Megan, justifiably, boasts:
>And may I point out that this brings the Stonewall DFL to a 4 for 4 record
>to date. So far, all Stonewall DFL endorsed candidates have won DFL
>endorsement easily!
There is a great story developing here:
In its history, Minneapolis has had only one gay person on its city council,
Brian Coyle (and it is quite shocking to realize the 10th anniversary of his
death is this summer). After this election, it is quite plausible that there
will be four gay men on the council, all of whom would have to be considered
favorites right now: DFL endorsees Gary Schiff (9th) and Scott Benson
(11th), plus Dean Kallenbach in the 6th and Doug Kress in the 10th.
(Disclaimer: No insult is meant to other candidates, especially in the 6th
and 10th - obviously, there are still races to be run, and in some cases,
endorsement fights to fight. But Dean has a lot of the DFL insiders behind
him and Doug is the only candidate willing to abide by the very helpful DFL
endorsement).
While this is a fascinating sociological development, there's no clear sense
of what it means policy-wise. And that's a sign of political maturity, I
think. The candidates clearly aren't running on a "gay agenda," at least
based on what I've seen. (Perhaps Stonewall has different ideas.) They are
individuals with an interesting demographic tie - sorta like when the City
Council became majority female some years back. In hindsight, I'm not sure
the women did business differently from the men, and I don't have a clue if
gays will do political business any differently from the straights.
David Brauer
King Field - Ward 10
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