I seem to have stepped in dutch a bit with Pete Nelson supporters (in which I include myself) with a post from yesterday, in which I was less than complimentary about the 2006 campaign. I've gotten e-mail and now Sturdy Oak comments on the issue:
Visibility in the local press counts with just a portion of society. Perhaps 15-20% of people even get the local papers. Each candidate chooses the collection of the various media to use in a campaign to reach the different segments of the populous. Therefore a candidate may be more visible to some groups than others.
Kalin brags he knocked on 10,000+ doors. Not on mine and no literature left. What he doesn’t tell his readers is that he is lucky to find 30% of residents home. It’s an effective, but time consuming way to communicate with people. Nelson knocked on doors too, but he just doesn’t try to impress people with the numbers.
The lower voter turn out of a non-presidential election coupled with the Mark Foley scandal and big spending of Congressional Republicans probably did more to give the election to Kalin than anything he did to win it. A national mood developed that affected local elections.
In the end, Chisago County got a boy for representative and lost a man.
No argument there Sturdy, and, as I said before, a lack of visibility was an impression in press circles. Certainly there are other means of disseminating one's message.
I am not inclined to spend much time going over the finer points of the 2006 election, there were many factors at play. If that led to malaise among local Republicans, certainly the result of the 2006 election and subsequent representation should be more than enough to get them interested in 2008.
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