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Welcome

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 MN E-Debate 98 - http://www.e-democracy.org/1998 - MN-FORUM@MR.NET 
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Welcome to E-Democracy 98's final gubernatorial debate.

We are very fortunate to have all eight of the registered 
candidates for governor of Minnesota participating in our 
online debate.  This may be the only opportunity you will get to 
hear from all the candidates on "stage" together.  I would like to 
thank the candidates, their parties, and their campaigns for 
taking the time to participate in this debate.

I would also like to thank the volunteers of E-Democracy.  
E-Democracy is a non-partisan, citizen-based effort.  This 
debate is the product of the work of all volunteers, including 
Aaron Osterby, Steve Clift, and David Erickson.

This gubernatorial debate will be held the week of October 5, 
and the week of October 19.  There will be a one week break 
separating the two weeks of the debate to give candidate time to 
respond to our questions.

As a member of MN-Forum you will be receiving the full text of 
the debate.  Today, you will be receiving an introductory 
statement from each of the candidates.  Each candidate's 
response will be emailed to you individually.  Each of the 
candidates' responses to the first short answer question will 
also be emailed to you today.  To limit the number of emails 
you will receive, we will group all the candidates into one email 
for the short answer questions.

In all, there will be ten short answer questions.  One for each 
day of the debate, Monday through Friday.  There will be no 
rebuttals on short answer questions.  Each will be emailed to 
you including the responses of all the candidates.

There will also be four long answer questions.  The first will be 
posted to you on Tuesday morning (October 6).  Each 
candidates' response will be emailed to you separately.  The 
responses to the first long answer question will be followed on 
Wednesday (Oct 7) by rebuttals on that topic from each 
candidate.  There will be two long answer questions and 
rebuttals each week of the debate.

There will also be one day of finishing remarks by each of the 
candidates on Friday, October 23.

Each day you should expect one email for each of the 
candidates, and ninth email containing all of the candidates' 
responses to that day's short answer question.  There will be 
fewer emails sent to you if candidates do not respond to all the 
questions.

There will be no posting of an introduction or response to the 
first short answer question today from the Coleman, McCloney, 
or Wright campaigns.  Their responses were not received, but 
they have all agree to participate in the debate.  If you wish to 
see their responses when they are sent to us, they will be 
available on the E-Democracy web site.

To sign up to receive the debate via email, send a message 
to: majordomo@mr.net in the body of your message just 
type:   subscribe mn-forum

If you are unable to participate via email, or you are need to 
catch up, the entire debate is archived on the E-Democracy 
web site from: http://www.e-democracy.org/1998

Rick Birmingham
E-Democracy
Coordinator
Rickb@mr.net

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The volunteers at E-Democracy 98 would like to thank the partners 
that helped to make this debate possible.  The assistance of 
MRNet/Means, Twin Cities Free-Net, and the League of Women Voters of 
Minnesota over the years has been invaluable to us. 

In addition, we would like to thank our media partners:
Channel 4000
KFAI Radio
KMSP Channel 9
KTCA Television
Microsoft Sidewalk
Minnesota Daily
Minnesota Law and Politics
MN-Politics.com
St. Paul Legal Ledger
St. Paul Pioneer Planet
Star-Tribune Online
Utne Reader

Please watch our partners sites for opportunities to learn more
about Minnesota politics and the gubernatorial debate.

Thank you for participating,

Rick Birmingham
Coordinator of E-Democracy 98's Gubernatorial Debate
rickb@mr.net