The below is a contestant in the “Write Lori Sturdevant’s Next Column” contest, written by “Mr D”.   Vote above.

The Republicans were on a 3-day ideological bender at the Convention Center this weekend, so it was perhaps appropriate that they selected a 2-time DWI offender, Tom Emmer, to carry their unsteady banner against the DFL-endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher. In their Tea Party-fueled fervor, it seemed that the GOP lost sight of the optics of nominating a twice-convicted drunk driver in the immediate aftermath of tragedies on Minnesota highways only the week before.