Matt Entenza's Other Lt. Governor Choices

Matt "Don Quixote de la" Entenza is well known in Minnesota political circles for having (a) sharp elbows and (b) the charisma of a lint screen, so his choice of former KMSP news anchor Robyne Robinson as his running mate is probably the most interesting thing he's done in his career.

What's surprising is that it turns out that Robinson wasn't his first choice. In fact, Entenza had considered a number of other candidates who turned him down, according to a mole in his campaign.

The mole reports that the selection process was contentious. "We really wanted to stress Matt's rural Minnesota roots and his great love of old fashioned thinking, but it turns out that stock footage of the Worthington water tower is more expensive than you would initially think, so we had to take another angle. We did a little research and we figured that it might make sense to turn to the world of entertainment for a candidate," the mole said.

However, the trick was to select an entertainer with enough street cred to attract the attention of the urban core while maintaining the old school touch that has been a hallmark of the Entenza campaign. "We thought about it a lot and we decided that it was better to stay with a more traditional approach," the mole noted, "so our dream candidate was polka king Whoopee John Wilfahrt. But we did a search and it turns out that Wilfahrt died in 1961, so his participation seemed a bit problematic," the mole reports.

There was also some concern that the primary demographic for bumper stickers for the Entenza/Wilfahrt ticket would have been 13-year old boys, so the team had to adjust their thinking. "Despite all the work that Phyllis Kahn has done on this issue over the years, our research indicated that 13-year old boys don't vote that often," the mole added.

Eventually a list of other candidates was drawn up. The mole has provided this feature with Entenza's short list, in roughly preferential order. Some of Entenza's picks were, frankly, a little surprising:

13. Mae Schunk
12. Mike Hatch
11. Lori Sturdevant
10. Bombo Rivera
9. Carol Molnau
8. Dark Star
7. Onterrio Smith
6. Willie Clark
5. Russell Shimooka
4. Denny Hecker
3. Don Shelby
2. Terri Traen
1. David Strom

I'll admit it -- I'm a little disappointed that Strommie turned Entenza down.