http://www.TheUptake.com/ has a 4 hour highlight reel of the convention featuring most of the speeches.  Howard Dean gave an amazing speech.  If you want to check it out click on the menu button to the media player, then select On-Demand and go to MN DFL convention highlights.

Amy Klobuchar gave an pretty good speech, Steve Sarvi gave an okay speech, Tim Walz kicked republican rear end in his speech.  I didn't catch Madia's speech, and I don't think El gave one.

The big news at the convention was the Senate Endorsement battle.  Going in it looked like Al would be the favorite but that it would take multiple ballots, however Al had been taking a lot of hits about his comedy (both his work with SNL [the "drug and rape joke" to paraphrase Mikey Brodkorb of the RW site MDE I am so not linking there] and his work in Playboy (he wrote a very risque short story a good while ago).  His main competition was a Professor named Jack Nelson Pallmeier.  A third candidate Mike Ciresi dropped out a while ago as he had the charisma of Lieberman (I am kidding on the square here).  The two Twin Cities area reps (Ellison and McCollum) came out for Jack most likely due to these character problems of Al.  Tim Walz was rumored to be pushing for a no-endorsement vote to that Ciresi could jump back in the race (Walz is in a vulnerable district).

You can read the highlights of the day of the battle here:
http://www.mnpublius.com

So my thoughts:

I don't know if Al is damaged goods or not.  He has taken a lot of hits, but he gave a really good acceptance speech and a good apology speech (Mikey Brodkorb's opinion at MDE not withstanding).  If he doesn't get the race off character issues he will have trouble.  MN is a weird place as we elected Jesse Ventura.  It is hard to accurately tell the mood of the electorate.  If the race is on the issues then Al will win, if it is on Al's character he will lose.

I've heard rumors that Ciresi might jump back into the race and I don't know how I feel about that, he doesn't really motivate people, but he would neutralize the character issue.  I think I need some time to see how Al does in the polls if he can hold steady then he should manage to move beyond these issues eventually.  If he takes a hit then the vultures will circle and he will have a primary fight.

As of right now I back Al, but I want to make sure that he can overcome this rough patch.