politics

WASHINGTON - Veteran Star Tribune editorial writer Dave Hage announced Tuesday that he is leaving the newspaper to become communications director for first-term Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

Hage, 52, will take over Klobuchar's fledgling press operation, which has seen some turnover since she took office in January. Her first communications director, Semonti Mustaphi, left to work for Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

Hage, a Minneapolis native, joined the Star Tribune in 1979. He started as a suburban reporter, then wrote about labor, business and the economy. From 1991 to 1995 he was an economics correspondent for U.S. News & World Report magazine in Washington.

He returned to the Star Tribune as an editorial writer in 1995, and has written about the Minnesota economy, health care, consumer affairs, poverty and agriculture.

In a note to newsroom staffers, editorial pages editor Scott Gillespie called Hage "one of the best in the profession."

Hage has also written two books, one on the 1985 meatpackers' strike at Hormel, and another on welfare reform. Like Klobuchar, he is a Yale graduate. He said he will divide his time between Washington and the Twin Cities.

KEVIN DIAZ