THE MINNESOTA HEALTH PLAN

Date: Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
Time: 7:00-9:00 PM
Location: Burnsville Civic Center, Burnsville, MN (Get directions.)

Hosted by Sen. John Doll, with special guests: Sen. John Marty, Sen. Jim Carlson, Sen. Mary Olson, Rep. David Bly, Rep. Sandra Masin, the congressional and senate district chairs, and more!

Speakers:

• Senator John Marty - The Minnesota Health Plan (SF118/HF135)


• Dr. James Letts of PNHP-MN - Why doctors prefer the MN Health Plan


• Nancy Breymeier of MetroIBA - How the MN Health Plan would help businesses


• Senator Sharon Erickson Ropes - Why Canadians prefer their health care

Panel discussion: Kip Sullivan, Dr. James Letts, Sen. John Marty, Nancy Breymeier

For more information, contact Ellen Lafans at 651-688-7049.

Rep. Cantor

Karl Rove's Election Map

The Chronicle endorses Barack Obama for president and of the United States

The Chronicle endorses Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for president of the United States.

Rarely in our country's history has the electorate gone to the polls to choose a new president in such challenging times with more at stake for the nation.

The economy is tottering under the strains of a global financial crisis unleashed by the unregulated excesses of U.S. lending institutions. American soldiers continue to fight and die in two separate conflicts that remain open-ended.

At home affordable health care is unavailable to millions of citizens while measures to achieve energy independence and combat global warming sit on the legislative back burner. Fear pervades so many households under the threat of unemployment and mortgage foreclosures.

One must go back to the Great Depression, and the reshaping of American domestic policy to vanquish it, to find a comparable era when the demands for change were so urgent.

The incoming administration must immediately focus and engage on so many fronts. The tasks at hand will require stamina, creativity and leadership abilities to replace partisan gridlock with a national consensus on what is best for the American people. The new leadership team must have the intellect and temperament to tackle complex issues with equally sophisticated solutions. The current go-it-alone mentality in the White House on foreign policy must give way to an effort to work in concert with our allies while engaging our enemies at the negotiating table as well as on the battlefield.

After carefully observing the Democratic and Republican nominees in drawn-out primary struggles as well as in the general campaign, including three debates, the Chronicle strongly believes that the ticket of Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden offers the best choice to lead the United States on a new course into the second decade of the 21st century.

Obama appears to possess the tools to confront our myriad and daunting problems. He's thoughtful and analytical. He has met his opponents' attacks with calm and reasoned responses. Viewers of the debates saw a poised, well-prepared plausible president with well-articulated positions on the bread-and-butter issues that poll after poll indicate are the true concerns of voters. While Arizona Sen. John McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have struck an increasingly personal and negative tone in their speeches, Obama has continued to talk about issues of substance.

It is true that Obama has served less than a term in the U.S. Senate and that his previous elective experience is confined to the Illinois Legislature. However, during that public service and his previous role as a community organizer on the streets of Chicago, he has developed an appreciation and understanding of the real-life concerns of middle- and low-income Americans.

On the Iraq war, Obama was an early voice of opposition to the initial invasion and his plan for a phased withdrawal of combat forces has been embraced by American and Iraqi policymakers. His partner on the ticket, Biden, is one of the leading foreign policy experts in Congress. They pledge to rebuild America's diminished standing in the world and restore our reputation as the leading defender of democracy and human rights.

Obama's health care plan mandates health insurance for all American children, an issue of vital importance to Harris County and Houston, which has the highest rate of uninsured youngsters in the nation. By contrast, the proposal by McCain to offer a tax credit to Americans to purchase insurance while taxing health benefits for the first time will further discourage small business owners from providing employee health insurance.

One weakness Obama has shown is a tendency to demonize the energy industry, which will be an indispensable ally in developing alternative fuel sources in the future. He would do well to rethink some of his positions and apply his consensus-building skills to an essential bulwark of the Texas economy. On another issue of vital importance to the Houston area, Obama supports the U.S. space program and has wisely backed off an earlier proposal to delay NASA's moon and Mars missions to save money.

McCain has an illustrious record of service to America, first as a pilot taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese, and then with a distinguished Senate career. To his credit, he has broken with his own party in the past to fight for campaign reform, oppose the sanctioning of torture and acknowledge the threat of human-induced global warming. However, in his bid for the presidency, he has aligned himself with a more conservative political base and disappointed moderates.

Perhaps the worst mistake McCain made in his campaign for the White House was the choice of the inexperienced and inflammatory Palin as his vice-presidential running mate. Had he selected a moderate, experienced Republican lawmaker such as Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison with a strong appeal to independents, the Chronicle's choice for an endorsement would have been far more difficult.

In comments to the Chronicle editorial board during his Texas primary fight against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama explained why he believed he would be the best choice for president.

"More than any other candidate, I could bridge some of the partisan, racial and religious divides in this country that prevent us from getting things done," said Obama. "I believe that I could attract independents and some disillusioned Republicans into a working majority to bring about change on critical issues."

Back in the spring, Obama's sentiments seemed more a hope than reality. Since then, we have watched him grow in the roles of candidate and leader, maintaining grace under fire without resorting to political expediency. He is by far the best choice to deliver the changes that Americans demand.

Obama on the Economic Meltdown

Its Joe

August 24, 2008
Obama Chooses Biden as Running Mate
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama has chosen Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware to be his running-mate, turning to a leading authority on foreign policy and a longtime Washington hand to fill out the Democratic ticket, people told of the decision said.

Mr. Obama’s selection ended a two-month search that was conducted almost entirely in secret. It reflected a critical strategic choice by Mr. Obama: To go with a running-mate who could reassure voters about gaps in his resume, rather than to pick someone who could deliver a state or reinforce Mr. Obama’s message of change.

Mr. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq — Mr. Obama opposed it from the start — Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President Bush’s policies in Iraq.

The selection was disclosed as Mr. Obama moves into a critical part of his campaign, preparing for the party’s four-day convention in Denver starting on Monday. Mr. Obama’s aides viewed the introduction of his vice presidential choice– including an afternoon rally Saturday at the old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill., the same place where Mr. Obama announced his candidacy on a freezing winter morning almost two years ago, and a tour of swing states – as the beginning of a week-long stretch in which Mr. Obama hopes to dominate the stage and position himself for the fall campaign.

Word of Mr. Obama’s decision leaked out hours before his campaign was scheduled to inform supporters via text and e-mail messages, and hours after informing two other top contenders for the vice presidential nomination – Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia – that they had not been chosen.

As the selection process moved to an end, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who Mr. Obama had defeated in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, had slipped out of contention -- to the degree that Mr. Obama had ever seriously considered her.

Mr. Biden is Roman Catholic, giving him appeal to that important voting bloc, though he favors abortion rights. He was born in a working class family in Scranton, Pa., a swing state where he remains well-known. Mr. Biden is up for re-election to the Senate this year and he would presumably run simultaneously for both seats.

Mr. Biden is known for being both talkative and prone to making the kind of statements that get him in trouble. In 2007, when he was competing for Mr. Obama for the presidential nomination, he declared that Mr. Obama was “not yet ready” for the presidency, a line certain to show up in Republican attack ads.

Although Mr. Biden is not exactly a household name, he is probably the best known of all the Democrats who were in contention for the spot, given his political and personal history (not to mention his regular appearances on the Sunday morning television news shows.) He first ran for the Senate from Delaware when he was just 29 years old.

Mr. Biden has run twice for the presidency himself, once in 1988 and again in 2008, dropping out early in both cases. He was also the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during two of the most contentious Supreme Court nomination battles of the past 50 years: the confirmation proceedings for Robert H. Bork, who was defeated, and Clarence Thomas, who was confirmed after an explosive hearing in which Anita Hill accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment. Mr. Biden led the opposition to both nominations, though he came under criticism from some feminists for not immediately disclosing what were at first Ms. Hill’s closed-door accusations against Mr. Thomas.

Mr. Obama’s choice of Mr. Biden suggested some of the weaknesses the Obama campaign is trying to address at a time when at a time when national polls suggest that his race with Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is tightening. Chief among Mr. Biden’s strengths is his familiarity with foreign policy and national security issues, highlighted just this past weekend with the invitation he received from the embattled president of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, to visit Georgia in the midst of its tense faceoff with Russia. From the moment he dropped out of the presidential race, he had been mentioned as a potential Secretary of State should either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton win the election.

He is also something of a fixture in Washington, and would bring to the campaign – and the White House – a familiarity with the way the city and Congress works that Mr. Obama can not match after his relatively short stint in Washington.

At 65 years old, he adds a few years and gray hair to a ticket that otherwise might seem a bit young (Mr. Obama is 47). He is, as Mr. Obama’s advisers were quick to argue, someone who appears by every measure prepared to take over as president, setting a standard that appears intended to at least somewhat hamstring Mr. McCain should he be tempted to go for a more adventurous choice for No. 2. He has a long history of making statements that get him in trouble. He was forced to apologize to Mr. Obama almost the moment he entered the race for president after he was quoted as describing Mr. Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” a remark that drew criticism for being racially insensitive. While campaigning in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden said that ”you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”

Mr. Biden quit the presidential race this year after a barely making a mark; he came in fifth place in Iowa. He was forced to quit the 1988 presidential race in the face of accusations that he had plagiarized part of a speech from a Neil Kinnock, the British Labor Party leader. Shortly afterward, he was found to have suffered two aneurysms.

He is also, at least arguably, a Washington insider, having worked there for so long, though he still commutes home to Wilmington every night by train.

The choice by Mr. Obama in some ways mirrors the choice by Mr. Bush of Dick Cheney as his running mate in 2000; at 65, it appears unlikely that Mr. Biden would be in a position to run for president, should Mr. Obama win and serve two terms. Shorn of any remaining ambition to run for president on his own, he could find himself in a less complex political relationship with Mr. Obama than most vice president have with their presidents.

Mr. Biden was born in Scranton, , grew up in the suburbs of Wilmington, Del., and went to Syracuse Law School. He also was, as a young man, in the center of a gripping family drama: barely a month after he was elected to the Senate, his wife and their three children were in a car accident with a drunken driver resulted in the death of his wife and daughter. His two sons survived and Mr. Biden remarried five years later.

Carl Hulse and Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.



Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company