Letter: Coleman or Franken?

From: Scott Smith
Chaska
Is the Carver County Republican executive committee responsible for Al Franken being elected to the United States Senate?
Carver County had approximately 500 ballots disallowed during the last election. Franken won the election by 318 votes statewide. When you take into consideration the ratio of traditional Republican verses Democratic voters in Carver County, it is safe to assume that Norm Coleman would have had a large majority of those votes.
The Carver County Republican executive committee is a group of individuals who are elected by members of their party and whose primary responsibility is to get Republicans elected to office.
Do the Republicans of Carver County believe that they should spend the greater part of their time working on a non-partisan county commissioner race?
What all members of the executive committee should have done was to make sure that all potential supporters were provided with sample ballots explaining exactly how to complete the ballot for Republican candidates.
Sample ballots are purchased as display advertising in local newspapers and/or distributed as political literature. Instead of a vicious door knocking campaign for a non-partisan county commissioner candidate, they should have worked for their candidate for United States Senate.
The fact is that if members of the Carver County Republican executive committee in one of the  most Republican counties in Minnesota had done their job in 2008, it would be Senator Coleman not Senator Franken.
Some members of the Carver County Republican executive committee currently plan to continue this same kind of effort toward non-partisan local elections this year.
The 2010 governor’s race will be very competitive. Could the actions of a few misguided Carver County Republican executive committee members result in a Democrat in the governor’s office?