General election set for Nov. 8

The mayor's race had the most surprises. Farheen Hakeem, the Green Party candidate pulled in a strong 14 percent. She won two precincts in the Sixth Ward, one in the Eighth and three in the Ninth.

Rybak beat McLaughlin 44.49 percent to 35.33 percent. That's a pretty strong lead going into the General, especially since many observers believe McLaughlin's strong labor support already may have beat most of their voters out of the bushes. He may have peaked. It's been hard to find differences between the two candidates. They're both for law and order, strong schools and they both support a county-wide sales tax increase to fund a baseball stadium for the Minnesota Twins. Over the 30-year life of the sales tax, that amounts to more than a billion dollar subsidy to Carl Pohlad (already a multi-billionaire), the owner of the Twins.

Their one difference seems to be in their support of a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. Both supported the ban originally, but, then, McLaughlin moved to reconsider the Hennepin County ban on the same day the bar owners held a fundraiser for him. It unfortunately looked like he was willing to trade the health of young people who go to bars to listen to music and meet each other for campaign donations.

Robert Lilligren narrowly led Dean Zimmermann in the Sixth Ward, 694 votes to 635. Considering the uphill battle Zimmermann had with the FBI seizing his campaign literature, lists and computers just before the election, and the Star Tribune trumpeting “Council Member took bribes, affidavit alleges,” (see adjoining article) it's amazing he did as well as he did. This race promises to be tight and down to the wire.

Marie Hauser was the surprise winner in the Eighth Ward. She got an even 1,000 votes to her nearest challenger and opponent in the general, Elizabeth Glidden's 829. There was a crowded field of 10 candidates, and Hauser only managed to get 30 percent to Glidden's 25 percent. At the DFL endorsing convention Hauser ran third to Glidden and Jeff Hayden. Most observers thought Hayden and Glidden would survive the primary, but Hauser's campaign, and particularly her family, and particularly in her family her daughter Toni, outworked and out-hustled her opponents. There was some controversy about a last minute piece of literature the Hauser campaign dropped. It had the photos of two DFL endorsed candidates next to Hauser's suggesting that the three candidates were part of a team. The photos were used without the permission of the other candidates and one of them, Mary Merrill Anderson, the DFL endorsed candidate for Park Board, was Jeff Hayden's aunt. Hayden was understandably upset by this. He got 21 percent of the vote, and where his votes go could well determine the outcome. This race could be closer than it looks.

Gary Schiff got 51 percent of the vote in the Ninth Ward. Dave Bicking, endorsed by the Green Party, got 25 percent, and Dave Shegstad, endorsed by the Republicans, got 18 percent. Shegstad ran with the slogan "I'll listen to you because we all are part of this community." If the Greens and the Republicans could get together, they could make it a race for Schiff, but right now it looks like Shegstad is going to run a write-in campaign.