Tom Emmer wins GOP endorsement

Tom Emmer, hockey dad

Palin, who quit her own job as Aaska's governor after a failed shot at the vice presidency, had chimed in just before the convention started.

"A hockey dad," she noted approvingly of the candidate who once played for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks and Boston College. "Working class."

The connective tissue between "working class" and Emmer's bio as an Edina kid who went to St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights, and built a career as a "Super Lawyer" trial lawyer, seems a bit thin.

No worries, though. The activist wing of the party got on board with Emmer and Palin Friday night, sweeping aside smooth operator rival Marty Seifert, and the GOP can now turn its attention to the Democrats.

Note the plural form of the noun.

The Democrats have endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher for the governor's race, but she's going to have to face both Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza in an August primary.

Whatever. They're all evil-doers in Emmer's eyes.

"I don't think you can call yourself a freedom-loving American and be a Democrat," he told the Marshall Independent last year.

And there's a third variable, of course: The Independence Party, which holds it nominating convention on May 8.