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DFL Senate candidate forum, 11/27/07
Nov. 28th, 2007 11:32 pmIn the fall of 2002, less than two weeks before the election, Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash. Walter Mondale stepped in to run in his place, but was defeated by the utterly loathesome hypocritical slime-weasel Norm Coleman. If there is one politician in the country I loathe more than George W. Bush, it's Coleman; just seeing his face or hearing his voice make me feel ill. So you can imagine that I am eager to see a Democratic opponent that will annihilate him in the election.
All four of the candidates (and by "candidate" here I mean "people who have at least a snowball's chance in hell of being the guy who run against Coleman" -- I don't know about the perennial fruitcake brigade) have pledged to abide by the party endorsement, which means that in order to have a say, I have to turn up both for my precinct caucus and my Senate District Convention, and participate in the walking caucuses to send candidates to the State Convention, and then attempt to elect delegates that will battle it out in the way I would like to see. So honestly, my opinion here doesn't matter ALL that much unless we manage to send Ed to the convention this year, in which case I can always threaten to shrink all his t-shirts or something if he endorses someone I don't like.
Nonetheless, I did take the opportunity to go to the candidate forum last night. Ed stayed home with the girls but requested a report, and so I took all sorts of detailed notes. LJ-cut, of course, because really, if you don't live in Minnesota, and maybe even if you DO live in Minnesota, this is really not all that interesting.
The executive summary: this is Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer territory, but I wasn't blown away by him. Ciresi was incredibly smart and actually made an attempt to grapple with the issues in a non-soundbyte-y way, but in a few cases wound up being totally confusing. Al Franken took several stands that I really like but he also sounds kind of like a disgruntled cynical college kid, and I'm not sure how that'll play statewide. Al kept his inner commedian on a leash for much of the night but did slip twice, to the obvious delight of the crowd (even the passionate Jack supporters).
( Read more... )
All four of the candidates (and by "candidate" here I mean "people who have at least a snowball's chance in hell of being the guy who run against Coleman" -- I don't know about the perennial fruitcake brigade) have pledged to abide by the party endorsement, which means that in order to have a say, I have to turn up both for my precinct caucus and my Senate District Convention, and participate in the walking caucuses to send candidates to the State Convention, and then attempt to elect delegates that will battle it out in the way I would like to see. So honestly, my opinion here doesn't matter ALL that much unless we manage to send Ed to the convention this year, in which case I can always threaten to shrink all his t-shirts or something if he endorses someone I don't like.
Nonetheless, I did take the opportunity to go to the candidate forum last night. Ed stayed home with the girls but requested a report, and so I took all sorts of detailed notes. LJ-cut, of course, because really, if you don't live in Minnesota, and maybe even if you DO live in Minnesota, this is really not all that interesting.
The executive summary: this is Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer territory, but I wasn't blown away by him. Ciresi was incredibly smart and actually made an attempt to grapple with the issues in a non-soundbyte-y way, but in a few cases wound up being totally confusing. Al Franken took several stands that I really like but he also sounds kind of like a disgruntled cynical college kid, and I'm not sure how that'll play statewide. Al kept his inner commedian on a leash for much of the night but did slip twice, to the obvious delight of the crowd (even the passionate Jack supporters).
( Read more... )
