{"id":10343,"date":"2010-04-27T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T17:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=10343"},"modified":"2010-04-27T10:22:51","modified_gmt":"2010-04-27T15:22:51","slug":"its-contest-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=10343","title":{"rendered":"It’s Contest Time!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to predict Lori “Unofficial DFL PR Flak” Sturdevant’s Sunday column<\/a>; it was a gauzy, florid paeon to Margaret Anderson-Kelliher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I come not to bury Sturdevant’s column – which was a howler…:<\/p>\n

Before the balloting started, [Former state auditor, governor candidate, endorsed Lieutenant-Governor 2006 candidate,\u00a0and former fair-weather Republican Judi] Dutcher and [former state Senator and\u00a0two-time\u00a0goober candidate\u00a0Becky] Lourey, both now private citizens, predicted that this year would be different — not because it was finally a woman’s turn, but because of Kelliher’s other qualities.<\/p>\n

“Margaret is such a candidate in her own right. She is so qualified for this job,” Dutcher exuded.<\/p>\n

Lourey added: “There’s an energy here to endorse the person who can win in the general election. That’s Margaret, because of her communication skills.” Not her gender.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and I certainly don’t come to praise this vapid group hug:<\/p>\n

…A ripple of feminist pride added emotional punch to her victory celebration, revved up by Kelliher’s call, “DFLers, are you ready to make history?”<\/p>\n

But there was no sense at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center that an upstart girl had defeated the good ol’ boys….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0Noooooo!\u00a0 Not a bit!…<\/p>\n

She won’t be another guy in a gray suit. She’ll stand out, and compel voters to take a closer look.<\/p>\n

Former Secretary of State Joan Growe…said Kelliher’s bid to make history should bring her primary and general election support from “Republican women, or former Republican women, and independents…Older women particularly might be drawn to the chance to elect the state’s first female governor… 79-year-old St. Paul delegate Joan Wittman confessed, “It would be a dream to me to elect a woman governor. I’d like to see it in my lifetime.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The scary part was, though, that I pretty much wrote Sturdevant’s column in my head on Saturday night after I got the word of Kelliher’s nomination.<\/p>\n

I could have practically published the whole thing<\/em>, thought for thought if not word for word!<\/p>\n

I knew<\/em>, after decades of reading Sturdevant’s bald-faced mash notes to the DFL, that there’d be some combination of…:<\/p>\n