September 06, 2004

Telling It Like It Is

A DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) candidate for House is running against an incumbent DFL'er for Minnesota's 8th Congressional District Seat.

A political newcomer is trying to defeat one of the longest-sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives to represent much of northern Minnesota.

Mike Johnson is a Gilbert pilot with a science background who has never run for elected office before. Johnson finds himself challenging incumbent James Oberstar in a DFL primary to represent the 8th Congressional District.

Johnson, 60, said his campaign will be geared toward "putting the farmer and laborer back into the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party." He proposes universal health care, living wage requirements and improved education.

Ho hum, pretty vanilla. First question: What amount of money will be considered enough to "improve education"? Someone get back to me on that one.

But here candidate Johnson expresses where he differs from Congressman Oberstar on the core DFL issues:

Johnson said he differs from Oberstar on guns, saying he identifies himself with the positions of the National Rifle Association as opposed to Oberstar's voting record in favor of gun control.

He also said he is pro-abortion rights, as opposed to Oberstar's consistent anti-abortion rights voting record.

I find it interesting that the St. Cloud Times article (by the way, the St Cloud Times has never heard of permalinks, so you have today to see this article) would go so far as to say that a candidate is pro-abortion, and the other anti-abortion, as opposed to the "pro-choice" and "pro-life" monikers.

St. Cloud is located in Stearns County, which is Minnesota's Catholic Hotbed(tm), loaded for bear with pro-life residents. Could this be a way to sway the primary voters? They aren't in Stearns County; Stearns is in the 6th Congressional District . The 8th Congressional District includes two counties, Morrison and Mille Lacs, that are in the SCT reading area, so I imagine that is why the paper covered this story, but I'm not as sure if those counties are as full of Catholic, pro-life voters that Stearns is.