Just a quickie post amidst the CONvergence events, skimming the news this morning, the Star Tribune pointed out that Senator-elect Franken (finally!) is going to be participating in the 4th of July parades for Aurora, Gilbert, Nashwauk, Keewatin, Biwabik, and my hometown of Eveleth. This might not seem like a big thing, politicians participating in a parade, but that’s an important area in the state and always saw a visit from Paul Wellstone for these same parades, year in and year out, and its nice to see that Franken’s going to continue that, along with longtime House Rep Oberstar, and our other senator, Amy Klobuchar (though I don’t specifically remember ever seeing both our senators show up for them before). These are tiny, tiny towns that collectively couldn’t fill up any of the larger skyscrapers in downtown Minneapolis, but thanks to the mines (and the union workforce that comes with it), this area, which should be heavily Republican-leaning, is instead quite blue, and very much a key part of the state for our political creatures. You could always tell Wellstone was hugely grateful to the area, and seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself when visiting these small, backwoods towns, and getting plastered down at the bars with the miners, and even if Franken doesn’t have the same sort of ties to the area (yet), its great to see that he’s keeping to that tradition.