Candid

In the white farmhouse where Allen Quist grew up doing chores with his three brothers, politics was not considered polite dinner conversation. But the world has changed for the worse since then, according to the man who wants to be Minnesota governor. So in the same southern Minnesota farmhouse he now shares with his wife and children, politics is the topic of the day, every day. Quist, an unabashed religious conservative, squashed incumbent Gov.

Chris Perez is staring at his 4-month-old daughter, Cassie, who at this moment rests in the arms of her smiling mother, Venessa Villanueva. Perez's bright and beaming face is nothing like it appears in the mournful publicity shots for "Resurrection," the debut rock album by his new group, the Chris Perez Band, due out on Hollywood Records on May 18. No. A grinning, affable new daddy just ain't what one would expect of the most famous 29-year-old widower in pop music.

George W. Bush referred to himself as a "war president," putting himself in the company of American leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The conflicts overseen by these men were vastly different in nature, but one fundamental reality -- the terrible sacrifices made by those who fought in them -- remains the same. As we honor the fallen this Memorial Day, their sacrifices remind us not only of lives lost but of the causes for which they died.

Ensuring that abortion will again be a major issue in the 46th Congressional District race, two leading GOP opponents of Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) are already attacking her for opposing a ban on the controversial partial-birth abortion procedure. Rather than defend her vote against the ban, Sanchez said she will try to steer the debate back to a general discussion of abortion and "the right to choose" by saying she, too, opposes late-term abortions, with certain exceptions.