2008 Woodie Awards
Question and Answer session with Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
By: Matt Day, News Editor
Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: News
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, one of the two remaining Democratic-Farmer-Labor senatorial candidates along with Al Franken, won the precinct caucus on the Macalester campus Feb. 5. A St. Thomas Professor, Nelson-Pallmeyer spoke with The Mac Weekly March 6.
Nelson-Pallmeyer makes references in the interview to his former opponent Mike Ciresi, who dropped out of the race March 10.
The Mac Weekly: Did you find the crowd at Mac pretty receptive?
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer: Very, yeah. You know, there are issues that I think we [had] a lot of commonality on in that room. I'm leading with environmental concerns and I believe that we just have a matter of years here for us to get it right to address climate change. And I'm proposing pretty bold and practical alternatives to build renewable energy.
You won a majority of delegates at the precinct caucus held on Macalester's campus. Do you attribute it to your positions on those issues, the environment and foreign policy?
I think so, yeah. I think also students appreciate and people sense that I'm doing this out of a sense of urgency in where the country is headed and sense of possibility if we build a movement-based politics to respond. I think they appreciate that I'm not…asking for their vote and promising to go fix things. They understand that I'm trying to engage them in a movement building process.
Have you done other similar outreach across the state?
Yeah, and I'll be doing a lot more of that as time goes on. And I think really one of the most interesting debates of this campaign has been up at Duluth. [It] was held at Saint Scholastica, and there you had a great crowd of students and community people. And I think in some ways that might be the turning point…in my campaign and in this whole election was how electrified people were around my agenda.
Speaking of the next number of months, what are your plans? What is your campaign's strategy for the months leading up to the convention in June?
Nelson-Pallmeyer makes references in the interview to his former opponent Mike Ciresi, who dropped out of the race March 10.
The Mac Weekly: Did you find the crowd at Mac pretty receptive?
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer: Very, yeah. You know, there are issues that I think we [had] a lot of commonality on in that room. I'm leading with environmental concerns and I believe that we just have a matter of years here for us to get it right to address climate change. And I'm proposing pretty bold and practical alternatives to build renewable energy.
You won a majority of delegates at the precinct caucus held on Macalester's campus. Do you attribute it to your positions on those issues, the environment and foreign policy?
I think so, yeah. I think also students appreciate and people sense that I'm doing this out of a sense of urgency in where the country is headed and sense of possibility if we build a movement-based politics to respond. I think they appreciate that I'm not…asking for their vote and promising to go fix things. They understand that I'm trying to engage them in a movement building process.
Have you done other similar outreach across the state?
Yeah, and I'll be doing a lot more of that as time goes on. And I think really one of the most interesting debates of this campaign has been up at Duluth. [It] was held at Saint Scholastica, and there you had a great crowd of students and community people. And I think in some ways that might be the turning point…in my campaign and in this whole election was how electrified people were around my agenda.
Speaking of the next number of months, what are your plans? What is your campaign's strategy for the months leading up to the convention in June?
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