Dean Phillips comes to HHS

This political campaign season in Minnesota’s third congressional district has been full of deprecating advertisements and controversial activity.

Dean Phillips, the Democratic nominee challenging Erik Paulsen’s representative spot, is trying his best to win the seat in the House. The race has been riddled with mudslinging ads from both sides. Each trying to dirty the image of the other.

The ads are full of loaded facts that aim to get at the heart of why a voter might not like a specific candidate. But not all are true, some facts have been twisted by both campaigns in order to more specifically target a faults in a candidate.

The Paulsen campaign ad that targeted Phillips’ not giving his workers health insurance was based on a part-time job that paid 15 dollars per hour, and now those workers have insurance from the job. On the other side, a Phillips campaign ad that portrays Paulsen as bigfoot and that he’s never been seen stretches Paulsen’s absence from public appearances very far, to the point where he doesn’t even exist.

“The campaigns have been crazy, but I hope that Dean comes out on top, he seems like a great guy, I don’t know too much about Paulsen but I’m sure that he’s okay too,” said Josh Sanders, senior.

While the race has been catching media attention over the TV, it doesn’t mean the candidates’ presence in person is any less relevant. Phillips visited HHS during TASC on Thursday and spoke on current issues and his plans to fix them.

Phillips talked about how he was raised and how that affected his views of the public. He also spoke on his views of problems affecting the nation and why he can start to fix them. He emphasized that the current congress has been plagued by money going into campaigns and that it’s affecting views on controversial topics.

“The money in politics is destroying this country in a way that few recognize, and we’re on a path that if we don’t reduce the influence of affluence, we’re in big trouble,” said Phillips.

The student response to Phillips was mainly excitement. Students clapped at the end of almost every topic, regardless of political opinions.

“The talk was really fun and interesting to be apart of, everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoyed Phillips and his opinions,” said Jacob Kampf, senior.

While Phillips just visited HHS for the first time, Paulsen has visited HHS for the past two years and was invited to come again. If he comes this year, students can expect to see him sometime mid to late October.