Minnesota Lawyer
GOP Rep. Chip Cravaack pulled off one of the nation’s biggest electoral upsets last year when he knocked off 18-term incumbent Jim Oberstar in the 8th District, which has traditionally been a DFL stronghold.
Rick Nolan’s entry into the contest likely completes the DFL field
More than three decades have passed since Rick Nolan last ran for Congress. But on Wednesday afternoon, standing before the statue of former populist Farmer-Labor Gov. Floyd B. Olson on the Capitol lawn, Nolan made his candidacy in the 8th Congressional District official.
“I’ve got a little bit of the Floyd B. in me,” Nolan said. “Floyd B. once said, ‘I’m not a liberal or a conservative, I’m a radical.’ Some people might suggest that there’s a need for some radical change in this country to get it back on track again.”
Nolan is the third DFL candidate to announce a bid to unseat freshman GOP incumbent Rep. Chip Cravaack. Previously Duluth City Council Member Jeff Anderson and former state Senate Assistant Majority Leader Tarryl Clark entered the contest.
Nolan served three terms in Congress representing the 7th Congressional District. He also boasts a business resume that includes owning a timber products company and chairing the development of the World Trade Center in St. Paul. “There’s an enormous amount of discontent in the country,” said Nolan, citing recent wave elections. “I think we might see a repeat of that. … My sense is they’re very unhappy with what the Republicans are proposing to do, and a lot of them, including Chip Cravaack, are going to get thrown out in the next election.”
The contest is expected to be one of the most closely watched in the country. That’s because Cravaack pulled off one of the nation’s biggest electoral upsets last year when he knocked off 18-term incumbent Jim Oberstar. The district has traditionally been a DFL stronghold. Gov. Mark Dayton won it by 8 percentage points in 2010, while President Barack Obama carried it by 9 percent two years earlier. Before Cravaack’s victory, it had been represented by a DFLer since 1947. But it has grown less solidly blue over the decades as the northeast quadrant of the state has lost population and the boundaries of the district have crept south and west.
Uncertainty about exactly what the contours of the district will be once redistricting is completed means that the race might be slow to garner attention. “The list of competitive races is not fully formed yet and probably won’t be fully formed for maybe a year,” said Nathan Gonzales, deputy editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. “But there’s no question that Democrats are targeting the 8th District. I think they believe it will be one of the most competitive races.”
Most political observers in the district believe that the DFL field is now set. State Rep. John Persell, DFL-Bemidji, had been weighing a run but has decided to stay out. He is now backing Nolan. Other names that continue to garner some buzz as possible late entrants: Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon and former state Sen. Jerry Janezich.
The latter is not entirely ruling out a run. “I’ve thought about it,” said Janezich, who ran unsuccessfully for a U.S. Senate seat in 2000. If the Hibbing resident did climb into the race, it would fix what some district observers see as the conspicuous absence of any challengers from the traditional political hotbed of the Iron Range. Both Oberstar and his predecessor, John Blatnick, hailed from the Iron Range town of Chisholm.
Aaron Brown, who writes about politics in the 8th Congressional District on his blog, Minnesota Brown, says Iron Rangers are not thrilled by the field of challengers. “It’s not the field that anyone from the Range would have expected at the end of Jim Oberstar’s campaign,” Brown said. “I think a lot of Rangers are kind of confused about where to go and what to do.”
There is also a perception that none of the three announced challengers are without blemishes. “A lot of people are struggling with the different possible negatives,” said one veteran DFL activist, speaking anonymously. “Tarryl moved into the district, Jeff’s gay and Rick’s old.”
While that assessment is crude, it’s not entirely misguided, Brown said. But he believes Clark’s carpetbagger label is going to be the most difficult to shake. “I think it’s worse to be a carpetbagger here than probably any district in the state,” Brown said. “This is a district that is a lot of things — maybe confused politically at times — but it doesn’t forget its roots and its heritage.”
Gonzales sees another likely challenge for Clark: fundraising. During her 2010 congressional bid, she brought in nearly $5 million, but that was while running against the flamboyant incumbent Rep. Michele Bachmann. Cravaack doesn’t exactly have the same national profile. “Now that she’s running against someone who nobody knows outside of Minnesota, what will her fundraising look like?” Gonzales asked. “Who you’re running against is almost as important for raising money as who you are.” (Clark did not return a call seeking comment for this article.)
Since Anderson officially kicked off his campaign in May, he has been focused on meeting potential constituents throughout the sprawling district (it is larger than 10 U.S. states) and raising money. He isn’t worried that sexual orientation will be a liability in the contest. “I think at the end of the day, what matters most to people is their job, their retirement, their kids’ education,” Anderson said. “That’s what they’re going to think about when they vote for a candidate for Congress.”
Some residents of the district would like to see a younger challenger who can accrue power in Washington just as Oberstar and Blatnick did in the past. At 67, Nolan is certainly not going to be the candidate of choice for individuals who share that sentiment.
The GOP wasted no time blasting him as out of touch with the district’s sensibilities. “Rick Nolan is a quintessential 1970s liberal,” state Republican Party Chairman Tony Sutton said in a statement. “A shave and haircut isn’t going to cut it with 21st century voters. With the Internet and social media, voters today are a lot better informed on issues than they were back in the ’70s when a bullhorn and a beard made you a thought leader.”
At Tuesday’s event Nolan did his best to dispel any questions about the energy level he will bring to the campaign. He spoke extemporaneously for 30 minutes, laying out a liberal agenda that includes rewriting foreign trade agreements, revoking income tax cuts for the wealthy, and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. When asked about his age, Nolan dismissed it as irrelevant.
“When people meet me, and feel my strength and my energy and my passion, that question seems to go away,” Nolan said. “I like to respond with the old notion, ‘if you didn’t know how old you are, how old would you be?’ I’m somewhere between 25 and 30. The damn calendar says I’m 67, but I feel the youth and vigor of a young man.”
