There have been two other diaries on the St. Paul primaries.
nihilix and
brandonp Neither mentioned the important point I give today.
Yesterday St. Paul held it's primary for the Mayoral race. Since the race is technically non-partisan, the top two vote getters from the primary go on to the general. As it turns out, Randy Kelly(the incumbent) barely passed the Green Party endorsed candidate Elizabeth Dickinson.
Chris Coleman 52%
Randy Kelly 27%
Elizabeth Dickinson 19%
Despite claiming to be a Democrat back when he first ran, Kelly endorsed GW Bush last year. Nobody understood why. He apparently was trying to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Norm "Mayor Quimby" Coleman(no relation to Chris), who also pretended to be a Democrat and after being elected turned into a Republican stooge and wound up winning a Senate seat.
Perhaps Kelly was promised something by Bush? Who knows. He'll soon be disappointed, though, because Bush doesn't live up to his promises.
Regardless, St. Paul is a strange town. It's conservative, yet liberal. It voted almost uniformly for John Kerry in 2004, and is represented by Betty McCollum who is one of our states more liberal Representatives to Congress. But the town paper is conservative, and on local mayoral and council elections the conservatives stand a chance. So despite losing in the primary by a hefty margin, Kelly still stands a small chance going into the general. Although I imagine Bush's approval rating in town is somewhere south of 30%, so the endorsement didn't much help.
But his challenger isn't someone to take lightly. He's a Democrat, a former City Council member. He's energetic and demanding of change.
And most importantly, to me anyway, Chris Coleman endorsed Wesley Clark. Sadly I lost my email from the Clark days, and don't have Chris Coleman's first email to MinnesotaForClark to reproduce here.
I don't live in St. Paul, but I'm watching this election with bated breath.
The Clark Supporter versus the Bush Supporter. We'll be watching November 8th to see who wins.