More than a dozen gubernatorial hopefuls on display in area

By Mark Fischenich

MANKATO — If they’d been so inclined, Mankato-area residents could have seen 15 of the 25 or so people running to be the next governor of Minnesota last week.

They could have seen the front-runners and the long-shots.

They could have seen a half-dozen Democrats and similar number of Republicans.

They could have seen the candidates who are slick as sleet and the ones who could put the Goober in gubernatorial.

Coverage in The Free Press last week focused on the four leading Republican candidates, who appeared at Minnesota State University on Thursday, and the seven Democrats who dominated the 11 candidate-forum at Gustavus Adolphus College on Monday.

But there were others:

Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole

Ole Savior of Minneapolis has been running for office for more than two decades in Minnesota, never very successfully. In 2010, he’s hoping to be the Democratic nominee for governor.

“I notice my other friends wear suits and ties, and I wear the Vikings’ colors,” said the purple-clad Savior at the beginning of his introductory remarks.

Savior promised to get the NFL team a new stadium, with the Vikings and the league covering half the cost and a casino at Canterbury Park doing the rest. He also told the St. Peter crowd that he chose Gustavus over a competing invitation from rival St. Olaf College.

There were some Gustie cheers until Savior said it was a strategic decision, not an indication that he preferred the St. Peter school.

“St. Olaf is known as the Oles,” he explained, “So I think I already have their votes.”

A man with a plan

Leslie Davis, running as a Republican, was one of the more charismatic candidates on display at Gustavus with his commanding voice and visual displays (a card with a dollar sign to help people remember “The Davis Money Plan” and a picture of unbalanced scales to signify his commitment to judicial reform).

Davis also offered the catchiest slogan: “I’m the man with the plan, and if I can’t do it nobody can.”

As for the plan, he encouraged people to check his Web site. We did, and the plan involves transferring gas tax revenue and other dedicated transportation revenue to the state’s general fund to eliminate the budget shortfall and to deal with future shortfalls by having the State Investment Board, um, purchase ... “Minnesota Budget bonds” and that will plug, um, any size budget hole ...

Anyway, roads and other transportation would then be financed by requiring “state-regulated-chartered banks to create new checkbook money for all transportation,” and, well, it’s all explained at www.lesliedavis.org.

Roess and Wright

Green Party candidate Peter Roess provided a wide variety of thoughts, much of it from a script.

Not all of it was easy to follow, but there seemed to be something about turning the Indian casinos in Minnesota into water parks.

One thing we learned: his name is pronounced “race” and he lists “my waistline” as his biggest campaign weakness.

Grassroots Party candidate Chris Wright generated some support from the Gustavus crowd with his call to end the war on drugs. Prohibition doesn’t work, the Edina man said, and the nation’s drug laws are “racist in origin and in practice.”

Rather than have a “gangster” distribution system for drugs, Wright would legalize and tax drugs with the revenue dedicated to schools and energy independence.

Wright added some Gopher State musical themes to his concluding comments — which were the forum’s final words because he was last in the alphabetical speaking order.

“We’ll shake up their windows and rattle their walls. The times they are a-changin’,” Wright intoned. “... Minnesota, Hail to Thee!. Hail to Thee!”