Candidates gunning for votes at Game Fair

The gubernatorial debate Friday night on "Almanac" may have been fiery, but hours later the candidates made it clear they were also packing heat -- literally.

"I have two loaded .357 Magnum pistols in my home right now in a lockbox," DFL candidate Mark Dayton told a crowd gathered Saturday at Game Fair, a hunting and fishing expo in Anoka. "I have a 9 millimeter pistol at home. I have a twelve-gauge shotgun at home."

Dayton, GOP candidate Tom Emmer, Independence Party candidate Tom Horner and Resource Party candidate Linda Eno waded through issues affecting Minnesota's outdoors in a crowded tent littered with panting dogs. The top issues? Hunting wolves, imposing shoreline regulations, and raising hunting and fishing fees.

Dayton went after Emmer for cosponsoring a bill to repeal the Legacy Amendment, which provides dedicated funding for outdoor activities. Emmer said he would take his name off the repeal, which he once supported because of concern about how funds would be allocated.

"The trouble with deathbed conversions is they seldom last if the patient recovers," Dayton quipped, recalling a line Walter Mondale once told him.

Emmer hit back at Dayton for his F rating from the National Rifle Association in 2000.

"How is it that you can have an F rating from the NRA, and you can sit up here and tell us that you're going to defend sportsmen's rights?" Emmer asked.

Horner criticized Emmer for saying he would let the Department of Agriculture handle environmental regulations relating to agriculture. "That's absolutely the wrong way to go," Horner said.

"This was about making sure that the pollution control rules work with farmers so we can all recognize the goals that we have," Emmer responded.

The three major candidates agreed that wolves should be taken off the endangered species list. Horner said hunting and fishing license fees should be increased, while Emmer said they should not, and Dayton said he would ask the Department of Natural Resources to solicit feedback from outdoors groups.

They differed over shoreline regulations that affect many Minnesotans with lake homes. Emmer said Pawlenty did the "right thing" by rejecting increasing controls over dock and land use. Horner said regulations are needed to protect water quality, while Dayton said the DNR has to be more responsive to community needs.

As with any governor's debate this year, talk inevitably turned to taxes. While Dayton has said that he will raise taxes on individuals earning $130,000 a year or couples earning $150,000 a year, he raised those numbers to $150,000 and "almost" $170,000 during Saturday's forum.

ERIC ROPER

An 'attack' or 'contrast'?

The governor wannabes' call for an end to negative ads revives the adage: Negative is in the eye of the beholder.

On Thursday, Dayton and GOP Party deputy chairman Michael Brodkorb both said an Alliance for a Better Minnesota ad that linked Republican candidate Emmer's past drunken-driving arrests to his legislative record was a negative ad.

Not the alliance's Denise Cardinal. "To me, it is just more an ad about his record." That record happens to be negative, she said.

While the DFL candidate called a Republican spot that denigrated his Senate record a smear, Brodkorb said: "I would say it's a respectful contrast ad that discusses his record."

Go to bit.ly/aG6pO1 to judge for yourself.

RACHEL E. STASSEN-BERGER

Good news?

Dan Severson, the Republican candidate for Minnesota secretary of state who sometimes goes by "Doc," is taking the good news wherever he can get it.

Franson received just over 71,000 votes in Tuesday's primary, well short of Ritchie's 318,685. Severson, running unopposed, meanwhile, had 112,956 votes.