Restore order, vote for Jim Schultz

After the GOP's electoral rout in 2008, I encouraged my fellow Republicans on these very opinion pages to "not despair" but instead to rethink the kind of candidates we were running.

"The Republican Party," I wrote as a young conservative hungry to win future contests, "must once again become known as the home of exceptionally capable leaders. Nationally, there has been a [troubling] trend in the GOP to exalt folksiness over experience, raw confidence over competence … ."

This admittedly unsolicited advice to my fellow party faithful seemed to fall on deaf ears. The GOP has continued to select too often candidates who are unqualified, undisciplined and unpleasant and end up faring poorly at the polls.

That trend, however, began to break in Minnesota last May, when delegates to the Republican State Convention chose Jim Schultz to be our candidate for Minnesota attorney general. In an extraordinary effort, the political novice beat out an unfit Trumpian adversary and now heads into the general election neck and neck with his powerful incumbent opponent, Democrat Keith Ellison.

A listener and a learner, Schultz does not fit the typical MAGA mold, but recent polls show his quality candidacy has earned him a broad swath of support from Minnesota's electorate. He puts character and competence above bluster and bloviation and shows one can indeed message both strength and kindness at the same time.

While national politics does not seem to intrigue Schultz much, substantive state policy and arduous work do. And he loves Minnesota enough to hate the lawless place it has become — and has a plan to do something about it.

Republican Party activists were wise to nominate a winner for attorney general. Not just because we'd like to triumph; but because we need to. Keith Ellison is quite simply the worst possible chief legal officer we could have at the worst possible time. While Minnesota drowns in disorder and violent crime and cries out to hold criminals accountable, Ellison spends his time trying to defund the police and pursuing the national progressive cause du jour. He is not a serious lawyer but a radical political activist at heart, and it shows.

Minnesota is trapped in a staggering crime crisis that threatens our hopes for a prosperous future. People will not raise families in the North Star State, and they will not do business here, if Minnesota is not safe; and today it is not.

But Ellison does not seem troubled by Minnesota's dangerous public safety status quo. Even though murders have nearly doubled in the state and other violent crime has similarly surged since he and Gov. Tim Walz came into office, Ellison continues to endorse reckless criminal sympathizing candidates such as Ilhan Omar and Mary Moriarty and distract himself with liberal politicking and anti-capitalism antics. The crucial business of restoring law and order in Minnesota is not of much interest to Ellison.

At a time when so many of us in both parties are disheartened by the shadowed state of politics, Jim Schultz is a bright and hopeful light. His success is a reminder that capability and work ethic can still pay off politically. And as we make future endorsements, we Republicans should take note that Schultz's conservative but thoughtful and adept political brand is the kind Minnesota voters seem to want.

Andy Brehm, of St. Paul, is a corporate attorney and longtime Republican activist. He served as press secretary to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman.