Barb Davis White

In what appears to be a last-ditch effort, Barb Davis White, a Republican who lost to Rep. Keith Ellison by almost 50 points and who failed to get the endorsement of the Independence Party, filed as a DFLer on Tuesday. White, a Tea Party darling, has held harsh words for DFLers in recent months calling them “socialists.”

White’s former press secretary Don Allen explained why White did not run as a Republican in 2010.

The arrogance and exclusion of conversations with Barb, who received almost 25% of the votes in 2008 – more than any other endorsed Republican running for Congress in Minnesota’s 5th CD was a heinous and reckless over-sight by the leadership of Minnesota’s Republican Party. If the Minnesota GOP would back Barb Davis White, now that former chairman Ron Carey is gone (or lurking with the intent to participate) – Barb Davis White can beat Ellison in 2010. People in Minnesota’s 5th congressional district will see a benefit to not vote “R” or “D” and send a message to big party madness.

On May 20, the Independence Party voted not to endorse a candidate after local artist Thomas Schrunk jumped into the race at the last minute.

White says she is running in the DFL primary to give voters a choice. White’s campaign did not return a request for comment by the Minnesota Independent.

She released this video on Wednesday:

White made waves earlier this year at a hearing on same-sex marriage when she said, “Rosa Parks did not move to the front of the bus to support sodomy.”

An opponent of same-sex marriage at the Capitol. Photo: Andy Birkey

Several dozen activists who oppose marriage rights for same-sex couples gathered under the Minnesota Capitol rotunda Thursday afternoon to advocate for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Several politicians spoke, including congressional candidate Barb Davis White, who criticized Rep. Keith Ellison for being a Muslim who supports marriage equality for same-sex couples. A pastor claimed that homosexuals teach children to masturbate.

The Minnesota Family Council’s communications director, Chuck Darrell, said the event was to honor “God’s design for marriage between a man and a woman.”

He introduced a slate of Republican politicians who criticized DFLers for not working to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota.

Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, told the crowd to “evangelize” on the marriage issue. “I believe that we need every single one of you that understands the importance of marriage to go out and evangelize this society.”

“By passing this we will be supporting our families, supporting our culture, supporting our future,” said Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, who authored the marriage amendment in the House. “Let me assure you the people on the other side of the issue, the people who are trying to change the definition of marriage, the people who are trying to bring their ideas to redefine something that has been in our culture and defined by our beliefs for a millenia, unfortunately — there are people who want to bring moral relativism to the discussion.”

He added, “There was one committee meeting where two gay men came forward with a young gal — she had to be a three footer; she was young. And I said to them, ‘OK, you got two guys and no mother.’ How do they learn what it is like to be a mom? How does she learn that? And that’s what we are here for.”

Barb Davis White. Photo: Andy Birkey

Barb Davis White, who hopes to win the Independence Party endorsement this weekend to run against Ellison, compared lesbian couples raising children to single motherhood.

“I’ve seen two women, a mother and a grandmother, raising sons. Those sons are pretty much destined for the jail cell,” she said.

Then she took on Ellison: “My opponent, who happens to be a Muslim, who studies the Koran, is not for one man, one woman marriage, so we have that dichotomy.”

White stirred controversy at a legislative hearing on same-sex marriage in February when she said, “Rosa Parks did not move to the front of the bus to support sodomy.”

Pastor Brad Brandon, a young pastor from the Hastings area, fired up the crowd by saying that homosexuals teach kids to masturbate.

“We as Christians, as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, we need to be bold in such a time as this,” he said. “This is an assault on our culture and I don’t think God takes it very lightly when we mess with the image of Jesus Christ.”

He said he was at the Capitol a few weeks ago. “A group of homosexuals were here and they were teaching a group of high school students that masturbation was OK right here in this rotunda! This must stop!

He added, “We are the last stand.”

Photo: Simon Stromberg

About 1,000 people gathered at the Minnesota State Capitol lawn Saturday to hear Rep. Michele Bachmann speak out against health care reform. Billed as the “Kill the Bill Rally,” Bachmann railed against a “government takeover” of all aspects of the economy and compared Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez.

“Some have called President Obama the first post-American president,” Bachmann said. “Certainly this health care bill would be our first postmodern legislation where words mean absolutely nothing.”

While other speakers took the podium, Bachmann was easily the crowd favorite, and her supporters waved signs reading “Obama Lies, Babies Die,” “Damn this federal government to hell,” “Obama bin Lyin’” and “The citizens must declare war on their immoral, corrupt, Marxist government.”

“Obama’s idea is for Pelosi to pass a bill and have her members vote on something they never voted for. Sounds more like a Chavez tactic in Venezuela,” said Bachmann. “We have a duty to resist tyranny. This isn’t a joke. They can’t do this. The government is working against us. They are not working for us, and they got it all backwards. They work for us. We don’t work for them.”

“All I am doing in Washington is my job. And I’m in trouble every day of the week in the media in Minnesota, but it’s because I’m doing my job!” Bachmann said.

Bachmann praised veterans both past and present. “And these men had guts our founders, these were no pantywaist wusses, and neither are we by the way!”

She continued to rail against Pelosi and Obama. “They don’t scare us. They aren’t going to take our country. This is dictatorial is what they are doing.”

Bachmann wasn’t the only politician at the rally. Rep. John Kline gave brief introductory remarks. Congressional candidate Barb Davis White, addressed the crowd, while gubernatorial candidates Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert stood on stage alongside Bachmann.

Bachmann wrapped up her 27-minute speech by saying, “Mark my words, the American people are not going to take this lying down. We aren’t going to play their game. We aren’t going to pay their taxes.”

The UpTake recorded Bachmann’s full speech:

(Lavverrue, Flickr)

State Sen. Mee Moua said some who testified at Tuesday’s Senate hearing on gay marriage were so “fixated on the sex-making aspects” that they missed the spirit of the bill. But another aspect of the content of recent hearings on the issue has not yet been scrutinized: Tuesday’s statement by ex-gay activist Janet Boynes was nearly identical to that of Barb Davis White. One difference: Boynes didn’t repeat the claim made by White at last week’s House hearing that “Rosa Parks didn’t move to the front of the bus to support sodomy.”

At historic if symbolic hearings in House and Senate committees, White and Boynes gave first-person narratives about their experiences as African-American women, relating that they find it offensive when gays and lesbians use terms like “civil rights” or “equality” when discussing same-sex marriage.

White, who ran as a Republican against Rep. Keith Ellison in 2008 but is challenging him this year as an Independence Party candidate, staked out her claim to the testimony. “You should know that Barb and another gentleman worked on that language years ago,” White’s campaign manager Stephanie Zais told the Minnesota Independent. “Barb is quoted in a December 2005 newsletter stating those words, and she repeated them again at her recent testimony.”

Zais added, “We cannot control whether or not another person chooses to repeat those words.”

The Minnesota Independent was unable to reach Boynes for comment.

But, this duplication wasn’t the focus of Moua’s criticism, which came after a string of speakers presented their opinions on the nature of sexuality.

Father Michael Becker, representing the Minnesota Conference of Catholic Bishops, said, “With homosexual acts, one person is essentially using another person, and this type of sexual behavior in our culture is rampant. What are the acts? The male homosexual act… If you legalize marriage … you would be teaching [society] that these acts are good and healthy.”

Bill Harley, a psychiatrist for the organization Wallbuilders, claimed that anyone can change their sexual orientation to become sexually attracted to “whatever happens to be available.”

“It is possible for same-sex-oriented people to become opposite-sex oriented. It’s also possible for opposite-sex-oriented people to become same-sex oriented,” he said. “In fact, most of us can become sexually attracted to almost anything or anyone under certain conditions. Eliminate attractive opposite-sex alternatives and people find they can respond sexually to whatever happens to be available.”

Boynes, who calls herself a former lesbian, said, “Science reports that the most deadly sexually transmitted diseases are highly [among] gay men. The human rectum wasn’t made for sexual behavior. The human lining of the rectum easily tears. That’s why the presence of such STDs as HPV, gonorrhea, syphilis, gay bowel syndrome, and HIV are far greater in homosexual relationships.” (Gay bowel syndrome is not a recognized ailment.)

“It seems that the group of testifiers for the last half hour are so fixated on the sex making aspects of these bills,” said committee chair Sen. Mee Moua. “The bills are saying [marriage] is wonderful and if it’s going to be available then it ought to be available to all of us and don’t keep us out.”

She added, “It seems that the the fixation and the focus on the sex acts and the way you all presented it which seems so contrary to the spirit of the bills.”

Here’s White’s testimony on Feb. 22, 2010:

I’m also concerned about children. Some claim that all children need is two loving people in a committed relationship. In my experience this is simply not true. We tried this in my community, the black community, and found it to be wrought with failure. For decades we tried to raise our sons with two loving people, a mother and a grandmother. And we know it doesn’t work. But is anyone listening? There a mountain of sociological data that proves that children are far better off in a home with a mother and a father, not just two people in a committed relationship.

Let me tell you something else. A same-sex marriage environment is an environment with out a mother or a father. Here in the African-American community we already know what is happening. I want to tell you this: also we hear comparisons between same-sex marriage and equality and civil rights and discrimination.

Let me quote the late Rev. John Thomas. “Rosa Parks did not move to the front of the bus to support sodomy.”

I’m deeply saddened that people would accuse me of discrimination, because i believe a mother and a father should raise children. Some would say the laws to include same-sex marriage are like laws banning interracial marriages. I’m from an interracial marriage. Same-sex marriage and interracial marriages have nothing in common.

There is no difference between a black person and a white person other than their skin color when there’s a tremendous difference between a man and a woman. Allowing a black woman and a white man to marry does not change the definition of marriage. However, allowing two men or two women would fundamentally change that definition.

And Boynes’ statement on Mar. 2, 2010:

I am also concerned about children. Some say that all children need is two loving people in a committed relationship. In my experience this is simply not true. We have tried this in my community and found it to be wrought with failure. For decades we have tried to raise our sons with two loving people, a mother and a grandmother. And we know it didn’t work. But is anyone listening? There is a mountain of sociological data that proves children are far better off in a home with a mother and a father, not just two committed people in a loving relationship.

Let me tell you something a same-sex marriage is an environment without a mother or a father and here in the African-American community we already know what will happen. But what I do hear are comparisons between same sex marriage and equality, civil rights and discrimination.

I am deeply saddened that people would accuse me of discrimination because I believe a child needs a mother and a father. Some have said that the laws precluded same-sex marriage are like laws once banning interracial marriage. Same-sex marriage and interracial marriages have nothing in common.

There is no difference between a black person and a white person other than their skin color. But there is tremendous difference between a man and women. Allowing a black woman and a white man to marry does not change the definition of marriage. However allowing two men and two women to marry would fundamentally change the definition.

Two Christian blogs are announcing his candidacy:

If you live in Minnesota and are not happy with Congressman Keith Ellison. There is another choice..

Joel Demos for Congress.

Keep an eye on this blog for more details, but if you are looking for change, for hope, for a new voice, and for fresh opinions – vote Joel Demos for Congress.

In addition, the Senate District 45 Republicans have listed Demos as a candidate for their upcoming conventions.

Also running in the 5th Congressional District: independent Lynne Torgerson and Barb Davis White, who was the GOP’s endorsed candidate against Ellison in 2008 but is seeking the Independence Party endorsement this year.

Demos could not be reached for comment.

Barb Davis White

For the first time in Minnesota history, a legislative committee contemplated the legalization of same-sex marriage in the state on Monday. And while gay and lesbian families shared moving testimony about the hardships their families face because they cannot marry, a duo of congressional candidates stole the show with controversial commentary on gays and lesbians.

Barb Davis White, a Tea Party activist and Republican candidate for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, prompted shocked gasps from the packed hearing room when she said, “Rosa Parks did not move to the front of the bus to support sodomy.” Her testimony involved accusations that the movement for marriage equality is hijacking the civil rights movement.

“There is no difference between a black person and a white person other than their skin color when there’s a tremendous difference between a man and a woman,” said White, who was the GOP’s endorsed candidate against Rep. Keith Ellison in 2008. “Allowing a black woman and a white man to marry does not change the definition of marriage. However, allowing two men or two women to marry would fundamentally change that definition.”

GOP candidate Teresa Collett at Monday's hearing

White also garnered some laughs from the audience when she said, “Studies also show that the average homosexual has hundreds of sexual partners in his lifetime… and I repeat hundreds.”

“I’m here today to tell you that homosexuality and lesbian behavior is unhealthy,” claiming that gays and lesbians have higher rates of STDs than anyone else in the world, including “gay bowel disease,” an ailment that does not exist and is often used by religious right figures to paint gay men as diseased.

Another congressional candidate, St. Thomas University law professor Teresa Stanton Collett, who is running as a Republican for the 4th Congressional District, warned that Minnesota’s Christians are under attack.

“Make no mistake: Marriage, as a civil institution, as a legal institution, is grounded not merely in religion but also in the biological reality that sex makes children and children need a mom and a dad,” she said. “And should we choose to redefine that legally we will put the religious and moral beliefs of all Minnesotans at issue.”

“Churches and religiously affiliated institutions will lose their tax-exempt status,” she said. She claimed that Christian colleges would be forced to house same-sex couples in dorms, social work students would be kicked out of school if they refused to counsel gays and lesbians, politicians would revoke funds from religious organizations, and parents would be arrested for speaking out against homosexuality.

The hourlong testimony from both sides contemplated three bills: one to create civil unions, one to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages and one to allow full legal marriage for same-sex couples. The hearing was for informational purposes only, and no vote was taken.

Lynne Torgerson charts her own course, telling the Minnesota Independent in an interview that she considers herself almost “apolitical.”

The Minneapolis criminal-defense attorney unsuccessfully sought election as an independent to the Minnesota House of Representatives in District 59A last year. Republican Party delegates endorsed Felix Montez over Torgerson in that race, and the Independence Party candidate, David DeGrio, says he ran in part to keep her views out of the IP. Incumbent DFLer Diane Loeffler won re-election with 13,785 votes (75 percent), to Montez’s 2,530, Torgerson’s 1,238 and DeGrio’s 723.

Torgerson said she won’t seek endorsement by a political party this time around. (Barb Davis White, who challenged Ellison last year as the Republican endorsee, will again attempt to unseat him next year.) That’s partly why she describes herself as a “stateswoman,” rather than as a “politician” — the kind of candidate who she says too often toes a party line rather than stands for deeply held principles.

Her views on Islam dominate the “Issues” page at her new campaign website, but they weren’t what Republican and Independence party officials remembered about her when MnIndy asked.

Carleton Crawford, who chairs the Republican Party of Minnesota’s Fifth District committee, told MnIndy by email that Torgerson failed to get the GOP endorsement in 2008 because delegates sought someone more in line with U.S. Rep. Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy.

“Felix Montez associated his campaign with the Ron Paul movement. I don’t think Ms. Torgerson’s defeat had much to do with the strengths or weaknesses of her campaign (or for that matter of Mr. Montez). She simply was not part of the movement that happened to be steering local Republican politics at the time.”

The IP’s DeGrio told MnIndy that a meeting he had with Torgerson about IP backing led him to seek (and win) the endorsement himself. “I had many reasons for running but one of them was to keep Lynne Torgerson from poisoning the IP brand,” DeGrio wrote in an email.

He explained: “When I told her that a winning campaign would need to incorporate a platform of equality and inclusion she told me, to the effect, ‘Well I don’t support those ideas.’ When I pressed her further for a little more understanding of her position she told me that her views were ‘consistent with the Catholic Church.’ She used that answer quite often when discussing issues such as GLBT equality, a woman’s right to choose, etc.”

Torgerson told MnIndy she is a Christian but not a Catholic. She said she points out when her own views align with Catholic doctrine as a convenient way to communicate to voters her approach on some issues.

Torgerson counts herself among “people who say where they stand rather than deceive people” — – even if that means offending some, for which she apologizes in advance at her website. She offers an extensive 18-topic platform on the “Issues” page at her campaign website.

Torgerson would oppose bills that support abortion or research with embryonic stem cells. She is for animal rights and against cloned beef cattle and genetically modified agriculture. She favors health care reform with a public option and wants credit card companies reined in. She advocates substantial tax credits for alternative energy. She would ban or restrict American companies from outsourcing jobs beyond America’s borders. She decries the auto bailout, which she sees as payback to labor unions who funded President Obama’s campaign.

On gay marriage, Torgerson states on her campaign website: “I would uphold laws instituting one (1) man one (1) woman marriage. Marriage was actually created by God, and God created it between a man and a woman. Thus, anything else is actually not marriage, even though some would try to call it that.”

That’s all she writes on the issue at her website; in person she adds only that she wants to be upfront with how she would vote.

Torgerson’s views on Islam make up a third of the text on her “Issues” page, falling mainly under a single heading: “Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion.”

A sample:

And, what do I know of Islam? Well, I know of 911. Nineteen (19) men from Saudi Arabia, all Muslim, hi-jacked planes, and flew into the two (2) World Trade Towers murdering thousands of people, and tried to fly into our Pentagon, and some believe they also tried to fly an airplane into our White House. From this, what I perceive is Islam conducting an act of war against my country.

People say that we can’t include the moderate, peace loving Muslims. Well, I agree.  But, who are they?  They need to stand up and identify themselves loudly and clearly say that they oppose Jihad and terrorism, etc. Who are these people? I cannot tell.  It is not for me to go and try and find them. Rather, it is their duty to stand up and identify themselves, if there are any.

Torgerson told the Minnesota Independent that for this, her second run at elective office, she set her sights on Congress because she has “an interest at the national level.” She also said inspiration to run came from constitutional issues she deals with in defending the accused in criminal courts — including a current case in which she accomplished the rare feat of convincing a federal circuit court to reverse a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling on habeus corpus grounds. (The U.S. Supreme Court is now considering an appeal by the State of Minnesota.)

Indeed she frames several of her objections to Islam in terms of the U.S. Constitution. Islamic teachings advocate murder of non-Muslims, she charges, putting the religion at least partly outside the protection of the First Amendment, which is also contravened by Islam’s goal to “Islamize the entire world,” as she puts it. Islam’s oppression of women, she contends, violates the Constitution’s equal-protection clause.

On her website and in person, Torgerson stresses that she doesn’t mean to hurt or offend anyone. Rather her intention, she writes, is “to advance the protection of freedom of speech and religion in America.”

“I think we as Americans are very tolerant. I’m very tolerant,” Torgerson told MnIndy. “There’s a problem of a good number of Muslims being intolerant. … They need to become tolerant of us.”

She cited examples such as the uproar in 2005 and 2006 over the publication of editorial cartoons depicting Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. Criticism of Islam “is pure speech,” she said. “It’s protected. Nobody gets to riot because of it. Nobody gets to kill people because of it.”

Torgerson cites as well the 2004 assassination of Dutch director Theo Van Gogh for making a short film based on Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book “Infidel.”

Muslims “have teachings that are essentially criminal,” Torgerson said. She didn’t have a ready citation from the Quran but followed up by email to MnIndy:

“Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush.” (Sura 9:5)

Idolaters are anyone who is not Muslim. Slay means to kill. Therefore, the Quran says to kill anyone who is not a Muslim. Simple.

In America, the recent decision by Yale University Press not to include the cartoons in a book about the controversy is evidence of Islam’s threat to American liberties, in Torgerson’s view.

“I don’t want other cultures coming into the United States and chilling our freedoms,” she said, adding that it offends her to see Muslim couples downtown walking with the man several paces ahead of the woman.

Under Islam “women aren’t treated very well,” Torgerson says. “I don’t want that influence on my life. It concerns me.”

“We went too far with Keith Ellison”

None of her objections to Islam, Torgerson said, amounts to any kind of “personal animosity” towards Ellison, who she used to see in courthouse hallways when he, too, was a practicing criminal defense attorney.

Nevertheless she doesn’t like Ellison’s links to leaders of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which also drew fire from Ellison’s opponents during the 2006 campaign for Congress. “A United States legislator shouldn’t be cozying up with people … that are friendly to terrorists,” she says, referencing charges that CAIR supports Hamas.

That leads her to this conclusion on her campaign website:

Now, with all due respect, America, and its people, should be lauded for its goal of promoting to public office and other high ranks, people of color, African Americans, women, minorities, etc.  However, quite frankly, in our zeal, we simply went too far with Keith Ellison.  Keith Ellison simply is not a proper person to have in our federal government. … Keith Ellison has no business in our federal government.

Won’t unseating a DFL incumbent in a heavily Democratic U.S. House district be even more difficult than unseating a state House incumbent? Torgerson expressed the same determination in her chances as in her beliefs and her right to express them.

“I’m not a quitter,” Torgerson said. “I’m relentless and it’s served me well. You never know what can happen in the United States.”

Barb Davis White

Despite losing to Rep. Keith Ellison by a record margin last November, Barb Davis White is giving it another go. The evangelical minister announced her candidacy in September, but no media outlets have made mention of it. And her campaign’s filings to the Federal Elections Commission have been rife with errors.

Ellison trounced White in November, setting records for the margin of victory. According the Smart Politics, Ellison’s 48.9 percent win over White was the second highest in state history and the “largest margin of victory for a 1-term incumbent in the history of the Gopher State.”

A staunch conservative in the state’s most progressive district, White has burnished her credentials this year through involvement with the local Tea Party movement. “I want to be listed as a Christian and a patriotic right-wing conservative American,” she told Tea Partiers in April.

In the two years that White’s campaign for Congress has been active, the FEC has served notice of late filings and incomplete filings 14 times. In the 2008 cycle, the FEC took special notice in her campaign’s failure to file on time.

UPDATE: It apparently was here for today’s End the Fed rally at the Federal Reserve Bank. The sky advert was last seen in these parts at the tail end of the Republican National Convention. The timing and location made a certain amount of sense. But on a Saturday two-and-a-half weeks after the election, with a U.S. Senate recount in progress? What does Ron Paul have to do with that? Why here? Why now? Is this any better a use of fuel than Detroit’s Big Three auto execs each jetting into D.C. on private planes? Or does it simply signal that with the recount the Twin Cities have again achieved a critical mass of TV news crews? 

Barb Davis White:

With the national economy in the tank and a seemingly never-ending war in Iraq, Republicans are looking to change the subject. But is abortion a winning issue in 2008? Some Minnesota Republicans seem to think so.

In national public opinion polls, abortion hasn’t registered with voters as a top priority at all this year. It reached 4 percent once this year, and more than 70 percent have said the presidential candidates’ positions on the issue aren’t a deal-breaker at the voting booth. The most recent SurveyUSA poll, which had McCain ahead by one point, found the Minnesota breakdown didn’t follow typical party lines. Only 45 percent of Minnesotans identified as “pro-life,” while 54 percent said they were “pro-choice.”

In late September, the Republican Party of Minnesota sent out its absentee ballot applications wrapped in an anti-abortion tract.

“Please complete the attached Absentee Ballot Application. And when you vote, please vote Pro-Life,” it read. “The next President will likely have the opportunity to appoint as many as three Supreme Court Justices. Those of us who vote Pro-Life know the importance of supporting candidates pledging to appoint Justices to the bench who will protect life. Vote Pro-Life because the unborn are depending on you.”

The tract could be a ploy to get anti-abortion votes, but even federal candidates are putting abortion forward as the most important campaign issue.

In Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, which encompasses the northeast quarter of the state, the Republican candidate, Mike Cummins, is running an anti-abortion campaign. At a recent meeting of Republican party activists in Hubbard County in north-central Minnesota, party officials and candidates hammered that point home. Steve Booth, who ran for state Senate in 2006, introduced Cummins and said that same-sex marriage and abortion are vital to the party.

“It’s the number one and two criteria in making life’s decisions,” he said. Booth said he wants candidates who oppose gun control and who will work to abolish abortion in Minnesota, according to the Park Rapids Enterprise.

“The Democrats don’t want us to focus on the sanctity of human life and marriage,” he said. “They know their position is indefensible.”

Adding that the “devil” will attempt to persecute Republicans and others on high moral ground, he said. “We need to force Democrats to justify killing unborn babies. … That’s our platform; that’s why we’re Republican.”

Cummins, the Republican who is running against Rep. James Oberstar in the 8th District, echoed those sentiments. He said that politicians’ stance on abortion is the “number one question.”

“I’m 100 percent pro-life. We need to continue to hammer on morality,” he said. “Nothing is as important as life.”

In the 5th Congressional District, the most liberal in the state, Republican Barb Davis White is trying to unseat Rep. Keith Ellison. Her campaign sent out a press release in late September attacking Ellison’s position on abortion.

“The killing of thousands of innocent baby’s everyday must stop! As a Patriot I believe that the first right according to the Constitution of the United States is that of LIFE,” wrote Davis White. “My opponent Keith Ellison does not and votes for the notion that the killing of babies should not be discussed by script from a physician to a mother as to what was going to happen to her and her baby.”