15 September 2005

It's official. If campaigning for Bush before the 2004 election hadn't convinced you that St Paul Mayor Randy Kelly was a Republican posing as a Democrat, this should...

Mayor Randy Kelly finished a distant second to barely survive the primary and is now scrambling to save his job.

He already has paid nearly $40,000 to a Republican media consulting firm from Dallas with ties to Karl Rove, President Bush's key campaign strategist. Scott Howell & Co. produced commercials for Bush, U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman and other well-known Republicans.

Howell used to serve as Rove's political director.

That is only one sign that Republicans are aligning themselves with Kelly, a lifelong DFLer who broke from his party to endorse Bush in 2004. A political action committee called Campaign for St. Paul's Future was launched last month by Joe Weber, a well-known Republican activist in Minnesota and brother of former Republican U.S. Rep. Vin Weber.

The group has hired Michael Brodkorb, a former state Republican spokesman, and paid him $4,000 so far to do issues research, according to campaign documents filed this month. The group's first $5,000 donation came from a Kelly backer Bruce A. Larson, who contributed $500 to the mayor in January.

Coleman said Wednesday that Brodkorb and Weber are Kelly's Republican "surrogates and they're clearly gearing up to run a negative campaign" even though the mayor has pledged to stay positive.

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