She's BAAAACK....

Coleen Rowley is back in the news, thanks to this puff piece in todays St. Paul Pioneer Press.

On a busy Eagan street corner, a former FBI wiretap specialist is
not-so-secretly hoisting and waving banners, demanding: "Support the
Constitution - End the War - Support the Troops - End the War - Support the
Bridges - End the War."

OK - so now the bridge collapse was caused by the war????? Oy vey!

Her trademark hyperactivity may have played more than a small hand in
dooming her 2006 congressional bid against U.S. Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., an
ardent conservative. Out-funded 2-to-1, Rowley's failed campaign required her to
take out a second mortgage on her Apple Valley home.

First off what doomed her campaign was her complete and utter failure to connect with any of the 2nd District voters that were not the far left anti-war crowd. I recall seeing Coleen at the Scott County Fair last year. She and her husband walked into the fairgrounds just ahead of me. She did not try to engage any of the fairgoers that were around us - they just walked straight in. I saw them again, about an hour later, sitting on a bench tucked between two food booths...again not talking to anyone around then and just yards away from two very crowded dining areas that were full of potential voters.

These days, Rowley, 52, is mired in almost $40,000 of personal debt, irked by
what she feels is complacency in the public and the media, and determined to
never, ever again run for public office.

Uh yeah - the media is so complacent....that is why they PiPress is running this little fluff piece on you right Coleen?

Today at 1:30 p.m., Rowley and her husband, Ross, will join the "Out of
Iraq! End the War Now!" march from the Cathedral of St. Paul to the state
Capitol. The march, organized by a coalition of anti-war groups, is expected to
draw peace activists by the hundreds.

"If nobody utilizes their rights, it's
like muscles: They atrophy," Rowley said. "People may think (protest is) silly,
but it gives people an outlet."

Several of my fellow True North compatriots are also exercising their rights to protest people like Coleen. I'm sure they will have pictures and video soon.The puff piece then went back to the subject of Coleen's Quixotic crusade for Congress.

...With Ross, a stay-at-home dad, helping behind the scenes, she ran
against Kline in the 2nd Congressional District, which includes most of
Republican-leaning Dakota County.

She lost. And big.

"Even a tidal wave couldn't lift this leaking rowboat," wrote a political
writer for the Minneapolis-based alternative weekly newspaper, City Pages, just
after the election.

The 16-point poll difference between Rowley and Kline wasn't the only
campaign scar. She doesn't laugh when she says that the two youngest of her four
children - son Jeb, 12, and daughter Meg, 14 - will be paying their own way
through college.

I again go back to my comments about Coleen's appearance at the Scott County Fair. We ran into her many times during the campaign at local parades and events. Every time she was there she was aloof and almost unapproachable - not a good thing when you are trying to get people to vote for you.

For the life of me, I can't figure out why this is "news". There are a lot of people at the Code Pink/WAMM/Anti-War Committee protests today. Coleen was just one of many (according to preliminary reports)...why focus on her? Could it be that this is our local presses way of giving free publicity to the anti-war rally by focusing on one of the movements fallen "heros"? Coleen (and the anti-war movements) calls for defeat in Iraq were rejected by the electorate in the 2nd district. However, that does not stop our local media from fulfilling their roles as the PR organ for the defeat at all costs crowd!