Campaign for St. Paul's Future

St. Paul's East Side voters bedeviled Kelly
Turnout plunged in mayor's home turf

By Tim Nelson
Pioneer Press

St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly's poor showing in this year's primary election may have been a surprise to some people in St. Paul.

But not on the East Side.

Voters in the mayor's home turf, particularly along East Seventh Street, stayed home Tuesday, part of the reason he came in a distant second to his DFL-endorsed challenger, former City Council Member Chris Coleman.

Turnout east of Edgerton Street was barely half of what it was for the 2001 primary, when Kelly finished second to Council Member Jay Benanav but 2,199 votes ahead in the 6th and 7th wards.

On Tuesday, Kelly won only two precincts in the 6th Ward. He came up 604 votes short on the East Side, even losing his home precinct — a rarity for a sitting mayor, particularly one who was touting himself as "St. Paul's First East Side Mayor" at a June fundraiser.

Kelly's campaign, however, said Coleman ought to be worried about turnout: Primaries tend to be partisan showings, and Tuesday's turnout slipped by nearly a third from 2001.

"Where was everybody?' asked Kelly spokesman Vince Muzik on Wednesday. "(Chris Coleman's) message of exclusion and partisanship isn't working, even among his own people."

Kelly has been emphasizing his broad-based support, including Democrats, Republicans and independents.

Muzik said that Kelly is confident independent-minded voters will turn out at the polls in November. Others suspected that supporters assumed that Kelly enjoyed the benefit of incumbency and would survive without their vote.

"I think the telling thing here is that his folks were the ones that didn't show up," said Coleman, who received 13,041 votes — 6,301 more than Kelly.

"I also think the message is resonating that I will listen to the people of St. Paul. They don't want (Kelly's) divisive and non-inclusive style."

DFL activists said they also think that Kelly's continued association with high-profile Republicans, such as President Bush and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, is hurting his native-son image among working-class St. Paulites.

"East Siders are sitting on their hands," said Eric Mitchell, who lives near Lake Phalen and is a DFL Party fundraiser. "I don't know that they've embraced Chris Coleman, but Randy is turning off people who have been Democrats since Truman was president."

Coleman received 52 percent of the vote Tuesday compared with Kelly's 27 percent and 19 percent for Green Party activist Elizabeth Dickinson, the third-party candidate in the race.

Still, the Coleman campaign expects the race to tighten. Kelly reported a 16-to-1 advantage in cash on hand Sept. 2, with more than $400,000. Dickinson said in a statement Wednesday that she "does not foresee publicly endorsing" either of her rivals.

Kelly's supporters showed no signs of giving up, either.

North End entrepreneur Bruce Larson has funded a "Campaign for St. Paul's Future," an independent organization that, according to spokesman Michael Brodkorb, will be "focusing on Chris Coleman's record as a City Council member and the positions he's taken as a mayoral candidate."

Brodkorb is a former communications and research director for the Republican Party of Minnesota.

Still, Sarah Janacek, a Kelly supporter and a well-known Republican operative, had a one-word reaction to the mayor's finish: "Wow."

"There's no way you can portray this as anything but a loss," she said, though she said it wasn't beyond salvaging.

She said she thinks Republicans, about a quarter of the city's typical presidential vote, didn't feel any compulsion to vote Tuesday. Janacek said she believes they eventually will welcome the chance to vote for a supporter of the beleaguered president, who has hit an all-time low in popularity following the continuing difficulties in Iraq and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Kelly endorsed Bush's re-election last August.

Janacek also said Kelly would likely need a no-holds-barred get-out-the-vote effort and that Tuesday's results might actually help that.

"This might be the best thing that ever happened," she said. "It may really motivate his supporters."