From: TmCampbell@aol.com Date: Thu, 7 Nov 1996 11:56:56 -0500 Subject: TC Take on MN Elections Dear On-Line Friends: Here's my take on Minnesota elections. If you are an editor, please consider the following article 310 word article for publication in your newspaper. I am a freelance writer and will be happy to accept your standard fee for an article of this length. Contact me ASAP is you want exclusive rights in your area. Thanks. Tim Campbell 2103 Pleasant Ave South, Minneapolis, MN 55404 (612) 872-9692 E-Addres TmCampbell@aol.com ------------------------------------------------------ MINNESOTA ELECTION HIGHLIGHTS Gay Marriage Supporter in Minnesota Garners 7%, Insures Future Debate By Tim Campbell © November 7, 1996 Dean Barkley (Reform Party), the small party candidate for senate in Minnesota who showed up incumbent Senator Paul Wellstone (Dem) and former Senator Rudy Boschwitz (Rep) on gay issues by supporting both the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and gay marriage, took seven percent (7%) of the vote in Minnesota elections November 5. By contrast, Wellstone and Boschwitz supported ENDA but oppose gay marriage. Back in 1992, Barkley's Reform Party garnered just five percent of the vote in Minnesota. Although Barkley's total represents only a two percent increase by comparison to the total vote in Minnesota, it represents a forty percent growth in the size of the Reform Party vote itself. Any vote total over five percent insures that Barkley will qualify under Minnesota law for public funding for campaigning next elections and that he will again be included in major public debates and charts comparing the candidates here. Perhaps more importantly, political analysts and Democrats here, will undoubtedly conclude that gay voters or gay and lesbian voters account for a significant part of the growth in Barkley's vote. That's because a few days before the election, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the state's largest daily newspaper, prominently featured a chart that compared Barkley, Boschwitz, and Wellstone specifically on their stands on ENDA and gay marriage. The chart also included several other "hot point" issues like abortion and gun that sway some voters one way or the other. Heavy lesbian-feminist attendance at an October 23 rally for Wellstone here featuring Candace Gingrich and Gloria Steinem may indicate that the gay male vote here was more negatively influenced by Wellstone's oppositon to gay marriage than was the lesbian vote. PAUL WELLSTONE retained his seat in the U.S. Senate taking fifty percent of the vote compared to Rudy Boschwitz' forty-one percent and Barkley's seven percent. -30- Tim Campbell is a freelance writer and computer software consultant living in Minneapolis. He published the gay GLC Voice newspaper there from 1979 - 1992.