Morris-area House race could prove to be pivotal

MORRIS – Minnesota Republicans, locked out of state government the past two years, desperately want to win back the state House majority. And that means Rep. Jay McNamar is squarely in their sights.

The first-term Democrat voted for gay marriage and for much of the DFL agenda on taxes and spending, which Republicans say puts him out of step with voters in rural, western District 12A.

If McNamar is concerned, he's not showing it: "I was a better mayor than I was a teacher, and I'm a better legislator than I was a mayor," said McNamar, with a self-deprecating laugh, sitting at the dining room table in his modest Elbow Lake home.

The retired science teacher rattled off with gusto what he says is a solid first-term record: money for local schools and health care, property tax relief, and plenty of projects for constituents, including $750,000 for the Morris ethanol plant and $225,000 for a new Cyrus public safety building. He also helped pass $6.2 million for infrastructure in outstate Minnesota areas like his bucolic district, which stretches for 3,500 square miles all the way to the Dakotas.

Both sides are pouring money into this swing district, which McNamar won by just 255 votes in 2012, even as the district supported Republican Mitt Romney for president and voted overwhelmingly for the constitutional ban on gay marriage. The district has flipped back and forth several times since 2004, and by September the parties had already spent $35,000 here, with the Democrats' seven-seat majority hanging in the balance.

To unseat McNamar, Republicans have turned to Jeff Backer, an energetic candidate who enjoys the hustings. The district is filled with his red signs that read, "I'm a Backer backer!" Backer said he is putting to use his experience marketing pools, hot tubs, go karts and other recreational vehicles at a Browns Valley store and website he owns with his twin brother.

Backer is genial in person, even acknowledging that McNamar has brought home money for a good project or two and sticking to talking points about the rural economy.

His website is more aggressive. He advocates an unapologetic social conservative agenda, including making English the official language and ending abortion rights and gay marriage. He says, "By allowing same sex marriage, there is no reason to prohibit polygamy or other 'creative marriages.' "

His favorite shot at McNamar, though, is a derisive moniker he's bestowed upon the incumbent: "Metro Jay." That's Backer's effort to tie the incumbent to the Democrats' Twin Cities liberal power base. "Year after year, St. Paul, and representatives like Metro Jay, continues to burden its citizens by asking them to pay more taxes," Backer says on his website.

McNamar bristles at the "Metro Jay" nickname, noting that he's lived in rural western Minnesota his entire life, taught school for decades there and as mayor led his home city of Elbow Lake through the recession without raising taxes.

McNamar said he's busy thinking of second term priorities: a tuition freeze for university students, debt forgiveness for recent grads who come work in rural Minnesota, improved nursing home care, and transportation money for rural roads and bridges.

Backer said he would look to improve Minnesota's business climate while ensuring rural communities get their share.

At the end of a day of campaigning, Backer walked into Eul's Hardware Hank — here since 1930 — and found an undecided voter. Eul's carries the rich, earthy smell of hammers and nails and hard work.

Kathy Bouta, whose family has owned the store for three generations, said she is especially troubled by the younger generation piling up so much college debt. "They shouldn't be coming out of school with $40,000 in debt. They're coming into family, and they can't buy a home," she said.

Bouta said it seems the rich can afford the good life, while the poor get government help, "And then I guess it's me in the middle again."

J. Patrick Coolican • 651-925-5042