Jul 9, 2008 4:09 pm US/Central
Who Are The State Capitol's Hottest Hotties?
ST. PAUL (WCCO) ―
The debate over the future of transportation in Minnesota isn't the only thing that's hot at our State Capitol. Online publication The Rake just published its
list of the most beautiful people at the capitol.
Blogger Rich Goldsmith called for nominations in May. Goldsmith said he received hundreds of comments and e-mails suggesting legislators, staffers, and even some reporters.
"I saw a similar poll taken by The Hill, a Washington, D.C. politics publication. Right after the session ended I wanted to do something a little lighter and more fun, especially given how tense the final budget negotiations were. So this popped immediately into mind," said Goldsmith.
But the contest was somewhat controversial within the walls of the Capitol, according to Goldsmith. On his blog, he alleged that the Minnesota House of Representatives blocked The Rake's domain on their congressional servers, and also "according to several reports,
suggesting that House members not participate in the contest in any way.
"We had a few people turn us down, but most of them cited a suggestion from the House DFL that they not participate," said Goldsmith. "While I was certainly looking for the most beautiful people at the Capitol, but we didn't want to reduce them to some muscles and mind-boggling curves. So we profiled them along with doing a photo shoot, and while the group is decidedly photogenic, they're also amazingly accomplished as well."
From the nominations, Goldsmith and a team selected five men and five women to be the finalists.
"In total I got a little more than 350 nominations. Of course, a lot of the nominations overlapped and some folks received a ridiculous number of votes. Peter Brickwedde, for example, received somewhere around 50 nominations," he explained. Brickwedde, 24, is State and Local Government Operations and Oversight committee staffer.
The process of selection was a challenge, according to Goldsmith.
"The first step was determining who received the most nominations. Once we did that, we started the search for photos of our finalists and put it to The Rake's editorial staff to narrow it down to the top five women and men. It was actually a fairly difficult and intense process -- sparking a few rather heated discussions as to who qualified. And finding all the photos alone was a large scale pain," he said.
The only legislator to make the list was DFL majority whip Sen. Ron Latz, 44. One commenter on Goldsmith's blog wrote that Latz's "impressive shoulders and steely jaw that draw jealous stares from his GOP colleagues."
In addition to Latz and Brickwedde, Session Daily and Weekly writer Nick Busse, 26, Metropolitan Council transit lobbyist Judd Schetnan, 35, and political video cartoonist/editorialist Dave Gillette, 30, are the other male winners.
"Sadly, no one nominated [WCCO political reporter Pat] Kessler. Maybe we should be asking why that was the case?" joked Goldsmith.
The five most beautiful women at the Capitol according to The Rake are: Laura Blubaugh, 26, an administrator with the Senate Health, Housing, and Family Security Committee (Goldsmith describes her legs as "fabulously toned"); Rachel Hicks, 23, legislative assistant for Sen. Patricia Torres Ray; Melissa Reed, 29, lobbyist for the city of Minneapolis; Regina Garza, 26, Senate Judiciary committee administrator; and Mary Lahammer, 34, Twin Cities Public Television's politics reporter.
Goldsmith writes that there is a subset of TPT viewers watching for Lahammer's "nigh-angelic good looks and choice of footwear that brings most mortal men to their knees."
When it came to the quality of the nominations and the severity of the hotness at Minnesota's seat of government, Goldsmith said he was not surprised.
"Minnesotans are a fairly hot group of people. But I was profoundly impressed at how spectacularly fine the group we assembled turned out to be," he said.
Visitors to Goldsmith's blog at The Rake will vote for the winners (the "king and queen"), and the top beauties will be announced at a "coronation party" later this summer.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
