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Kelly Tacks Left

Filed under: Imported

St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly announced this afternoon that he's running for re-election. This news was not surprising. It has long been assumed that Kelly will seek a second four-year term.

But the content of Kelly's speech--given at Tivoli Too, manufacturer of the Peanuts statues--was somewhat unexpected. The DFL mayor, who bizarrely endorsed President Bush for re-election earlier this year, laid out a second-term agenda notable for its progressive bent.

There was zero mention of a publicly financed downtown St. Paul baseball stadium, a staple of Kelly's agenda since he set foot in City Hall. Also missing from the speech was any discussion of a proposed casino--a plan that the Kelly administration has been floating lately in an (desperate) attempt to pump up the city's beleaguered downtown.

The most notable new initiative announced by Kelly was his support for a levy referendum on next fall's ballot. He didn't delve into specifics during the speech, but the Mayor claimed that he'll ask voters to approve spending additional property tax dollars to fix the school system's $24-million budget shortfall and to provide additional resources to the police and fire departments. For a politician who has staked his political fortunes on holding property taxes flat--and who ardently opposed the last school-funding referendum in 2002--this was a dramatic deviation. (I have a call out to the Mayor's office to find out more about the ballot proposal.)

Kelly also promised an initiative aimed at eliminating homelessness in St. Paul and vowed to fight to have the central corridor light rail line operating by the end of his second term. Neither of these issues has previously been a significant part of his agenda.

What gives?

My guess is that Kelly's internal polling shows that his flirtation with the Republicans (and more specifically with Bush) has seriously marred his reputation among St. Paul voters. He's now trying to re-establish his bona fides with the Democrats.

Perhaps the most telling line of Kelly's speech was when he declared "I am a Democrat." Nobody in the crowd applauded. That's because the people there to support Kelly weren't Democrats.

Posted by Paul Demko at February 7, 2005 6:32 PM

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