Bright sides

One small piece of good news for the Cavlan campaign is that we were able to build upon the foundation set by Brother Ray Tricomo in 2002. Ray got 0.45%, and this year we got 0.49%, adding 603 people to the base. And we did it without major party status and while being shut out of most of the debates. Also, note that Kennedy and Klobuchar each outspent us by about 1000 to 1.

The Pentel campaign cannot be blamed for spoiling Hatch's election. He lost by 21,130 votes, while our team got 10,854 (0.49%). However, Hatch could have won if he had the Pentel and Davis votes plus a small fraction of the Hutchinson votes.

Sometimes we spoil elections, but that's only because we're so much better on the issues. Like Pawlenty, Hatch would have signed the Twins stadium bill. Ken's plan for reducing consumption is second to none.

Meanwhile, Jay Pond gave a classy concession speech, talking about how we leverage the system, and he had some good things to say about Keith Ellison. The main lesson learned for the DFL should be that if you want to win, nominate candidates like Ellison, and if you want to lose, nominate candidates like Hatch.

Crashing the Debate

We crashed the KSTP-TV debate Sunday night. We may not have gotten a drop of ink out of it, but I hear that MPR was kind enough to mention us. The next day a coworker described a disturbance during the live debate, but didn’t know who it was. I explained that it was us.

Michael, who had to be prepared to debate, got up from the front row after the intros and started introducing himself. He talked about Iraq and about Habeas Corpus. Tom (Meyers?) I think hollered about the war. I yelled three things on the way out; Habeas Corpus, Depleted Uranium, and Single Payer Health Care, issues that we feel should have been discussed in the debate. Suzanne Linton was with us, and Erin was our driver.

In this final week of the campaign, we’re still staying on message, talking about immediate troop withdrawal, single payer, and clean elections. But since we’re successfully leveraging the discussion somewhat (Fitzgerald is talking about immediate troop withdrawal), we’re adjusting the message a bit, talking about Habeas Corpus and Depleted Uranium, where we can push the envelope even further.

I’m also continuing to talk about Reducing Consumption, Marriage for All, No Stadiums, as well as Impeachment.

Michael and I had a fun Halloween road trip last night, where we saw a scary crank addict on a dark secluded road, and met with a college newspaper editor, reporter, and radio announcer at U of M Morris. Michael also had a 20 minute interview on KUMM, the college radio station, that went very well.

Michael and Papa John’s ads are still running on AM 950, and I was pleased to hear the new ad for the IRV referendum. The 30-second spot is very concisely worded.

Thanks everybody for all your great work and lets pull out almost all the stops!