"Analysis: Partisan memorial aids GOP" is the headline of a story in this morning's Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  

This is bad. Why did it happen? Why didn't the Democrats understand the standard they'd be held to?

Day in, day out, Republicans are clinically precise: the nice version of their message goes out to exactly the people who want it nice, and the red-meat version -- not merely partisan, like the Wellstone service, but often utterly vile -- is limited to venues where it will reach the zealots but be utterly ignored by everyone else (apart from a few disgruntled lefty eavesdroppers like me).  

The Democrats have to find a way to turn this one around, or this Senate seat will be a Republican pick-up. For now, they've given the GOP a wide-open opportunity to whine, and nobody does that better than Republicans.