Friday night Brad Carlson and I did a  special NARN broadcast at the Washington County Fair in Lake Elmo.

I took a bunch of pictures – so to help keep the blog loading fast, I’m going to put the story below the jump.

As I was driving out there, though, I thought this was a great metaphor for both the challenge at hand and the DFL’s one-party rule in Saint Paul (and the stakes facing all the people in WashCo that have been sucked into the Fourth CD):

It’s a vacant storefront on Arcade Street, covered with DFL posters, like the carcass of an animal that died of a fly-borne illness, covered in flies.

I don’t think that business owner is better off than they were four years ago.

Anyway – Brad and I had a great time at the fair.  I always love going to places with actual two-party government.  Especially corners that are heavily GOP.  Great example; Karin Housley’s booth is kitty corner from the DFL’s.

At Karin’s booth:

Vibrancy. Optimism.  Life.

At the DFL booth:

Vacancy.  Death.  Nothingness.

It was a day full of metaphors.

Anyway, we met lots of cool candidates:

Tony Hernandez stopped by,

as did Karin Housley, running in the SD39 prmary (aaagh, no pictures came through!), and Stacey Stout, who’s running in HD43A.

Eric Langness, who’s also running for the SD39 primary nod, came by…

as did current 43B representative Kathy Lohmer.

These live remotes are always fun.  And of course, they get us warmed up for the big show, our annual run of State Fair broadcasts, which start in (yulp) a couple of weeks here.

Stay tuned!