St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly broke Democratic Party ranks on Sunday to announce his support for President Bush's re-election.
"George Bush and I do not agree on a lot of issues," Kelly said in a statement. "But in turbulent times, what the American people need more than anything is continuity of government, even with some imperfect policies."
Kelly, who said he's remaining a Democrat, said the economy is going in the right direction. "There's no reason to believe a change of course will produce better or quicker results," he said.
And the mayor said the United States will bring the troops home from Iraq a lot sooner if "we don't try to bring in a whole new leadership team to run the show. We must stay the course."
See-yuh, wouldn't want to bee-yuh:
St. Paul voters held what amounted to a referendum on the White House as they picked a mayor Tuesday, with Democratic incumbent Randy Kelly haunted by his 2004 endorsement of President Bush.
With 74 percent of the city's 104 precints reporting, the Star Tribune is calling the race for former City Council member Chris Coleman. Coleman had more than twice as many votes as the mayor 29,373-13,061. Ahead of the election, three independent polls showed voters were primed to fire Kelly, and most cited his support for Bush as the reason.
"It may sound silly, but Kelly was for Bush and I'm not,'' said retiree Audrey Guith after casting her vote for Coleman.