Nov 3, 2008 10:52 pm US/Central
MN Candidates Set Furious Pace As Time Dwindles
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ―
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With the most recent polls showing a neck-and-neck race, Sen. Norm Coleman and Al Franken kept up their barrage of TV ads. (File)
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Minnesota's leading Senate candidates turned to the heavy hitters on Monday, with time dwindling to pull undecided voters into their column.
Democrat Al Franken, after starting the day with a rally in Rochester, welcomed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton back to the state with an afternoon rally in Duluth.
Republican incumbent Norm Coleman called on former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to help fire up supporters at O'Gara's Bar & Grill in St. Paul.
Those were just two stops on a busy last full day of campaigning for the candidates. Coleman scheduled a dozen stops at cafes in greater Minnesota cities, including Brainerd and North Branch, and in the Twin Cities.
After appearing with Clinton at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, Franken planned an evening rally at a union hall in St. Paul.
The Independence Party's Dean Barkley scheduled several public stops and radio interviews.
With the most recent polls showing a neck-and-neck race, Coleman and Franken kept up their barrage of TV ads. The Texas civil lawsuit that emerged late in the campaign, accusing a Coleman backer of funneling money to an insurer that employs Coleman's wife, was a topic of last-minute ads from both campaigns.
After Coleman aired an ad over the weekend suggesting the Franken campaign was using the lawsuit to defame his wife, Franken responded with his own ad saying Coleman was making dishonest claims and had to answer allegations in the lawsuit.
The Senate race was far from Minnesota's only potboiler.
In the 6th District, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann was fighting hard to overcome a gaffe that threatened to cost her a second term. Bachmann, who jump-started her opponent's campaign by remarking on TV that Barack Obama may have anti-American views, was visiting businesses in downtown Anoka and dropping in on GOP call centers in Blaine, Forest Lake and Woodbury.
Bachmann was also set to speak at a rally in St. Paul with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Her opponent, Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg, was to spend the day greeting commuters in Coon Rapids, stopping at a union hall in Blaine and rallying students in St. Cloud. He and Bachmann are running in Minnesota's conservative 6th District, which takes in the northern fringe of the Twin Cities and stretches west past St. Cloud.
And in the 3rd District, which includes western Twin Cities suburbs, Democrat Ashwin Madia campaigned at an American Legion in Osseo with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, whose 2006 victory showed that the district is no longer safe GOP territory.
Republican Erik Paulsen planned to knock on doors in Minnetonka, Maple Grove and Long Lake with Rep. Jim Ramstad, the popular GOP incumbent whose retirement set off one of the nation's most competitive races in the state's 3rd District.
Paulsen, Madia and Independence Party candidate David Dillon are vying for the seat.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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