One of the recurring features of small town summer parades in the mid-west is politics, and yesterday’s Prairie Pioneer Days parade here in Morris must have had 8-10 different politicians ranging from the local sherriff up to candidates for U.S. Senate.
Included in this motley crew was Robert Fitzgerald, who was a student of mine as an undergrad here at UMM. Now, several years later, he’s running for U.S. senate as an independent here in Minnesota, and was back in town for the parade.
He’s got that politician’s smile down, doesn’t he?
Here he’s working the crowd, and actually talking about policy issues, which I didn’t hear any of the other candidates do. Klobuchar’s people at least passed out a little card with her key policy points on it, but everyone else just passed out stickers and candy and carefully avoiding conveying any useful information.
Perhaps following in the footsteps of a previous senator from Minnesota, he’s gone for the big, brightly colored campaign bus, which definitely was an eye-catcher in the parade. It would have helped its effectiveness if that bus had been full of supporters (or at least not empty), but such is life.
No idea if I’ll vote for him in November – I just haven’t done the level of homework necessary to make that sort of decision. I can certainly say, though, that he’s vastly cooler than 90-muchly-percent of the politicians currently in D.C. He was an exec at our student radio station, and still comes back to concerts that the station sponsors once or twice a year. Having someone in Washington that understands technological issues and digs Heiruspecs would certainly be a change.
