More on the effect of Sue Jeffers decision

To some it isn't as clear why this is great news for the Peter Hutchinson campaign. Let me review.

#1 The stadium issue

Jeffers will attack Pawlenty all the way through September exposing him for being a sellout. In November only one candidate can pick up that anti stadium anti tax support, that candidate is clearly Peter Hutchinson

#2 The debate stage

Sue Jeffers had a great chance of gaining the support to get on the debate stage. Once there are more then 3 candidates the public in large #'s will only focus on two candidates, and beyond that with each additional candidate debating it is tougher to stand alone on many issues, the above mentioned stadium being a clear example

#3 Media

The media will say Hutchinson Pawlenty and Hatch (or Lourey, or Kelley) if there are 3 significant candidates, but if there are four they will often add that 4th name or ignore Hutchinson either way hurting the Hutchinson campaign.

#4 3rd party voters

There is a large # of voters who will vote 3rd party the majority of the time be it Green Libertarian or Independence Party, this limits the competition for those voters

#5 Republicans who want to fire Pawlenty

This will be a tough crowd to attract, but Peter Hutchinson becomes the only option for these folks

#6 The primary fight

Sue will work day in and day out the rest of her campaign to beat up Tim Pawlenty. She will not attack Hutchinson at all. Beyond that Pawlenty will be forced to focus a little bit on the primary and that will allow Hutchinson to remain under his radar a little longer

This may also be good news to Pawlenty, but at the same time this will increase support for Hutchinson and increase the perception that he has a chance to win which hopefully will feed off itself all the way through election day