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But not only have Ellison’s race and religion set him apart as a candidate in this year’s election; a TPT news feature indicated that many voters were unaware oft either description. What sets Ellison apart are his campaign strategies, his accessibility to his constituency, and his undiluted liberal platform in an era when moderates have been winning elections.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for Ellison in this election. The congressman-elect faced considerable scrutiny over unpaid parking tickets and back taxes he’d accumulated in the past.

A brief association with known anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam while organizing the Million Man March in 1995 caused further trouble for the candidate, which Ellison countered through deliberate efforts to reach out to Jewish voters and his Jewish colleagues in the Minnesota Congress for support and advice.

During the highly contested Democratic primary election, the Ellison campaign also drew much support from the local Somali community. Ellison’s communications director, Bridget Cusick, said of the strategy, “They’re new voters, they hadn’t been engaged before. What it proved was that people who believed that you should only talk to ‘likely voters’ are wrong.”
Rather than target the active party members, predominately middle-aged whites, the Ellison campaign went to Somali shops, local colleges and universities. “We went to Aveda We exploded the vote in a lot of communities,” said Ellison.

According to Cusick, in some of the U of M precincts, the voter turnout rose by 600 percent. “If you go to ‘unlikely voters’ and you offer them something meaningful, they will come out and vote for you,” Cusick said.

In addition to speaking at colleges and universities to raise support for his campaign, and the vote in general, Ellison would habitually offer to let students and other community members shadow him for a day in the Capitol.

Minnesota Rep. Phyllis Kahn (D-59B) stated in an interview with City Pages that “We all pay lip service to shadowing and we’d all like to do it more often. Keith does it better and more often than anybody.”

Ellison says he plans to continue allowing and encouraging his constituents to shadow him in the U.S. Congress, to find out how the legislative process works. Plans for a leadership foundation to assist in funding the trips to Washington, D.C. for shadowing are in the works.

Ellison draws his legislative ideas not only from his own beliefs and views, but directly from his voting population. Ellison said, “Constituents have every right to expect that a candidate will listen to them.”

Ellison said that if he found that the majority of his constituents disagreed with his policies, he would amend them to better represent the population; however, he said also that he "wouldn’t abandon my ideas quickly.”

Passion for political questions, and anger about the current system were some of the reasons that Ellison entered politics into the time left to him after practicing law.

In a statement published in the Star Tribune last summer Ellison writes, “As my father used to say, ‘Any jackass can kick a barn down; it takes a carpenter to build it back up.’ Eventually I understood what my father had been telling me, and I committed to being one of the carpenters.”

Some of the issues Ellison has built his platform on include an uncompromising plan to get all troops out of Iraq immediately and begin the process of rebuilding the country and reaching out to international allies.

Ellison is also a strong supporter of fair, rather than free, trade and environmentally-conscious policiesčissues which go hand-in-hand for Ellison. “Free trade doesn’t help the American people, it doesn’t even help people in other countries,” said Ellison. Ellison said that all foreign trade agreements need to be examined for the effects they will have on jobs for American workers, and environmental impact.

Gay rights, crime prevention at the source, ending racial profiling, a woman’s right to choose, and more money for higher education, are other issues important to the congressman-elect 7.

After a week of orientation, Ellison skipped dinner at the White House in order to meet with labor leaders. “It was actually a very casual decision. I’ll get to the White House.” Ellison said. First, Ellison wants to attend to business. The first bill Ellison plans to propose in the U.S. Congress is a plan to raise minimum wage.