<\/a>
\nOne 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.<\/p>\n

Included in this motley crew was Robert Fitzgerald, who was a student of mine as an undergrad here at UMM<\/a>. Now, several years later, he’s running for U.S. senate<\/a> as an independent here in Minnesota, and was back in town for the parade.<\/p>\n

He’s got that politician’s smile down, doesn’t he?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Here he’s working the crowd, and actually talking about policy issues, which I didn’t hear any<\/em> 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<\/em> useful information.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/em> than 90-muchly-percent of the politicians currently in D.C. He was an exec at our student radio station<\/a>, 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<\/a> would certainly be a change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Robert Fitzgerald, candidate for U.S. Senate in Minnesota”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13,3],"tags":[865],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","category-politics","category-radio","tag-politics"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-5P","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/04\/24\/doomtree-rocked-hard-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":361,"position":0},"title":"Doomtree rocked hard! (again)","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"24 Apr 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Just got back from KUMM's Tower Awareness Concert (aka March Music Madness, but in late April because of scheduling difficulties) and it was another great KUMM show. Or at least the part that I saw was great. I got there late (lots of reasons) and ended up missing the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":748,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/12\/13\/748\/","url_meta":{"origin":361,"position":1},"title":"A wondrously deafening silence","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"13 Dec 07","format":false,"excerpt":"From the Center for Democracy and Technology: The House today approved, by unanimous voice vote, legislation that permanently prevents consumer's phone numbers from being automatically removed from the FTC's \"Do Not Call\" list. Without the legislation, those numbers would be scrubbed from the list after five years. CDT supports the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":939,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2009\/03\/06\/twin-cities-folks-poetry-out-loud-state-finals-on-monday\/","url_meta":{"origin":361,"position":2},"title":"Twin Cities folks: Poetry Out Loud state finals on Monday!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"6 Mar 09","format":false,"excerpt":"In a bit of shameless promotion for our remarkable offspring, I'm putting in a plug for the Minnesota state finals of the national Poetry Out Loud competition. The finals will be Monday, 9 March, at 9:30am in St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater, and are free and open to the public. The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1213,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2010\/02\/20\/thomas-is-heading-to-the-minnesota-state-finals-for-poetry-out-loud\/","url_meta":{"origin":361,"position":3},"title":"Thomas is heading to the Minnesota state finals for Poetry Out Loud!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"20 Feb 10","format":false,"excerpt":"Thomas McPhee placed first at the 2010 Poetry Out Loud Lake Regional in Fergus Falls, and will go on to the state finals in the Fitzgerald Theater on Monday, 8 March 2010. This is the fourth straight year that at least one student from the Morris Area High School has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Award ceremony at the 2010 Poetry Out Loud regional, Fergus Falls, MN","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2749\/4374177624_0e8a8a6209.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1614,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2012\/10\/26\/how-do-we-wish-to-be-remembered\/","url_meta":{"origin":361,"position":4},"title":"How do we wish to be remembered?","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"26 Oct 12","format":false,"excerpt":"Vote \"No\" on both the marriage and voter ID amendments in Minnesota in the upcoming election.","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8468\/8126649743_da6d5271c9_b.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":589,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/06\/25\/heres-hoping-they-have-second-thoughts\/","url_meta":{"origin":361,"position":5},"title":"Here’s hoping they have second thoughts","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"25 Jun 07","format":false,"excerpt":"This was one of the first things we saw when we flew to Alaska last July, and I must say that it was sad and depressing to see their airport named after Ted \"Internet = tubes but not trucks\" Stevens. Unfortunately clear and public demonstrations of gross ignorance of material\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}