last year.


3. Norm Coleman is beating Al Franken by 10 to 20 points in every poll and he will run strong next year, thus helping the entire ticket. There's no doubt that Mark Kennedy's 20 point loss last year hurt the down-ticket.


4. George Bush will not be the focus of the 2008 election, like he was last year. I remain firm in my belief that Hillary Clinton will be the Democrat nominee for President and nothing motivates Republicans more than her.


5. We will have an outstanding crop of candidates running in 2008. I've met with some people fired up to run already. The DFL is actually helping me recruit with their unending bills of regulation, bigger government and tax increases. I'd like to thank Rep. Kahn for motivating several candidates who have already called me at home wanting to run.

Giving statistics about House races from 1962 might show interesting historical facts, but the reality is that the 21st century in Minnesota shows a lot of independents and soft voters who gravitate back and forth. After the 2002 elections, my GOP caucus had 83 members. We now have 49 Republicans in the Minnesota House just 4 years later. The wild swings back and forth in Minnesota are unpredictable and anyone giving solid picks for 2008 cannot do so with a straight face.