Before a crowd of about 40, the three Democratic candidates running for Congress in Minnesota’s third district spoke last night in Plymouth. It was generally a friendly event, but some sparks flew.

State Sen. Terri Bonoff’s opening remarks were mostly a standard stump speech, touching on her opposition to the war in Iraq, health care, and the failure of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind education bill.  Interestingly, she made sure to move toward the seating area as she spoke, and from where this blogger was sitting, it didn’t seem like a mistake — standing at five feet on a good day, Bonoff’s greatest advantage is to get up close and personal with voters and de-emphasize physical presence as a factor on the stump. 

In his remarks, Jim Hovland touted his experience as Mayor of Edina, citing Edina’s status as one of three U.S. cities that signed the United Nations resolution condemning the war in Darfur (with Chicago and San Francisco) and local initiatives combating climate change. 

Attorney and Marine veteran Ashwin Madia’s speech was the most aggressive of the three, making several references to his status as “the only candidate to say we should let the Bush tax cuts expire” and calling for guts and backbone in Washington in standing up for Democratic ideals.After the canned speeches, attendees were allowed to ask questions of the candidates, and topics included balancing of the budget, public financing of elections, and health care. On a question about closing the income gap, Madia seemed to make a misstep, critiquing a tax vote he said Bonoff took in the State Senate. Bonoff quickly jumped in and said there were three votes on the issue, that she voted the right way on the final vote, and didn’t want to be misrepresented. After Madia finished speaking, she appeared to chide him quietly while Jim Hovland spoke. 

Attendees generally seemed happy with what they heard. Each candidate managed to garner polite applause at least once: Bonoff for identifying her priority in Congress as ending the war in Iraq, Madia for saying “we need to stand up for civil liberties in our country” and Hovland for saying that a single-payer system might be a good way to solve the health care crisis.

Although Bonoff already has a powerful endorsement from Emily’s List and has been regarded in some quarters as the frontrunner, the race for the DFL endorsement is already proving to be a strongly contested one.  But each candidate certainly has a way to go stylistically — Hovland, in his speech, worked partially from notes. Bonoff’s answers to audience questions rambled a bit, and Madia opened himself up for a whack on the tax question.

With more than two months to go before precinct caucus and plenty of organizing and maneuvering before the CD3 DFL convention, there’s time to improve. But DFL officials are expecting a “perfect storm” of activity surrounding their February 5th caucuses — pressure from presidential, U.S. Senate, Congressional, and State House races to get supporters in the right positions. Should be interesting to watch.