Minnesotans putting heat on Congress

WASHINGTON - Mischa Fisher spent Friday morning sorting through his boss Rep. Jim Ramstad's e-mail inbox, choked by hundreds of overnight missives from constituents who oppose the emerging Wall Street bailout plan.

"We're running well over 100 to one against the [Bush] administration's proposal as it is; that's what we're hearing back in Minnesota on Main Street," said Ramstad, who has received about 1,400 bailout e-mails this week.

That same palpable anger is spilling over on the campaign trail, where the Wall Street rescue issue is obliterating all other topics, according to congressional challengers.

"People are saying no damn way," said Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg, who is running for Congress in Minnesota's Sixth District. "They want to make awfully sure that CEOs who have taken their companies down, made risky investment decisions, are not going to get rewarded somehow by the taxpayer bailout. There's a high level of resentment about that."

Five weeks before Election Day, members of Congress are weighing voter anger over the bailout against warnings that government intervention is needed to stabilize the financial markets and prevent the economy from plunging into an even worse crisis.

Meanwhile, in just the 24 hours ending mid-Friday, Ramstad said, 1.2 million calls, e-mails and faxes had flooded congressional offices, occasionally slowing the official House server to a crawl.

Minnesota Republicans were among House members balking Friday at the rescue plan initiated by President Bush, while Democrats from Minnesota endorsed modified versions of it.

Whatever the outcome, politicians from both parties are facing voters who fear a bailout will benefit Wall Street at the expense of Main Street.

How to respond

Politicians are divided on how to respond.

Tinklenberg supports a rescue with oversight, restrictions on corporate compensation, and help for distressed homeowners.

A bailout may seem unpalatable, he said, but doing otherwise could result in much more serious problems.

His opponent, Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican, opposes the Bush bailout and favors putting more money into the market by suspending business and capital-gains taxes.

Bachmann also struck a populist tone, saying the bailout "runs counter to the American Dream, unless you're a fat cat rolling the dice with taxpayer dollars."

Something is needed

Though sentiment ran strong against breaks going to corporate executives, some Minnesota members of Congress and challengers said many voters also seemed to accept that some kind of a rescue plan is needed to avert a potential financial disaster.

"Early in the week, most people in my district and most people in the country were not worried that the problems on Wall Street would impact their lives," said Second District Rep. John Kline, a Republican.

"I think increasingly people are starting to get worried that it will impact their lives. ... They're starting to get the picture that if there is a complete financial collapse, that could be a very big problem."

Still, he said about three-quarters of more than 1,000 calls and e-mails in the past four days have been against the plan.

Polls this week provided additional evidence of evolving sentiment on a rescue.

When a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll asked whether people believed it was "the government's responsibility to bail out private companies with taxpayers' dollars," the majority said no.

But a poll released by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that a majority thought the government is doing the right thing "investing billions to try to keep financial institutions and markets secure."

The office of Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat from Minnesota's Fourth District, got 1,600 messages on the issue.

"The majority of the calls are against the presidents' plan, but they do want something done to prevent the crisis," said her communications director, Cleve Mesidor.

"I think people are kind of reluctantly acquiescing to the idea that we ... can't just let it go," Tinklenberg said. "There's a recognition that there is more at stake here."

Why help some, not others?

But some voters are asking why the government in recent months propped up some financial institutions while allowing others to fail.

"Why should the government buy a lot of bad loans that are going to get dumped on the market?" said Third District congressional candidate Erik Paulsen, a Republican.

"It is fundamentally wrong to be bailing out these Wall Street folks."

At a debate this week, Paulsen said he wasn't sure if he favored a bailout plan.

His opponents, Independence Party candidate David Dillon and DFLer Ashwin Madia, expressed grudging support for one.

Similarly, Rep. Keith Ellison of the Fifth District said some constituents were caught off guard by the bailout after earlier government action propping up some institutions.

"They told us that everything was fine and then all of a sudden it's, 'I need $700 billion in a week,'" said Ellison, a Democrat. "People are very surprised and upset by this."

As talks continued during the week, the Bush administration appeared poised to accept some of the changes demanded by House Republicans and Democrats.

Rep. Tim Walz, First District Democrat, said he's received more than 1,000 e-mails from constituents, the majority of which express skepticism of the president's proposal.

"There are lots of questions about how the taxpayers' money will be protected in this deal," he said.

"People don't want to hand over their tax money to Wall Street without the assurance that this bailout will really benefit average Americans."

pdoyle@startribune.com • 651-222-1210 mitch.anderson@startribune.com • 202-408-2723