Two Smart Senators from Minnesota? (The Other One Would not be Senator BlowDry)

Mr. B. has previously posted on the possibility that Peter Agre will run for Senate in Minnesota. The current issue of Science has an article on this matter. Hopefully Peter will get some traction, but this will be a very difficult task.

From: Science 25 May 2007

Nobelist Eyes Minnesota Senate Seat

Eliot Marshall

New experiment. Chemist Peter Agre may test his popularity in one of the hottest U.S. races.

Peter Agre wants to do something no Nobelist has done before: get elected to the U.S. Senate. After a colleague disclosed it in a newspaper op-ed column last week, the 2003 chemistry laureate confirmed that he is considering a run for the Senate seat now held by Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman.

Agre, 58, plans to take leave this summer from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he is a professor of cell biology and vice chancellor for science and technology. He aims to test his welcome among Democrats in Minnesota, his childhood home, which he left 3 decades ago to pursue a career on the U.S. East Coast. With no campaign kitty, little public visibility, and no political experience, he concedes that the odds of winning a Democratic primary, much less the general election in November 2008, are long. But he says that Minnesota has promoted "some very unusual candidates over the years," including another student at his high school, Jesse Ventura, the professional wrestler who was elected governor.

The news that Agre is weighing a run for the Senate came as a surprise to science policy leaders, some of whom were pleased. "That he would even consider this is an extraordinary public service, for which he should be applauded," said Neal Lane, former director of the National Science Foundation and science adviser to President Bill Clinton. "It's pretty clear … that we're in dire need of serious leadership by people who think that facts are important, that evidence should be considered." Lewis Branscomb, professor emeritus of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, thinks that Agre's Nobel credentials would enable him to "fight for rational, fact-based policy decisions so essential to the survival of democracy." Former Republican House Science Committee chair Robert Walker says, "It's always positive to have scientists involved," adding that many are uncomfortable with the compromises required in public life.

Agre drew some media attention several years ago when he helped his friend Thomas Butler, a microbiologist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, fight charges that he had violated biohazard and accounting regulations (Science, 19 March 2004, p. 1743). Butler was convicted and sent to prison--a "disgrace," says Agre, who figures that he spent a large part of his Nobel Prize money on Butler's legal defense. Agre also endorsed a 2004 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists accusing the Bush Administration of manipulating U.S. science for political aims. His political views are left of center, although within the mainstream for Minnesota; for example, he favors universal health insurance, strong action to control carbon emissions, and more public aid for poor women seeking abortions.

Political strategists say that the Minnesota Senate race could cost candidates more than $30 million. And two well-heeled candidates are already seeking the Democratic nomination: political comic Al Franken and a popular Minneapolis attorney, Michael Ciresi. Agre says he will spend the summer with Minnesota voters to see whether his own candidacy "has traction or not."

Hopefully things will heat up soon on this soon, otherwise it is going to be too late. Ciao, Bonzo

Peter Agre to Explore Running for US Senate

Would it hurt to have a second smart senator from Minnesota?

From Today's Star-Tribune

Chemist knows a Senate run takes a lot more than smarts

Is there room for brilliance in the United States Senate?

By Doug Grow, Star Tribune

May 21, 2007 – 8:57 PM

Though a graduate of Minneapolis schools -- Roosevelt High and Augsburg College -- it's been years since he's actually called Minnesota home. Secondly, though he has a nice job -- the physician is vice chancellor for science and technology at Duke University's School of Medicine -- he doesn't have access to the amount of money needed to play contemporary politics.

So why's he considering a campaign?

"We live in desperate times," said Agre, citing problems ranging from the health care crisis to the lack of support for public education to the ever-increasing mess in the Middle East.

Agre, 58, doesn't think his address problem is a big one. After all, Al Franken, a DFL Senate candidate, also hasn't had a Minnesota residence until recently.

"I've always been a Minnesotan," Agre said. "Your paper recently had a story with the headline, 'Bob Dylan, Still One of Us.' That's me." He added that though he spent his career at Johns Hopkins University before moving to Duke, he's always made frequent trips "home."

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.

The money issue is tougher.

He will spend considerable time in Minnesota in July to find out if he can attract the sort of financial support that would make a Senate race possible.

"I have to be realistic," he said. "This is not about tilting at windmills."

Agre was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2003. (He and his colleagues discovered microscopic channels involved in the exchange of water among cells.)

At the time, he vowed that he would become more of a public spokesman for science. He has made good on his pledge, traveling all over the world to speak to science organizations. He's also traveled back to Roosevelt High, where, a couple of years ago, he passed his Nobel medal around a room filled with kids who were amazed at the humility of the man who talked with, not down to, them.

But there is this simple fact: There are no Nobel winners in the Senate. That's because the Senate has become a club for the wealthy or for anyone with a lifelong driving ambition to be a senator.

Let's see:

Show me the money!

In this world, one thing counts, in the bank, large amounts.

or is it:

Money is the root of all evil.

In a state that elected Paul Wellstone anything is possible. If Ciresi and Franken are really interested in retiring Senator BlowDry perhaps they should throw their support and dollars to Peter Agre. The thought of Senator BlowDry staying in office because Al Franken ran is too terrible to contemplate.

Ciao, Bonzo

Will Peter Agre Run for Senator in Minnesota?

Mr. B. has written previously about Peter’s wonderful letter to the Strib about his early life experiences, including having attended Roosevelt High School and Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Peter is a Nobel prize winning scientist. Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors, and writes:

The land of $9 million

Anyone can run for public office, right? Not quite. A closer look at Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race shows how our fractured, money-soaked system can effectively eliminate most citizens — even a Nobel Prize winner — regardless of résumés.

By Jonathan Turley

For those who believe that American democracy is at a crisis point, there is no more vivid example than Minnesota, where comedian Al Franken has launched a full-throated effort to unseat Republican Sen. Norm Coleman. It is fast-food politics at its artery-clogging worst: instant gratification and no nutritional value. Yet, Franken has both personal wealth and a host of wealthy donors at his call — pushing out virtually all competitors.

While Minnesota has long prided itself on favoring underdogs, the day may have passed when an idea-rich, cash-poor candidate can secure a major office. The threshold barriers to new voices entering our political process were evident during a recent conversation that I had with Nobel Prize winner Peter Agre.

A Minnesota native, Agre revealed his interest in running but said he was told by state politicos that, in opposing Franken, he is a day late and a dollar short — well, $9 million to be specific. That was the amount that he would need to be "credible." Despite a lack of money, Agre still intends to run as either a Democrat or independent.

In the 2000 Senate race in Minnesota, lawyer Mike Ceresi (who is also running in 2008) put up $5 million of his own money in his losing bid. To win, a candidate needs buzz and bucks, and Franken — who has raised $1.4 million as mere seed money — has an endless supply of both. He thrilled bored voters by calling Coleman "one of the administration's leading butt boys."

Conversely, Agre does not have much to put on the table beyond a Nobel Prize for chemistry and global work on behalf of academic freedom. In today's politics, that gives him about the same odds as Albert Schweitzer running against Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Nonetheless, there is something fundamentally wrong when a man such as Agre is considered political roadkill. Even in a state that once embraced underdog candidates such as professional wrestler Jesse Ventura (who became governor) and college professor Paul Wellstone (the late U.S. senator), money now confines politics to the ranks of rich personalities and robotic functionaries.

Except for his lack of money, Agre would appear the perfect candidate. Besides instantly doubling the IQ of the Senate, Agre would be the first Nobel Prize winner for science to be elected to Congress. While the Senate has been Nobel-free for more than six decades, he would join three prior senators and one vice president (the president of the Senate) who received Nobel Peace Prizes.

Born in Minnesota and a former Eagle Scout to boot, Agre seems to have walked off the set of A Prairie Home Companion: milking cows in the summer and eating lutefisk in the winter — a vile codfish soaked in lye that only a snow-crazed Norwegian can swallow with success.

Part of a large farming and working-class family, Agre went to Theodore Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis (with another student named James Janos — later known as Jesse Ventura). His father was the chairman of the chemistry department at St. Olaf College. Growing up, Linus Pauling — two-time Nobel laureate for chemistry and peace — stayed at their home, unaware that the gangly kid running around would inherit his Nobel Prize 49 years later.

Agre's announcement would create a wild contrast for Minnesota voters. On one side, there is Franken, whose contributions to humanity include such books as Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot.

On the other side is Agre, who has quietly served medicine and human rights for decades around the world. His published works include scientific breakthroughs credited for having "ushered in a golden age of biochemical, physiological and genetic studies at the molecular level."

Agre could present an equally sharp contrast with Coleman on issues such as stem cells. Coleman has often discussed his tragic loss of two children to a rare genetic disorder as shaping his opposition to most stem cell research. Agre's loss of his 3-month-old daughter, Lydia, to cerebral palsy helped shape his views in favor of such research.

Of course, the very notion of a Nobel laureate joining the less-than-cerebral ranks of the U.S. Senate is something too much to hope for. It would be a scene reminiscent of when John F. Kennedy welcomed Nobel Prize winners to the White House in 1962 and observed, "Never has there been so much collective intelligence in this room, since Jefferson dined here alone."

Mr. B. looks forward to Peter Agre running for Senate in Minnesota. He needs to lose the Mensa label, though. This will not be hard once people get to know him a little better.

On the Road to BigU Greatness...

UD cites an opinion piece in the Minnesota Daily by a BigU undergrad, Nicholas Maxwell: "Stadium Does Not Serve Core Mission." Mr. Maxwell should be proud as UD cites this as "a nicely written opinion piece" in a precis headed "Humongous Dessert Plate for Minnesota Students" [January 21, 2007]. As someone who works at the medical school at BigU, I will only quote two paragraphs of embarrassment from the article:

he University has announced a $40 million increase in the budget for the new on-campus stadium. This represents a 16 percent increase in the project's total cost and the explanation of the source of these additional funds was also curious, "money management decisions" and "the issuance of … new debt."

Just like that, the University is willing to pony up the $40 million necessary to ensure "the stadium is not built on the cheap." Yet, back in October, when the Community University Health Clinic (a facility that actually contributes to the University's core mission of outreach by providing health care to low income families) eliminated 17 positions due to budget cuts, the University's administration was nowhere to be found with any magical "money management decisions" to save that outreach.

Meanwhile the Nobel prize winning chemist Peter Agre writes in the letters to the editor section of the Strib today from Durham, NC, where he currently works at Duke. Agre went to Augsburg, where his father was a chem prof. Augsburg is within easy walking distance of the Bonzo's residence, SmallHouse in Seward. Peter Agre's father, Courtland Agre, had earlier taught at St. Olaf and Peter was born in Northfield. I knew Courtland Agre slightly as he was still in action when Mr. Bonzo was a rookie chemist. Dr. Agre sometimes taught summer school organic chemistry (OChem as the youngsters now call it) at BigU.

ELITE COLLEGE ADVANTAGES: Early Life Lessons Endure

"I attended Augsburg College, where my father taught. Augsburg was not exclusive, and my classmates were often from working-class families. Many of my friends from RHS [Roosevelt High School] attended the University of Minnesota which was also not considered exclusive at the time."

"One dramatic difference, however, between Augsburg and University of Minnesota and those at Johns Hopkins [from which he got an MD and spent most of his academic life] and Duke [where he now is] is the privileged backgrounds of the latter. A disproportionate number of Duke students come from prep schools, and exceedingly few are from the working class. Moreover, there is often huge family push behind students at the latter institutions and not infrequently a lot of insider pull to gain admission."

"...the hard work and personal responsibility that we learned from our parents, while attending public schools and working at after-school jobs, still carry us forward. I am reminded of the words of the late Kirby Puckett: 'It doesn't matter where you come from. It only matters how you play the game.'"

To which Mr. Bonzo can only say: "Bravo !"

The people reengineering, ah, transforming BigU might want to think a little bit harder about whether the goal of becoming an elite institution is a good idea for ColdState taxpayers.

OUCH! It just gets worse and worse...

From the Pioneer Planet - Gemini Cities other paper:

"Two-thirds of the minority athletes who came to the U between 1999 and 2002 were considered academically "at-risk" based on their weak high-school class rank and poor college entrance exam scores."

"Data collected for the report paint a generally frustrating portrait of a university opening the door to some athletes — often from racial and ethnic minority groups — whose academic histories make them likely candidates for academic failure."

"The report also urges the U to reach out more to student-athletes who've left the school without graduating to get them to return and complete their degrees."

"However, it contains no recommendations for minimum academic qualifications for athletes entering the U, nor for standards that would align the U's increasingly rigorous overall academic profile with athletics. [emphasis added bg] Officials said they focused instead on how to help students once they'd been accepted."

As Mr. Bonzo is fond of saying: "It is time to get real at BigU."