According to the latest Minnesota Poll just released today, Kerry is 12 points ahead of Bush statewide. The poll, conducted last week, showed Kerry leading Bush, 50 percent to 38 percent. Nader had 2 percent. Kerry led Bush in the seven-county metropolitan region, 54 percent to 35 percent. In the rest of the state, Kerry led 47 percent to 41 percent.

Minnesota is being peddled to the national media as a battleground state, though I'm not really sure why. The national vote here is nearly always Democrat by a healthy margin. There have been exceptions over the years, with Reagan for instance. But for the most part, this state is still Democrat by a pretty good margin. We just haven't had any decent state and national offices filled by decent Democrats, exept Wellstone, since Perpich left office.

There is a real dearth of decent Democrats to run for state and national office here, but I don't think that translates to the state going Republican, despite our recent run of Republican governors (interrupted by Ventura, and independent). That isn't because the state is THAT much more Republican, it is because the Democrats aren't running candidates as strong as the Republican candidates.

That said, I'm not too worried about Kerry being able to carry Minnesota, so I'm voting for Nader to help build and keep alive the progressive populist grassroots movement in this state, regardless of party or political affiliation.