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Minnesota U.S. Senate race heats up on the Range
I see at MN Publius that State Sen. Tom Bakk (DFL-Cook) has endorsed attorney Mike Ciresi for Minnesota’s upcoming U.S. Senate race. The editors at MN Publius believe this may portend future Ciresi endorsements from other Range legislators. It might, but this situation is indicative of the overall woes of this Senate race. Incumbent Norm…
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A little idealism goes a long way
I don’t know how many people read this; 16 maybe? Anyway, I’m a political junkie and I’m just about OD’ed on coverage of next year’s presidential race. I could cite polls, electability estimates, and resumes, but I won’t. Just think about this: who could provide a spark of idealism in American citizens at a time…
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Rukavina leads early balloting for U.S. Senate
Today is your last chance to vote in the online poll at the bottom of the site. The question? Which DFL figure would be most likely to defeat Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) in the 2008 U.S. Senate race. Your options are Al Franken, Mike Ciresi, Norm Coleman from 1996 (then a Democrat who endorsed Paul…
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Ness wins Duluth mayor’s race
Don Ness will be the next mayor of Duluth. The two-term Duluth city councilor and former Jim Oberstar campaign manager will take office after the new year. Ness beat businessman Charlie Bell by about 1,600 votes for a 52-47 percentage point victory on Tuesday. Regular readers (notice I say “regular” and not “normal”) know my…
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Election Day notes
It’s election day! In the odd years this only excites nerds like me, but if you have an election in your area you should get out to vote. In my section of Itasca County all we had to vote on today was the District 318 school referendum. In Hibbing, where I work, residents are voting…
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Ness and Bell: Tuesday showdown
I need to hold off my predictions until closer to the election. This is my third prediction for the Duluth mayoral election tomorrow. I had said that Bell would win by 8, but that was before another of Bell’s poor choices of words and resulting public tussle — this time over the issue of a…
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End times for Excelsior’s Mesaba project?
The state PUC almost killed the Mesaba Energy Project yesterday. Readers of this blog know I’ve been wailing away at this boondoggle for a long time. It’s encouraging that the commissioners are starting to realize the risks and trends involved in this “clean coal” debacle. The only thing that caused the PUC to hold off…
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Steel plant Iran away; we need to Iget it back
The shakeup over Gov. Pawlenty’s new found opposition of the Essar Minnesota Steel mining/steelmaking plant near Nashwauk continues. Local and state officials are uniting behind a cohesive message (for once): that the Iron Range wants to enter the global marketplace and that snap decisions and loaded rhetoric like Pawlenty’s Sunday diatribe harm the Range economy…
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Bell’s stock rising in Duluth
I’m reversing my prediction for the Duluth mayoral race. This isn’t reflective of any personal opinion about the candidates, just a gut political feeling. I had predicted Ness would win by about four points. I now predict Bell will win by 8. Here’s why: Ness and Bell had their profile stories in the Duluth News-Tribune…
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IRR project season off to fast start
The Iron Range Resources Board met Thursday. (Iron Range Resources is the unique state agency dedicated to diversifying and strengthening our volatile Range economy, supporting public works and infrastructure across the region while repairing the damage from a century of mining. Some call the agency a form of socialism; others call it the shining hope…
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Health carnage system
What really gets me about the health care debate in this country is that so many people are willing to continue tolerating or even supporting a system that almost everyone believes is broken and unsustainable. At the federal level, President Bush and the Republican minority caucuses in the House and Senate are holding the line…