While there appears to have been a tangible wave of change in the United States Congress and in many state legislative offices across this country and here in Minnesota, Eden Prairie’s slate of state and federal leaders stayed largely intact.
Eden Prairie’s three incumbent state legislators were all reelected. Incumbent State Senator for state legislative district 42 David Hann won reelection in a tough, but civil, campaign with DFL challenger Carol Bomben. In Minnesota House district 42-A, incumbent DFL’er Maria Ruud defeated Republican Bill Cullen to retain her seat. In House district 42-B, incumbent Republican, and House Majority leader, Erik Paulsen won his seat again by a comfortable margin over first-time DFL candidate Rob Boyd. No word yet from Rep. Paulsen’s office if he will assume a minority party leadership role in the House when the new session convenes next year.
The Third U.S. Congressional District of Minnesota stayed soundly in the hands of incumbent Republican congressman Jim Ramstad on election day. Ramstad defeated DFL challenger Wendy Wilde by a better than 2-1 margin. Congressman Ramstad has been a good partner for our city in the U.S. Congress. He will now be a member of the minority party in the House. Congressman Ramstad has a solid history of bipartisanship while a member of the majority party, so I think he’ll still be an effective voice for us in Washington DC.
In other unrelated election news, there is a story in today’s Des Moines Register that Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack is planning to announce his candidacy for the Presidency later this month in his hometown of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. I know this story is unrelated to 99% of the people that read this blog, but it is related to me. Tom got his start in politics as the Mayor of Mt. Pleasant in the late 1980’s. He assumed the position of Mayor after his immediate predecessor, former Mayor Edd King, was murdered during a City Council meeting in the Mt. Pleasant Council Chambers by a very disgruntled citizen named Ralph Davis. In addition to murdering the Mayor that night, Davis also shot two City Councilmembers, severely wounding them and changing their lives forever.
Davis probably didn’t know it, but he changed Mt. Pleasant’s politics forever as well. There wasn’t much civic interest in assuming the role of Mayor in a town where the immediate past holder of that office took three bullets to the head during a City Council meeting. Imagine that for a moment. But Tom Vilsack agreed to step up to the challenge. When Tom agreed to assume the Mayor’s office after this tragedy, he established the City’s first professional City Administrator position, and then he hired me to fill it. I worked for then-Mayor Vilsack from 1990-1992 when he left office to pursue a position in the Iowa State Senate, which eventually led him to be elected to two terms as the Governor of Iowa. He will complete his second term this December. He did not seek reelection to a third term in this year’s election. Now he’s running for President.
I haven’t personally known anyone who has run for President, so I am not any kind of authority on the leadership skills it takes to hold that office. From my experience in working for Tom Vilsack, however, I think he could do it. But as they say in Iowa, it’s a long row to hoe.
