Once again, the Republican Party has blown a great chance to unseat our liberal U.S. Congressman Tim Walz. The party had an excellent prospect in Allen Quist, a skillful debater and a principled constitutional conservative. However, they chose instead to push for the endorsement of mild-mannered Randy Demmer, a lightweight and a compromiser, who was thought to be “more electable” in their estimation.

Please allow me to present my observations as an elected alternate to the Republican 1st District endorsing convention, held back on April 7, 2010, in Mankato.

Demmer and Quist were the top vote-getters, during the early balloting, over challengers Jim Hagedorn and Jim Engstrom. Suddenly, Hagedorn and Engstrom dropped out of the running.

Many of the seated delegates then thought for sure that the Hagedorn and Engstrom supporters would swing over to Quist in the next round of balloting, in that their campaign stances were more similar to Quist than Demmer.

Well, think again. The Hagedorn and Engstrom backers swung most of their votes over to Demmer, and Quist later conceded the endorsement to him.

This situation reminded me of a previous successful attempt to prevent Quist from becoming the governor of Minnesota in 1994. Quist won the Republican endorsement that year only to lose in the primary election to Arne Carlson, the moderate incumbent Republican governor. Carlson was declared the “more electable” and was greatly promoted by the liberal media as well as many factions of the state Republican Party.

It would almost cause a person to wonder if Hagedorn and Engstrom weren’t recruited, bought and paid for by the state Republican Party, to split the vote and again dispose of Quist.

As we now know, Democrat Tim Walz defeated Demmer in the November election. Once more, the Republicans chose the wrong candidate and shot themselves (and us) in the foot. When will they ever learn?

Bob Nesbit

Owatonna