By Mark Fischenich

Former Democratic Congressman Tim Penny of Waseca put his mouth where his money is Monday, telling the media gathered in Denver for the Democratic National Convention that Republican Sen. John McCain is his choice in the presidential election.

It’s not a surprise that Penny, now a member of the Independence Party, prefers McCain. He’s donated $2,300 to the Arizona senator in the past 14 months, an amount unmatched by most of the Mankato-area’s traditional Republican donors.

Penny, in a telephone interview from Denver, said his support for McCain goes back to 1982 when both were rookie members of the U.S. House. They were later co-chairmen of the Congressional Porkbuster Coalition. And Penny said he continued to be impressed by McCain’s work in the Senate in the years after he retired to Waseca in 1995.

“I’ve known him a long time,” Penny said. “I trust him and really appreciate his maverick style.”

Penny, a consultant for the public relations firm Himle-Horner and president of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, said he believes McCain has a unique record of working across party lines to tackle excessive congressional spending and a host of other difficult problems facing the country. But he said he would be unlikely to involve himself in presidential politics without his experience working with McCain.

“I certainly am not looking for opportunities to get caught up in politics right now,” he said. “... Absent that personal connection, I’d probably be laying pretty low this year.”

Penny said he told McCain several years ago he’d be willing to help if his former colleague decided to make a second run for the presidency. The request came with the organization of the Denver event, which included other former Democrats supporting McCain. By Monday afternoon, Penny was preparing to fly back to Minnesota.

Barack Obama offers voters “many fine qualities” but not the proven record of willingness to work with the opposing party on solutions to long-standing problems, according to Penny, who pointed to campaign finance reform, normalization of relations with Vietnam, breaking the Senate impasse on judicial appointments and several others.

“Those are significant issues and you can rattle off a long list of those issues at a moment’s notice,” he said.

While Penny has been out of office for 14 years, he was an unusually popular politician in southern Minnesota, and the Minnesota DFL declined to respond in any way to his endorsement of McCain Monday afternoon.

He became the first Democrat of the 20th century to represent the 1st District when he upset Republican incumbent Tom Hagedorn and regularly won overwhelming re-election victories until deciding he’d had enough of Washington in 1994.

A supporter of Independence Party Gov. Jesse Ventura, he later switched to that party and made an unsuccessful run in 2002 as the IP gubernatorial candidate.