Republicans will run candidates in all 134 state House districts this fall with the goal of retaking the majority they lost two years ago.
Members of the GOP caucus will not concede "one inch of territory in Minnesota," House Minority Leader Marty Seifert said Tuesday. "This is not the Politburo ... giving [DFLers] a free ride is simply un-American."
Flanked on the State Capitol steps by about half of the Republican candidates, Seifert said that despite the DFL's 36-seat majority, "I'm very confident we can take the majority. We lost the majority in one cycle, we can take it back in one cycle."
Touting the fact that more than 30 of the candidates are women and "four or five" are black or Hispanic, Seifert said he "wanted the caucus to reflect the reality of the population. I made an extra effort to move this caucus demographically into the 21st century."
Despite the widespread perception that Republicans are demoralized heading into this election cycle, Seifert said that for House candidates, "the motivation is there in 2008 that was not there in 2006."
Saying he believes that Sen. Norm Coleman will easily win reelection and that John McCain will gain ground on Barack Obama in Minnesota, Seifert said another reason he's confident about regaining the House majority is that "our House candidates tend to outrun the top of the ticket."
Seifert said the candidates will run on a platform of lower taxes, repeatedly referring to the gasoline tax increase that the DFL majority approved earlier this year.
He also said he won't recommend that candidates sign binding pledges, such as the no-new-taxes pledge that many Republicans have endorsed in the past. "The pledge system is getting out of control," he said.
