Do Southern Minnesota Republicans support Brian Davis?
October 30th, 2007 3:06 pm by DJ DanielsonA talking point the Republican Party has used lately to illustrate itself as the party best for Minnesota is that the Democrats finance their campaigns, at every level, nearly exclusively with out of state contributions. In a candidate debate held in Winona last year, District 28 State Senate candidate Steve Drazkowski, R-Wabasha, essentially accused his opponent, incumbent Sen. Steve Murphy, DFL-Red Wing, of being bought off by Barbara Streisand and the fringe “Hollywood left.”
Barbara Streisand has an interest in southeastern Minnesota? I could barely keep a straight face at the accusation of Drazkowski, who has since been elected to the House.
Neither could Murphy.
This election cycle the right-wing bomb throwers have gone after DFL US Senate candidate Al Franken for his large amount of campaign contributions from Los Angeles, New York and other places not within Minnesota.
Looking to the First District Congressional race though, large amounts of out of state contributions are going to not a DFLer, but to a Republican, Dr. Brian Davis. Davis, a Mayo Clinic physician who is one of four Republicans seeking to unseat first-term DFLer Tim Walz, declared himself the undisputed champion for the third quarter fundraising period.
Via his blog:
This past Monday, October 15th, was the third quarter fundraising filing deadline, and I am very pleased with the support we’ve received. During the third quarter - July 1 to September 30 – our campaign reported $81,228 in total receipts. Contributions from individuals totaled $55,035 - the most of any Republican candidate in the race. Better yet, we still have over $74,000 in the campaign’s coffers.
The $55,035 of individual donations looks quite impressive compared to Day’s $39,707, Demmer’s $16,855 and Meyer’s barely-on-the-radar $2,650. However, of the 80 individuals who gave donations itemized on the FEC form (over $200), just 15 were from Minnesota.
An impressive base of donors? Hardly. The 65 out of state donors, nearly exclusively a group of physicians, may help get the campaign off the ground but will be unable to be in the trenches with the candidate knocking on doors, dropping literature and most importantly, voting in the First District GOP Convention.
Maybe Davis has plans to take a page out of the playbook of gentleman’s club owner Richard Jacobson and have all of them register as voters in the First and list “Mayo Clinic” as as their residences, but in our brief dealings with Davis we find him to be more reasonable than to attempt that type of shenanigans.
Of the $55,035, just $12,352 came from First District Republicans. Of that $1,450 was contributed in-kind by John Morris who flew Davis around. Davis himself gave the campaign $26,193.25.
If Davis feels that claiming “victory” after a FEC filing quarter in which he himself donated more than two times the cold, hard cash other First District contributors did well, more power to him.
It is Halloween; what Davis should not only find not impressive, but downright scary is who by and large gave more money to Walz than to him: other Mayo physicians!
You mean the Mayo employees (with the exception of a few) not only snubbed their co-worker, but gave a ton of money to his opponent? Yup! Over 90 employees of Mayo (radiologists, anestheislogists, cardiologists, neurologists, the whole gambit) contributed to the Walz campaign in the third quarter.
Most notably: Dr. Glenn Forbes, CEO of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, gave $2,300 to Walz. More interestingly: just a year and a half ago he gave $500 to Gil Gutknecht. It’s not surprising that if Davis can’t get the support of people like Forbes he isn’t getting the support of former Gutknecht supporters outside of Mayo, such as former GOP state Rep. David Bishop. Bishop, who was House Ways and Means chairman under Speaker Steve Sviggum from 1999-2002, gave Walz $1000.
Don’t get me wrong: Walz’s re-election bid is by no means a slam dunk. However, with how vulnerable some in the GOP consider him to be, the lackluster fundraising, especially by the so-called “third quarter champion” Davis, this Halloween has to be frightening to those looking to take back the First for the GOP.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Great post DJ, but I think you mean (assume professor voice here) “Out-of-state” contributions, not “outstate” money. And it’s Barbra.
But no big whoop.
October 30th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Does this mean I will have to attend a school of adult education about proper usage?
October 30th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
I’m going to go out on a limb here and wonder how Davis had such a large network outside of Rochester to draw from. Does he belong to some secret “conservative” physician organization? From what I’ve seen of Dr. Davis and his spouse, they are not outgoing, extroverted, or warm people. I also don’t know how long the Davis’s have been in Rochester, but you would think that they would have had more Rochester big donors for the time they have been in Rochester. One of the Rochester donors is a former neighbor, and I wonder if the remaining Rochester donors would be current or former neighbors of the Davis family as well. I find the whole situation quite strange.
October 30th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Most of the out-of-state contributions are fellow radiologists, so it’s a safe bet that they know each other from professional organizations, conferences, and possibly med/grad school. Thus, neither secret nor “conservative” (we’ll borrow your scare quotes, as distracting disinformation that they conjure).
Go check the FEC records and you’ll find that some of Davis’ doctor friends gave to Democratic candidates and committees. Not completely the Southern Minnesota conservative brush with which Davis paints himself, nor the Republican base whose dollars and convention ballots he has to woo.
This lack of connection to the conservative base in Southern Minnesota was DJ’s point to begin with. GOP activists (people who caucus with the GOP and work to become convention delegates in the congressional district convention) will be the ones endorsing at the March gathering. Dr. Davis told Minneosta Campaign Report that he will abide by the nomination. Contrast those giving to Dick Day, and to a lesser degree, Randy Demmer (as we did at BSP) and you’ll see some of the GOP district base making contributions.
October 30th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Dear Anonymous Reader,
Thank you for taking an interest in our campaign.
It’s clear from your comments and their speculative nature that we are not acquainted!
To answer some of the items in your anonymous post, my wife and I have lived in Rochester since 1996. Many of the individuals supporting our campaign have known us for years and most likely wouldn’t describe us as introverts, lukewarm or otherwise. In this regard, the pattern of campaign contributions shouldn’t really be that unusual at all.
http://www.owatonna.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=29202&SectionID=21&SubSectionID=&S=1
There are few items in DJ’s online article which deserve comment, but from my perspective, many of points are accurate, particularly the comment regarding the ’shenanigans,’ not a game that I’ve found particularly inspiring (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/3713).
We hope to have something more detailed up on our Brian 2008 blog soon. http://www.briandavisforcongress.blogspot.com/
Happy Halloween to all! It’s a time of year for anonymous writers - even those who don’t live in the First District - to come out of the shadows and put their real John Henry next to their work - just like Mr. Danielson does.
Sincerely,
Brian Davis
Republican Candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives
MN-01
October 31st, 2007 at 5:11 am
Actually, inquiring minds are busy investigating what DJ is hiding by using his initials.
October 31st, 2007 at 11:11 am
Perhaps if Dr. Davis wishes to become a member of Congress, he would be well-advised to learn a bit about the American tradition of protecting anonymous speech. From the days of the anonymous Federalist Papers up to US Supreme Court decisions of the 1990’s, the right to engage in political speech without having to reveal one’s identity has been allowed.
The candidate might wish to start with the 1995 decision in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334, in which the court stated:
“Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.”
Welcome to America, Dr. Davis.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
[…] his supposed rock-solid support from within the district (this was in response to our report that just 15 of Davis’s 80 third-quarter individual donors were from Minnesota). We went on to blow his “whole story” claim out of the water by showing that a mere […]
April 18th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
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