As the latest poll suggests, the action in Minnesota's race for governor is in the middle. While the Democratic and Republican candidates' numbers have moved only slightly, the Independence Party candidate's numbers have surged.
So, if Democrat Mark Dayton and Republican Tom Emmer want to significantly boost their own numbers, they're going to have to appeal to the center. A "Sister Souljah" moment might do the trick.
Candidate Bill Clinton made the strategy famous in his campaign for president in 1992. While giving a speech to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition, Clinton scolded entertainer and activist Sister Souljah for an extremist quote. Since then, "Sister Souljah moments" in politics are said to take place when politicians chastise, distance themselves from or otherwise stand up to a core constituency, often in a way that appeals to centrist or moderate voters.
But one of the oddities of this year's governor's race in Minnesota is that neither of the major-party candidates has tried to appeal to independents at all. For Democrat Dayton, balancing the budget is all about raising taxes on the rich, while for Republican Emmer, it's all about spending cuts (and tax cuts, too, via the power of miracle math).
In this way, the candidates have ceded the broad middle of the electorate to Tom Horner of the Independence Party. And Horner's making the most of it: "Fewer than seven weeks before Election Day, the Minnesota's governor's race is a statistical dead heat, with Democrat Mark Dayton leading Republican Tom Emmer by a 38 to 36 margin, according to a KSTP/Survey USA poll," Politics in Minnesota reported Wednesday.
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"Independence Party candidate Tom Horner posted his strongest showing yet, pulling in 18 percent support." And that represents a full doubling of Horner's support in the few weeks since an August poll.
But what would happen to their numbers if, say, Dayton took a page from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' playbook and announced plans to limit state workers' collective bargaining privileges? By declaring that he'd stand up to the state's public-sector unions, Dayton would greatly reassure moderates that he'd be stingy with the state's dollars and that any tax hike would be put to best and most productive use.
Or what if Emmer accepted key findings of Gov. Tim Pawlenty's 21st Century Tax Reform Commission, which called for actions such as broadening the sales tax to cover more goods and services?
Right now, Emmer's budget plans barely recognize the fact that Minnesotans like, use and are proud of public services such as the University of Minnesota. Independents would be reassured if Emmer noted that he values those services, too, and is willing to do what it takes to keep them strong for generations to come.
Both major parties have sewn up their bases -- but there's a good chance that won't be enough. To win (and especially to win strongly enough to claim a mandate), the Republican and Democratic candidates must move to the middle. Bill Clinton showed the way.
-- Tom Dennis for the Herald
