Last week, TeamFranken suited up, pointed the hybrid in a northerly direction, and made its way to Duluth. One overflowing house party at the (lovely) Frederick home, one dinner at Pickwick’s (deep-fried cheeseburgers!), and one UMD meet-and-greet later, we crashed at the Holiday Inn on First Street.
The day couldn’t have been any prettier. We drove out to Big Lake for some excellent food and even better conversation. Al was joined by members of the Sherburne County DFL Party at Russell’s, which serves an especially good thai steak salad along with its impressive views.
The crowd gathered lakeside and covered everything from the privatization of social security, to the need for universal health care, to the antics of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, to the story of how Al and Franni met. For an even more complete run-down than that, check out Jennifer Edwards’ piece in the West Sherburne County Tribune.
On Tuesday this week we drove over to Augsburg College in Minneapolis. You can read a write-up on the event from Inside Augsburg.
Augsburg made the coolest posters for the event, and they packed the chapel with about 200 people. After the speech Al got to hang out with a smaller group of 20 students interested in becoming involved politically. TeamFranken was especially excited about the diet pepsi and over-sized chocolate chip cookies provided for the meet and greet.
Al had a few tips for those just starting to become interested in politics. He suggested reading every article in the newspaper that you can find about one event (anything from the war in Iraq to the elections in Nigeria) and then keeping it up. He also suggested the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and Meet the Press,
It wasn’t really fair at all. It was the weekend where prospective students came to check out Macalester College and decide if it was the place for them. And this group had gotten a lot of fat envelopes from the sound of things. We heard Brown, Princeton, Boston and Smith topping the short list of possible college destinations. But Macalester’s secret weapon was visiting the College Democrats.
Al talked to a room packed with young progressives, but before he made his pitch for the senate, he made a pretty compelling pitch for Macalester. And we think he changed more than a few minds. Just don’t be too surprised if the class of 2011 is WAY bigger than administration is used to.
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The silent auction at the SD 47 & 49 Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser contained some excellent political memorabilia, but the best trip down DFL lane wasn’t for sale. A display case set up by one Paul Bengston housed the wares from a century of DFL campaigns – Wellstone buttons of varying punctuation marks, the black ribbons worn in Minnesota for the 1909 funeral of Gov. John Albert Johnson, and all manner of HHH insignia.
We spent the weekend at an amazing hotel in Redwood Falls. After attending the NAACP dinner in Bloomington on Friday night the decision was made to get a head start on our weekend. We pointed the Hybrid in a Southwesterly direction, grabbed us some Red Bulls and made good time into Redwood Falls.
When she was introducing Al at the Senate District 62 Spaghetti Dinner, state Sen. Patricia Torres Ray told him to look around at the DFLers packing the room. “These are your volunteers,†she said. And she was right. What a great crowd!
The enormous crowd showed up to hear from Al and other candidates about health care, renewable energy, and the war in Iraq. And it probably didn’t hurt that Keith Ellison, our fabulous new Congressman from the 5th District, made a rousing speech, or that Amy Klobuchar, our great new Senator, dropped by to say hello. (Al noted that he planned to be the hardest-working candidate in the race – because Amy isn’t running this year.)
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One of the things you learn very quickly when you’re running for office in Minnesota is that pretty much everything is “weather permitting.” And with a blizzard forecast for much of Minnesota the day of our scheduled rally at the Dilworth Depot, we were getting a lot of calls wondering if the event was still on. We huddled at HQ, poring over forecasts and radar images, until Al walked in and declared that we were going. So go we did. Al and Franni went up the night before to make sure they didn’t get caught in the storm, and the advance team made it to Dilworth about a half hour after our event started, which is not generally how advance teams operate.
