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What Reinert’s 7B win means
With Roger Reinert’s victory in the DFL primary for House District 7B, Duluth’s political structure has officially gone from one generation to the next. The city council and mayor’s races of almost two years ago coupled with this race show that Duluth’s DFL majority is looking past the “old guard” for new leadership. That’s not…
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LIVEBLOG: Duluth’s 7B showdown
This is the post I’ll keep updating tonight as results pour in from Duluth’s West Side for the only interesting legislative primary in northern Minnesota. For visual reference, I am grading papers in my basement lair in deep rural Itasca County (a place that, for the benefit of future foreign or robot invaders, should be…
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LIVEBLOG: The Iron Range’s 5B smackdown
Meantime, up north, State Rep. and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) faces a primary challenge from Marc Pocrnich, who is running for increased Hibbing representation and in opposition to a shared sewer project between Hibbing and neighboring towns. Most elections are about crap, but this one is really about crap. As with my Duluth…
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Go vote!
I’ll join the friendly chorus of reminders to go vote in today’s primary. I’ll be “live blogging” (by way of TV and the internet) tonight’s primary results from Duluth’s DFL primary in 7B and other miscellaneous story lines, such as the local challenge against DFL House Majority Leader Tony Sertich in the Iron Range’s 5B.…
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Oh Lord! MDN hijinks continue
In case you were wondering, the Mesabi Daily News, the largest newspaper on the Iron Range, will not be endorsing Al Franken. That’s my logical assumption, anyway. They’ll have some sort of mock interview process, probably involving a peasant boy dressed to appear like Al Franken. But I think the fix is already in. A…
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Super Steel Tuesday on the Range
Tuesday is a huge day for Minnesota Steel, the mining and steel-making operation set to break ground in Nashwauk within days. The Itasca County Board has several key decisions to make during its meeting today. Tonight officials with Essar, the Indian company that owns the project, meet with Range lawmakers and other leaders to go…
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Last call: 7B DFL primary goes to the wire
Today I’m going to make my predictions for the outcome of Tuesday’s DFL primary in 7B. I do this for fun and to stir the pot. Obviously, the voters of 7B will control the results. This is a hard climate in which to make a prediction because I’d bet that half of the eligible voters…
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Highway 7 re-revisited
Another nice Iron Range feature ran Sunday (from Lynda Tyssen of the Mesabi Daily News) about the renaming of Highway 7 in north central St. Louis County for late polka great Bobby Aro. I’m a sucker for Highway 7 news and views. Related posts: No related posts.
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Rukavina suggests IRR budget fight should go south
State Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia) is calling for legislative oversight of the Iron Range Resources budget to occur at St. Paul in front of the entire legislature. I get that he’s frustrated with the agency, but if the intent is to keep local Range input on the agency’s budget this could be a very misguided…
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Obama camp trying new approach with heartland tour
This week, Barack Obama’s campaign is sending out an RV packed with information with a mission of collecting stories and concerns from voters across Minnesota. Local DFL leaders will speak on behalf of the campaign on “heartland” issues at each of 24 stops all over the state. Four Range-area towns are on the tour: Grand…
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270 to win
My friend Anthony told me about this site, 270towin.com, that lets you play around with the electoral map to explore the various scenarios for one candidate or another to win the presidential election. It’s good clean fun. Related posts: No related posts.
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Range mining project has private investor
With all the politics going on, I have neglected to share an important Iron Range story. PolyMet, one of the companies exploring precious minerals mining on the East Range, announced it has a $50 million private investor for its project. Here’s the story from today’s Duluth News-Tribune. PolyMet is one of the rare Iron Range…
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Derbis officially drops from 7B race
Here’s the DNT story about John Derbis dropping out of the 7B race and endorsing Marsh Stenersen. It includes comments from Roger Reinert, who Derbis criticized in his press conference. We broke this story at MinnesotaBrown. And by we I mean me. It’s just me here. I keep forgetting that. Related posts: No related posts.
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7B DFL PRIMARY FOCUS: Marsh Stenersen
MinnesotaBrown is running a series of posts this week featuring the DFL candidates for Duluth’s House District 7B in their own words. The winner of the Sept. 9 DFL primary will face Republican Allan Kehr and Independence Party candidate Jay Cole, who do not face primary opposition. So far this week we’ve featured, in alphabetical…
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Iron Range on Rove’s radar
In this week’s Newsweek, GOP master strategist Karl Rove discusses the political trends in several key swing states across the country. It’s a mostly objective look at the lay of the land, but also gives you a quick idea of how deeply Rove and political strategists like him analyze these states. Here is Rove’s assessment…