Transcripts

text | pdf |

---

SPEAKER 1: It's nearly a year and a half before the 2004 presidential election, and Minnesota's significance in the race for the White House is beginning to play out publicly. President Bush swoops into town for a mid-June speech in suburban Minneapolis. The president's visit had been announced just days earlier.

SPEAKER 2: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

SPEAKER 1: Bush speaks at a manufacturer's warehouse against the backdrop of American flags and signs reading, "Jobs and growth." He promotes the recently passed Republican tax cuts as the solution to the weak economy.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Right here in Minnesota, companies are adjusting withholding tables so that the working folks of this state will see more take-home pay.

[APPLAUSE]

Tax relief not only means more take-home pay, but if you happen to be a mom or a dad with young children, you'll see the child credit go up from $600 a child to $1,000 a child. And a lot of those checks are going to be on the mail to you for the differential this July.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 1: The White House says the trip is official business, but Democrats are angry with its timing. They say it's Bush's first campaign stop in Minnesota. The Minnesota DFL had expected the spotlight would shine on Democrats that week. The Association of State Democratic Chair's annual summer meeting was taking place in Saint Paul, and topping the agenda were speeches by most of the Democratic presidential hopefuls, among them, former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

HOWARD DEAN: I actually believe that I may be the only person who can win, because I did not support the president's policy in Iraq.

SPEAKER 1: And Massachusetts's senator, John Kerry, who addressed the group via satellite.

JOHN KERRY: I will provide a health care plan to all Americans.

SPEAKER 1: DFL Chairman Mike Erlandson accused President Bush of trying to overshadow the Democrats.

MIKE ERLANDSON: This trip today into town, it's all about not letting the Democratic candidates get too much coverage from the national media, and the local media, and the midwest as the president tries to bolster his re-election numbers.

SPEAKER 1: About 2,000 Bush supporters packed the warehouse to cheer on the president, among them, businessman Keith Klein, who owns a manufacturing company in Big Lake.

KEITH KLEIN: I like them. I'm a small business owner, and the words he's speaking are just what we need to hear right now.

SPEAKER 1: But outside, Democrats protested.

SPEAKER 3: The wealthy united. We'll never be defeated.

SPEAKER 1: Wayne Bailey of Minneapolis sarcastically billed himself as a billionaire for Bush.

WAYNE BAILEY: What they're doing is economy of insanity, is that we're going to just drain money from the lower classes up to the wealthy. And they're not even hiding it. And they're saying it's going to create a better economy. It's insanity.

SPEAKER 1: But Bush supporters were outside as well, including two young girls clad in red, white, and blue.

SPEAKER 4: For our troops. God bless America.

SPEAKER 1: The competing demonstrations, while orderly, spoke to the sharp political division in Minnesota between Republicans and Democrats, polarization that would only grow throughout the campaign. That third week of June 2003, the head of the state Republican Party correctly predicted President Bush would campaign frequently in Minnesota leading up to the November 2004 election. And Chairman Ron Eibensteiner labeled each of the president's Democratic challengers too liberal to win.

RON EIBENSTEINER: I don't think there is any of the nine who are currently running for president that have the wherewithal to defeat President Bush in the general election. We really don't care who they nominate. We feel that they're all very liberal.

SPEAKER 1: Eibensteiner and Republican strategists in Washington were still riding high from the 2002 US Senate election, when GOP candidate Norm Coleman beat Democratic icon Walter Mondale following Senator Wellstone's death in a plane crash. Coleman's victory, coupled with Bush's strong showing in Minnesota in the 2000 presidential election, left Republicans convinced they could win the state in 2004.

They said it would be the first time a Republican presidential candidate would carry Minnesota since Richard Nixon in 1972. Over the next 16 months, Bush would campaign nine more times in Minnesota, the exact number of times Democratic challenger John Kerry would come to the state.

HY BERMAN: Well, it was very significant--

SPEAKER 1: University of Minnesota historian Hy Berman says, not since the 1950s has Minnesota been considered a swing state. And the business of politics two generations ago was nothing like today's media blitzkriegs.

HY BERMAN: I think most people, having experienced the 2004 campaign, would probably say, we wish we were back in the good old days when we weren't the center of attention. I mean, the bombardment of both visits of all the candidates and the television ads, the attack ads, all of that gave, of course, a profit margin to our local television channels, but it gave to us a headache.

SPEAKER 1: Early on, the president and his Democratic challengers concentrated on raising money. John Kerry appeared in Minneapolis in early August of 2003.

JOHN KERRY: Hello, everybody.

SPEAKER 1: Kerry spoke at the home of longtime DFL activists and big money contributors Sam and Sylvia Kaplan. He thanked supporters who, earlier in the summer, gathered for a fundraiser the Massachusetts senator was unable to attend.

HY BERMAN: If you add up the record of this administration, and I'm going to added up all across this country on a daily basis, the conclusion is clear. The one person in the United States of America who deserves to be laid off is George W. Bush.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 1: Kaplan says Kerry raised about $300,000 that summer in Minnesota. Later in August, President Bush was back in Minnesota. He raked in nearly 1.5 million at a Noontime State fair-themed gathering at the River Seine in downtown Saint Paul.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I appreciate such a huge response for our invitation to come for a little light meal.

SPEAKER 1: Supporters washed down Pronto Pups with lemonade and cheered on the president for his efforts to strengthen national security and cut taxes. Both issues would be core themes of Bush's re-election campaign.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I'm loosening up and I'm getting ready for the campaign, but there's going to be plenty of time for politics because I've got a job to do. I'm focused on the people's business. And we have a lot on our agenda in Washington DC.

SPEAKER 1: Minnesota Public Radio and the St. Paul Pioneer Press commissioned the first polling of the 2004 presidential race in Minnesota. Mason-Dixon surveyed registered voters at the end of January. Asked about a Bush-Kerry match-up, 43% said they would vote for Kerry, compared to 41% for Bush. That first poll proved indicative of all of Mason-Dixon's polling on the contest in Minnesota over the next 10 months.

BRAD COKER: The race remained very, very close from the time we started tracking it in January, when Kerry became the apparent Democratic frontrunner. All the way through to our final poll.

SPEAKER 1: Mason-Dixon managing director Brad Coker says early voter surveys also showed the vast majority of Minnesotans had made up their minds long before aggressive campaigning had begun.

BRAD COKER: And Minnesota wasn't unique in that respect. I mean, we saw the same thing in other states, particularly in the upper midwest, in Iowa, and Wisconsin that were also battleground states in that area of the country. People pretty much pick their man early.

SPEAKER 1: By caucus time in Minnesota, ambitious organizing efforts by Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich proved no match for Kerry, who'd been on a roll since winning the Iowa caucuses. To shore up Minnesota, Kerry rallied supporters at Macalester College a week before Democratic activists would gather to choose their candidate. In front of about 1,000 people, Kerry declared Minnesota still a Democratic State.

JOHN KERRY: You didn't vote for Reagan.

AUDIENCE: No.

JOHN KERRY: You didn't vote for Dole.

AUDIENCE: No.

JOHN KERRY: You have never voted for anybody called Bush.

AUDIENCE: No.

JOHN KERRY: And in 2004, you have a chance to vote for a Democrat and send George Bush back to Texas, where he belongs.

SPEAKER 1: Days later, Minnesota DFL activists turned out to party caucuses in huge numbers, four times as many as the 2000 election, according to party leaders, who called it their best showing since the Vietnam era. There were even caucus night parties.

CROWD: Four more years of Bush is scary. Vote for John. Vote for Kerry.

SPEAKER 1: Deborah Whitman greeted some South Minneapolis caucus goers with a Kerry sign and spoke with urgency about defeating Bush.

DEBORAH WHITMAN: I have a child with disabilities, very severe disabilities, and I am scared to death that if we do not get the Democrats mobilized and get Bush out of office, that he will lose all of his rights to education, any help with insurance that we get.

SPEAKER 1: Shortly before the caucuses began, North Carolina Senator John Edwards all but conceded. Kerry won a majority of activist's support, locking in Minnesota's delegates. And nationally, the Massachusetts Senator had secured the Democratic nomination to take on Bush. Republicans with no competition on their ticket, used caucus night to organize activists. And party Chairman Ron Eibensteiner reiterated his prediction, Bush would win Minnesota.

RON EIBENSTEINER: Are we going to win in November?

AUDIENCE: Yeah.

RON EIBENSTEINER: Are we going to work hard?

AUDIENCE: Yes.

SPEAKER 1: In late April, Bush made his final fundraising appearance in Minnesota. The invitation-only event at the Edina home of a real estate developer was closed to reporters and raked in $1 million for a national GOP campaign fund.

RUDY BOSCHWITZ: My job was to raise the money, and I did.

SPEAKER 1: Former Republican Senator Rudy Boschwitz is among a handful of President Bush's top fundraisers around the nation. Boschwitz helped raise money throughout the midwest. He served as finance chairman for the president's campaign in Minnesota.

RUDY BOSCHWITZ: George Bush was one of the easier people to raise funds for. People really believed. Apparently, they believed on both sides of the aisle. And that's just fine. That's the way it should be in the political process. But they certainly believed in George Bush. And raising money for George Bush was easier than some other candidates in the past.

SPEAKER 1: About the same amount of Minnesota money was flowing into the Kerry campaign as was going to the president.

JOHN KERRY: I want to thank you for coming tonight, not just to raise some money, but to break the records for Minnesota.

SPEAKER 1: A week after Bush's fundraiser, Kerry was in Minneapolis raising money.

JOHN KERRY: We're here to mark the beginning of the end of the Bush administration. That's what this is about.

SPEAKER 1: A staple of Kerry's stump speech would become his call for rolling back the Republican-sponsored tax cuts and directing the revenue to a variety of domestic programs.

JOHN KERRY: We are going to invest in education, health care, job creation right here at home.

SPEAKER 1: Weeks after the election, Sam Caplan remembers well that May fundraiser.

SAM CAPLAN: We had a terrific argument with the national leadership who said, we don't want to send him there, unless you can raise a half a million. And we said, listen, we're a small town. And we were a little annoyed to be truthful with you. Because at that point in time, we were the state that had raised the most money per capita from Democrats for Kerry. And we thought they shouldn't be telling us what we could or couldn't do. But anyhow, we exceeded their request and we set a goal of a half a million. Well, we raised a $1,600,000.

SPEAKER 1: Like Boschwitz on the Republican side, Kaplan says convincing people to contribute to Kerry was much less of a challenge than he expected.

SAM CAPLAN: Normally, you have to call people again, and again, and again asking them for contributions. And I jokingly said, I felt more like Ticketmaster. They would call me asking me, where shall I send the money?

SPEAKER 1: According to the campaign finance watchdog group The Center for Responsive Politics, individual contributions to the Bush campaign of more than $200 totaled a little more than $2.5 million. Kerry's numbers came in close to $3 million. The campaigns say, including smaller contributions, they each raised about $5 million from Minnesotans, with some of the money going to national party funds.

In addition to the cash, the campaigns were inundated with volunteers doing whatever was needed, from stuffing envelopes to staffing telephone banks and canvassing neighborhoods. Increasingly, the campaigns talked about the importance of certain blocks of voters, suburban women, veterans, undecided voters.

With Bush and Kerry in a dead heat and almost everyone already decided on the race, capturing any one group could win the election. The Bush campaign had settled into sharp attacks on Kerry's national security record, accusing the decorated Vietnam veteran of being weak on national defense. Kerry concentrated more on domestic issues such as the economy and the increasing cost of health care.

JOHN KERRY: As president, I'll set a few clear national priorities for America.

SPEAKER 1: People with televisions in battleground states like Minnesota saw hundreds of commercials.

JOHN KERRY: I'll put an end to tax incentives that encourage American companies to ship jobs overseas. And third, we'll invest in education and health care. My priorities are jobs and health care. My commitment is to defend this country. I'm John Kerry, and I approve this message because, together, we can build a stronger America.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I'm George W. Bush, and I approve this message.

SPEAKER 5: Few votes in Congress are as important as funding our troops at war. Though John Kerry voted in October 2002 for military action in Iraq, he later voted against funding our soldiers.

SPEAKER 6: Mr. Kerry.

SPEAKER 5: No. Body armor and higher combat pay for our troops.

SPEAKER 6: Mr. Kerry.

SPEAKER 5: No. Better health care for reservists.

SPEAKER 6: Mr. Kerry.

SPEAKER 5: No. And what does Kerry say now?

JOHN KERRY: I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.

SPEAKER 5: Wrong on defense.

SPEAKER 1: At the end of May, the latest NPR Pioneer Press poll showed Bush and Kerry remained locked in a statistical dead heat. That poll also showed more than 85% of Minnesotans had chosen a candidate. In June, Kerry launched an 11-day national security tour with a rally at the University of Minnesota. He accused Bush of bungling foreign relations and rushing to war with Iraq.

JOHN KERRY: If you will trust me with the presidency, I will put back in place the principle that the United States of America never goes to war because it wants to. We only go to war because we have to. And that is the standard that we should live by.

SPEAKER 1: A month later, Kerry was back in Minnesota to court another block of voters, rural Americans.

JOHN KERRY: And I can't tell you how excited I am to kick off our celebration of America right here in Northeast Minnesota, in the heartland. Thank you for the honor of being here.

SPEAKER 1: Kerry launched his so-called celebrating the spirit of America tour from downtown Cloquet, just outside of Duluth.

JOHN KERRY: We're going to visit towns. We're going to visit farms. We're going to March in parades. We're going to eat barbecue. We're going to play a little baseball, and we're going to celebrate who we are. And I'll tell you what, we're going to honor the values that built our country and strengthened our communities. Family, responsibility, service, these are values that are rooted in the heartland.

SPEAKER 1: Like most campaign appearances, the Cloquet rally was a made for TV event. It was the beginning of the 4th of July holiday weekend. Flags, balloons, and red, white, and blue banners hung everywhere. Even though the weather was picture perfect, warm, sunny with a deep blue sky, the campaign had huge movie set lights on hand just in case.

JOHN KERRY: We're here in this street today, kids and adults, waving American flags, holding out our dreams because we believe in our guts, in our hearts that all Americans are deserving of an equal shot at the American dream, not just a few.

SPEAKER 1: In what, over the next four months, felt at times like tit for tat drop ins by the two presidential candidates, George Bush appeared in nearby Duluth in mid-July, less than two weeks after Kerry's Cloquet rally.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I appreciate the good folks from Minnesota, and the Iron Ridge, and Northern Wisconsin who are with us today. Thanks for coming.

[APPLAUSE]

By the looks of things, I'm in Bush-Cheney country.

[CHEERING]

SPEAKER 1: Thousands of supporters packed the Duluth Convention Center. None of them, some, no doubt, from the Iron Range, took offense to the president's Iron Ridge misstep. More than any previous stop, Bush ridiculed Kerry and the newly crowned Democratic vice presidential candidate, North Carolina Senator John Edwards.

GEORGE W. BUSH: If you disagree with my opponent on most any issue, you may just have caught him on the wrong day.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 1: Like Kerry's appearances, Bush's campaign stops were carefully choreographed so that the TV image would show packed spaces of cheering supporters. But unlike Kerry events, the Bush-Cheney campaign limited access to its rallies only to supporters or people whom campaign officials found open to the president's message.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Recently, here in the Midwest, he even tried to claim he was the candidate with conservative values. I know, I know. But that's what he said. It's a bit hard to square that with my opponent's previous statement when he said, I'm liberal, and proud of it. Now he has a running mate. Senator Kerry is rated as the most liberal member of the United States Senate, and he chose a fellow lawyer who is the fourth most liberal member of the United States Senate.

[CROWD BOOS]

Back in Massachusetts, that's what they call balancing the ticket.

[LAUGHTER]

SPEAKER 1: In Duluth, the secret service had posted pictures of a few local activists at entrances to the convention center, among them Joel Cyprus, a University of Wisconsin superior history professor who lives in Duluth and who once ran for the Minnesota Senate as a Green Party candidate.

JOEL CYPRUS: It was a little unnerving, I have to admit.

SPEAKER 1: The secret service gave no explanation for circulating cyprus's picture, even after the Duluth City council passed a resolution asking for one. The agency also declined to comment for this report. Cyprus, who insists he does not have a criminal record, says he never planned to attend or disrupt the Bush rally. He was busy organizing a legal demonstration at the Duluth City Hall, blocks away from the convention center.

JOEL CYPRUS: It says a lot about the nature of the Bush administration, that they would only want supporters at their campaign events. But if that's the kind of presidency that he wants, he has every right to-- and if that's the kind of campaign he wants, he has every right to run that kind of campaign.

However, the secret service is one of our most powerful federal law enforcement bodies. And it sets a very, very dangerous precedent. If a federal agency with that level of power essentially becomes an arm of the Bush campaign and begins investigating political opponents of the president, We've entered some very dangerous grounds.

[JOHN FOGERTY, "DEJA VU"]

(SINGING) Did you hear them talking about it on the radio

Did you stop to read the writing at the wall

Did that voice inside you say I've seen this all before

It's like deja vu all over again

It's like deja vu all over again.

SPEAKER 7: You're listening to a Special Report on Minnesota Public Radio, looking back on Minnesota as a presidential race battleground in 2004.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

SPEAKER 1: By the middle of the summer, the Bush and Kerry campaign's Minnesota operations had thousands of volunteers working to drum up support for the candidates.

GILLIAN: Hello, this is Gillian, and I'm a volunteer calling on behalf of President Bush to conduct an opinion survey.

SPEAKER 1: Both say they put together unprecedented volunteer efforts, with as many as 50,000 people working for each side.

KEN MARTIN: We ran the largest grassroots campaign in the history of Minnesota politics.

SPEAKER 1: Ken Martin served as Kerry's Minnesota political director.

KEN MARTIN: We had more volunteers than any campaign in the history of Minnesota politics.

SPEAKER 1: Ben Whitney, the executive director of Bush's Minnesota campaign, says the Republicans took a page, maybe several chapters, from the DFL's grassroots campaign book.

BEN WHITNEY: We don't have a long history, necessarily, of the massive turnout effort that the Democrats have. We had to build the organization, and then we had to test the organization, and then we had to use it. And that took time. But it worked very, very well.

SPEAKER 1: And the two campaigns say they both relied on sophisticated marketing techniques to zero in on potential supporters in areas that would have previously been ceded to the opposition.

BEN WHITNEY: It used to be you'd focus on the areas where you call them fortress precincts, where you could just go after where you were winning by 65%, and then you would do a massive effort into that area because you'd be talking to-- two out of three people you're talking to would be your supporters. Now, you don't really have to do that if you're smart.

SPEAKER 1: Again, Ben Whitney from the Bush campaign.

BEN WHITNEY: It is an old thing that's done in direct marketing, which is using consumer data to find out what people do and what subscriptions they may subscribe to, what places they may belong to, what kind of credit cards they have. And once you match that with the voter information you have, it gives you a pretty good idea about who they're likely to support.

SPEAKER 1: Specific consumer information also allowed the campaigns to customize their messages to a particular voter's concerns. At the end of July, delegates to the Democratic National Convention formally nominated their candidate.

JOHN KERRY: I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty.

[CHEERING]

SPEAKER 1: But soon after the convention, a group of Bush supporters released a scathing TV ad accusing Kerry of lying about his military service and dishonoring his nation.

SPEAKER 8: I served with John Kerry.

SPEAKER 9: I served with John Kerry.

SPEAKER 10: John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam.

SPEAKER 8: He is lying about his record.

SPEAKER 1: The half million dollar swiftboat ad buy was minuscule relative to the tens of millions of dollars that the campaigns, political parties, and independent groups were pouring into commercials, but it attracted enormous attention.

SPEAKER 9: John Kerry is no war hero.

SPEAKER 10: He betrayed all his shipmates. He lied before the Senate.

SPEAKER 1: And it came at a time that the Kerry campaign had pulled back its TV advertising to save money for the final stretch of the race. That August also marked two presidential visits to Minnesota in as many weeks. The president was first in Southern Minnesota and then in the Twin Cities.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I'm here to ask for your vote.

SPEAKER 1: In Mankato, the president ticked off themes of his re-election campaign that had become staples of his stump speech, health care, education, and tort reform, along with strong national defense and lower taxes.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We have much more to do to move America forward. I want to be your president for four more years, to make our country safer, to make our economy stronger, and to make the future brighter and better for every single citizen.

SPEAKER 1: Two weeks later, before 15,000 supporters at the Xcel Center in downtown Saint Paul, Bush gave another increasingly familiar stump speech, heavy on national security and justifications for the war in Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH: So I had a choice to make, either to forget the lessons of September the 11th and trust a madman who is a sworn enemy of America, or take action necessary to defend this country. Given that choice, I will defend America every time.

SPEAKER 1: The Bush and Kerry campaigns relied heavily on surrogates when the president and Massachusetts Senator were not available. Former Democratic Senator and Vietnam veteran Max Cleland of Georgia, traveled the nation on behalf of Kerry and made more than one stop in Minnesota along the way. In mid-August, the day Bush spoke at the Xcel Center, Cleland held a veterans rally at the State Capitol. The triple amputee's job was to challenge Bush's rhetoric on Iraq.

CLELAND: We don't need what we got now, somebody that commits troops, stands up, and plays dress up on an aircraft carrier that he doesn't know anything about.

[APPLAUSE]

CLELAND: And three weeks into the war says, mission accomplished. Bring em on. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Bring em on.

SPEAKER 1: But weeks after the election, the Kerry campaign acknowledged, in the late summer, Bush's message was resonating with a critical block of voters, so-called security moms, suburban women with newfound post-9/11 worries about terrorism. Kerry's Minnesota political director Ken Martin remembers it as a troubling low point of the campaign.

KEN MARTIN: We were getting our butts kicked with married women, parents who were concerned about the war. And it was not on our radar screen until that point. And we really had to shift our focus in terms of how we talked to those parents and talk to those female voters in the suburbs on Iraq and on terrorism.

SPEAKER 1: While Martin says internal polling showed Bush and Kerry remained statistically neck and neck, Bush was gaining and the trend was troubling for Democrats. Not until the debates, which began at the end of September, Martin says, was Kerry able to turn around the image he was weak on national defense.

KEN MARTIN: And it was an interesting phenomenon, because we were able to swing them back our way. But have we not been able to, Minnesota could have gone the other way pretty easily.

SPEAKER 1: Political pundits and backroom strategists became almost obsessed with theories about what undecided voters were looking for. The thinking was that, with Bush and Kerry splitting the vote down the middle, it would be the roughly 10% of the electorate yet to decide on the race that would ultimately determine the outcome in November. University of Minnesota political science professor Larry Jacobs surveyed hundreds of undecided voters in upper midwestern battleground states, including Minnesota.

LARRY JACOBS: When swing voters, as do many other voters, look out at these two major party candidates for president, they tend to see two presidencies. On national security issues, they like Bush. On domestic issues, they decided they like Kerry. So they're schizophrenic in the kind of president they would want. And each candidate is trying to offset their disadvantage and play to their strong suit.

SPEAKER 1: In late August, with the election now just a little more than two months away, the Kerry campaign set out very publicly to go after undecided Minnesota voters. They arranged what was billed as a town hall forum in Anoka, where undecided voters could listen to Kerry and ask him questions.

JOHN KERRY: We have purposefully tried to get a whole bunch of undecided folks here today.

SPEAKER 1: Organizers claimed they went to great lengths to stack the crowd with truly undecided voters. Unlike other events, participants were told to leave campaign signs and buttons at home. Still, judging from an informal survey of the group, it seemed most were Democrats who were backing Kerry.

JOHN KERRY: I don't care if the idea is Democrat or Republican. I care about whether or not it's going to work, and lift America, and help improve our lives, and do what we need to do.

[APPLAUSE]

SPEAKER 1: The topic was to be health care. Kerry outlined his proposal to spend roughly 3/4 of $1 trillion over 10 years to make health care more affordable and accessible. When it came time for the question and answer session, members of the audience took the discussion in several directions. Asked what he would do with Iraq, Kerry said he would immediately convene an international commission to create a plan. And he said, a change in the White House could lead to improved foreign relations and more help in Iraq.

JOHN KERRY: And I believe this very deeply from the things that have come to me through colleagues of mine in the Senate who've traveled abroad, business people who've traveled abroad, others, that the world needs a president with new credibility, with a fresh start who didn't get us in there, who has the ability to bring people to a different place to get us out of there. And that's what I will do.

SPEAKER 1: As Kerry worked voters in Anoka, some Republicans were busy mocking the Democrat on opening day at the state fair.

RANDY WARNKE: Stop by and get your John Kerry flip-flop on a stick, guaranteed to give you more indigestion than a deep fried Twinkie on a stick.

SPEAKER 1: One activist walked around sandwiched between two gigantic flip-flop sandals. Minnesota GOP spokesman Randy Warnke.

RANDY WARNKE: What we're trying to do today is just to have a little bit of fun at the fair and also at the same time, highlight the fact that John Kerry has a record of flip-flops. He voted to send our troops to Iraq, and yet, voted against the $87 billion to help them to fight the war on terror.

SPEAKER 1: At the forum in Anoka, an audience member asked Kerry point blank about swiftboat ad claims and the broader charges of flip-flopping.

AUDIENCE: There are two main negative themes in the ads right now. One is that you waffle on the issues, and the other one is that you're not telling the truth in Vietnam. Do you waffle on the issues? Are you telling the truth in Vietnam?

JOHN KERRY: I am absolutely telling you the God's honest truth about what happened and what took place over there, as are the other people who've laid it out correctly over the last days. With respect to-- the waffling. Let me just give it to you very quickly. Here are the three or four things they say that I, quote, "waffled" on. One is on NAFTA.

Well, I did vote for NAFTA, but I criticized it today the way it's applied because there are three provisions in NAFTA, which are enforceable about labor standards. And they ought to be enforced. And it's not waffling to say that something that you voted for, that they're not doing properly, ought to be done properly. It's like No Child Left Behind. I just told you, I think we ought to fix it. We ought to be applied in the right way. But I told you up front that I think we have to move in that direction and do those standards.

SPEAKER 1: The forum went on for nearly two hours. Campaign staffers and some of the people who were there found its relaxed format well-suited for Kerry, who often came across as a monotonous stuffed shirt in standard stump speeches. Kerry supporter Sam Caplan.

SAM CAPLAN: I wish that there had been more time and there wasn't this crush to always have a stump speech. He speaks so beautifully. He is poetic in what he says, and how he characterizes. The issues he deals with, he's so thoughtful. I'm not sure that always came through on the stump.

SPEAKER 1: Kerry held another informal health care discussion in early September in Rochester. President Bush was back in Minnesota for a mid-September bus tour from Saint Cloud to Rochester. Bush had been likening Kerry's health care plan to a government takeover of the health care system. In the northern suburb of Blaine, Bush promoted medical savings accounts in the context of personal responsibility.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Think about this. This has got a built in incentive, doesn't it, for right choices in life? I mean, for example, if you watch that money in your own account begin to dwindle, you may want to walk a little more on a daily basis, take to the foot in order to make yourself more healthy. In other words, there's a preventative medicine built into a plan when it says, my money, I choose.

SPEAKER 1: The day Bush was in Minnesota, independent candidate Ralph Nader held a series of events in the Twin Cities. Nader, who won more than 5% of the vote as a Green Party candidate in Minnesota in the 2000 presidential election, told reporters he anticipated a good showing come election day 2004. Nader also said Kerry could boost Democratic fortunes by adopting a more populist agenda.

RALPH NADER: Nobody wants to retire Bush more than I. We have citizen groups who feel the brunt of his corporatist regime every day. I do not trust the Democrats to do it by themselves. And I want to show them how to do it. And if they don't pick it up, that means they're just as bad as the Republicans.

SPEAKER 1: But polls showed Nader struggling in 04 with a considerable drop off in support. Along with Kerry and the president, Democratic and Republican surrogates kept coming. Between the vice presidential candidates, their wives, the first lady and Teresa Heinz Kerry, there were more than 20 visits. And that doesn't count the stream of cabinet secretaries, movie stars, and rock stars. In late September, Bush's twin daughters were in Minnesota trying to soften the president's image with homespun stories about their dad.

JENNA BUSH: My dad is extremely disciplined and always on time.

SPEAKER 1: Jenna Bush.

JENNA BUSH: This quality didn't always work to our advantage, especially when we miss curfew. But from running a marathon at age 45, to reading the Bible daily, to giving up his greatest passion, cheesecake, my dad has shown us the importance of leading a disciplined life.

GEORGE W. BUSH: It is hard work to go from a tyranny to a democracy.

SPEAKER 1: By the end of September, it was time for the first of the three presidential debates. Around the country and in Minnesota, activists held debate-watching parties. For Kerry supporters, the evening brought reason to celebrate. Face-to-face with the president for the first time, Kerry came out confident and swinging. Kerry ripped Bush on Iraq. The president came off as irritated and defensive, and Bush's frowns and scowls during the debate dominated news coverage.

GEORGE W. BUSH: My opponent says we didn't have any allies in this war. What does he say to Tony Blair? What does he say to Alexander Kwasniewski of Poland? I mean, you can't expect to build an alliance when you denigrate the contributions of those who are serving side by side with American troops in Iraq. Plus, he says, the cornerstone of his plan to succeed in Iraq is to call upon nations to serve.

So what's the message going to be? Please join us in Iraq for a grand diversion? Join us for a war that is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. I know how these people think. I deal with them all the time. I sit down with the world leaders frequently and talk to them on the phone frequently. They're not going to follow somebody who says this is the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time. They're not going to follow somebody whose core convictions keep changing because of politics in America.

And finally, he says, we ought to have a summit where there are summits being held. Japan is going to have a summit for the donors, $14 billion pledged. And Prime Minister Koizumi is going to call countries to account to get them to contribute. And there's going to be an Arab summit of the neighborhood countries. And Colin Powell helped set up that summit.

SPEAKER 11: 30 seconds, senator.

SPEAKER 12: The United Nations, Kofi Annan, offered help after Baghdad fell. And we never picked him up on that and did what was necessary to transfer authority and to transfer reconstruction. It was always American-run. Secondly, when we went in, there were three countries, Great Britain, Australia, and the United States. That's not a grand coalition. We can do better.

SPEAKER 11: 30 seconds.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, actually, he forgot Poland.

SPEAKER 1: The day after the second debate, President Bush campaigned in Chanhassen before a huge crowd of supporters.

GEORGE W. BUSH: There is no doubt in my mind, with your help, we will carry Minnesota and win a great victory in November.

[CHEERING]

SPEAKER 1: With first lady Laura Bush at his side, the president, seemingly pleased with his improved showing over the first debate, joked about efforts he made to avoid scowling the previous evening.

GEORGE W. BUSH: After listening to his litany of complaints and his dour pessimism, it was all I could do not to make a bad face.

SPEAKER 1: It was Bush's sixth campaign appearance in Minnesota of the year. He would return two more times before election day. Just as Republicans maintained they were on track to make news by finally shifting Minnesota to the Republican column, Democrats held steadfast in their contention that the Republican president's visits were actually helping Kerry. Stacey Paxton headed the Kerry campaign's Minnesota Press office.

STACEY PAXTON: Every time George Bush comes to town, it's just another opportunity for us to point out his failures on the economy, on health care, on jobs, on what the situation in Iraq is.

SPEAKER 1: Then, in less than two weeks, Bush was back for an appearance in Rochester, where he promoted his economic policy.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I led. The Congress responded with tax relief. And the tax relief was vital. The tax relief encouraged consumption, it encouraged investment, and the recession was one of the shallowest in American history.

SPEAKER 1: Not to be outdone by the president, Kerry was in Minnesota the next day. An estimated 30,000 people turned out to see him at a rally outside the Metrodome.

JOHN KERRY: This president doesn't have a record he can run on. He has a record. He can run away from. And that's exactly what he's doing.

SPEAKER 1: Less than a week later, Kerry was in Rochester for his final stop in Minnesota before election day. At the time, the issue of missing explosives in Iraq was dominating the news, and Kerry pounced.

JOHN KERRY: Your administration was warned. You were put on notice, but you didn't put these explosives on a priority list. You didn't think it was important. You didn't check for them. You didn't give the troops the instructions they needed. You didn't put enough troops on the ground to do that job. You didn't guard the ammunition dump, and now our troops are at greater risk.

SPEAKER 1: The Bush campaign accused Kerry of making wild charges without knowing the facts. By now, the City of Rochester had hosted President Bush and Senator Kerry, each, two times. Vice President Dick Cheney had also campaigned there. City administrator Steven Kvenvold says Rochester incurred about $90,000 in unreimbursed expenses accommodating the candidates. That's nearly a fifth of the city's entire contingency budget.

STEVEN KVENVOLD: And it does present us some problems, in that, we're in a budget year. Because of the state budget crisis, we were restricted in the amount of property taxes that we could raise. And we've had to reduce local government aid. So we're in a budget year, where we've had to reduce services, and increase fees, and try to get by with what we can. So it does cause us a burden.

SPEAKER 1: The Minnesota State Patrol, which had motorcade responsibilities for every major visit, also spent nearly $90,000 over the course of the campaign, and that doesn't count the cost of fuel. Finally, with the election just three days away, the last NPR Pioneer Press poll harbored no surprises. Bush and Kerry remained locked in a dead heat. 48% of registered Minnesota voters said they supported the president. 47% were for Kerry.

That weekend before Tuesday's election would also mark President Bush's final campaign stop in Minnesota. It was Bush's eighth trip to the state in 2004, more campaign visits than any Republican presidential candidate in history, and the same number of times in 2004 that John Kerry had campaigned in the state. The president used some of his time on stage at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis to plead for support from the other side.

GEORGE W. BUSH: There are a lot of Democrats who, just like you, want America to be a safer, stronger, and better place. When you get people headed to the polls, remind them, if they want a safer America, a stronger America, and a better America to put me and Dick Cheney back in office.

[CHEERS]

SPEAKER 1: So after months of campaign visits, thousands of commercials, hundreds of thousands of phone calls and mailings, the 2004 presidential campaign was almost over. For campaign staffers and legions of volunteers, the final hours before polls opened and election day itself marked what both campaigns claim were unparalleled efforts to get out the vote. Many volunteers took vacation time to help their candidate.

CHERYL FULLER: And I'm just visiting union people in the neighborhood.

SPEAKER 1: Cheryl Fuller was door knocking in the suburb of New Brighton.

CHERYL FULLER: We're working for Kerry for president.

SPEAKER 13: Kerry.

CHERYL FULLER: Kerry. John Kerry for president.

SPEAKER 13: Oh, certainly.

CHERYL FULLER: Yeah.

SPEAKER 13: Certainly, OK.

CHERYL FULLER: Are you planning to vote? Yeah.

SPEAKER 13: I've had about five visitors for him already.

CHERYL FULLER: OK, good.

SPEAKER 1: Republicans were doing the same thing, pulling out all of the stops to get supporters to actually cast ballots. At a phone bank in Minnetonka, college Republicans placed last minute calls to voters.

NICOLE: Hi. My name is Nicole, and I'm a local volunteer calling on behalf of the president.

SPEAKER 1: The leader of the group, Jake Grassel, told students to put off schoolwork until after the election and instead concentrate on delivering Minnesota to President Bush.

JAKE GRASSEL: We need to try to get every amount, every last drop of energy out of every volunteer, out of everybody who wants to help out.

SPEAKER 1: And all of the efforts paid off for Republicans and Democrats. Well, shy of the record, the secretary of state's office reported 77% of eligible Minnesota voters cast ballots, the highest percentage since 1960. Early exit polling suggested Kerry was on his way to a big victory in Minnesota and, ultimately, to the White House, but that polling proved wildly inaccurate.

John Kerry lost the election, but he won Minnesota by 3.5 percentage points, and Democrats celebrated their hard-fought victory election night at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis. Despite the challenge from Republicans, Minnesota clung to its Democratic tradition, as it has in presidential contests since the early 1970s. DFL Party chairman Mike Erlandson.

MIKE ERLANDSON: First of all, let me say thank you so very, very, very much for all of your hard work. The great state of Minnesota is a blue state.

AUDIENCE: Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.

SPEAKER 1: The Republicans said that Kerry may well have lost nationally because he had to spend so much time and money just to win Minnesota, a state, not long ago, Democratic presidential candidates took for granted. Republicans, Senator Norm Coleman and Governor Tim Pawlenty.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We fought the battle here. John Kerry had to be here, had to be here again, and again, and again.

SPEAKER 14: It's too bad we didn't carry Minnesota, but we sure got a lot of that Kerry Edwards money in here and caused him to spend it here.

SPEAKER 1: In 2000, Bush lost Minnesota by less than 2.5 percentage points. Democrats say the additional support they won in 2004 is evidence Minnesota is trending back toward its strong Democratic tradition of the past half century. Ken Martin from Kerry's Minnesota campaign.

KEN MARTIN: The real hallmark for our campaign, and the accomplishment is that we did stop the Republican momentum, the last three election cycles here in Minnesota, clearly, the Republicans have been gaining momentum. We put an end to that. In fact, I think the pendulum is swinging back to our side.

SPEAKER 1: But Republicans underscore that independent Ralph Nader ended up with less than 1% of the vote in 2004, compared with more than 5% in the 2000 election. Republicans say, had voters who supported Nader in 2000 not gone for Kerry in 04, Bush could have carried the state.

BEN WHITNEY: I hope that the Democrats are sitting back in their easy chairs, taking it easy, and believe that Minnesota is not going to be a battleground state.

SPEAKER 1: Ben Whitney from the Bush-Cheney Minnesota campaign.

BEN WHITNEY: The trend in Minnesota is Republican. I think the trend will stay Republican. However, we will be a battleground state. It is a state that can go both ways.

SAM CAPLAN: Would I rather be a battleground state? Absolutely not. I'd rather be known as a state that the Democrats can count on.

SPEAKER 1: And Democrat Sam Caplan has doubts after what happened in 04 that Minnesota will once again assume Presidential swing state status in 08.

SAM CAPLAN: I will be very interested to see what happens in 2008 here in Minnesota. I'm suspecting that they may decide not to deploy the enormous resources that they deployed here.

SPEAKER 1: But historian Hy Berman says judging from the past, it's likely Minnesota will remain a battleground state in national politics because most political changes happen gradually.

HY BERMAN: Not only that, but if you put it in context and connection with Wisconsin and Iowa, there were 27 electoral votes there. That's the same as Florida. So Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa are going to be in play in 08 just as they've been in play now, unless something untoward and dramatic happens, which we can't predict. But given the tendencies, the trends, the historic background that we have at our disposal, then there is no reason not to believe that Minnesota is going to be in play in 08. They're going to be in play.

SPEAKER 1: Pollster Brad Coker from Mason-Dixon agrees. And he says demographic trends should concern Democrats.

BRAD COKER: If these age patterns hold, that's correct.

SPEAKER 1: Coker says, had the 2004 election in Minnesota been decided by voters ages 35 to 49, Bush would have easily won the state's electoral votes by a double-digit margin. Coker says, that block of voters is positioned to play an increasingly important role in Minnesota politics.

BRAD COKER: I think the state will become more of an attractive target for Republicans and more competitive for Democrats to hold just because the older DFL voters are becoming fewer and fewer. And the newer residents and younger residents who live in the outer suburbs have been not voting Democrat. They've either been voting Republican or, in the case of Jesse Ventura, voting independent.

SPEAKER 1: The next statewide test of Minnesota voters is less than two years away. When Minnesota's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty and Democratic US Senator Mark Dayton are up for re-election. Both seats are expected to be fiercely contested.

[BROOK & DUNN, "ONLY IN AMERICA"]

Since taking office in January of 2001, President Bush has traveled to Minnesota 15 times, initially, to help Norm Coleman's Senate campaign. The Bush-Cheney 04 campaign manager Ken Mehlman says, even though the election is over, Minnesotans will continue to regularly see President Bush. Mehlman, the president's choice to take over leadership of the Republican National Committee, says he sees a real opportunity for the GOP to win Dayton's Senate seat and to keep the governor's mansion.

MEHLMAN: There's no question in my mind. The president feels close to the people of Minnesota, and you can expect to see him coming a lot, not only for politics, but for policy.

[BROOK & DUNN, "ONLY IN AMERICA"]

(SINGING) Only in America

Where we dream in red, white, and blue

Only in America

Where we dream as big as we want to

We all get a chance

Everybody gets to dance

Only in America

SPEAKER 7: This program was written and produced by Marc Zdechlik. It was edited by Mike Mulcahy. Betsy Cole provided research.

(SINGING) Only in America

Where we dream in red, white, and blue

Where we dream as big as we want to

America