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October 18, 2004
The view from Minnesota
By Arvonne Fraser

Elmer L. Andersen, progressive Republican governor of Minnesota from 1961-63 and a businessman, wrote a scathing indictment of the Bush administration in an October 13 Minneapolis Star Tribune op-ed. He wrote that it “dismays me...to have to publicly disagree with the national Republican agenda and the national Republican candidate but, this year, I must. The two ‘Say No to Bush’ signs in my yard say it all.”

Andersen called Bush’s ducking of military serve during the Vietnam war and then disparaging Kerry’s brave service “a travesty” and pointed out that in the presidential debates Kerry “has shown himself to be of far superior intellect and character…his ethics are unimpeachable.”

Andersen also reminded readers that in his era liberal Republicans had a “humane and reasonable platform,” and “advocated the importance of higher education, health care for all, programs for children at risk, energy conservation and environmental protection.

The governor’s most telling statement was that he feared for our nation more than he ever had because “this country is in the hands of an evil
man: Dick Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is he who is running the country, not George W. Bush.”

A recent Minnesota Poll, taken Oct. 9-11, gives Kerry 48 percent, Bush, 43 percent and Nader 2 percent. In another development, Minnesota Republicans were preparing a lawsuit before the state Supreme Court alleging that three counties did not have an even distribution of election judges. Minneapolis, they charged, had 335 Republican judges and 658 Democratic judges while Olmsted County in southern Minnesota had a preponderance of Republicans. An extremely heavy
turnout is expected.




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