Politics In Minnesota is a well-read and influential newsletter produced by D.J. Leary, Wy Spano, and Sarah Janecek. Leary & Spano are DFLers; Janecek a Republican. Spano & Leary are lobbyists, Leary is a media advisor, among other things. Leary and Janecek live in Minneapolis. Anyway, here's the full item, reprinted with permission: Rybak Supporters Have Right To Crow A reporter called one of your editors Sunday morning. "Is this non-endorsement of Sharon (Sayles-Belton) a big deal?" he asked. "You bet," we replied. "It's a very big deal." Why? Minneapolis has an incumbent, African-American DFL woman mayor in a liberal, DFL-oriented city. Gaining the support of the super-liberals who normally people political conventions ought to be a slam-dunk for such a woman. Nonetheless, when Saturday's Minneapolis DFL convention ended, Mayor Sharon Sayles-Belton could not capture the party's mayoral endorsement; indeed she was in second place behind former Twin City Reader publisher R.T. Rybak. What went wrong? Our guess is overconfidence. In the past three months, we've talked with dozens of Sayles-Belton supporters, many of them haranguing us as a result of a story we ran three issues ago pointing out how powerful the anticipated independent candidacy of Hennepin County Commissioner Mark Stenglein might be in this race. In virtually every conversation, the Sayles-Belton acolytes dismissed, out of hand, the Rybak campaign. They were at least willing to speculate that Sayles-Belton might be challenged from the right, but they saw no danger from the left. The myopia about Rybak struck us as very, very strange because we were hearing about the kind of organizing the liberal wing of the Minneapolis DFL was doing on behalf of Rybak, especially the way they were covering the ground in south Minneapolis. Rybak's people were exceedingly effective in their management and execution of a convention strategy. Rybak's volunteer phone banks stood in evident contrast to the paid phoners hired by the other side. Rybak told us there were many days when he personally spent seven hours on the phone calling convention delegates. Behind the scenes were a number of key street savvy Minneapolis political operatives. Everybody, of course, reads about Councilman Jim Niland and his work with Sonja Dahl in running the well-oiled Rybak floor operation. Fact is, last Saturday's upset was planned way back in the snows of January when Rybak brought together the operatives from the progressive wing of the DFL and put them to work with counterparts from the moderate DFL faction. Rybak sought out and got people like Peter Wagenius and Laura Sether. Wagenius was one of those bright lights behind delivering the DFL Party Chair to Mike Erlandson. Sether, who cut her political teeth working for Tim Penny, is widely hailed by insiders as the management brains behind the near-flawless successful campaign that elected Amy Klobuchar Hennepin County Attorney. To round out the braintrust, Rybak brought in Ken Bradley as a field organizer. Bradley's work fit like a glove with the Niland and Dahl floor operation. The importance of Rybak's floor operations can't be overstated. Niland and Dahl did a spectacular job in positioning their troops for battle. Key to that success was their ability to cut off an SSB attempt to hold the mayoral endorsement early, over the noon hour, before endorsements for school board and other offices. It was a most important victory, not only because SSB supporters were likely to drift away earlier than Rybak backers, which was probably true; it was also important because it gave Niland and Dahl the opportunity to convince uncommitted delegates that it just wasn't right for a DFL convention to diss the less glamorous offices by holding a mayoral endorsement and then having everyone leave. SSB's campaign ended up looking selfish, and that hurt. After the procedural move failed, the Sayles-Belton operation seemed numbed by the reality that they weren't in charge. When the mayoral endorsements finally took place, the tide against Sayles-Belton's sure thing had turned. --forwarded by David Brauer, list manager, Mpls-Issues _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
