Republicans working to re-establish grass roots in Bloomington

Bloomington City Council members like to say their jobs are nonpartisan and that party politics have no place in making sure streets are plowed and budgets are balanced. But city resident Margaret Cavanaugh, who has watched council decisions with increasing displeasure, has a different view.

And as a leader among Third Congressional District Republicans, she has the power to do something about it.

"A Republican is someone who has a set of values and principles that they act upon," she said. "When someone votes in concert with people who are Democrats, it's hard to say they're Republican."

In what observers say was an unprecedented push to get conservatives elected to a suburban City Council, the state and district Republican Party put money and muscle into this fall's race for Bloomington City Council, and one of the three candidates endorsed by the party upset an incumbent.

Rod Axtell, considered the City Council's most conservative member, lost to newcomer Thomas Hulting by a scant 11 votes out of 2,179 cast. Axtell, a lifelong Republican, had been treasurer for former Sen. Norm Coleman's campaign committee since 2001.

Four years ago, Axtell ran for Bloomington City Council with Republican Party endorsement. This year, he said, no one told him about an endorsing convention held Oct. 19 -- a night when he was tied up at a City Council meeting.

While Axtell blames himself for his defeat, saying he should have knocked on more doors and campaigned harder, he said he was thrown by the strong state and district party involvement in a council race in the state's fifth-largest city.

"I think they targeted Bloomington because of its size," he said. "I'm certainly fiscally conservative, but I care about people. Obviously I'm not far enough to the right.

"Right now, I'm not sure I fit in anyplace. This Republican Party is not my party."

Tony Sutton, chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, said the state party endorsed and aggressively supported candidates in perennially liberal Minneapolis and St. Paul, so no one should be surprised it targeted Bloomington, too.

"Bloomington is not a little race," he said. "It's [one of the largest cities] in the state. I was very pleased Mr. Hulting was elected. ... We think it's important to build the party by putting fiscally conservative candidates at the local level."

Third District Republicans set up a website for the endorsed challengers called savebloomington.com. The website claimed Bloomington taxes could go up 45 percent in the next five years. Rick Weible, mayor of St. Bonifacius and co-chair with Cavanaugh of the Third District Republicans, held training sessions for the endorsed candidates.

"We literally sit down with them and go over [the city budget] line by line and say, 'Here's some things you want to consider,'" Weible said. He said candidates were trained how to campaign and talk with voters.

"This is absolutely unusual and did not happen in the past," he said.

Bloomington once was nearly guaranteed territory for the GOP. But in recent years, voters have swung more toward the DFL. In 1989, four of the five state legislators who represented the city were Republican. This year, five of six state representatives and senators are DFLers.

They include DFL Rep. Paul Rosenthal, who was elected last year in a formerly Republican district. The GOP loss came after incumbent Republican Neil Peterson's own party went after him in the primary for joining DFLers in overriding the governor's veto of a bill that included an increase in the gas tax. The Republican who beat Peterson lost in the general election to Rosenthal.

At this fall's endorsement convention, about 45 Bloomington Republicans endorsed three candidates to challenge incumbents Axtell, Karen Nordstrom and Steve Peterson. Nordstrom and Peterson retained their seats, though their margins of victory were considerably tighter than in previous elections. Peterson, who joined the council in 2000, got DFL endorsement in his first election but has not sought party endorsement since. Nordstrom said she has voted Republican her whole life but has not sought endorsement in either of her two elections because she thinks party politics is inappropriate at the city level.

Last year, she signed a letter endorsing Rosenthal for the Legislature. She believes the hard party push to unseat incumbents was a direct result.

"It's a vendetta against us, I'm sure of it," she said. "I believe in freedom of choice, but they wanted the pure kind of Republican. They're driving a wedge deeper. I am ashamed of the Republican Party."

Mayor Gene Winstead and several council members said they thought the savebloomington.com website, as well as some of the Republican campaign literature, misled voters about possible tax increases. Those numbers, buried deep in a document intended to help the council plan for the next five years, were worst-case scenarios to help shape planning, Winstead said.

If the numbers were misleading, Weible said, they shouldn't have been on the city website. Hulting, a lifelong Bloomington resident who sells large-scale technology systems, agreed.

"Once they publish something like that, it is out there in black and white," he said.

Hulting ran on the tax issue, saying high taxes have hurt residents and contributed to business vacancies in important commercial areas. He said he will hold quarterly listening sessions for residents in his district to discuss city spending and programs.

He said he and his wife spent many weekends and nights knocking on doors and passing out literature. Had Axtell been involved in recent district Republican activities, Hulting said, he could have competed for the endorsement.

"To say he's Norm Coleman's treasurer is a nice factoid, but it's irrelevant to what this is about," he said.

Weible said Hulting's addition to the council will push it to the right, which he described as "a little bit" of the party's goal. The bigger aim, he said, is to build the party from the bottom up, relying on voters to come out and support the endorsed candidates.

That, he said, is "true grassroots. We are not kingmakers."

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380