Scott Jensen's September strategy

Fox9 political reporter Theo Keith is planning on catching lots of politicians at the Great Minnesota Get Together, aka the Minnesota State Fair. This week, Keith broke news during his interview with MnGOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen. During his interview with Keith, Dr. Jensen said that he'd start running campaign ads in September.

Walz has been running ads since Farmfest or thereabouts. DFL special interest allies like the Alliance for a Better Minnesota have run negative ads criticizing Dr. Jensen. That's helped Walz run mostly positive ads. 

During their only debate, Walz showed himself to having a temper. At Farmfest, Walz didn't mix with the crowds very much. By comparison, Jensen mixed with the crowd for 2-3 hours. During the debate, Jensen "passed the eye test", according to a loyal reader of this blog.

It isn't surprising that Walz hasn't agreed to any debates since Farmfest. A local businessman who watched the debate said the thing that stuck with him the most was how nasty Walz's temper was. I noted that Walz left a poor first impression that day. He showed up wearing a white T-shirt and an ugly olive drab green baseball cap. Then he lost his temper 2-3 times early in the debate.

While Dr. Jensen hasn't been running ads on TV, he's been putting out videos like this on a pretty regular basis:

Here's Theo Keith's interview with Dr. Jensen:

The lack of debates should be seen as proof that Walz knows that he can't compete with Dr. Jensen on the battlefield of ideas. This puts additional pressure on both candidates. Dr. Jensen is putting additional emphasis on the State Fair:

The pair met once for a debate, at the agricultural show FarmFest in early August, but no others are scheduled. Walz has told reporters he expects to do "a couple" more debates this fall.

"We’ll do it anywhere," Jensen said. "We don’t have to have an audience there. A studio would be fine. An audience would be fine. State Fair would be fine. Chamber of Commerce would be fine. Game Fair would be fine. We’ve said yes to all those traditional venues. Gov. Walz said no."

That has put additional emphasis on the State Fair, which organizers expect could draw 2 million people this year. Jensen plans to be at his booth for all 12 days of the fair.

"I think it's huge," Jensen said. "We’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people stream through here already...There are people who are literally visibly angry about the fact that no conversation is taking place. They’re disgusted with Tim Walz and the ducking of the debates."

Frankly, Walz's disappearing act is proof that he isn't a confident candidate. If Walz was confident in his policies, accomplishments and abilities, he'd be debating Dr. Jensen.

It's also proof that Tim Walz knows that he'd come out second-best if he and Dr. Jensen debated about crime, education and tax reform. Walz is a status quo candidate who thinks everything is just fine. He should get out more often. Minnesotans are upset with Walz's capricious shutdown decisions during COVID. Those shutdown rules lasted far too long and hurt school kids and small businesses too much.

The State Fair is considered the start of the campaign. It'll be interesting to see whether Gov. Walz's DFL avoids subjects like crime. Thus far, the DFL has been pretty much all about abortion all the time.

That's proof of an intellectually bankrupt political party.