Politics aside, reasonable people could and do conclude that Minnesota's business-tax climate compares favorably with other states — even with South Dakota.

Each member — Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer and Tom Horner — can sing his own part perfectly, but today's 90-minute forum could have been boiled down to 10 or 15 minutes because all three seldom strayed from their basic tracks.

Related: In a first, Michael Osterholm, concerned about 'the health of the state,' endorses a candidate: Tom Horner

Both Jay Kiedrowski, Rudy Perpich's finance expert, and John Gunyou, finance commissioner for Arne Carlson, had some good things to say about the Horner-Mulder plan.

Doug Grow: Tom Horner's budget plan, aimed at the middle, quickly attacked by both DFL and Republicans

The numbers on the budget outline that Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner, right, announced this afternoon are a little squishy. But the politics are clear.

Minnesotans can get into that debate tonight at a public hearing in Minneapolis featuring two commissioners from the Federal Communications Commission.

Community Voices: Minnesota's rural residents deserve access to the benefits of broadband by Amalia Deloney and Joshua Breitbart
Community Voices: 'Net neutrality' is essential for Minnesota's policy future by Aaron Sinner

Today's session was an odd turnabout from 2008, when the Canvassing Board needed six weeks, not six minutes, to do its work in the contentious Franken-Coleman U.S. Senate recount.

Seeing a need for culturally sensitive Muslim funeral and burial customs, the Minnesota Islamic Cemetery Association was formed. Muslim burial rites, in contrast to the traditional American funeral, are very simple.

Dayton, left, today blasted GOP trackers for "harassing" him and preventing him from interacting with the public. Republican leaders wasted no time in calling his charges "erratic," "weird" and "bizarre."

The drama associated with an "early lead" and a "comeback victory" was an illusion perpetrated by the vote-counting process and especially by the news media.