Barely a week ago I wrote of how Lori Swanson’s running mate in the governor’s race, Rick Nolan, failed to respond to multiple complaints of sexual harassment in his congressional office and campaign. Couple days later web muckrakers The Intercept broke the story of Swanson pressuring staffers under her in the Attorney General’s office to do campaign work for her on and off the clock. Day or so later MN’s biggest newspaper picked up the story. More Swanson staffers came forward and corroborated the corruption reports, and today the NT Times and AP have taken the story national. All this media attention has brought the old story of Swanson’s union busting in the AG office back to the other front burner too.
Swanson’s response? Dumped a bunch of legally protected personal info on one of the sources of the leaks and mass mailed a hit job on another DFL gov candidate, Congress Member Tim Walz. That kind of graft and intimidation might get you elected in Illinois, Jersey, or Florida… But hopefully not in Minnesota. If this story of Swanson’s corruption can explode like this in a week, imagine how the GOP can run with it during the remaining 11 weeks of the campaign. Besides the now frenzied press feeding off the Swanson corruption story, the GOP controls the legislature and can hold oversight hearings on Swanson even though they’re outa session. Minnesota has pretty strong “sunlight” laws allowing citizen and media access to thousands of incriminating e-mails, staff time logs, and employee promotions and disappearances. Continuously campaigning, Swanson’s “volunteers” were known for documenting her campaign appearances… Her social media will be a trove of evidence. The run up to the general election will not be kind to Swanson, nor will it be kind to DFL candidates in Minnesota with Swanson dragging down the whole slate. And if Swanson wins the primary, we’re stuck with her- Minnesota law only allows a candidate withdrawal in the case of seriously debilitating illness, and she looks pretty healthy.
4 days before the primary we have one independent poll with Swanson at 27%, Walz at 24%, and “endorsed” candidate Murphy at 11%. PolSci 101 tells us that after a poll, the voters will tend to shift from lower polling candidates towards the winner and the same with the uncommitteds, or else they stay home… That means Swanson has probably widened her lead, Walz has lost some voters to Swanson and picked up some from Murphy, whose chances are becoming increasingly bleak. But how many percent has or will this scandal cost Swanson? This 538 study shows that in a competitive race a scandal drags a candidate down by almost 13%, which just happens to be about Swanson’s lead over likely GOP gov candidate Pawlenty. That 13% hit will hurt Swanson in the primary, but she just mass mailed an attack on Walz while the fossilized state party is still trying to elect barely in double digits Murphy, splitting the progressive and “honest candidate” vote.
So DFLers, let’s “shoot down” deathstar Swanson while we can before she takes down our whole slate. Quit worrying about the “endorsed” candidate, we need to unite behind our progressive leader Walz to stop Swanson, and if new polling shows Murphy the leader, I’ll happily switch my support to her. So unite behind Walz and keep the blue wage going!
Sassy Democrat 