State lawmaker dines with porn star

State Sen. Paul Koering, R-Fort Ripley, has what some might call an impolitic attitude regarding his reelection in light of his recent dinner with a porn star.

"I don't need to get reelected so bad that this is going to ruin my life," he said Thursday. "As far as I'm concerned it's just dinner, and I don't see the big deal.

"Here we've got 60,000 barrels of oil contaminating the Gulf of Mexico, and people are worried about who I go to dinner with? Doesn't even make sense."

He's absolutely right.

But in the throes of great crises around which we can't wrap our minds, we crave the distraction of a porn star telling twitter.com about dinner with a politician at Iven's on the Bay in Brainerd, according to various media reports.

Brandon Wilde -- and it would be shocking to learn that this is his given name -- began tweeting about their dinner before it occurred: "lol so funny!! in 45 min's im going 2 go to dinner with the senator."

Koering told me, "I guess he tweeted about it. He's apologized to me about 20 times yesterday and I said, 'It's done. It happened.' He feels so bad about it. I said, 'Whatever.'"

Wilde has starred in films such as "My Brother's Hot Friend" and "Cruiser Boys," according to the minnesotaindependent.com, and he divides his time between Brainerd and West Hollywood, Calif.

The website also quotes Minnesota state GOP chair Tony Sutton as saying the dinner showed poor judgment on Koering's part.

One question Koering did not raise during our interview is whether a dinner with a tweety porn star would have raised any eyebrows if the politician were a heterosexual.

The answer: Oh yeah.

And if one of them had reportedly ordered strip steak, make that answer: Yeah, baby.