Michael Landon
11-18-2012, 11:10 AM
hxxp://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/179599501.html
The party's endorsement system, in which a convention picks the candidate and others are supposed to step aside rather than run in a primary, is also getting a close look.
Vin Weber, a longtime Washington lobbyist and presidential campaign adviser to both Mitt Romney and Pawlenty, said the party has hurt itself by insisting on fealty to the caucus system.
"We've narrowed it down to the smallest subsection of Minnesota," he said, referring to the few thousand delegates who participate in the endorsing process.
This year, Republican convention delegates chose freshman state Rep. Kurt Bills to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Bills ran a low-profile, low-budget campaign and was beaten by 32 percentage points -- the worst drubbing of a Republican Senate candidate in a generation.
Weber, a former Minnesota congressman with connections throughout the party, wants candidates held to a new standard. "I'm going to be very reluctant to support a candidate if he or she doesn't say that they are ready to go to the primary," he said.
Coleman, now a Washington lobbyist, is familiar with running the endorsement gauntlet. This week he tweeted, "The system is broken."
It's funny...they were fine with the caucus system when they nominated their candidates but when their candidate, Pete Hegseth, loses then the system is broken.
- ML
The party's endorsement system, in which a convention picks the candidate and others are supposed to step aside rather than run in a primary, is also getting a close look.
Vin Weber, a longtime Washington lobbyist and presidential campaign adviser to both Mitt Romney and Pawlenty, said the party has hurt itself by insisting on fealty to the caucus system.
"We've narrowed it down to the smallest subsection of Minnesota," he said, referring to the few thousand delegates who participate in the endorsing process.
This year, Republican convention delegates chose freshman state Rep. Kurt Bills to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Bills ran a low-profile, low-budget campaign and was beaten by 32 percentage points -- the worst drubbing of a Republican Senate candidate in a generation.
Weber, a former Minnesota congressman with connections throughout the party, wants candidates held to a new standard. "I'm going to be very reluctant to support a candidate if he or she doesn't say that they are ready to go to the primary," he said.
Coleman, now a Washington lobbyist, is familiar with running the endorsement gauntlet. This week he tweeted, "The system is broken."
It's funny...they were fine with the caucus system when they nominated their candidates but when their candidate, Pete Hegseth, loses then the system is broken.
- ML