Writing at TNR’s The Plank, Jason Zengerle picks up on an interesting fact of recent senate elections in Minnesota:

Here’s a weird bit of trivia. If Al Franken winds up beating Norm Coleman (and he’s now got a small lead in most polls), he’ll be the fourth consecutive Jewish person elected to that Senate seat, after Rudy Boschwitz, Paul Wellstone, and Coleman. Indeed, the last time the major parties in Minnesota even nominated a gentile to run for that seat was 1984, with Joan Growe. When you consider that Jews make up only 0.9 percent of Minnesota’s population, that’s pretty interesting. Maybe these Minnesota Jewish pols are just riding native son Robert Zimmerman’s coattails.

Of course this leaves the anti-Semite vote entirely for Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley.