On Thursday, August 10, 2006, Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar (D), Minnesota candidate for U.S. Senate, jumpstarted her North Star Tour with U.S. Senator John Edwards at her side. On the steps of Minnesota's State Capitol, Kobuchar said "We are taking the North Star Tour to your hometown to hear your stories about why you want to see a change in direction and to tell a few of our own family stories."
Approximately one thousand people gathered at the capitol in St. Paul from International Falls to Mankato and beyond to rally for change with Klobuchar. The event kicked off with country and blues trio, Lonesome Dan, entertaining the crowd.
Shortly after 12:00 Congresswoman Betty McCollum (D) from Minnesota's Fourth District and Representative Tony Sertich (D) from the Iron Range introduced Amy Klobuchar to an enthusiastic crowd. Klobuchar spoke about a number of political issues where a change in direction is needed, including the connection between transportation and oil, the lack of affordable health care and the course in Iraq. Klobuchar pledged to follow the North Star, not the Lone Star, agreeing with Senator Edwards that too many people in Washington have lost their way.
Senator John Edwards took the podium and first praised the men and women who helped stop the recent terrorist scheme in London. He then spoke of Klobuchar's background and experience stating that there wasn't anyone better to serve the State of Minnesota from the U.S. Senate than Amy Klobuchar.
Over the next several weeks, Klobuchar will travel with her husband and daughter from county to county in Minnesota talking with people about why we need change. Her father, Jim Klobuchar, will do the same starting in his own hometown of Ely. Amy's in-laws, Bill and Marilyn Bessler, will also take part in the North Star Tour starting in their hometown of Mankato and talking to residents across Southern Minnesota.
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Comments: 11
alan - don't even mention the ventura fiasco. omg. it was too horrid for words....
Neither of these candidates are people of change, just the same old same old repackaged yet again. Either way we loose.
I am just starting to pay attention to the 2006 midterm election. It once seemed so far off. Now it draws so close the tension is mounting. I see Klobuchar as a strong progessive-centrist candidate who is capable of running a very strong campaign, but she should be very wary of favorable polls because the GOP is so good at touching the 'right' buttons with a lot of voters. For instance, the latest polling research shows a majority of likely voters look to the Democrats for better solutions in Iraq, but still give the edge to the Republicans on handling terrorism.
That perception doesn't square with reality. It is because time, money, and effort spend on Iraq has squandered the resources we need to fight terrorism the way the British have--as a law enforcement task (investigative, intel ops, police work, arrests, and above-board trials.
By the way, I had been invited to attend the Kennedy rally in Plymouth by a friend and accepted the invitation. Only after the rally, being the only liberal there, I decided to post a dispatch and report to my Gather reading community about it (see my post, 8/18/06). I took a Socratic approach and just asked simple basic questions, probing the Kennedy campaign's philosophy or point of view. I got a liberal's rare look inside the GOP.
I think there are a lot of unspoken notions within America's majority party, the party of Lincoln, that they themselves are unable or unwilling to communicate in-house, just as there are some things good Democrats are unable to openly discuss for fear of harming their cause.
This reticence is perhaps self-censored by all political partisans and activists. No wonder Keats mused that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of (hu)man kind." One Democrat to show this was Eugene McCarthy who was a philosopher, poet, and politician drawn over a lifetime of learning and legislating to what is often known as 'virtue ethics.' Of course, Jimmy Carter's poetry and contemplative observations have not been appreciated enough.
The GOP, too, is not without its sagacious seers and wise mentors--those men and women of pragmatic purpose and poetry of sentiment, namely Ronald Reagan (read his correspondence to letter-writing citizens) and the autobiography of John McCain (full of revelations and confessions that even good Democrats should be proud of).
It's definitely time to pay attention to candidates, though!