As part of the driving tour of the upper Midwest electoral map, we revisited Highway 169 and St. Peter.
As you come into St. Peter from the north, there is a very professionally done billboard of two smartly dressed young men in tuxedoes, with beaming smiles. The caption on the billboard says "For gay marriage, vote Democratic."
In a mixed rural/urban, socially conservative district the DFL lost narrowly in 2002, I'm pretty sure this is not the officially sanctioned party message.
Posted by robe0419 at November 1, 2004 10:01 AM | TrackBackYup. The billboards are courtesy of Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage, a conservative group which was formed to fight for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in Minnesota.
The interesting thing about these billboards is that there are none in the Twin Cities. I remember hearing (though I can't put my finger on the story right now) that Clear Channel, which has the billboard market in the Cities pretty much wrapped up, wouldn't sell the group any billboards, because they feared backlash (presumably against their radio stations) in the liberal Twin Cities market. Since Clear Channel is a well-known supporter of conservative causes, I think it's kind of funny that that they weren't even willing to try this in the Cities.