Aug. 14 primary vote expected to be spotty

ST. PAUL -- Mike Parry and Allen Quist have added some spice to an otherwise quiet Minnesota primary election campaign.

The two candidates in southern Minnesota are fighting like cat and dog for the 1st Congressional District nomination after Republicans at a spring district convention could not decide between the two.

To a lesser extent, a three-way Democratic congressional contest in the northeast and east-central 8th Congressional District has brought attention to the Aug. 14 primary election.

Other congressional races feature multiple candidates, and two Supreme Court incumbents face challengers, but none of those contests generated much in the way of public campaigns.

The state's elections chief said that primary turnout will be low and even in the 1st and 8th districts voters are not expected to show up in large numbers.

"The interest is going to be very concentrated in just one party in each of these (two House districts) and within that it will be a high activist group," Secretary of State Mark Ritchie said. "The habit of Minnesota is huge turnout in general elections and relatively low turnout in primaries."

All 201 legislative seats are up for election, with relatively few primary races.

In party races, such as those for Congress, the primary will whittle the candidate list down to one person to represent each party on the Nov. 6 ballot. In non-partisan contests, like for Supreme Court, the primary will leave the top two vote-getters in play.

Parry and Quist have waged the state's most heated battle over issues such as whether either supported tax increases during their time in public office.

At one point, the Parry campaign headlined a news release about Quist: "Pants on fire," as in "liar, liar, pants on fire."

Parry and Quist are vying to take on incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Tim Walz.

In the 8th Congressional District, Democrats Tarryl Clark, Rick Nolan and Jeff Anderson have waged active campaigns that are getting louder as the election nears. They want to replace first-term U.S. Rep. Chip Cravaack, who two years ago upset veteran U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar.

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar faces Democratic opponents who have not waged very public campaigns.

Among Klobuchar's opponents are Dick Franson, who has run in more than two dozen elections since 1964, only winning the first; Jack Shepard, a dentist in Italy who could face arson charges if he returns to Minnesota; and Darryl Stanton, who also ran in the past but made little impact and whose campaign this year has been quiet.

Klobuchar's likely opponent, Kurt Bills, faces two other Republicans. David Carlson is a military veteran who at one time worked for Gov. Jesse Ventura and recently began airing television commercials as his first noticeable campaign activity and Bob Carney Jr., who says, "We must reverse the extreme right wing takeover of the Minnesota Republican Party" and in recent days has spent much of his time criticizing U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann.