With apologies to the Chordettes – Bum bum bum …

…bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum

Mr. Sandman
Are you a bad dream?
Knock off a Congressman
to elect one who’s Mean.
Who’ll work for corporatists
rolling in clover
Destroying life on Earth till it’s-all-over?

I see in the Trib that Skip Sandman, who ran for Congress in 2014 is throwing his hat in the Congressional race again for 2018. He got 4% of the vote the first time as a candidate for the Green Party. If he got that many in 2018 he might be able to snatch victory away from a Democratic candidate. Nolan only beat Mills in 2016 by a scant 2 percent.

Such considerations don’t much trouble third party candidates like George Wallace, who helped elect Richard Nixon, or Ralph Nader, who did in Al Gore, and I should know! They didn’t bother me. I ran for the same seat in Congress that Skip is after in both 1992 and 2006 as a third party choice. In the first race I did even better than Skip’s 4% winning 7% of the vote:

James L. Oberstar, Democratic-Farmer-Labor 167,104
Phil Herwig, Independent-Republican 83,823
Harry Robb Welty, Perot Choice 22,619
Floyd A. Henspeter, Term Limits Candidate 8,602

I think Trump’s Ragnarök will provide a safe cushion for the incumbent Nolan but I’m not so sure how an unknown replacement for Nolan will affect the General election race a year from now. FUN FACT – Minnesota Populist politician Ignatius Donnelly penned a fairly popular novel by that name in the 1880’s.

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