A disclosure of a candidate's previous campaign contributions is certainly a
legitimate and fair way to infer political beliefs or allegiances. The
information becomes particularly valuable for a candidate who has not
disclosed his agenda in any detail. In such instances, it is necessary to
do some independent investigation to try to determine a candidate's agenda.
Unfortunately, Mark Steinglen's website provides hardly any substantive
information. The only theme that I can discern is that he thinks that
government should be run more like private business in order to cut costs
and save the taxpayers' money. Not exactly an earth shattering proposal; at
most, we know that he probably cannot be labelled as a leftist.
The other available information appears to be a City Pages cover story
several weeks ago. A main theme of that article was that Mark Stenglein's
positions on the County Board do not indicate any clear pattern that reveal
a political philosophy or make it feasible to predict where he will stand on
future matters. Stenglein's quotes in the City Pages indicated that his
approach is by design; he believed that decisions should be made on an
issue-by-issue basis. One of his quotes revealed another county
commissioner's criticism that Stenglein does not have a political soul, to
which Stenglein responded that he does not believe he should have a
political soul.
Most of us political observers/activists are interested in figuring out a
candidate's political philosophy. Although someone could probably make a
case for not having a political philosophy, a lot of us are skeptical of
such a claim. Why would someone leave a lucrative business career for
government service without some sort of substantive philosophy of what
government should be about? The likely responses that come to some our
cynical minds are either 1) the candidate's main goal is to obtain the power
and prestige of high elective office, and will take any position at any time
in order to advance that goal, or 2) the candidate is hiding his real agenda
in order to avoid offending voters. The revelation that at the beginning of
his political career, Mark Stenglein made substantial campaign contributions
to a candidate and a PAC that can fairly be described as far rightwing,
supports an inference that Stenglein's purported lack of philosophy is a
mask to cover an ctual political ideology that would be offensive to most
Minneapolis voters.
The burden is on the candidate to provide enough information. Stenglein
also now needs to explain his previous financial loyalties. Does he agree
with the political agendas of Gingrich, McKigney, Boshwitch, etc? What
exactly does he intend to accomplish as mayor? What will he do about the
lack of affordable housing? What is his stand on corporate subsidies? What
is his perspective on racial profiling? What is his environmental agenda?
There is already a lot of information available about the other mayoral
candidates on these issues, from both their records and their campaign
statements. A summary of information available about Stenglein is that he
professes not to have a political ideology, wants less government spending,
and used to donate a lot of money to candidates who are too far right to win
elections in Minneapolis. Any more information would be welcome.
Jordan Kushner
Powderhorn, Ward 8
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