A Photo Finish in the Fourth

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[you can read my review of the 8 Congressional Districts of Minnesota here]
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First, I want all of my readers to understand I work a busy 7am to 4pm job trimming/dropping trees and working horse barn stuff. I just offloaded some hay after a days tree work.
I apologize for being tardy, we will fit it all in by Tuesday I promise.

This is truly a most dramatic election cycle after a long crescendo of years of being told that "this election matters more than most".

I think this one is a biggie.

I haven't done much to describe the electorate because if you are alive here today you know who is voting for whom and why. It is like when a cell divides and all of a sudden you see what was invisible just moments ago, the DNA separate and go to separate sides of the cell.

However, for those not here now, I hope to describe the electorate in Minnesotas' fourth district and by extension, the rest of the state in general.

The seat is now held by the DFL incumbent Betty McCollum. She won the seat after the death of leftist, and "environmental" champion, Bruce Vento.

Betty grew up in Minneapolis and was a high school social science teacher and sales manager. She served three terms on the Minneapolis City Council, then moved up to the Minnesota State House of Representatives where she held office for four terms.

She was a lock step DFL vote and represented the majority of State House District 55B well.

Then she was the DFLs candidate for the U.S. House Dist 4 seat being vacated by the ill Vento.
Minnesotas' District 4 , which includes the bureaucrats city; Saint Paul, has been a DFL held seat for decades.

She has had a safe seat and was relatively quiet and happy as a back-bencher, with hopes of moving up of course.

Betty is not the most dynamic or feisty of candidates. I think she does poorly face to face, at interviews or in debates. Honestly, I don't think she is very bright.

She now, as opposed to the last three elections cycles, has a real contender opposing her for what has been a sure thing.

She is being challenged by the Republican endorsed Teresa Collett. She is from out of state, had a business in Oklahoma, and has been for some time now a law professor at the University of Saint Thomas.

She represents a different kind of candidate than what has been offered by either party for generations. Teresa, like many first time candidates showing up in races all across the state and the nation, might be described as an: "enough is enough" candidate.

She and many other people are not pleased with the operations in Washington D.C. and more of the same is not what they are seeking in a representative. There are many new voters, and new candidates, and "new" ideas challenging the old.

The election is just around the corner. Unlike years in the past; today there is more than just a dissatisfied majority, grummblingly accepting the progressive march of the politically connected, and ever more expensive and intrusive machinery of government.

There is a new batch of people who've chosen to stand up and be heard, and the political class are more than a little shaken up at this turn of events.

All can see that they, the political class, are in fact a minority. But they and their organized, and amplified, efforts represent a strong voting block.

The unions, the non-independent farmers, most school workers, social workers, city and county workers. Non-profit corporation workers, government contractors.

Anyone employed by any government supported entity.
And with the budget amounts we are talking about that is a lot of entities.

The fourth district of Minnesota has a high percentage of these, what with the Capitol; Saint Paul and all its government workers, and organizations, and"Non-Governmental Units" NGO's. Now there's a euphemism for you.

But now the majority of people who have been quietly going about there daily lives; which by the way doesn't revolve around grants or bills or legislators, have seen there burden get bigger and there future prospects smaller.

And they see a direct relationship between the government burden and their future prospects.
The larger the former, the smaller the latter, for them and their children.
[and you and yours by the way.]

These day to day, normal working Minnesotans, are greatly dissatisfied with the direction the National and State governments have been going for years.

They do not see more of the same as a solution. As a matter of fact they see very much less of the same as the solution.

With the rapid budget growth and sweeping legislative mandates, the electorate has had the blinders removed. They now know what is the real subject of these elections.

And these have been itemized in easily digestible form to aid the newly, but greatly interested, voter.

And this year, the usual incumbent bonus is only available if they voted wisely. Betty did not vote wisely according to this new, and very active, voter block.

She voted for the "stimulus", and for the new "health care bill", and for the new "cap and trade" [or as I call it: tax and ration].

True to her nature and her DFL base constituency, but not wise in the gale of the new political winds blowing, Betty may fail to win this race.

Now I call the odds at 50/50. I hope Teresa wins.

So in three days we will see if the old entrenched, politically connected power-base can hold the line against a growing number of dissatisfied taxpayers, some of which will be voting for Teresa next Tuesday.

It is neck and neck as they come in to the finish line....