Pro-Bush Democratic mayor defeated in St. Paul

BRIAN BAKST

Associated Press

ST. PAUL - Voters punished Mayor Randy Kelly on Tuesday for standing with President Bush a year ago, denying the Democrat a second term in Minnesota's capital city.

Former City Council member Chris Coleman, also a Democrat, routed Kelly 70 percent to 30 percent in unofficial returns with all but a few precincts reporting. Ahead of the election, independent polls showed voters were primed to fire Kelly, and most cited his 2004 endorsement of the Republican president as the reason.

No sitting St. Paul mayor had lost a campaign since 1974. Kelly had a personal election streak that spanned just as long, covering his quarter-century in the Legislature and first term as mayor.

"It may sound silly, but Kelly was for Bush and I'm not," said retiree Audrey Guith after casting her vote for Coleman.

Kelly found it impossible to change the topic in the campaign's final weeks. He tried to tout his record of adding affordable housing while keeping property taxes steady, and the mayor sought to paint Coleman as a tax-raiser beholden to public employee unions.

"The people have spoken," Kelly said in a concession speech at his campaign headquarters. "I say amen, and so be it."

Though Coleman had seized on the endorsement in his campaign, he downplayed its role in the victory. "This race has never been about George Bush," he told cheering supporters.

He was just as jubilant.

"I just can't even tell you how good winning feels," he said. "We Democrats forget that every once in a while."

Minneapolis also chose a mayor, with incumbent R.T. Rybak cruising to a second term over Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, a fellow Democrat.

Like Minneapolis, St. Paul's bigger and better-known neighbor, Democrats largely outnumber Republicans and control all aspects of city government even though the offices are technically nonpartisan.

Political experts were astounded by how prominently the 2004 election figured into this fall's race. Most other issues took a backseat; a Star Tribune of Minneapolis poll released Sunday showed that nearly two-thirds of voters considered the endorsement important in their decision.

It drove plumber Daniel Doyle to pick Coleman over Kelly, whom he supported in 2001. Doyle said he was happy with the direction of the city, but not the mayor.

"That weighed me down when he was backing the president. He lost my vote," Doyle said. "I don't know whether he is going to sway to the Republican side.

McRae Anderson, a city resident for 36 years, stuck with Kelly. He said the Bush endorsement didn't bother him because he voted for Bush himself. Anderson said he was disappointed that so many other people were influenced by that one event.

"He's done a good job. They ought to see what he's done for the city," he said.

Kay Wolsborn, a political science professor at the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University, said it's too soon to say if the St. Paul race suggests broader trouble for Republicans as Minnesota moves into an election year with the governor's office and a U.S. Senate seat on the line.

"There's going to be some very interesting analysis behind closed doors," she said. "How wise is it to bring in the big Republican names in support of our statewide candidates?"

Posted on Tue, Nov. 08, 2005

Kelly suffers resounding defeat

Coleman tops mayor by 2-to-1 ratio

BY TIM NELSON

Pioneer Press

Randy Kelly suffered a resounding defeat on Tuesday, the first St. Paul mayor in 33 years to lose his job at the polls.

Voters elected former City Council Member Chris Coleman in his stead by a better than 2-to-1 ratio.

It was, by all measures, a crushing defeat, the widest election loss by an incumbent mayor in the city's 151-year history. It even topped the 17,600-vote gap in 1972, when Larry Cohen defeated one-term Mayor Charles McCarty, who had been dubbed "Supermayor" for his crime-fighting exploits.

Kelly's defeat, however, was generally expected: Opinion polls in recent weeks gave Coleman a lead of more than 40 percentage points. The same polls showed general satisfaction with the way the city was being run but also documented voters' unwillingness to forgive Kelly, a Democrat, for campaigning on behalf of Republican President Bush during the 2004 election.

"As I said on Sept. 29," Kelly said recently, "if people vote on the basis of my decision to endorse the president, I will lose."

But it wasn't only the Bush endorsement, but a change in DFL strategy.

Kelly's predecessor, Norm Coleman, went so far as to switch parties nine years ago and become the first Republican mayor in the DFL city since 1966. He survived to win re-election in 1997.

The DFL, however, this year ran its most moderate candidate in 20 years, a St. Paul native who had endorsed Kelly himself four years ago and had led the city council's moderate majority for the first two years of Kelly's term. Coleman is also the son of the late state Sen. Nick Coleman, one of the founding members of the DFL Party.

Tuesday's election marked the first time in 16 years that an endorsed DFLer won the mayor's office — the Berlin Wall was still standing when Jim Scheibel was elected to a single term in 1989.

"I think in electing Chris Coleman, the people of St. Paul really affirmed their ties to the DFL, and it's a great result for the city," said city party chairman Stuart Alger. "I think Chris really embraced core DFL values, against a candidate who has embraced a president antithetical to the DFL."

The results run contrary to city history: In a century and a half, only eight mayors have lost re-election. To the usual advantages of incumbency, Kelly also added record-setting fundraising. He had more than 16 times as much cash on hand as Coleman reported in the days before the Sept. 13 primary.

But the money wasn't enough to turn around his distant second-place finish in that race.

"I kind of feel bad for him," said Cohen, now a retired Ramsey County District Court judge, as the city waited for the final results. "He was my sign guy, in charge of the whole East Side. He did a good job." Kelly helped Cohen hand St. Paul's then-mayor the record that Kelly broke Tuesday.

The returns proved an ironic bookend to Kelly's 31-year political career in another way, as well. In 1974, just weeks after President Richard Nixon resigned. Kelly first won elected office by beating then state Rep. Tony Bennett, now a Ramsey County commissioner.

"I would say Watergate played the biggest part of it," Bennett said on Election Day, recalling that race 31 years ago.

And now, a generation later, a Republican president seems to have put an end to Kelly's political career.

Great pics, Michael.

(I am still singing.........but not drinking..........)

I have literally hundreds of pics from the 04 Kerry campaign in KC but don't have any way of posting them anywhere.  Snailmail is my only option.  How medieval, no?