PRIMARY DAY
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DEBATE NEWSOpening statements from yesterday's Rochester debate are up at YouTube, though we're getting a black screen.
News of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce debate is coming in. First up, KTTC TV reports in First Congressional District Debate:
ROCHESTER, MN -- Two months away from elections and two congressional opponents square-off in a lively debate.
Republican Incumbent Gil Gutknecht and Democratic Candidate Tim Walz discuss topics facing the nation and the voters in the first congressional district.
The Rochester Chamber of Commerce sponsored the event for people to learn more about where the candidates stand on the issues of importance to the business community.
The Chamber and audience asked a number of questions ranging from DM&E, immigration, and health care.
And on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, is our nation safer five years later?
DFL Candidate Tim Walz says, "We have not enacted port security like we should have done. We have not enacted border security like it should have been done. We did not enact any of the recommendations which would have been quick fixes. We find our country in a reflective mode. Every time something happens we have to wait until there is a plot to hear that there might be liquids on a plane."
Republican Incumbent Gil Gutknecht says, "When we first got involved in this after 9-11 we realized there were terror training bases in Afghanistan and in other places around the middle east, they no longer exist as far as we know and when we find them, we go after them. So we're on offense."
Republican Greg Mikkelson is running against Gutknecht in tomorrow's primary but was not involved in the forum.
The chamber says the debate was open to endorsed candidates.
SEND LAWYERS, HIRED GUNS AND MONEY
The Rochester Post-Bulletin published an AP story that the Mayo Clinic has hired a well-connected Washington firm to represent its interests in the DM & E controversy in Mayo turns to top guns to lobby against DM&E:
Associated Press
Mayo Clinic has tapped a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and a former Democratic congressional leadership staffer to help it lobby against an expansion plan by the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, federal reports show.
According to Mayo's most recent lobbying report, covering activity through June 30 of this year, the clinic has spent $60,000 in lobbying against DM&E.
Mayo has enlisted the Washington law firm of Manatt Phelps & Phillips, which lists among its lobbyists on DM&E Dean McGrath, who worked as Cheney's deputy chief of staff; and James Datri, the former executive director of the House Democratic Caucus.
NEW ULM JOURNAL: A MILITARY PARENT SPEAKS
Dana Melius of Winthrop (Sibley County) must likely lives outside the 1st, but Melius's thoughtful letter was published in the New Ulm Journal on Sunday in "Critics of U.S. ‘war’ on terrorism are also patriots":
TO THE EDITOR: Once again, I could not hold back tears as our family last week sent off our Navy son, Matt. After missing him dearly while he served 18 months on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, he was heading back to his new base in San Diego, preparing for six to nine months at sea. Like other parents of military children, we are proud and pray for his safety. But more than ever before, we are also frustrated and angry.
And despite what U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush say, we have every right to both support our troops AND criticize the Iraqi war. Enough is enough. This latest spin from the Bush administration — likening critics of the Iraqi “war” on terrorism to Nazi appeasers in World War II — is more than astonishing. It’s un-American.
Freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom to disagree. These are all attributes of democracy that must be preserved every bit as our other freedoms. Today, many journalists and politicians are realizing they were misled and misdirected by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld war machine. The price — in U.S. military lives and thousands more innocent, Iraqi civilians, along with escalating violence throughout the Middle East — has been horrific. And this administration’s focus on Iraq has only blurred the war on terrorism.
This is the same administration, through the deceit and military mistakes of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, which underestimated the number of troops needed for the Iraqi effort. Despite cries from U.S. generals for more troops and better equipment in the initial stages, Rumsfeld said he knew better. All this from a man – Mr. Rumsfeld – who shook hands with Saddam Hussein in 1983 during the Reagan administration, which then sold weaponry to Hussein’s army of thugs.
But another real issue of concern in all this is how the American public remained so quiet for so long. If a rural Minnesotan spoke out initially against war, he or she was branded as unpatriotic. If one simply didn’t sport a yellow magnetic “Support Our Troops” car attachment or agree to such a lawn sign from the local veterans’ group, one’s patriotism was questioned. So, too many of us took a step back and remained too quiet.
Where were all the voices of dissent in rural Minnesota, Middle America? Why were we so quiet? Why do we remain so?
My U.S. Navy son still has a couple years left on his initial enlistment. I remain proud of his decision. I can not say the same for our government and its own role in increasing tensions and terror in the Middle East and throughout the world. [more]
LONG TIME PASSING
Melius is not alone in those sentiments. In a letter to the Worthington Globe, Michael Marcotte of Rushmore asks "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?":
After five long years, the words “Osama bin Laden” parted the lips of Mr. George Bush. An all-too-convenient catch-phrase repeated all too often by he and his minions is that bin Laden resides in some netherworld known only as the “border lands between Pakistan and Afghanistan,” as if this could be the single locale on the entire globe where the worlds’ sole superpower wields none. This piece of propaganda persists despite the president general of Pakistan giving up an “I don’t think so,” and other analysts musing that he is somewhere else altogether.
Furthermore, bin Laden — along with al Qaeda and company, through the guise of Bush-speak — is morphing from an “enemy like no other” into an ever-familiar face of fascism, Adolf Hitler. Neville Chamberlain gave us “Peace in our time,” while President Bush promises us “Terror on our minds.” Once again it’s live in fear and “vote Republican or die.” [more]
MORE ON HOEKSTRA IN ROCHESTER
Michigan's Pete Hoekstra, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, came to Minnesota this weekend to raise money in the Cities for Gil Gutknecht. On Friday, he helped Gutknecht with a little in-district incumbency campaigning. From Saturday's Rochester Post Bulletin:
Pete Hoekstra likens all the work being done locally and nationally for Homeland Security as an insurance policy.
But he hopes it's a policy that will never have to be used.
Hoekstra was in Rochester on Friday to meet with local and regional public safety officials who are shaping the response plan should there ever be a terrorist attack or major catastrophe in this area.
He was here at the request of U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht to listen as well as update local responders on the national scene.
Hoekstra brings a unique perspective. He is chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, leading congressional oversight on issues relating to U.S. intelligence and security issues in the war on terror. Much of the committee's work is classified.
Hoekstra, a Republican from Holland, Mich., has been chairman of the committee for the past two years and a member since 2001.
The meeting with local responders was closed to the public. [more: subscription required]
The press was apparently invited, for this is the second article we've seen.
SEND MONEY
Over at DailyKos, Mister Gloom looks at possible Democratic Congressional pick-ups. Here's his take on MN-01, which he's put in Tier 1:
The first Congressional District in Minnesota is made up of the entire Southern portion of the State (http://nationalatlas.gov/... ) which, while Republican leaning, has a number of counties which voted for John Kerry in 2004 (Blue Earth, Fillmore, Freeborn, Mower, Nicollet, Winona) and it also has one of the key Democratic-trending areas in the state in Olmstead county (where Democrats have increased their percentage of the vote in recent years and won a recent state legislative special election). If Walz (http://www.timwalz.org/ ) is able to take Olmstead County by a good margin it would go a long way to offsetting the more conservative Western portions of the district. Gutnecht is well ahead in cash on hand so any help given to Walz would be appreciated.
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