Being There

St. Paul locals like Jack Kuhn are quick to point out that the native did carry one state - his home of Minnesota.

Sitting in the Fraternal Order of Eagles on Maria Street in St. Paul, Kuhn doesn't really relate to those at the Xcel Center. He says he supported California Sen. Alan Cranston in 1984, but later became a Mondale convert.

He dislikes Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, and can praise late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash while campaigning in upstate Minnesota in 2002. "On the Hormel strike, he was on the line with us," he said of Wellstone of picketers from the meat company in his old hometown of Austin, Minn.

Kuhn can share stories of Minnesota politics and his days as a state conventioneer, and of course that 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

He is much like the blue-collar people who seem worlds away from Republican headquarters, despite being less than two miles away. He says he can't believe Republicans are even given a chance for a second term. He says he won't vote for McCain, and will support Obama, though he isn't too hot about that either.

"I've never seen in my life so many Minnesotan families' children moving back in to their (parents') homes 'cause they can't afford theirs," Kuhn added.