Posted on 11/01/2006 12:53:09 PM PST by PghBaldy
VOTE 2006 5TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Democrat Keith Ellison is the favorite in a congressional race his party has won for four decades straight, but old baggage — including ties to the incendiary Nation of Islam — continues to weigh down his campaign.
With Election Day a week away, Independence Party candidate Tammy Lee and Republican Alan Fine are chipping away at the 5th District front-runner, drawing him into his past as he aims toward a future in Congress.
Fine, a conservative long shot in Minnesota's most liberal district, calls Ellison an "embarrassment," while Lee's jabs, though more restrained, are nonetheless becoming more frequent.
Lee, a 35-year-old travel company executive, and her backers say they see a late surge that could lead to an upset for the House seat, which includes Minneapolis and 12 suburbs. She portrays herself as a centrist who appeals to voters across party lines.
The Democratic mayors of Robbinsdale, Crystal and Columbia Heights endorse her, along with Hennepin County Sheriff Pat McGowan and Hennepin County Commissioner Linda Koblick, two prominent Republicans.
Fundraisers at Democratic and Republican homes are common for Lee, who plans a news conference today to put an exclamation point on that bipartisan support.
"If any of us had the personal record Keith Ellison has, we wouldn't be standing today,'' Lee said.
She has said she fears liberals are so eager to send the first black Minnesotan, and first Muslim politician, to Congress that they'll easily overlook Ellison's past indiscretions.
Ellison, 43, a state representative, has said his work for the Nation of Islam consisted of an 18-month drive to organize Minnesota's role in the 1995 Million Man March, a widely embraced effort to empower black men economically and socially.
Ellison's account has been extensively reported, but the assertion of an 18-month affiliation does not entirely sum up his relationship with the organization.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, as a law student at the University of Minnesota, Ellison was among those who brought speakers to campus who railed against Jews, Israel and often white Americans — attacks that had little to do with black empowerment.
That history causes hesitation among those who don't trust the explanation that Ellison's indiscretions were inadvertent consequences of an exuberant young black trying to improve the lives of other blacks.
Ellison apologized, in a letter to the Jewish Community Relations Council, for dismissing concerns that the campus speakers were spreading hate. He also has denounced Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has made inflammatory statements disparaging Jews and others.
In a recent interview, Ellison talked about a visit to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp where as many as 3 million civilian adults and children were murdered, most of them Jews.
"It made man's inhumanity to man real to me, and made clear that anti-Semitism can explode in horrific ways,'' Ellison said. "It's nothing we can ever let slip.''
Some Jewish Democratic activists rally around him, including Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, a Minneapolis couple who have led fundraising efforts for the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone. State Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, said she "can't believe Keith Ellison could ever have been an anti-Semite."
Ellison has support from Pennsylvanian John Murtha, a top U.S. House Democrat who has spoken out against the war in Iraq. Although the Green Party's Jay Pond is in the race, the Sierra Club endorses Ellison, who also has the backing of Planned Parenthood.
But with some party skeptics planning to vote for someone else, Ellison is not likely to come close to totals registered by retiring incumbent Martin Sabo, a Democrat who won 70 percent of the vote in 2004.
Sabo has not endorsed Ellison, and while not backing anyone else, he has allowed Lee to put a photo of Lee and Sabo on her Web site.
Meanwhile, Kathleen Anderson, Sabo's district director, publicly supports Lee, citing Ellison's "scofflaw attitude." She referred to incidences when Ellison, a lawyer, had his driver's license suspended for late payment of parking tickets and when he was fined for not filing state campaign finance reports on time.
Meanwhile, others focus on episodes from the late 1980s and early 1990s — examples that seem to belie Ellison's "18-month" claim.
"It's kind of a 'I didn't inhale' answer,'' said Minneapolis lawyer Marc Berg, who knew Ellison in law school. "He had something of an alignment with the Nation of Islam for much more than 18 months."
When Ellison's black law students' group intended to bring Kwame Ture, the former Black Panther Stokely Carmichael, to campus, some Jewish students met with Ellison and others to try to persuade them not to invite him.
"Who we invite is none of your business," Berg recalls Ellison saying.
In the speech, Ture accused Jews of collaborating with Nazis as prelude to establishing the state of Israel — an accusation that then-university President Nils Hasselmo called "deeply offensive."
Ellison had defended Farrakhan in two articles while in law school. He also appeared on stage with Khalid Abdul Muhammed, a former Farrakhan aide who, at different times, maligned Jews, Catholics and homosexuals.
But Minneapolis attorney Jordan Kushner, one of the Jewish law students at the time, said Berg and others seriously mistook Ellison.
"There were things he admired about the Nation of Islam, with the emphasis about black people having self-reliance, but it had nothing to do with anti-Semitism,'' said Kushner, an active Ellison supporter now.
"He understood the connection between racism and anti-Semitism,'' Kushner said. "I remember when a black law student said Jews did not have a history of oppression in Europe before the Holocaust, Keith gave him a history lecture on the oppression of Jews."
Another time, Ellison brought up "The Fixer,'' a Bernard Malamud novel in which a factory worker in early 20th-century Russia is erroneously charged, for no reason other than being Jewish, with killing a Christian child. "He compared that false accusal to the black experience,'' Kushner said.
Yet, Ellison is causing fresh concerns for some voters. He recently went to Florida to raise campaign funds at a party hosted by an official of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group accused by U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and others of alliances with terrorists. The council is running a TV commercial in Minnesota vigorously denying such ties.
Lee said she isn't buying it. "One political ad will not quell the controversy related to this group that has known ties to terrorists,'' she said.
What the public buys, and what it discards as partisan rhetoric, will be known next Tuesday night.
"the Sierra Club endorses Ellison, who also has the backing of Planned Parenthood. "
How can a Muslim accept the backing of Planned Parenthood, an organization that supports contraception and abortion?
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Meet the next Congressman from Minnesota's 5th district. I said months ago that he'd win and he will. I live in the 5th and I can attest to the fact that this district is thoroughly red - Marxist red. The RAT party here is positively insane. With the confluence of factors ranging from Minnesota's urban core, heavy academic center, media heart of the state and a long-time tradition of Scandanvian socialism, this district doesn't care if Ellison was an avowed AQ suicide bomber. He's going to Washington, folks.
I agree. I live in the 5th District too (11th Ward).
If we were gonna get rid of Ellison, the time to do it was back in September.
I even crossed over and voted in the DFL primary to try to keep Ellison out. I voted for Mike Erlandson.
Erlandson is an out and out liberal - but as Jason Lewis said "He's someone you can sit down and do business with".
Courtesy of a three-way split in the white vote, Ellison got his plurality - and the 5th District will be the worse for it.
And the Muslims will have their foot in the door.
Well, in some ways this won't be a bad thing. Number one, he'll probably be a lone token idiot among a sea of token idiots in the RAT enclave. Secondly, he'll drop his Sunday-go-to-meetin' demeanor and start in with the righteously indignant black man routine. He'll kill his chances for a second run and drive more of the remain sane out into the suburbs. All in all, he might actually invigorate the district and peel off more RAT's into the mushy middle where RINO's will scoop them up.
You can't be sure that he won't end up a career politician. Look at how stupid Teddy the floater is and Ketchup boy Kerry. They keep getting reelected.
http://www.tammyleeforcongress.com/
There is an alternative. She may be slightly leftist, but she's more mainstream than Ellison.
As a resident of the 5th district, I can't believe the number of green Ellison signs around. Just a sad example of un-
informed sheeple shoveling the party dung!
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