Posted: 01/27/10 01:16, Edited: 01/27/10 01:21
by Dave Mindeman
Well, well. The Twitter guy (Mike Parry) won the Senate 26 Special election. Here are the basics to take away from this.
Although this does not really change the numbers in the Minnesota Senate (a Republican replaces a Republican), the two House seats in this district are both Democrats and the thought was that the district was trending that way.
If I were Rep. Kory Kath or Rep. Patti Fritz, I'd be a little worried.
However, Parry won with only 43% of the vote. Yet, another plurality win for the Republicans...and it seems to be a lower percentage each time. Roy Srp was the Independent candidate and he got a solid 20% of the vote. That is one of the better showings for the IP. Srp was also a former Democrat and that could have been a factor in Parry's win. The question for November is will Srp run again? In a two way race, does Parry still win?
The current state of high Republican enthusiasm was probably the biggest factor. Democrats have got to get out of this funk and get back into it, or they are going to have a sorry November to deal with.
In the meantime, Parry will join a non-descript minority caucus and will have little to no impact on legislation.
If he is looking to make some noise maybe he should get back on his Twitter account. He has such a way with words.
