End of the month, this link won't be showing anything new, so change your bookmarks - http://www.mncampaignreport.com
As the title says, Happy Memorial Day. Have a beer or three, barbecue with friends and family, do whatever it is you do to celebrate the unofficial start to summer if you can stand the heat - but whatever you do, do take a moment out of your day to remember those who, for better or worse, have given their lives for America because they were asked to do so.
I had a chance yesterday to attend a meet-and-greet with Mark Ritchie, Wendy Wilde, and Andrew Borene in an air-conditioned home in Minnetonka. Had I gotten the chance to do so, it would have been a perfect opportunity to interview Mr. Borene, who's running in a blue-trending Senate District in Edina and has a great chance to keep the DFL majority solid. I'll get to him at some point. Having permanent office space this early in the campaign means the campaign is doing very well. Mr Ritchie, the guest of honor, noted that his campaign was almost at their fundraising ceiling, and had begun raising funds for the coordinated campaign fund, an activity certain to garner good feelings from the party. Judging from his comments on the convention, it will be a very interesting time for those delegates and alternates still left on Sunday.
Ms. Wilde also had a chance to speak, and she's a candidate I did get a chance to speak with, although not one-on-one. According to Wendy, she's brought on John Wodele as a communications manager, and she's hoping that the Ventura connection will help to bring over independent-leaning voters in the 3rd. She correctly expressed exasperation that several big-time DNC donors across the country have also donated to her Republican target, Jim Ramstad. These people do need to learn that whether Mr. Ramstad is a nice guy or not (maybe, haven't met him), a moderate or not (voted 82% with President Bush last year, so I'm leaning toward not), his presence in Congress and lockstep-Republican voting record on many issues enables a right-wing extremist agenda to drive this country into the dirt.
I wonder if the Freedom Club of America has donated much to Ramstad....
One last thing about the meet-and-greet. There was a certain group at Camp Wellstone in 2005 that turned out to be pretty impressive. Check out this roster:
- Mark Ritchie - candidate for Secretary of State
- Tim Walz - candidate for Congress, CD1
- Betsy Sheurer - Hopkins school board member, elected 2005
- Andrew Borene - candidate for State Senate
and a couple of other notable-and-quotables from the political scene. Not a bad performance, I'd say, from a pretty small group.
