Here's a Minnesota sign of unusual political times: More names have been crossed off than added to lists of potential candidates in the two weeks since U.S. Rep. John Kline announced he won't seek an eighth term next year in Minnesota's south-suburban Second District.
Those announcing their non-candidacy for the GOP-leaning seat include Republicans Mary Pawlenty, Minnesota's former first lady; Mike McFadden, last year's Republican contender for U.S. Senate; state Sen. David Thompson, who made a strong but unsuccessful bid for the GOP endorsement for governor in 2014, and state Rep. Roz Peterson, a former chair of the Lakeville school board.
In a category all his own is Rep. Pat Garofalo of Farmington, who in cheeky fashion took his name out of contention moments after Kline's Sept. 3 retirement announcement. "I would rather stick a fork in my eye than run for Congress," he told MPR. "So, I think that's a pretty definitive no."
On the DFL side, state Rep. Joe Atkins has been less definitive. The seven-termer from Inver Grove Heights sent a release on Sept. 10 allowing that "I am giving serious and careful consideration to a run for a Congress. However, most of the folks I regard highly here in Minnesota have suggested I think hard about running for a different office instead. And I am." (Memo to self: Add Atkins' name to 2018 lists for attorney general. Maybe governor, too.)
Fear not, election lovers, that the Second District ballot will be blank on Nov. 8, 2016. Two DFLers — St. Jude Medical exec Angie Craig and former Department of Veterans Affairs physician Mary Lawrence — have been running hard for months, and Tea Partier David Gerson, Kline's primary challenger in 2012 and endorsement challenger in 2014, is back again on the GOP side. We speculators still have our eyes on a few other prospects, Republican state Reps. Tony Albright and Steve Drazkowski and DFL state Rep. Rick Hansen among them.
But the relative quiet in CD2 these two weeks is a far cry from the din that arose in CD5 from a dozen eager candidates when DFL Rep. Martin Sabo retired in 2006, or the race to the microphones in both parties when GOP Rep. Jim Ramstad stepped down in 2008.
More recently, the 2014 vacancy produced by the departure of Rep. Michele Bachmann in CD6 didn't exactly attract a horde, but it did quickly lure a household name, 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. He holds that seat in the U.S. House today. None of the names remaining on my scribbly CD2 list are as familiar.
Chalk up the void to coincidence if you will. But my conversation with Thompson left me fretting about what might happen to a representative democracy when the job of a representative can be summed up in such unappealing terms.