GOV. MARILYN?
Carlson Nelson's path not traveled
Marilyn Carlson Nelson reveals much that is personal and provocative -- and one thing that's political -- in her new collection of vignettes about leadership, "How We Lead Matters" (published by McGraw Hill.) She discloses that one reason her father, company founder Curt Carlson, finally invited her to join the business after years of resisting the idea is that she was being courted by some within the Republican Party to be a candidate for governor.
That happened, Carlson spokesman Doug Cody said, in 1989, when DFLer Rudy Perpich was winding down his second full term as governor and was still playing it coy about whether he would run again. (He did, and was defeated in 1990 by Republican state auditor Arne Carlson, in a tumultuous campaign that witnessed the withdrawal of GOP nominee Jon Grunseth from the race nine days before the election.)
Nelson had been Perpich's partner on a number of projects, including a successful bid for the 1992 Super Bowl. It's questionable whether she would have challenged him, even if her father had not relented and put her on a path to succeed him at Carlson. That ended her gubernatorial flirtation. But it's fun to play the "what-if" game and imagine Nelson as a charismatic candidate and energetic, inspirational governor. Carlson's gain was surely Minnesota's loss 19 years ago.
LORI STURDEVANT
FRANKEN'S SKIT
He should have written more
The latest faux controversy surrounding the Minnesota Senate race is Democratic candidate Al Franken's involvement in the opening skit of "Saturday Night Live," which poked fun at the false ads that John McCain has been running against Barack Obama. The skit had McCain approving of ads that claimed Obama was promising health care to Osama bin Laden, offering tax cuts to pedophiles and had fathered two black children "in wedlock." Pretty fun stuff.
According to his campaign, Franken gave the idea for the sketch to SNL executive producer and former employer Loren Michaels. But the Coleman campaign and the Republican Party have twisted the facts -- stating that Franken was joking about racism and child molesters.
But there is a real reason for outrage that the Franken critics are missing. The opening sketch was the only funny thing in the 90-minute show. Couldn't Franken have given Michaels a better idea than "The Looker" or remake of "Of Mice and Men"?
Or maybe they're just mad because there were no bowlers in the ad.
