Richard Painter explores run for U.S. Senate

[dflprincess]

Mixed feelings about this. I like Painter, but I'm afraid a third party candidate will hurt the DFL more than the Republicans and we'll wind up losing the seat.

http://www.startribune.com/trump-critic-richard-painter-explores-run-for-former-franken-senate-seat/476166933/

Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor and prolific TV and Twitter critic of President Donald Trump, said Wednesday that he is forming an exploratory committee that could lead to a campaign for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken and now occupied by Democrat Tina Smith.

Painter said at a Capitol news conference that although he’s a longtime Republican and served as chief ethics lawyer in George W. Bush’s White House, he’s unsure whether he’ll run as a Republican, Democrat or independent.

“I need to think about whether there’s a place for me” in the GOP, he said. “I’m going to be considering any and all options.” He described himself as “a centrist in many ways — right up the middle.”

Karin Housley, a small-business owner and suburban state senator, is the only Republican to announce plans to run for the seat. She was elected to the Legislature in 2012.

On March 3, Painter tweeted that Housley had blocked him. “She’s upset that I asked her to talk about serious issues rather than blame 20 minute lines at DMV on her opponent Tina Smith. For example that wait at DMV is 20 minutes more than it takes to register an AR-15.”

“It’s important for voters to have a choice in any election, so we welcome our new opponent to the race,” Housley’s campaign spokesman Bryan Piligra said in a statement. “Karin Housley has given a voice to the many Minnesotans who are fed up with the dysfunction, partisanship, and obstruction in Washington. Having another extremist in the U.S. Senate will not end the plagued status-quo — they would make it even worse.”

[democratisphere]

1. Ah. Eh. Ya. I think goo.......d.

I do like Richard Painter's position on all things drumpf.

[dflprincess]

2. I would prefer the DFL hang on to Franken's seat

Painter may be reasonable, but he is still a Republican.

[democratisphere]

4. Agreed.

[brush]

6. What is the DFL?

[rurallib]

7. democratic-farm-labor

or Minnesota's version of the Democratic Party.

[dflprincess]

10. Democratic-Farmer-Labor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic%E2%80%93Farmer%E2%80%93Labor_Party

The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL) is a social liberal political party in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is affiliated with the United States Democratic Party. Formed by a merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the social democratic Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party in 1944, the DFL is one of only two state Democratic party affiliates of a different name (the other being the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party).

The DFL was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer–Labor Party. Leading the merger effort were Elmer Kelm, the head of the Minnesota Democratic Party and founding chairman of the DFL; Elmer Benson, effectively the head of the Farmer–Labor Party by virtue of his leadership of its dominant left-wing faction; and rising star Hubert H. Humphrey, who chaired the Fusion Committee that accomplished the union and then went on to chair its first state convention.

Orville Freeman was elected the state's first DFL governor in 1954. Important members of the party have included Minneapolis mayor Hubert H. Humphrey and Minnesota Attorney General Walter Mondale, who each went on to be United States Senators, Vice Presidents of the United States, and unsuccessful Democratic nominees for president, Humphrey in 1968 and Mondale in 1984; Eugene McCarthy, a U.S. senator who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 as an anti-Vietnam War candidate; and Paul Wellstone, a U.S. senator from 1991 to 2002 who became an icon of populist progressivism.[1]

I once heard it said that the biggest mistake the Farmer-Laborites ever made was to let the Democrats in. I sometimes agree with that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmer%E2%80%93Labor_Party

The first modern Farmer–Labor Party in the United States emerged in Minnesota in 1918. Economic dislocation caused by American entry into World War I put agricultural prices and workers' wages into imbalance with rapidly escalating retail prices during the war years, and farmers and workers sought to make common cause in the political sphere to redress their grievances.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. I think if he runs in the GOP primary he'll lose.

There are enough Trumpers in the MN GOP that the party probably won't want Painter after he's been slagging Trump on TV for months, and anyhow if that weasel Pawlenty wants it he'll get it. If Painter runs as an independent I think he'll hurt the GOP worse than the DFL. There are educated, relatively moderate GOPers in the 'burbs (mostly women, I'd guess) who don't like Trump but won't vote DFL, and only voted for Trump because they hated Hillary, and Painter might pick up enough votes from that bunch to hand the election to Smith.

[dflprincess]

11. True

but it sounds like he may be considering a run as an independent.

[question everything]

5. Let's be honest. And candid

I don't know if he had a stroke, but when he talks his face is a bit lopsided and his speech is a bit slurred.

These days, with 24 hours exposure I don't think that he can project an image of a confident candidate.

(Of course, to my ears, Dayton does not sound coherent. either..)

[riverwalker]

8. He has Bells Palsy

From a virus, I believe. It attacks facial nerves.

[riverwalker]

9. Im in Minnesota

and don’t know what to think. The Repub running, Karin Housley is absolutely horrid, she’s trolling Tina Smith on Twitter. I do like Painters attacks on Trump and he was a warrior in defending Franken and wanted him to stay.

[geardaddy]

12. I'll be voting for the DFLer

I like Painter, but I think he'll run as an independent and I won't vote for an independent.