Emmer and PA: Separated at birth - or girth?

Former gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer's defeat might be taken as a face-losing occasion, facetiously speaking, for KFAN's Paul Allen.

They seem to have a separated-at-birth thing going on that has not escaped the notice of many -- including Emmer, whom I could not reach for comment, even though I've called three times, most notably on Monday, to the Republican Party of Minnesota.

Allen has seen it, too.

"The Emmers were out at Canterbury one day, and everybody had told him that I looked like him and everybody had told me he looks like me. So he came up and we snapped a bunch of pictures," said Allen. He and I talked when our paths crossed at Winter Park, not too long after I had tweeted about them looking alike.

Allen told me that for one of the photographs, the Emmers asked the voice of the Vikings to toss his head back and laugh uproariously, affecting a pose that made PA look the most like Emmer.

"He's prematurely gray. I'm flat gray," said Allen of what he considered their most prominent shared feature, their hair.

But they also look enough alike in the face that PA would have blended in perfectly in Emmer campaign literature showing that big family of kids.

Not today. Based on the attractiveness of Emmer sons Bobby and Jack, who are younger versions of their dad, Emmer was probably better-looking a few pounds ago.

"It's funny to hear you say that," laughed PA. "Go after him." Ummm, not until I start hitting the gym again myself.

I had to own up to telling PA that I thought Emmer was carrying around way too much weight on the campaign trail because at the end of our face-to-face chat, the radio guy claimed to have been secretly taping our conversation.

During our chat, PA also credited me with providing him with "a moment of clarity" when I videotaped him puffing on a cigarette outside the building where KFAN is located.

After that, "I slowed down," he said. But I seem to remember he promised to stop smoking for his kids.

If two people, one of them "Cindy in Elk River," called my attention to Santaniello's sporty anorak-style jacket, surely somebody contacted Santaniello?

"Yeah, I got an e-mail from a woman complaining about it," said Santaniello. "This is the thing: I need to check things out before I wear them on air. Sometimes it doesn't translate on the air. I should learn. I have to wear structured suit coats. Everything else makes me look huge and doesn't look as polished. Can't win them all, right?"

As a woman, wearing structured suits gets boring, so I give Santaniello leeway because she is after all a known fashionista. Sometimes they'll attempt articles of clothing the rest of us wouldn't.

My own personal fashionista, Jason Matheson, who is sartorially flawless, didn't have a problem with Santaniello's jacket. (Not even when she was standing. Thank goodness the viewer hysteria over them standing has subsided. You do know anchors have been standing during broadcasts FOREVER at ESPN, riiighttt?)

With Matheson busting me live on Fox 9 about the puffy sleeved blazer I wore last week, I probably should shut up about Santaniello's attire. In my own defense, had I noticed the pouffiness at the shoulders on that blazer, I never would have walked out of Ann Taylor owning it. It's not me, as Matheson pointedly noted on air.

Sara Glassman, the Strib's fashion expert, said: "I love Amelia because she takes more fashion chances. She's definitely the fashion-forward person among Twin Cities female anchors. She's wearing white in winter, which is unusual here, but very in style."

To see the Santaniello attire for yourself, find the "Good Question: Should you mess with a classic" video on WCCO's redesigned website, where radio is apparently more important than TV and links are impossible.

In other fashion observations, "I do like Frank's tie," Glassman mused about Santaniello's husband and co-anchor, Frank Vascellaro. "I have noticed lately Frank is doing some more daring tie-and-shirt combinations, bolder patterns on patterns. I've been quite intrigued by them. It's quite impressive."

Santaniello probably picked them out for her husband -- although when Vascellaro pulled me aside to call attention to the fact that he was wearing the same famous-label shoes as millionaire restaurant creator Steve Schussler, who was present, Vascellaro insisted to me that he had chosen and bought those shoes all by himself.