This is news that's been out there for a while, but a Nobel Prize winner is considering entering the race to unseat Norm Coleman in Minnesota. If he decides to enter the race, he'd challenge Al Franken and Mike Ciresi in the DFL primary.
Who is this man you wonder? He's Dr. Peter Agre, a Vice Chancellor at Duke University who,along with Roderick MacKinnon, won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Chemistry .
The Minneapolis Star Tribune has talked about him a few times, and he's already appeared on the Colbert Report, albeit on a different matter. He's also honest about his chances.
Here are a few quotes:
He told the Associated Press: "If you talk about a dark horse, I'm the jet-black Shetland pony that's four miles behind everybody. But this is a marathon, this is not a sprint."
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He knows his chances are slim, but he's already taken his leave of absence and will be traveling Minnesota extensively over the summer.
One negative is that he hasn't lived here for decades but, before January 2006, neither had Al Franken.
Here's how this article from the Star Tribune describes his Minnesota factor:
He has deep family roots here. He's Lutheran. He paddles in the Boundary Waters. He skis in the Mora Vasaloppet. He eats hotdish.
That's a lot of Minnesota in a résumé.
It sounds like with his background he'd emphasize health care issues and education (which is why he was on the Colbert Report video of which you can find here).
I'm currently favoring Al Franken over Mike Ciresi, but depending on Dr. Agre's platform, I think it would be pretty damn sweet to be the first state to send a Nobel Prize winner to the Senate, as well as a bona fide health care and science expert (who could challenge him on not knowing his facts?). The only downside is that he has virtually no foreign policy experience but if he focuses on Education, Health care, and the Environment (which seems to be his platform) this might not be so bad and could appeal to some moderate Republicans in Minnesota based on his environmental stances.
One thing is for certain, an already interesting Senate race in Minnesota is going to get even more interesting over the summer.