politics

Facing what may be one of the closest races in the country, Rep. Mark Kennedy headed into the U.S. Senate campaign Thursday night with the rousing endorsement of his party, but as a bit of an underdog, thanks to the anti-Bush headwind all Republicans face this year and the emergence of a strong opponent in DFL frontrunner Amy Klobuchar.

Sounding more like an outsider than an incumbent whose party controls all three branches of government, Kennedy said he would push for "change in Washington." He criticized the dominance of lobbyists, interest groups, pork spending and a government that he said "hasn't controlled our borders and didn't respond promptly to a major disaster."

The three-term Sixth District representative decried the control of "Washington bureaucrats" and reminded delegates that he opposed No Child Left Behind, which President Bush has considered one of his singular achievements but which has not been popular with Minnesota's conservative base.

In a speech that never mentioned Bush by name, Kennedy said he would "vote based on principle, not party or president or pressure from Washington lobbyists."

Fewer than half of the delegates showed up on the opening night of the statewide gathering at the Minneapolis Convention Center, but 767 of the 923 who did chose Kennedy over token opposition from retired minister Harold Shudlick.

Kennedy later told reporters that he has "a great bipartisan record -- one of the best in the House."

He said that even though his party was in control, he was "frustrated" at its high rate of spending and that he was "often in the minority of my own party on fiscal issues."

Asked if he would welcome a visit from Bush, whose approval ratings are hovering close to 30 percent, Kennedy said the president "is always welcome" in Minnesota, but added that "some people would like the president to be on the ballot. This is going to be a race between Mark Kennedy and whoever the others endorse."

In his speech, Kennedy revisited his Minnesota roots -- four generations in the state and an upbringing in Pequot Lakes that had him pumping gas and selling bait at age 14.

He faces the dilemma of Republican candidates nationwide -- how to win despite the fading appeal of their president, a prolonged and increasingly unpopular war and a general nervousness about rising deficits.

"All Republicans will be sailing into a very strong headwind this election," said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for Politics and Government at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute. "Kennedy's got to run a campaign in which he can skirt the generally bad reputation of Republicans in Washington. That's pretty tough.

"He's got to make this race about his record, not Bush's."

That will be a delicate task, given that he has long been considered a Bush loyalist with a better-than-95-percent record of voting with the president.

Purple Minnesota?

Minnesota is now so evenly divided, Jacobs said, that neither party is considered to have a particular advantage. In some competitive states, Republicans are running far behind their Democratic opponents, but here, he said, Kennedy appears to be holding his own against Hennepin County Attorney Klobuchar, although some polls have put him slightly behind.

Ben Goldfarb, Klobuchar's campaign manager, said after the speech that "Mark Kennedy can try to run from his record and his close friend George Bush, but he can't hide the truth: For six years he's put big oil, drug companies and party leaders ahead of Minnesotans. As a Washington insider, Kennedy can't be part of the solution, because he's part of the problem."

Shudlick also took a couple of shots at Kennedy, saying that while Kennedy touted his CPA background, "CPAs are trusted only 23 percent of the time." People, he said, are "tired of Republicans running to the left in order to win elections."

Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C., said Minnesota is the only Democratic seat she still lists as a tossup.