Wetterling enters Senate race
"Campaign Races"10/09/2005
Associated Press
October 10, 2005
Patty Wetterling said she hopes to help pass a number of laws to protect children from sex offenders, as she kicked off her campaign Sunday for the U.S. Senate.
“I embrace the fact that I am a nontraditional candidate,’’ she told more than 100 supporters in Riverside Park in St. Paul.
Wetterling lost a bid for Congress last year to U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, but she was a recognized name long before because of the tragic unsolved kidnapping of her son Jacob in 1989. After his disappearance, she became an activist for child safety and established the Jacob Wetterling Foundation to protect children from abduction and sexual exploitation.
Last weekend, she called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq by Thanksgiving 2006, apparently becoming the first Senate candidate to propose a specific deadline.
Wetterling is competing against Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar and veterinarian Ford Bell for the DFL’s nomination. Attorney Michael Ciresi, a Demcrat who ran for Senate in 2000, is also mulling a campaign.
On the Republican side, Kennedy appears to have a lock on the GOP nomination.
Wetterling attracted 46 percent of the vote in the right-leaning 6th District last year, encouraging key Democrats, who urged her to run again for Congress. She switched her focus to the Senate race in February after Democratic incumbent Mark Dayton decided not to run for re-election.