Moorhead

Gov. Tim Pawlenty wants to cut nearly $200 million from the Local Government Aid program as part of his plan to eliminate the state’s $2.7 billion budget deficit. While the fiscal hit to the program is less than feared (Pawlenty had originally proposed whacking $450 million from LGA), it will still present a significant fiscal [...]

President Obama devoted his weekly address today to the communities of Minnesota and the Dakotas that are fighting record floods this weekend. He didn’t mention Hurricane Katrina.

More, including a full transcript, after the jump.

Janet Napolitano, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), insists the federal government is ready to provide whatever assistance is needed to the flood-ravaged Red River Valley. “We understand the seriousness of the situation,” Napolitano told reporters on a conference call this afternoon. “It’s historically unprecedented, and we want to make [...]

After declaring a state of emergency there on Friday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty headed to Moorhead today for an early-afternoon briefing with local officials about the looming flood in western Minnesota. Pawlenty and local officials will meet with media representatives after the briefing. It’s a chance for T-Paw to re-start the national PR offensive that The [...]

Sunday’s New York Times Magazine carried a quizzical interview by Deborah Solomon with President George W. Bush’s former senior adviser, Karl Rove. Across 21 questions, Rove and Solomon covered a lot of political and even emotional territory, with an often-combative Rove laying claim to having had his feelings hurt by Solomon on an earlier occasion.
The highlight, though, [...]

If Al Franken ultimately loses the U.S. Senate race to Norm Coleman by roughly 700 votes, as the tally now stands, he might find himself lamenting that there wasn’t time for just one last trip to Moorhead before the campaign came to a close. Why might the Democrat have found useful a last-ditch effort to supplicate and beg before the residents of the Red River Valley?

During my tour of northern Minnesota with Todd Palin last week, I spoke with Robert Leiseth at a rally in Moorhead. Plastered with “Sportsmen for McCain” stickers, he discussed his fears that Obama “is steering us into socialism,” his praise for Sarah Palin and his concerns about Joe Biden’s experience. But his most pointed words were about Obama’s ethnicity. Leiseth believes Obama is “an Arab who is a little tiny bit African American.”

Todd Palin’s five-city, two-day campaign across northern Minnesota ended in the city of Moorhead in the northwestern part of the state, just across the Red River of the North from the bigger city of Fargo, N.D. There, Minnesota Independent reporter Paul Demko took in one last T-Pal stump speech at Scheel’s sporting goods store before interviewing people outside the store, some of whom had traveled two hours or more for the short, five-minute speech. Here are highlights, in a seven-minute video clip that touches on Abraham Lincoln, Saul Alinsky and Pythagoras.

Does “First Dude” Todd Palin believe Alaska should secede from the United States? The journey continues to Moorhead and Duluth.