Rudolph Ely “Rudy” Boschwitz (born November 7, 1930)[1] is an American politician and businessman who served as a United States senator from Minnesota from 1978 until 1991. Boschwitz is a member of the Republican Party.
He was born in Berlin to a Jewish family. When Boschwitz was two years old, he and his family fled the country due to Adolf Hitler's rise to power. Boschwitz grew up in New Rochelle, New York, and graduated with a J.D. degree from New York University School of Law in 1953. Boschwitz moved to Minnesota where he started a retail lumber store chain named Plywood Minnesota (later renamed Home Valu). He grew the lumber chain into a successful business with 70 stores. Boschwitz became well-known for starring in Plywood Minnesota's television commercials, wearing his signature plaid flannel shirts.[2]
He was admitted to the New York State bar in 1954 and the Wisconsin bar in 1959. He served in the United States Army Signal Corps in 1954–1955 where he became a private first class.[4] He was the founder and chairman of a plywood and home improvement retailer, Plywood Minnesota, which later became Home Valu Interiors. He returned to the company after his political career, and led it until it went out of business in 2010.[5]
Boschwitz was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in November 1978 and was subsequently appointed on December 30, 1978, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Wendell Anderson, who was appointed to fill the seat after Walter Mondale was elected Vice President two years earlier. Boschwitz was well known in Minnesota for operating a "flavored milk" booth at the Minnesota State Fair.[6]
Boschwitz is known for one of the more interesting campaign buttons in Minnesota politics; the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party alleged that Boschwitz's donors were "fat cats", so Boschwitz's campaign created a "skinny cat" campaign button to be worn by those who had donated less than $100 to his campaign.[10]
After his defeat in 1990 by Paul Wellstone, Boschwitz ran against Wellstone again in 1996 but lost.
In 1991 he traveled to Ethiopia as the emissary of President George H. W. Bush. The negotiations Boschwitz led in Ethiopia resulted in Operation Solomon. Over 14,000 Jewish people were airlifted from Ethiopia to Israel.[11] Operation Solomon took twice as many Beta Israel émigrés to Israel as Operation Moses and Operation Joshua combined.[12]
He was a top "Bush Pioneer" in 2000, fund-raising $388,193, and a "Bush Ranger" in 2004, raising at least $200,000 for George W. Bush's campaign fund in that election cycle.[13]
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Rudy_Boschwitz, and is written by contributors.
Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.