New SD41 -- Quick and Dirty

UPDATE (4/1): It is true -- Tom Tillberry did not get the endorsement for District 41A and Connie Bernardy did. A report here from the liberal blog The Cucking Stool.

I got back a little while ago from the Republican SD41 convention, held at the Eagles Club in New Brighton. There's a lot more to unpack than I have time for at the moment, but here are the highlights:

• We decided to remain a unified Senate District BPOU, instead of breaking into separate house districts. This will probably work well going forward, but it led to a lot of logistical issues over the course of what was a long day. The reasons behind it are worthy of a post or two, but we'll let it be for now.
• We did endorse candidates for district offices:  Gina Bauman will be our nominee for State Senate. The endorsed candidate for house district 41A is Dale Helm. The endorsed candidate for district 41B is Laura Palmer. This is potentially a very strong slate of candidates.
• Although I haven't confirmed it independently, the word is that on the DFL side, incumbent representative Tom Tillberry, lost his bid for DFL endorsement to Connie Bernardy, who had preceded Tillberry in office but had retired in 2006. This is a somewhat surprising development and it could make things interesting for the upcoming race.

I'll write a longer, followup piece anon. As is often the case, it was a very long day and I actually had to leave before the convention wrapped up. More soon.