Herding cats - special campaign edition

Posted at 9:26 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

It's always been a challenge for us here at MPR to give any real coverage to legislative races. Consequently, in all honesty, we don't. We might do a piece a week before the election on some key races, and that's about it. I've never been able to come up with a solution to the problem since, it's been my position, that you're more likely to be affected by the Legislature than any of the other races that we cover.

But I get why we can't do much more than tell you who's running in each district (which is the next component to get added to Campaign 2006). That's a lot of people for 2 or 3 political reporters to cover.

Thus, my long-winded -- and overdue -- acknowledgement to the great work that Minntelect does updating the status of these races. I wish I had the ability.

I am interested in the comments on the Northfield area races for I was thinking about this while watching the stadium debate on Tuesday.

A year ago, mostly on the MPR Forum (which I don't visit much anymore since Polinaut started, but will again after Election Day when Polinaut vanishes), I said that Rep. Ray Cox was the most impressive legislator of the last session, and really found a voice for himself when the Republicans and, separately, DFLers, as a group only had one.

This session I have not seen him use that voice in floor debates as I have in the past. Why? Beats me. Maybe it's still early.

He's in a re-election battle with David Bly. He beat Bly by about 44 votes in '02, and won a not-as-close election in '04.

Anyway, that'll be an interesting race.

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