Future Senator Mark Kennedy

Congressman Mark Kennedy came to speak at my place of employment this morning. He gave a short speech and then answered questions from a crowd of about 50. I was impressed with Kennedy and agreed with him on basically all his points of view. I also thought he had a great personal story - growing up in a a rural setting, attending St Johns and receiving and MBA at Michigan and later succeeding in business. He will be able to relate to a lot of differnet people around the state. In contrast, his probable opponent, Amy Klobuchar, Graduated from Minneapolis Suburban schools, attended Yale and Harvard (graduating at the top of her class), and is an attorney. I imagine it will be difficult for Klobachar to relate to rural Minnesota. Further, Klobachar will need to start explaining why crime has taken big jumps during her tenure as Hennepin County Attorney. In fact, the FBI just reported that Minneapolis had one of the largest increases in violent crimes for any city in the country.

Interestingly, most past Minnesota Senators do not have ivy league backgrounds:

Wellstone (UNC)

Dean Barkley (UofM)

Grams (Anoka Jr College/Carrol College)

Dayton (Yale)
Coleman (Hofstra/Iowa Law)
Durenburger (St. Johns/UofM Law)
Boschwitz (NYU)
Mondale (UofM)
Anderson (UofM)
Humphrey (UofM)
McCarthy (St. Johns/UofM)

Because Dayton is a weird anomaly and doesn't really count, it is safe to say that only Boschwitz meets that definition by attending NYU (although Boschwitz grew up in New York).

Check out Kennedy vs. The Machine for day by day blogging about Kennedy and the race.