Metro & State

Voters complain that elections often come down to a choice between the lesser of two evils. Third parties say they're the alternative. Third parties sporadically make grand entrances into the Minnesota political scene but have stepped out of the limelight in the past two years. After November, a handful of candidates hope that will change.

More than 700 people attended Wednesday's gubernatorial debate at Ted Mann Concert Hall on the University's West Bank, featuring the three major candidates for governor: DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch; GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty; and the Independence Party's Peter Hutchinson.

State Rep. Phyllis Kahn, DFL, has devoted nearly half her life to politics. First elected to represent the University area in the Minnesota House in 1972, the 69-year-old is running for her 18th term in November.

Seventeen years ago, Keith Ellison was a husband, a father and a University law student. Now he's running for Congress. His time at the University and controversial columns Ellison wrote while here have become contentious issues in the race to take retiring Democratic Rep. Martin Sabo's 5th Congressional District seat. Ellison, a Democrat, most recently has been criticized by his Republican opponent, Alan Fine. Fine, in a Sept. 13 news conference, called Ellison "a person that believes that the white man is the anti-Christ, a person who called for the destruction of our nation, a person who believes the Jews are the scourge of the earth."

Deciding on a new police chief won't be easy for Minneapolis City Council members. Mayor R.T. Rybak's nomination of interim Police Chief Tim Dolan to be the permanent Minneapolis Police chief has University-area support but has caused a split among members of the council. Diane Hofstede, Ward 3 council member, said she talked to Dolan specifically about her ward, including Dinkytown, and that he would do well as chief. "He has demonstrated he has the capacity to learn about new challenges and ideas," she said.

Network neutrality is the latest rallying cry for politicians and special interest groups on both sides of the aisle. While net neutrality is inherently technology-oriented, the basic idea behind it is simple: in a net-neutral world, all consumers have equal access to information on the Internet, with speed of access limited only by their Internet connection. In a non-neutral world, proponents of network neutrality argue, service providers and those that control infrastructure would be able throttle the flow of data to and from nonaffiliated sites and control access based on ability to pay.