If you're looking for one of the causes behind Tuesday's GOP clock cleaning of the DFL in Minnesota's election today's letters to the editor in the Minneapolis Star Tribune provide a good starting point. There are no fewer than five acrimonious letters from disaffected readers attacking Norm Coleman, President Bush, or both. Their comments include the following claims:

-Coleman did not work hard for the Senate seat he won rather it was paid for by the "Republican Corporation".

-Bush visited Minnesota to campaign for Coleman in order to grab more power so he could act like a bully and terrorize innocent people in other countries.

-That Coleman "savagely" attacked Wellstone and ran one of the most negative campaigns in Minnesota history.

-That the election was all about oil.

-That while Coleman was mayor of St. Paul he "alienated and marginalizied" gays and lesbians.

They just don't get it do they? Rather than stepping back and constructively examining what went wrong on Tuesday and what they should do in the future to avoid a repeat of the debacle all these Democrats can do is whip out the same tired cliches and cannards that failed them so miserably in the election. The majority of Minnesota voters were able to see through this fantasy world view of the Left and were intelligent enough to recognize how baseless these charges really are. But because these DFL Lefties have no substantive alternatives to offer they have to fall back on this sort of intellectually weak clap trap. They got nuthin'.

It would be easy to refute each and every of the claims in these letters but it's hardly even worth the time. However, I must step up and challenge the notion that the Coleman's campaign against Wellstone was excessively negative. While Coleman did have some ads that criticized Wellstone's voting record in the Senate I didn't consider it an overly negative campaign at all. There were no personal attacks against Wellstone and if you can't bring a candidate's voting record into play then you're all you're left with is the sappy crappy feel good ads that always seem to feature a family member explaining why their dad, brother, etc. is such a swell guy. They only serve to make me nauseas and really provide little information on issues.

And although I haven't seen a statistical analysis on it I would guess that there were at least as many if not more negative ads against Coleman produced by the Wellstone campaign and the DFL as there were negative ads against Wellstone.

You lost guys. Get over it.

Labels: Politics-Local (02-03)

Posted by Chad--Link