I spent the evening with the MNIP crowd in Minnetonka--with Dean Barkley, Jesse Ventura, David Dillon and about 150 guests. (I voted--and strongly supported--Obama-Franken-Madia-Pitzrick.) I am delighted by Barack Obama's election to the presidency.
Thanks to all of the candidates and activists who have spoken with me over the past year or so. Congratulations to Reps. John Benson, Sandra Peterson, Debra Hilstrom, Maria Ruud and David Bly on their reelections. To Steve Sarvi, Nick Thomley, Kim Kang, Grace Baltich, Jerry Pitzrick, Clint Faust, Lee Carlson, Joan Molenaar and John Branstad--thanks for fighting the good fight. Congratulations to Bobby Joe Champion and Paul Rosenthal. Thanks to the MNIP people for letting me attend your events. And thanks also to David Dillon, a perennial favorite of this blog.
Thanks also to the other bloggers and journalists who've been covering Campaign 2008. As I've long been intoning: This election may well rank among the dozen most important elections of your lifetime--particularly if you're a smoker.
Big ups to my readers. And good wishes to all of you Republicans out there, including that St. Olaf grad I've been excoriating for so long.
As I write, Al Franken is down by less than half a point with 80% reporting; Ashwin Madia is down almost 5% with 71.5% in. So it appears we significantly underperformed expectations.
