The coolness factor is way over my head. I don’t recognize many of the performers. And I’m such a prosaic substance junkie that I have trouble crediting such a poetic and hip political appeal.
But if you haven’t already seen it, this cool video puts Barack Obama’s New Hampshire concession speech to music with the […]

Happy New Year, Fellow Seekers,
Hope you had a good break. I did.
Newspaper names are mostly incredibly dull, predictable and come from a very short predictable list of options. The Times, the Post, the News, the Inquirer, the Globe, the World, the Herald, the Telegram. (How weird is that, in the 21st century, to call yourself […]

James Hovland, the mayor of Edina who recently became a Democrat and has been exploring running for Congress from the Third District, told me Monday that he expects to make up his mind this week, that he is “strongly leaning” toward getting into the race, and that if he does so, he will seek the […]

Good Saturday morning,
I linked Thursday to John Edwards first TV commercial, a sentimental piece making the non-controversial case that ordinary people are the real heroes of America.
On Friday, he released a tougher piece. (My thanks to commenter Peder, who called attention to it in the thread under the previous post.) This one, titled “The Politics […]

Good Tuesday noon Fellow Seekers of amusing salutations,
The latest fund-raising appeal from Al Franken has a Halloween theme. It’s titled “Help me unmask Norm Coleman. Lots of references to candy and costumes. The key paragraph says:
“You see, there’s another seasonal tradition getting underway - the one in which Republicans who’ve spent their time in Washington […]

Good Monday morning,
Washington Post politically obsessed blogger Chris Cillizza of “The Fix,” who attempts to track every race, lists Minnesota’s Third District as the third most likely of U.S. House district to change parties in the ‘08 election (which would mean from red — Republicans have held this seat since 1960 — to blue). Minnesota-3 […]

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) challenged Gen. Petraeus about the 2004 Washington Post op-ed Petraeus wrote, giving an upbeat portrait of the progress he was making in getting Iraqi troops ready to stand up, so U.S. troops could stand down.
Engel (that’s him at right) asked why we should believe that his relatively optimistic assessment today will […]

If, like me, you’ve been surprised that a pro-choice candidate like Rudy Giuliani could continue to come out on top among Republicans in presidential horserace polls, the answer must surely, at least in part, be in these results from the Pew Reseach Center:

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., plans to stage protests at funerals of victims of the 35W bridge collapse to state that God made the bridge fall because he hates America, and especially Minnesota, because of its tolerance of homosexuality.
The church and its pastor, Rev. Fred Phelps have become notorious over recent years for […]

David Strom, the affable former president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota will give a Citizens League “Policy and a Pint” audience this evening (event details here) his thoughts on what makes the price of gasoline go up and down. And those thoughts are these thoughts:
The price of gas would be a lot lower, except […]