Duluth becoming a hot campaign stop for presidential hopefuls

AP ^ | 7-11-04

[Dan from Michigan]

Duluth becoming a hot campaign stop for presidential hopefuls

The Associated Press
7/11/2004, 5:27 p.m. ET

(AP) — The presence of both major presidential candidates in the Duluth area within two weeks shows the region's significance — a major media market that covers parts of three battleground states for the 2004 election.

President Bush is scheduled to visit on Tuesday and Sen. John Kerry was recently in nearby Cloquet. Nothern Minnesota residents are enjoying the attention.

"Prior to 2000, we tended to be a place where only vice-presidential candidates came, if anyone," said Craig Grau, political science professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

He said he believes President Bush is the first sitting president to bring his own campaign to Duluth since Dwight Eisenhower. "Being courted is always nice," he said.

Grau and officials in both the Republican and Democratic parties agree that Duluth is hot political property because it's the dominant city on the western end of the western Great Lakes. More important, it's also a major broadcast media center that reaches large areas of northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Some Duluth broadcast stations featured live, complete coverage of Kerry's visit to Cloquet on July 2, something rarely done for presidential stops in larger metropolitan areas, Grau said.

Both parties also agree that while the voters are overwhelmingly Democratic and Bush has little chance of actually carrying the region, the residents also tend to be conservative on social and environmental issues, and are increasingly independent.

Northeastern Minnesota has long been a center of iron mining and forest industries, blue-collar and unionized workers, many of whom are Roman Catholic and members of Eastern European ethnic groups.

Most Democrats in statewide races have amassed 2-1 margins in St. Louis County, the heart of the 8th Congressional District and home to Duluth and the Iron Range cities. Even Gov. Tim Pawlenty and U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, Republican victors in 2002, lost by more than 2-1 margins in St. Louis County.

But if the Republicans and Bush can shrink that margin even a little bit, as former U.S. Sen. Rod Grams did in his 1994 race, they stand a much better chance of winning statewide and taking all 10 of Minnesota's electoral votes.

Bush in 2000 and Ronald Reagan in 1984 came fairly close to carrying Minnesota but lost by the standard margins in St. Louis County. In contrast, Grams reduced opponent Ann Wynia's winning percentage to 57 percent, and he carried the state.

"They are great, hard-working, salt-of-the-Earth type folks, it seems like they are all Democrats, but they are conservative Democrats ... pro-life and pro-gun," said Grams. One label that has been attached to these kinds of voters is "God and Country Democrats."

Bush is expected to stress those conservative social values in Duluth, said Dan Urshan, former mayor of Hermantown and a state Bush campaign leader who was instrumental in arranging the trip.

"There are a lot of social issues (such as abortion and gay marriage) where President Bush is closer to northeastern Minnesota than Kerry," Urshan said.

Democrats agree that the region is gradually becoming more conservative, but they insist that Bush will not get enough votes there to take Minnesota.

State Rep. Mary Murphy, a 14-term Democrat from Hermantown, said that her district, just west of Duluth, has "new Republicans and more independents. ... It's become somewhat more prosperous and more conservative, more home-schooling and more people belonging to fundamentalist churches."

One of the canniest political veterans of Iron Range politics, former state Sen. Doug Johnson, of Tower, near the Canadian border, said that the choice of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards will help a lot in northeastern Minnesota.

"My instincts are telling me that because of our economy and concerns about the war that Bush will not do as well this time as last time. What's changed is that this region still is not feeling like it's part of the economic rebound," Johnson said.

Bush's chief strategist, Matthew Dowd, who is originally from Michigan, strongly disagrees.

"Green Bay, the U.P. and Duluth are all becoming more like swing districts," Dowd said. Bush's visit to Marquette, Mich., is the first by a Republican president since William Howard Taft, Dowd said, and Republicans are confident they can "reduce the margins" in the northern Great Lakes.

"This election will be decided in a few states and by a few thousand people in those states," Dowd said. "We'll be back to Minnesota a number of times and will not be returning just to the metro area."

[Dan from Michigan]

I'm not as familiar with Duluth or North Wisconsin as I am with the UP, but I suspect it is a lot like the Marquette area. A small union city that culturally should be ours, but isn't, mostly because of unions and tradition. The UP votes like West Virginia.

[MarkeyD]

It is a nice city. I slept in my car at a KOA there one night. I was passing through on the way to Ely, and because of the Shriners, there were no rooms at the inns.

[crz]

Hey how ya doin?

The UP and the northern lower can and will swing the vote in the state. All the politions need to do is understand this and I think the GOP has gotten that. All they need do is visit once in a while. Crumps, the last president to come up here was Taft, and that was when the UP was a powerhouse in the economy.

[sergeantdave]

If Bush eats a pasty and pronounces it the tastiest thing he's ever eaten, he'll carry the area in a landslide. :-)

[EGPWS]

Duluth becoming a hot campaign stop for presidential hopefuls

Duluth, Minnesota????

If so, perhaps when Dubya speaks, he should start out by saying that his blood is "red"!

The color would get their attention!

[EGPWS]

It is a nice city.

You obviously refrained from talking politics!

[Dan from Michigan]

Crumps, the last president to come up here was Taft, and that was when the UP was a powerhouse in the economy

I was shocked when I first read that, especially with the recent independent streak up there. I'm glad Bush's campaign has the UP on the map.

I was hoping he'd go to the Soo or St Ignace as well, but Green Bay is also very important.

[goldstategop]

MI, MN and WI are weak Gore States that Gore carried by only a few thousand votes in 2000. Hence they're ripe pickings by the Bush campaign.

[jdege]

It's not Duluth, exactly, as much as it is the Iron Range. Duluth is a fair-sized town (100k), and it's unretrievably liberal.

But Da Range has been abandoning the DFL, over social issues.

Mondale carried Minnesota, in 1984, because of a franatic last-minute get-out-the-vote campaign on Da Range. The Unions put in a massive effort.

They'd not be able to repeat it, today.

[Dan from Michigan]

These maps here show most of the "Iron Range" areas of red. I'm glad Bush is fighting here.

NE Minnesota is the Iron Range area. St Louis County(Duluth I think is there) is the tall red one. Carlton and Lake counties are nearby. All Red.

MArquette is the red county in the Central UP. The two other red ones there are Gogebic and Iron in the Westernmost area near Wisconsin. West of Marquette are generally the "Copper Counties". I've heard Iron range applied there too.

Superior I know is a big rat area in the NW. Glad to see the Green Bay area(including Menominee and Escanaba in the UP) starting to go GOP.

[ride the whirlwind]

If Bush eats a pasty and pronounces it the tastiest thing he's ever eaten, he'll carry the area in a landslide. :-)

LOL, touché! My late mother made some of the best pasties in the world!

[Colonel_Flagg]

Duluth put 8,000 people into a 6,000-seat arena for GWB's visit four years ago. Kerry just drew 4,000 in Cloquet, a solid union town about 15 miles away. His speech was ripped by the liberal newspaper here as containing nothing of substance for the region.

Duluth is a beautiful city with a large number of conservative Democrats. RKBA and social issues can play very well here. But to get those votes, the President has to campaign for them and I for one am very glad he's doing it.