With the nation's secretaries of state in town for their summer meeting, the Republican Party of Minnesota thought there would be no better time to literally air its grievances with Minnesota's DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.
Starting today, the party will broadcast a radio ad saying that Ritchie, a first-term officeholder who was in the spotlight during the recent U.S. Senate recount, "is no model of a fair and open election official."
The ad accuses Ritchie of helping to create recount troubles by failing to properly train election officials, and succumbing to DFL pressure by switching his position on what ballots to count.
The ad is expected to run on WCCO Radio and the Minnesota News Network. Party officials said that the ad buy was in the five-figure range but declined to be more specific.
GOP officials acknowledged that the campaign was targeted to hit Ritchie while his counterparts are in Minneapolis for the summer meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State. It's the start of what they pledged would be a 16-month strategy to unseat him.
"It's not about embarrassing the secretary of state, it's about informing the voters," said Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Tony Sutton.
"Quite frankly, the hook is that secretaries of state are in town. We felt this was the right time to launch this campaign."
Said Ritchie spokesman John Aiken: "This office is not going to respond to negative political attacks. It is unfortunate that the Republican Party has decided to begin an attack on this office and Minnesota's model election system."
