Photo and profile excerpt from the KARE 11 website:
Nelson-Pallmeyer's staff and volunteers are working the phones, dialing for delegates, heading into the state convention. Most of those delegates have already met Nelson-Pallmeyer and the perceived frontrunner, Al Franken, at district and county conventions.
Because Franken and Nelson-Pallmeyer have both pledged to abide by the party's endorsement, that gathering at the Mayo Civic Center Friday and Saturday will determine which Democrat's name appears on the ballot next to incumbent Norm Coleman's name.
"As Minnesotans we can solve a lot of the problems we face," Nelson-Pallmeyer told KARE 11 Monday, "This is an anxious time but I believe this can be a hopeful time."
While many pundits have already moved beyond the endorsing convention, and are focusing instead on the Franken-Coleman matchup, Nelson-Pallmeyer still feels good about his prospects.
"I think why people are attracted to my campaign.." Nelson-Pallmeyer started to say Monday when he was interrupted by the ringing of a bell and cheers from volunteers.
"We like that sound!" exclaimed Nelson-Pallmeyer, "That sound indicates another firmed up delegate who's going to be voting for me in Rochester."
"The decisions we make in the next few years on climate, health care, the war, and the economy will determine the quality of life for many generations to come," Nelson-Pallmeyer told KARE.
"As long as our politics comes with some honesty about where we are, and some sense of hope about where we can go, I think that's what people are looking for now."
The professor of peace and justice studies has been a strident opponent of the war in Iraq. He calls for a responsible end to the conflict, but believes there's still a need for a full accounting of why the United States invaded that country five years ago.
"The real obstacle to moving forward in Iraq is we're still trying to take their oil and still trying to build permanent military bases there," Nelson-Pallmeyer remarked, "As long as that's true we're going to have a bloody insurgency. As long as we're not honest we won't win the help of other nations in that region."
He also supports a single-payer version of universal health care program, supported by tax dollars. Nelson-Pallmeyer argues people and businesses currently pay far more in premiums than they would in taxes to pay for such a plan.
"We're the last industrialized nation that isn't doing this, and those places -- Germany, France, Japan, Canada -- are all taking care of people for less per capita than we do here."
He graduated from Saint Olaf with a political science degree in 1973, and holds a master of divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York.
His studies and jobs took him to some of the most poverty-stricken areas in the United States and other parts of the world. It's an issue he's revisiting now on the campaign trail.
If the people on the Jack for Senate team can survive convention weekend, they'll go to work on Minnesota voters in general. For now, they're concentrating on the 1,200 elected delegates and 188 superdelegates who'll be asked to choose between Al Franken and Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer.
I first was attracted to Nelson-Pallmeyer from a household mailer (click to enlarge):
Third item down, other candidates for local office did not see it as an early [prior to precinct caucus] issue position, but it was something I liked very much:
Jack helped to convince nearly 200 House Democrats to vote to close the School of the Americas, where foreign soldiers are trained to repress their local populations.
While it does not resonate in Minnesota as greatly as issues of jobs, health care, energy, the war, K-12 schooling, and affordable access to well maintained first rate undergraduate and graduate education, it is a position that showed "the courage to lead" to me. You can Google and study the issue, nuns arrested in protests, death squads, dictators and their juntas, etc., all I say for now:
No such school, no problems as reported with the Zetas.
They are a renegade group of School of the Americas alumni, reported here and here as converting their skills to private sector torture, and to intimidation and drug trafficing at the border and in the US. Something like Blackwater in terms of being privateers chasing a bigger payday, but more unrestrained even than Blackwater, killers, looters, kidnappers, not nice at all.
Using their training to advantage, doing some of the things that alumni of the school leave trained to do. From all reporting it is not a good place. While it cannot be blamed for the dictatorship of Samoza himself, he went to West Point as did many other junta higher-ups in Central and South America over time, but much of his officer corps were trained to be effective fighters at School of the Americas.
John Negroponte may like the school. While Reagan's ambassador to Honduras he probably rubbed elbows with the alumni group.
Jack and I do not like the school.
In closing, again, Franken also would make a fine Senator. He shows the promise of being above average in skills and dedicated to positions on the issues I agree with and that I feel most thinking voters in Minnesota not among the super wealthy would also find resonant. Ciresi also would be fine if there is no endorsement, if that scenario plays out with a following three candidate primary as some expect possible. I would gladly support Ciresi in a heartbeat if that primary scenario happened and he won. But I prefer Jack.
Coleman should be retired as a single termer able to beat a recently deceased opponent, as his level of popular appeal. One up on John Ashcroft that way, but not much more to like than with Ashcroft. Jack, in the best of worlds to me, should replace Norm, in the Wellstone seat. Jack would be an independent, honest, and differing voice in DC where there are something like ten active registered lobbyists for every Representative and Senator in Congress. Jack's absolute integrity in such tempting circumstances would never be in doubt. As with Franken and Ciresi. The DFL sentate race has three excellent options.