Almanac: At the Capitol

 

Tonight on TPT-17 at 7:00pm I will host the first televised debate in the most important congressional race in Minnesota and one of the top races in the country.  AARP is co-sponsoring the debate with us, we'll address issues important to 50+ and plenty of other timely and important issues to all of us.  Squaring off will be Independence Party's David Dillon, Democrat Ashwin Madia and Republican Erik Paulsen.  The candidates that hit 5% in an independent poll are included. Should be interesting!

3rd District Congressional candidate Ashwin Madia didn't get to the podium, but he got on stage here at the DNC in Denver.  We talked to him outside afterwards where a girl grabbed his autograph after our interview.  Madia said the exposure has value even though not too many people are probably watching in the afternoon. 

Madia was one of a half a dozen candidates featured by Congressman Chris Van Hollen Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  I talked with him backstage afterwards and he said after campaigning with Madia in Minnesota,  voters in the district seem ready for change.  The race is part of the DCCC's "Red to Blue" program for promising candidates.

 

 

Sen. Amy Klobuchar addressed the convention for the second time in two days.  This must be getting old hat.  Today she recalled her family's frugal roots on the Iron Range.

So much for the race to replace Congressman Jim Ramstad being a two-person race. The DFL field has gotten complicated. State Senator Terri Bonoff was the frontrunner or the only DFL candidate for a while, but that's no longer true.
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There's been a couple of candidates running real campaigns to replace 3rd District Congressman Jim Ramstad for weeks now. But many of us in the political world have been wondering when a candidate was actually going to hold that big kick-off event. Now State Senator Terri Bonoff will become the first to make it official at a press conference Monday at Hopkins High School.
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