DFL Maplewood Endorsing Convention - Notes from the field
On June 15 DFL Senate District 55 held an endorsing convention for the Maplewood City Council seat to be filled by special election on August 10, 2010. The seat was vacated by the election of Mayor Rossbach. The special election coincides with the statewide primary.
Of the three candidates who have filed for the office, Marv Koppen and Elizabeth Sletten sought the endorsement. Rebecca Cave did not participate.
Results
| Marv Koppen | 39 |
| Elizabeth Sletten | 4 |
Unallotments unalloted
From Minnpost:
[The Minnesota Supreme Court ruling] affirms the previous ruling by Ramsey Chief Judge Kathleen Gearin. The summary sentence says:"The executive branch exceeded its authority under Minn. Stat. § 16A.152, subd. 4 (2008), by using that statute to balance the budget through reducing allotments before the budget-making process was completed."
DFL Fourth Congressional District Convention - Notes from the field
Diana Longrie challenged actual Democrat Representative Betty McCollum for the DFL CD 4 endorsement at today's convention in Roseville.
The 274 voting delegates split
| Representative McCollum | 272 |
| Ms. Longrie | 2 |
The Ramsey County DFL Convention, meeting in the afternoon, endorsed
- Conservation District 1 Supervisor - Janelle Anderson
- Conservation District 4 Supervisor - Carrie Wasley
- County Sheriff - Matt Bostrom
- County Attorney - John Choi
Real Democrat [Updated]
Here is another view on the question "what does a real Democrat look like?", this time from Georgia.
Update:
Minnesota 6th Congressional District DFLers have endorsed another actual Democrat, State Senator Tarryl Clark.
The 'but for' test
Vice President Biden explains the 'but for' test:
[From a CBS Special Report. The entire speech is here. The extract is from about 2:30.]
President Obama, a real Democrat
President Obama spoke to the House of Representatives Democratic Caucus on Saturday, March 20,2010 to encourage a 'Yes' vote on health insurance reform. During his remarks he defined what it means to be a Democrat:
[From a C-Span youTube. The entire speech is here. The extract is from about 5:30 in the 3rd segment.]
DFL Senate District 55 news
Most of the attention of the 160 or so delegates to today's DFL Senate District 55 convention was focused on gubernatorial candidates. The state convention delegate selection process begins by forming a variety of sub-caucuses. Each sub-caucus gathers as much support as it can for some combination of candidates and issues. Most are centered on a gubernatorial candidate and some additional concern, say 'Rybak for universal health care'.
However, about 20% of the delegates, creating by far the largest sub-caucus, set aside expressing a choice for governor to make a united statement that Democratic support should go to an actual Democrat, in this instance 4th Congressional District incumbent Betty McCollum.
Diana Longrie attended the convention asking for support in a challenge to Representative McCollum.
WØrd of the day: Piñata
From wikipedia, Piñata:
A piñata is a brightly-colored papier-mâché covering either a clay container or cardboard shape. It may have originated in China. Marco Polo discovered the Chinese fashioning figures of cows, oxen or buffaloes, covered with colored paper and adorned with harnesses and trappings. Special colors traditionally greeted the New Year. When the mandarins knocked the figure hard with sticks of various colors, seeds spilled forth. After burning the remains, people gathered the ashes for good luck throughout the year. The term 'Piñata' has also come to mean mean a sort of punching bag in the wider sense.
Crickets
A staple defense of the Longrie years was that the streets were still getting plowed. Those same defenders predicted collapse of of the social fabric should Longrie, Hjelle, Cave, and Copeland be removed.
Now that the city has settled in to having them all gone, we can report that the streets are still getting plowed, as are the trails.
You could try to hear all about it on cable. What you will hear instead is crickets.
Playbook patterns: you should fear the government bogeyman
Here is resident Longrie from the voice clip highlighted in a recent post
[ at 1:25] Why are they [(unidentified) Maplewood business owners who have talked to me about the sign ordinance] not here tonight? they told me very clearly why they are not here tonight. Because they are fearful that if they identify themselves, that identifying their shops, that Maplewood will indeed drive by their shops, see how much signage they have on their windows and will tag them. They are fearful of retaliation.
Here is Michele Bachmann
BACHMANN: He said that in Japan, to wait and get health care is almost impossible. You get on a list and you wait and you wait and you wait. But he said this is something people don’t know: in Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care. There are things that are wrong with Japanese health care, but people are afraid of voicing. ‘Well why is that,’ I asked. [He said], ‘Because they know that would get on a list and they wouldn’t get health care. They wouldn’t get in. They wouldn’t get seen. And so people are afraid. They’re afraid to speak back to government. They’re afraid to say anything.’ Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point!
[emphasis mine throughout]
Stephan
Playbook: The insinuated non-accusation accusation - Final update
See if you can spot one or more insinuated non-accusation accusations in this audio clip:
[Resident Longrie addresses the council during the second reading of the proposed sign ordinance, January 25, 2010]
Update:
Some readers report trouble with the embedded Google audio player I used for this audio clip. While we figure that out, here is a youTube version.
Update 2: As long as we are testing, here is a different embedded player:
And still another:
Final update (technote):
For future reference, and readers who care about blogger technology, the issue with the Google audio player has been resolved. Internet Explorer cannot correctly parse the mp3 file URL from the player's URL query string unless a (meaningless) additional parameter is added to the query string. Better browsers, like Firefox, handle it correctly. Other players like the two used above pass the mp3 URL as a flash variable rather than within the player query string, so the issue does not arise.
So now you know!
Playbook: Manufacture a controversy
Alert reader BZ suggests that the example from yesterday also illustrates the tactic of manufacturing a controversy. This tactic, when conducted well, has several potential outcomes. Among them are diverting attention away from governing to the agenda of the inciters, and smearing those in charge with blame for supposed scandals. Those using the tactic often could care less about the subject of their supposed controversy. It is the simple existence of a controversy they find valuable.
I agree.
This tactic is often known as creating a tempest in a teapot.
Now, that's apathy
City forgot to hold 2009 election
No one in the city realized they were supposed to hold an election last year.
...
"We just forgot it, that's the only thing that happened we just forgot it," said Addie Cutts, City of DeSoto Councilwoman.
...
"The mayor said he was going to let someone who handles elections do it for us every year so we won't forget it," said Cutts.
[h/t LC]
Welcome Julie Wasiluk
The four elected members of the Maplewood City Council have decided to appoint former Maplewood councilperson Julie Wasiluk to the open council position, serving until a new councilperson is elected in the 2010 special election. The appointment will presumably become official at the next council meeting.
Here is a link to the newly available stream of the workshop meeting.
Congratulations Ms. Wasiluk, and Maplewood!
Commentary - winning
Tonight the Maplewood City Council will likely take an action that I think is wrong. It will be so wrong that I will view it as a betrayal of any sense of justice there may be in the world. Those members of the council for whom I and many others did volunteer campaign work (all of them) know how I feel about this action. Shouldn't they just do what we want? After all, because of us, they (we) won! If they won't do what we want, then maybe we should just quit - just stop paying attention, or stop being supportive, or threaten not to be helpful the next time around.
And it's not just a local phenomenon. Thousands of posts have appeared on the national blog-scene attacking the Obama administration for not doing what the base wants, and making just that argument to quit.
But that is selfish thinking, not principled thinking.
Elected officials in a representative democracy must govern. They must use their collective judgment to do what they determine to be best for every person affected by their decisions, not just their supporters. We work to elect those candidates that we think will do the better job of making those decisions for us as if we were personally charged with representing everyone, not just our narrow point of view.
So, when the council makes the terrible decision they are likely to make tonight, it will be the right decision, since they are doing what they think is best for the city - all of the residents, businesses, and neighbors - not what is best for me.
To think otherwise is to become what we have worked so hard to reject.
Stephan
