Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- A reporter recently observed to Representative Mark Kennedy, the Republican candidate for a Minnesota Senate seat, that his St. Paul headquarters had housed George W. Bush's 2004 campaign. ``Oh, you're not going to use that to tie me to Bush, are you?'' Kennedy said.

Kennedy's 2006 survival strategy has him running away from the president he once embraced. He rarely appears with Bush, whose approval rating dropped to 33 percent in an Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken last week. There's hardly a mention of the president in Kennedy's television commercials or on his Web site; his ads depict him as an independent amid a sea of partisanship.

``Some people may try to personify this as being about Bush,'' Kennedy said in an interview en route to a campaign stop in Ramsey, Minnesota. ``But the last time I checked, he's not on the ballot.''

Not so long ago, Kennedy, 48, reveled in his presidential connections. A TV ad from his 2002 House re-election campaign opened with images of Kennedy and Bush walking in the Rose Garden, with the president listening as the congressman spoke. ``I've stood with President Bush in the war on terrorism,'' Kennedy said on the soundtrack.

Kennedy was an unlikely victor in 2000, carried into Congress on Bush's coattails. The president won his district by 40,000 votes; Kennedy wound up edging a Democratic House incumbent by a mere 155 votes.

In Washington, he has been a reliable White House ally. Reports on voting records compiled by Congressional Quarterly show that Kennedy voted with Bush at least 92 percent of the time every year from 2001 to 2005.

Line of Attack

Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, Kennedy's Democratic opponent for the seat being vacated by Democratic Senator Mark Dayton, is hammering her foe as a Bush clone. She charges that Kennedy's votes for the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts are out of step with Minnesotans.

While Kennedy trumpets a 13-point plan for helping Minnesota, his record in Washington has proven a tough sell in a year where Republicans everywhere are on the defensive. An Aug. 1 Rasmussen Reports poll of 500 voters showed Klobuchar, 46, leading by a dozen points; a Minneapolis Star-Tribune survey taken a few days earlier put the margin at 19 points.

``There is a groundswell of anger out there, and if you have an `R' after your name, you're in trouble,'' said Jennifer Duffy, an analyst for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington. ``Your trouble gets worse the closer you are to the president.''

Escaping the Undertow

Kennedy isn't the only Republican loyalist trying to escape Bush's undertow. In Missouri, where Bush stumped hard for Senator Jim Talent in 2002, Talent has put up an ad like Kennedy's, stressing his independence and playing down party ties. Like Kennedy, Talent has voted with Bush more than 90 percent of the time.

In Connecticut, three-term Republican Representative Rob Simmons talks up his opposition to a White House-backed budget plan that would have cut social programs, and his support for expanded stem-cell research. Freshman Representative David Reichert of Washington is also stressing his differences with the president over stem cells in the face of a Democratic assault that brands him ```Rubber Stamp Reichert.''

In Minnesota, Kennedy's latest TV commercial omits mention of the president and extols the lawmaker's ability to ``cross party lines.'' Kennedy says he's just trying to give the race a local focus. Democrats would ``rather obsess about Bush, but I want to talk about the issues that matter to people here,'' he said.

`Voting With the President'

Lawrence Jacobs, chairman of the political science department at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said the congressman's ``idea of trying to get some distance from the president is difficult, because he's got a very strong record of voting with the president.''

Klobuchar, in an interview, said that ``people are seeing through'' the TV ads depicting Kennedy as independent. She tells voters that Republicans represent a failed status quo while Democrats offer change.

The candidate has just started a swing that will bring her campaign to 100 towns and cities over the next several weeks. She emphasizes opposition to the Iraq war, vows to rein in rising health-care costs and blasts Bush's inaction in the face of record-high gasoline prices. ``It's clear to me that people are looking for real answers, and they haven't delivered,'' Klobuchar said.

Following Orders

As Klobuchar presses her attack on Bush, she depicts Kennedy as a foot-soldier eager to follow party orders. ``He has been there for six years, marching in step with the president,'' Klobuchar said. ``We haven't had any response to the concerns people are talking about.''

Kennedy counters by citing legislation that he has worked on in concert with Democrats, including efforts to prevent the importation of methamphetamines and to give immigration officials the power to refuse citizenship applications from convicted sex offenders.

Kennedy has also pushed bipartisan legislation that seeks to end some tax breaks for oil companies in favor of expanded development of alternative fuels. ``We don't need any more tax breaks with oil at $75 a barrel,'' he said. To appeal to environmentalists, he would also expand a federal loan program for wetlands preservation.

Breaking With Bush

Kennedy broke with Bush in opposing the No Child Left Behind school-testing initiative, saying that education standards should be decided at the local level, and he also came down against oil drilling in the Alaskan wilderness. He opposes Bush's immigration-overhaul package, favoring a House version that emphasizes border security over providing a path to citizenship for people in the country illegally.

Still, Kennedy faces a dilemma every time the president makes a foray into his state. Bush is scheduled to be in the Twin Cities Aug. 22 for a policy speech and a fund-raiser for a Republican House candidate. Will Kennedy be there? ``I'm currently scheduled to join him for his policy address,'' the congressman said, declining to provide any details.

``He's got an almost no-win situation here,'' political scientist Jacobs said. ``The independent thing rings hollow, and when he tries to run as an independent, he runs the risk of alienating the Republican base.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Keil in Washington at dkeil@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 18, 2006 00:07 EDT