BREAKING: CONGRESSMAN JIM RAMSTAD TO RETIRE

by
Matt Martin
Published on September 17, 2007 at 12:03 pm
, filed in CD3
.

Michael Brodkorb over at Minnesota Democrats Exposed seems fairly certain that Jim Ramstad, Congressman from Minnesota’s 3rd District, is about to announce his retirement. We feel confident enough in the veracity of this rapidly circulating rumor to report on it. Needless to say, if this is true and Ramstad does announce his retirement it will create a highly contested and competitive race in the 3rd. The 3rd has a fairly high Democratic index as it stands, and this is going to be (by all indicators) a bad year for Republicans.

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8 Responses to “BREAKING: CONGRESSMAN JIM RAMSTAD TO RETIRE”

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  1. 1 1 Johnny
    September 17, 2007 at 12:10 pm

    gonna have to question your journalistic ethics here. not sure it’s right to put the headline that someone is going to retire when your sources are rumors and MDE (who also cited rumors).

  2. 2 2 Sean
    September 17, 2007 at 12:12 pm

    Representative Ramstad has been a good Representative for his district, he’s lead a great fight on behalf of mental health parity in medical coverage, and he’s been spoken of fondly by DFL’ers for being a good guy to work with from the other team and he’ll be missed.

    But I can’t hide my pure unadulterated joy at this! With El as a challenger in the 6th and this seat now really really up for grabs I wouldn’t want to be in the Republican party in Minnesota right now.

    Anyone know what Andy Lugar is doing these days? Sean

  3. 3 3 Michael B. Brodkorb
    September 17, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    According to my sources, Congressman Ramstad has press conference scheduled for 3:00 p.m. today to announce his future plans.

    The same sources tell me that Ramstad will retire.

  4. 4 4 Noah Kunin
    September 17, 2007 at 12:32 pm

    Where is the press conference? Trying to get video.

  5. 5 5 Matt
    September 17, 2007 at 12:35 pm

    Johnny, this is a blog, not a newspaper. I’m not a reporter and I don’t pretend to be. If you read the post you’ll find that I use the word “if” constantly but I also believe that the sources are correct at this point. Welcome to the world of blogging where any schmoe can print whatever they want and you always have to take things with a grain of salt.

  6. 6 6 Dan
    September 17, 2007 at 12:47 pm

    Don’t sell yourself short Matt. You reported what someone else reported and properly attributed it to that source. There is nothing the slighteest bit unethical about this.

  7. 7 7 Johnny
    September 17, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    i always enjoy an argument where someone says they don’t need to be held to a high standard. you’re essentially arguing that i can’t trust what i read on your own blog? there are a lot of arguments i would have accepted, but not one where you say that you’re creating your own ethical universe by virtue of the fact of being on the internet.

    by the way, Dan, the problem, if you’ll read what i wrote, was with the headline. saying that something is breaking news when rumors are your source is unethical. MDE and Polinaut both did the correct thing in putting a question mark after the headline because it was not a statement, it was a possibility.

    either way, the point is somewhat moot since he is retiring. just something to note for the future.

  8. 8 8 Dan
    September 17, 2007 at 8:52 pm

    I think the point that Matt was making is that because this is a blog and not a newspaper, the same standards do not apply to the medium. For what its worth, I think Matt always applies very high standards, including this in instance. The information may have come from a “rumor” but there are very different kinds of rumors, some of which are very reliable. And this one, of course, was 100 percent accurate.

    Further, the rumor was not about something like someone having sex in an airport bathroom, in which printing an unsubstantiated rumor would have been unethical. Context matters. Here, it was just about Ramstad’s retirement, which would have been of no consequence at all if it had been wrong. The idea that this was the slightest bit unethical is a joke.

    I know that Matt (he of the high blog standards) frowns on this kind of statement, but Johnny you are just talking out of your ass. Just something to note for the future.

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