The 10 most powerful Minnesota Republicans

Cooper is the consummate crusader. He loses battles; everybody does. But when he wins, he wins big. He was a powerful finance man first—performing nothing short of a resurrection on TCF in the mid-'80s. As the chair of the state Republican Party, Cooper radically overhauled the party's infrastructure, transforming it into a modern, formidable fighting machine.

Cooper was elected chair of the state Republican Party in 1997. It was an unusual move for a prominent corporate officer. He stayed on at TCF and drew no pay from the party. He wasted no time turning the party upside down. "We raised a lot of money and organized the machinery of the party," Cooper says. He was plumbing his Rolodex, making calls starting at 7:30 in the morning. He made hundreds of calls, and contributions were piling up by the millions of dollars. The party built call centers, computer systems, and a coveted database. "We called millions of Minnesotans and asked them their political affiliation and how they felt about various issues." The information was entered into a computer and sorted by district and even by issue. Access to the list was granted strategically. "We wrote a platform in clear English and asked candidates to pledge to uphold it," Cooper says. "We knew who did and who didn't and for what reason."

For the first time anybody could remember, the party was running candidates in every race—even races they were sure they'd lose—forcing the Democrats to spend down their war chest.

Meanwhile, Cooper was holding big-ticket fundraisers at his home and feeding state and national Republican coffers from his own pocket. He cut a $100,000 check to the RNC Republican National State Elections Committee in 2000 and a $10,000 check to the state party in 2005. His wife gives to the Republican cause, too. So do his kids.

Cooper's legacy in the party was in showing it how to fight. "He never lost the gritty persona of a Detroit beat cop," says Sarah Janecek, referring to the job that got Cooper through college. Larry Jacobs, director of the Humphrey Institute's Center for the Study of Politics and Governance and a veteran observer of the state's political personalities, calls Cooper a "smart, biting, and unreconstructed libertarian Republican."

THE WHIZ KID

Chris Georgacas

Former Chairman, Republican Party of Minnesota

It all happened in Norm Coleman's living room. The press was there. Jack Kemp—remember him?—was there, too. The St. Paul mayor had converted, and he wanted to talk about it. Specifically, he had decided to shed his Democratic Party membership and step into the warm embrace of his new political community, the Republicans.

Chris Georgacas was chair of the state Republican Party then, and he had no small role in Coleman's conversion. He would later run Coleman's bid for governor.

Tony Sutton calls Georgacas a savvy strategist who is "one of the smartest people I've ever met."

Today he serves on the board of directors for the conservative think tank Freedom Foundation of Minnesota; he's a Pawlenty appointee to the Metropolitan Council; and he's a key player at Goff and Howard, a St. Paul-based public relations firm that boasts a client list of giants like Clear Channel, Pfizer, and Wal-Mart, plus local enterprises like Blue Cross Blue Shield Minnesota, Grand Casino, and the University of St. Thomas.

When Georgacas was elected to head the state Republican Party in 1993, he was just 29—the youngest such leader in either party nationwide. Recognizable for a time by his black cowboy boots and pinstripe suits, the kid quickly made a name for himself as the quintessential party goad. He was a blast-fax man, and there was hardly a Democratic indiscretion that Georgacas didn't fax on. He was a master at identifying those indiscretions. His brand of opposition research merged paper trail with campaign trail—poring through documents one day and dogging politicians with a video camera the next. He was fixated on Paul Wellstone. He called the man "Senator Welfare" and worked obsessively—if unsuccessfully—to unseat him.

He left his party post in 1997 and moved to the Center of the American Experiment, where he began work on something initially called just the "Georgacas Project." The idea was to create Minnesota's equivalent to the Contract for America. Georgacas had a budget of roughly $400,000 to begin the project, which was to be a comprehensive "prescriptive evaluation" of Minnesota's state and local governments. The result was the 400-page "Minnesota Policy Blueprint," which was in Pawlenty's hands the day he took office. A decade later, the "Blueprint" still pulses in state Republican politics.

THE STALWART

Evie Axdahl

Minnesota Representative, Republican National Committee

In January 1995, 200 Minnesota Republican activists traveled to Washington, D.C., to witness the swearing in of their hero Newt Gingrich. It was the Republican Revolution, and Maplewood's Evie Axdahl was there. "We worked at it this long because we wanted to build a better future for our children and our grandchildren," she told a Pioneer Press reporter at the ceremony. "That's what this revolution is all about."

Axdahl has represented Minnesota to the Republican National Committee since she was elected in 1989. She served on the State Central Committee for 14 years and has represented the state Republican Party at the Republican National Convention five times. When the 2008 Republican presidential race was still wide open, Axdahl was tapped by Mitt Romney to join his steering committee. That Romney won Minnesota on caucus night is testimony to Axdahl and the handful of veteran Republican activists she runs with.