If you want a regular lawyer picture in a suit with a flag at the side and rows of law books as backdrop, it's not at Crabgrass, here, instead. Everyone already knows what a lawyer looks like, so I picked the other photo from JohnnyNorthside, and make of it what you will. My guess, it was a cold day.
I was in error in an earlier post, here, by characterizing Colombo and Johnson as DFL candidates. This is because the County Attorney position is not a partisan one - Colombo and Johnson are each running without any party affiliation. I understood that, I simply miswrote. Johnson pointed out my error while we spoke, for which I am grateful.
A friend said I had to post that the Colombo candidate must feel like the Curad folks, having to try to take market share from Johnson & Johnson.
Screen shot from this link, showing a part of the ABC Newspaper coverage of Robert M.A. Johnson's retirement, so that the office is open for a new set of candidates after M.A. repeatedly ran unchallenged, (not even by some newly admitted attorney paying the filing fee to get ballot name recognition in the county after hanging a shingle near the courthouse and waiting for the world to show up).
Johnson's double sided 8-1/2 x 11 flyer gives bio detail, see closing scan images. We spoke about criminal case management functions of a county attorney, and prosecuting crime. War on drugs spending priority, vs. putting the severe white collar crooks in the slammer. You can deter crooked business, while crimes of passion and dangerous persons need to be viewed differently - you punish, you warehouse, but you deter where free or easy money on the table is offset by seeing others sent long time behind bars for cheating and lying and stealing with paper and pen instead of at gunpoint. Complex litigation and long trial preparation and conduct is different from working out dissolution property and custody situations, or street crime prosecutions. It is closer to complex business litigation, with Johnson claiming experience in civil law at different larger firms, one in North Carolina.
He's a trial lawyer. That is a special skill, some do it well, others do not. It's a separate skill from administering an agency, but he's seen that side of things via family and working under Klobuchar and Freeman leadership.
We talked about electronic discovery, need of financial and accounting expertise on a trial team, things like that. If you want somebody to keep the streets safe, look to city police and the sheriff, but if you want to have a reputation for not tolerating street crime, domestic abuse, or business crooks, that reputation is built out of the litigation track record. Criminals can move, and coordination between agencies - task force level organization with the drug and gang task force being the thing to not focus upon, it failed, but consider a Ukrainian identity theft operation, using malware to get into home workstations or to hack into bank or credit union servers, and listing compromised credit card or bank account availability for sale on obscure web outlets that knowing criminals in that line of work know of and trust.
You need cooperative multi-tier effort for that, but locally, the bad restaurant employee who runs up a few accounts at Walmart via stolen account info on the job, that's a local take down if you have the evidence. There is a range of sophistication.
Evidence forensics, for computer and phone networks, consultancies in that area and having knowledge of discovery of electronic evidence - Johnson and I saw the field as one that will expand in importance and sophistication in the next decade.
It was that kind of a general discussion, not "Who's endorsing you, who's endorsing Colombo."
At the DFL Senate District 48 Convention, as well as today's Congressional District 6 convention, both candidates spoke briefly.
I am writing about this race because it is down ticket, and without blog attention it would get scant attention and the office is important enough to deserve more coverage.
Again I issue an open invitation to the other candidate, Mr. Colombo, to contact me. I arrived late at the convention, luckily getting a prime parking place because somebody was leaving, but Colombo was the first speaker when I walked in. From a two-minute soundbite presentation it is hard to get any valid impressions. Having talked to one and not the other candidate, it is hard to separate favorable views arising via unequal time from who gave the better very short speech.
Finally, below are the Johnson flyer screenshots, click to enlarge and read. If Colombo provides a comparable item I will publish it also. As far as I can find by Googling, neither candidate has a campaign website up and operational at this point. If any reader learns of either opening a web presence, please send a heads-up email.
