Ellison: Do you mind if we change the subject?

Posted at 1:02 PM on July 7, 2006 by Tom Scheck (4 Comments)

Keith Ellison filed for office today and announced he was going to hold a series of town hall meetings to focus on health care. Ellison, the DFL endorsed candidate in Minnesota's Fifth Congressional District, has been battling some campaign problems in recent weeks. He's been criticized for his relationship in the mid 1990s with members of the Nation of Islam and had his driver's license suspended because of unpaid parking tickets. Ellison said conservative Republicans and others were criticizing him because they disagree with this politics.

This is what he said:
"I am the progressive in the race. I know people who are right wing conservatives don't like some of the ideas that I'm talking about, and maybe some conservative democrats are threatened to, but the fact is that this is a campaign to put forward a progressive agenda that looks at the average working person."

Comments (4)

I think his campaign problems run deeper than your oversimplified statement, "He's been criticized for his relationship in the mid 1990s with members of the Nation of Islam and had his driver's license suspended because of unpaid parking tickets." I hope MPR can report on the wide-ranging problems of Mr. Ellison.

Posted by Mollie G | July 7, 2006 2:00 PM

Molly: We have reported on Ellison.

Here's the link...

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/06/22/ellisonprofile/

I didn't link to it because I was in a rush to cover something else. I'll link to the story now.

Posted by Tom Scheck | July 7, 2006 2:03 PM

Thanks for the link Tom. Now it would be interesting to hear about his policy positions. In what ways is he progressive?

Posted by bsimon | July 7, 2006 3:36 PM

I agree with bsimon. It would be interesting to hear about his policy positions for a change.

I live in 58a, just north of the district Keith was representing. I know some of his positions because unlike my own representative, Keith was always sure to personally respond to my question or comment, usually within days. I didn't always agree with Keith, but he always told me what he thought.

If my own representative had been so forthright and respectful of his obligation to his consitutents, I wouldn't be challenging him as a liberal independent this year.

Posted by Justin | July 9, 2006 6:57 PM

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