Rambling from the North

Senate Candidate Jim Cohen is a tad bit misleading on his support page. (You have to click on support tab, he doesn't have any separate pages). He quotes Lewis Engman as a supporter. But according to the New York Times, Engman has been dead for 15 years!

While Cohen was obviously trying to show people over the years who had spoken favorably about him, it makes me question the rest of these quotes. Are they about his Senate candidacy? Work he did in the past? and more importantly--when were they said? Cohen should make a note of this on his page, clarifying that this isn't personal support for his Senate candidacy, but positive talk about Cohen as a person.

Quotes about how hard you work and how good of a person are great, but don't label them as support for your Senate run.

In a new development, Rachel Paulose steps down as the US Attorney to take a job as policy adviser to the new AG. This resignation isn't particularly surprising since her entire term has been occupied by scandals. This is just the frosting on the cake of her extreme partisanship, and why its good for Minnesota that she resigned.

So much for one of the fun names in the Republican primary. (I was cheering for a Brownback/Santorum ticket!) But Brownback will announce that friday he will end his run for President. Brownback made enough of a splash where he may run for Senate (most likely) or wait round and hope for a republican administration appointment (Sec of Agriculture to replace his buddy perhaps?) We shall see.

Former Congressman Jim Ramstad is announcing he will not seek re-election. See the news article here!

Now its time to start speculating on who is going to run to replace him...
We've already heard rumors Andy Luger was going to challenge him, so he's a good possibility. Who else?

Some have floated Steve Kelley's name, but he lives in the 5th, granted by 3 blocks..but still in the 5th.

How about the loser from the Senate campaign? either Franken or Ciresi would be great! They could just move after the convention, keep their Senate fund, and run against the republican candidate. I think it'd work!

Any other speculation out there?

In the Minnesota Airport?

I'm not posting much but this was just too good to not post up in case others hadn't seen it yet.

For those of you who live in a cave, tonight the 35W Bridge over the Mississippi collased. I was nearby on campus en route to dinkytown at the time. I'm still quite a bit shell shocked but I, and so far everyone I know, is ok.

What outrages me is this document. Please read it, and then make some phone calls. They knew this would happen as early as 2001, They didn't do anything. Am I surprised? No. But it could have been me on that bridge had it happened an hour or so later than it did. I'm still shook up, I hope all of my readers are Ok.

So I've been blogging for almost 2 years now, maybe even more who knows. This blog was originally created as a way to reach out to my friends who were leaving Minnesota to keep them updated on what was happening in Minnesota politics.
I never thought I would get quoted by the news, get posted on other blogs, and even find myself on a republican attack flier (against other republicans!) I mostly just wanted to have fun.

I know I have pissed off some (read: a lot) of people with this blog, providing some inter-party conflict, ranting, and just not being as careful with public commentary as I should have been. Some of this has gotten me a dedicated reading audience, who keeps reading despite my sometimes going weeks and months without a single post. For those of you who were pissed off, or got mad, I'm sorry. I'm young, sometimes hot-headed, and everyone needs a place to rant once in awhile.

Whats going on: Well, the long and short of it is I'm moving. I was accepted to law school on the east coast and will be moving there in mid-august. Having known this for the last 6 months or so, I've slowly been pulling out of political activities, avoiding political gossip, and just trying to enjoy my last free summer as a carefree college graduate.

What will happen to this blog: I am actually hoping for two things- first I'd like to have someone who is interested in providing colorful commentary join me, make this at least a two man(or woman) effort. I plan to keep it around, keep reading the news and trying to comment, it may move politically away from just Minnesota, politics to general stuff that interests me, and truly become ramblings, but it'll be around at least for awhile longer.

So--if there is anyone reading this who is interested in taking up a spot, someone who wants to focus on Minnesota politics, please send me an application with a writing sample to northerndebater (@) yahoo.com

And a big thanks to everyone who has read this blog over the years, thanks for the all the commentary, the hate, the love, everything. It has been quite the fun experiment.

While there is some net coverage of the race for Sviggum's seat, its not getting a ton of play just yet.

So i thought I would mention and direct people to review some of my coverage of the race, from last election season, specifically on the coverage, indictment, but eventual acquittal of republican candidiate Drazowski.