A Tale of Two SD66 Candidates

In the Minnesota SD66 special election we have two candidates, one who stands before you, and one who hasn't. 

Greg Copeland is out trying to meet with the constituents he wants to represent.  He has participated in an interview on MN Capital Conversations (where it became pretty clear Mr. Copeland was the better candidate), and in an interview on Speechless on SCC-TV, being re-broadcast on SPNN (schedule) and CTV15, where you learned first hand about Greg Copeland's plans and commitment to the people in Saint Paul.

Mary Jo McGuire appears to be the most unknown candidate ever to be seen in CD4 and SD66!  As a citizen who is interested in knowing about the candidates and what they stand for before I go to vote (I won't be voting in this election, since I live outside SD66) I always try to do research to find out about them.  Research on Mary Jo McGuire turns up virtually nothing.  I have been able to find a cute but politically meaningless video of her playing with a child -- that's it for video.  The only articles available are basically ones that describe that Mary Jo McGuire is running in the SD66 primary.  The best of the lot was one on MinnPost, which at least told me she had been a legislator and that when her district was redrawn and she had to chose to retire from politics:

"Alice and I had talked about it," McGuire recalled. "We knew it was possible. We'd said we flip a coin. But it was so clear it was mostly Alice's district. Here I had a situation where the two women I most admire — Alice [Hausman] and Mindy [Greiling] — had ended up with my district."

So what does Mary Jo stand for?  What expectations will we have were she to represent SD66?  You, as voters and constituents, are left with only her website to help with that, and perhaps having to read some decade old legislation on the MN Legislature archives.  The single opportunity the voters in SD66 had for discovering anything about her was a LWV "debate", which she ultimately passed on, due to "schedule conflicts". Even though her event calendar only showed phone banking for that day. LWV events are typically a liberally slanted Q&A session, so what is she afraid of?  This is the typical Democrat CD4 candidate procedure.  They feel they "own Saint Paul" and have no responsibilities to address you.  Hopefully she would not be as dismissive of your needs and future as her supporter, and object of her admiration, Alice Hausman was about the University Ave businesses, but we are certainly left with many questions.