The last post
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This may be the last post of my political season on Polinaut. I've enjoyed it very much, but I'm glad the campaign is over. I hope folks who won don't immediately adopt the insipid "it's payback time," and I hope those who lost work harder now to work together without giving away the store. Unfortunately, there's another election in two years and that campaign began tonight.
Before I leave, I just want to say -- and I get very few opportunities to say this -- ... I told you so.
There's that's it. The guy who bought Eastern Airlines and then Yahoo at $400 finally called one.
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This race, however, seems to shape up as a great battle because both candidates are very bright, very well organized, and the electorate seems very unpredictable. Couple that with the apparent wonkiness of both candidates. They seem to eschew the babble in favor of policy analysis.
There might be a tendency to dismiss this race because it is Woodbury, afterall. But I think this is a race that won't be a typical Republican vs. Democrat battle. Both of the candidates, you see, are teachers. And one issue that has always transcended political boundaries in Woodbury, is education; especially secondary education. That's not to say both candidates can't slug it out on the other traditional party-line issues; they can.
Sen. Brian LeClair, one of the most conservative Republicans in the state Senate, also got knocked off. Rep. Mike Charron, a former Woodbury City Council member, got knocked off by Julie Bunn of Lake Elmo. Honestly, I thought he was safe.
But that's a big honkin' swath of blue across District 56.
As I said before, the Swails campaign was the most impressive organization I saw anywhere this season -- for a legislative candidate. And the DFL didn't target Klinzing because it didn't think Swails could win. But it was the education issue that did it. Just look at how Woodbury votes at school levies.
Here's a theory I have, though on why it's turned blue. There was a time when Woodbury was just houses the size of aircraft carriers. But in the last four years, they've built a ton of townhomes and apartments. Could it be that it led more DFLers to move in? Or is Woodbury just more pragmatic? Swails is not fire-breathing inner-city liberal DFLer. She's an actual moderate who , I think, actually believes in bipartisanship.
There was that group at the capital (many of whom are now unemployed) that tried to buck the party leaderships during the government shutdown and 'get real.' I think the group of freshmen going to the Capitol aren't going to be backbenchers giving honor and all power to the leadership, though it may be painful for both to learn that.
I haven't seen Woodbury's vote in the 6th District race. If that went to Wetterling too -- and Swails tied herself pretty closely to Wetterling -- then that's just, well, unbelievable to me.
In terms of the entire Washington County, Michele Bachmann won by about 100 votes. The county is pretty much irrelevant now in the 6th District. When redistricting pulled in the area up to St. Cloud, Stearns County became the player.
OK, that's it. The next political voice(s) you hear will be Mike Mulcahy and Tom Scheck. Next week a small cadre here will begin plotting out substantial new initiatives for Campaign 2008.
Fade to black.
