Two DFLers vie to take on Kline in the Second

In a south metro trending to the left throughout the decade, is this the year for the DFL Party to finally mount a serious challenge to Republican Congressman John Kline?

"We had five DFL legislators in this district in 2002," said Dan Powers of Burnsville, one of two candidates for the party's nomination at its endorsing convention Saturday. "Now there are 14" -- roughly half the seats in the Second Congressional District, Kline's turf.

Still, even DFLers are wary when approached for money, said Shelley Madore of Apple Valley, the other candidate.

"They've already invested three times in trying to take this guy out, and they want to know I have a plan and can win and will win," she said.

Powers has been in the race for the better part of the past year, having attended 45 summer parades in the district. He's casting himself as the moderate small-business guy who is not a politician and isn't afraid to muddy his boots on the farms in the exurban south end of the district.

"I feel like I fit in the district," he said in reference to his experience in construction. "When I'm in the outlying areas, they don't get the feeling I'm some suburbanite telling them what to do."

Madore, a one-term legislator from the area until she was defeated, is depicting herself as the experienced hand who has shown she can be elected in a moderate suburb, knows the players in the area and can get things done.

Either candidate would likely provide a more conventional frontal assault on Kline than the DFL has provided in the last couple election cycles. The party has run under-funded and at times eccentric campaigns that have not always gone after Kline on issues where some political pros consider him vulnerable, including his refusal to accept earmarks for road projects.

"We need to not use that language," Madore said, referring to earmarks as shorthand for dollars that a member of Congress is able to direct back home.

"That language has been hijacked," she said. "We need to talk about investment in our communities. If we send a dollar to Washington, I want it back. We've been so underfunded for so long. We need to focus on that. We haven't had a candidate who's able to go toe-to-toe and challenge that language."

Powers agrees.

"We can't let our roads and bridges be pawns in political games," he said. "They are lifelines for a community. We've forgotten that part. If we need a bridge in Hastings, I'll push for that. If the money's gone in taxes, let's get it back."

Madore said she waited last year for Powers to build momentum but just wasn't seeing it. Finally, in November, she jumped in. Powers agrees he may have gotten off to a slow start.

"It's my first time in a big race," he said. "There's a lot I could have done differently. But I have a spectacular team behind me now, including folks who helped elect Al Franken."

Kline's staff declined to weigh in on the race. But Republican state Sen. Chris Gerlach, who represents the cities of both candidates, said of the two: "Neither will beat John Kline."

Only Madore has experience, he said, and voters tossed her out the first chance they got.

"She ran first time out as a moderate, and got elected as an unknown quantity," he said, "but she voted well to the left of the district."

"They spent a lot of money defeating me with overwhelming negative messaging, and even with all that effort they only won by 1,000 votes," she said.