The Young Turks

To begin with: John McCain isn't doing very well in Minnesota. He didn't even carry the state during the primary season. The Minnesota Republican Party caucus took place on Super-Duper-Mega-Giga-Hyper Tuesday - or February 5th. Here's the numbers from that showing:

Mitt Romney 41% John McCain 22% Mike Huckabee 20% Ron Paul 16% Alan Keyes 0,5%

Why Mitt Romney chose to drop out just a couple of days after winning the G.O.P. R.N.C. S.T.A.T.E. on Super Tuesday was a shocker. But I guess Mittens had a couple of other things on his mind. Anyhow, back to McCain - who lost the Minnesota caucus with almost half the votes of Willard. But will certainly take center stage to officially accept the Republican presidential nomination. Except that there will probably not be a lot of genuine local cheers for Sidney Vicious.

I think the big cheers will come for two Republicans in the Minnesota area that have the lights on them right now: First off, Governor Tim Pawlenty. Mentioned as a possible VP candidate for McCain, and I would be a little surprised if they tried some of the local cuisine and picked Pawlenty for Veep. While it would certainly give Minnesota Republicans something to cheer about, SurveyUSA polls show that Tim is not doing too well if he should be McCain's VP. So that's why I would like to see him at that position. :-)

Next person: Norm Coleman. Norm's seat in the Senate is being challenged, as the Democrats are going for 60 Senate seats to bring a little something called "cloture" to the table. The Democrats currently have two candidates that want to challenge Norm - peace activist Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer and former AAR host Al Franken. Norm will hope that an appearance at the RNC will boost his popularity before the Senate election that is being held on Election Day. And as I said before: The Democrats are aiming for 60 seats in the Senate.
Norm's seat might be one of them.

How will Minnesota go in the general election? Blue. Minnesota have voted Democratic after the soon-to-be-impeached Richard Nixon won there in 1972. Minnesota was also the only state (alongside District of Columbia) to vote Democratic in Nineteen Eighty-Four. And I can't really see how Minnesota will vote Republican this year. Especially when you compare the McCain speech in Louisiana with the Barack Obama speech at the Xcel Energy Center - where the Republican Convention will be held. Wouldn't be surprised if McCain goes Danny Glover on us and says "I'm too old for this shit."