The nausea may be mutual. Though Thune and Pappas share DFL party loyalties and home turf (his ward lies within her Senate district), their differences over word choice and tone go back at least a decade. Early in St. Paul’s 1997 mayoral contest, Thune ended his own brief candidacy with an endorsement of fellow City Council Member Bobbi Megard over Pappas. Later, both Thune and Megard took Pappas to task for her attacks on then-Mayor Norm Coleman (who soon trounced Pappas in the general election). But apologies to Republicans weren’t passing Pappas’ lips back then. From the Oct. 10, 1997, Star Tribune:

City Council President Dave Thune, joined by fellow council members Gladys Morton and Bobbi Megard, met privately with Pappas last week to ask her to change the tenor of her attacks on GOP Mayor Norm Coleman. Pappas repeatedly has complained that Coleman’s proudest accomplishments — bringing Lawson Software and the National Hockey League to downtown St. Paul — are “sweetheart deals” that favor downtown developers over neighborhood revitalization efforts. … “Many DFLers are pretty disturbed with the tone of the campaign and the class warfare,” Thune said. … Thune said he and Megard thought that Pappas had agreed to tone down the rhetoric, but he was disappointed when the attacks continued in Wednesday’s mayoral debates. Pappas was unapologetic. “I’m not running against Dave [Thune]. He and I should agree to disagree. He shouldn’t take these things so personally,” Pappas said Thursday.