For the 20th time in her 40-year career as state representative, Rep. Phyllis Kahn won the DFL endorsement at the convention Saturday, the Minnesota Daily reported. She was challenged by Mike Griffin, a 26-year-old University of Minnesota grad, who kept her from achieving the necessary 60% majority for two rounds of voting.
Mike Griffin has been heavily campaigning in the University of Minnesota district for more than a year, and was able to bring a lot of young people to the convention who, in previous years, might not have shown much interest in Minnesota house elections, the Minnesota Daily reported.
The Minnesota Daily reported both Griffin and Kahn as being happy with how Griffin's campaign brought students to the polls, but students at the event said that Kahn's demeanor told a different story. After the first round of voting did not work out, she went around to the Griffin students and told them that by voting for Griffin a second time, all they were doing was slowing down the process and causing division in the party. "Up on stage she seems sweet, but one-on-one I found her whole attitude to be very rude and abrasive and dismissive towards students, so I could not vote for her in good conscience," student Kim Thompson said.
A student working in Kahn's campaign, who preferred to remain nameless, had to say of her boss, "Kahn can be nice when she wants to be."
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