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On Friday the first day of our nation’s 250th year of existence I opened an email from one of several local groups tied in with the resistance to Donald Trump’s plowing under of our nation’s ethics, norms, history and fairness as a false friend of true fairness.
The email from Zenith City Mobilization included this link: Thu, Jan 15 @ 6:30pm · Zenith City Indivisible
MN Congressional District 8 Candidate Forum ›
This link took me to a page with this explanation of the meeting announced at Denfeld High School on January 15th:
About this event
The community is invited to meet candidates who are running for Minnesota’s Congressional District 8. The candidates will introduce themselves and respond to questions from participants at the forum.
Emanuel Anastos, Cyle Cramer, John-Paul McBride and Trina Swanson have confirmed their attendance. Incumbent Rep. Stauber has been invited. Come with your questions!
The following groups are proud to sponsor this event: Zenith City Indivisible-Duluth, MN NE DFL Senior Caucus, Duluth 50501 and area Indivisible partners.
Being unfamiliar with any of the mentioned candidates I couldn’t help noticing my names absence. I signed up to attend the meeting and then found a contact for questions. I sent them this email message:
On Fri, Jan 2, 2026, 7:40?AM harrywelty
I have been on the 8th District ballot six previous times. It’s likely I will be again. I will be in the audience. Perhaps that’s the wrong place for me.
Harry Welty
This is the response that was returned to me the next day Saturday January 2nd.
Good morning Harry, and thank you for your email. Our Candidate Forum planning team has invited individuals who have publicly announced their candidacy for CD8. Do you intend to be a candidate in CD 8?
and I replied:
********.
As I said, I am a likely candidate. If I appeared on Jan 15 and fell flat on my face it would discourage me. I don’t expect that to happen. I think you can take that as a yes for my candidacy. In fact, your putting a non-partisan candidate show on so early gives me more reason to start a campaign than has been possible in my previous filings.
So yes. I am a candidate.
Do you have any instructions for me as to my appearance?
Harry
That was me deciding for certain to be a congressional candidate for the seventh time. I decided between writing the first sentence and writing “So yes. I am a candidate.”
This had two salutary effects. First, I suddenly had a very strong compulsion to finally write a column for the Duluth Reader after hanging it up to run for the Republican Congressional primary in June of last year. I wrote and submitted it. I hope I got it in by the deadline. Second, I looked in my office storage rooms for materials that I would use to start my campaign. I have a lot of them and it could be hard not to be enthusiastic about my campaign if getting someone other than Pete Stauber was your top priority. I will make that case to the crowd on January 15th if I’m given a chance to make it. This is the last email sent to me. It certainly was no guarantee that I would be given a seat at the table:
Hi Harry,
I will provide your candidacy information to our Forum planning committee and get back to you as soon as possible.
Regards, ********
