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Brandon Lacy Campos wrote, "And while I agree that we have a DFL
political PARTY in Minnesota, I will again state it is not a machine. The
definition of machine provided above proves my point. The members are under
the control fo one or more leaders. DFL folks in this state, as far as I
know, are not under the control of one or more leaders. I may listen to a
DFL leader, and their argument may persuade me, but, for example, Brian
Melendez, Minneapolis DFL Party Chair,
does not control my vote, and he does not have the machine that exists/has
existed in other cities to force my vote one way or another. Brian Melendez,
by virtue of being DFL City Party Chair, can not make my lose my job. As far
as I know he can't get my toilet bowl unstopped faster, nor can he get my
sidewalk repaired if I promise to vote for his candidate or list of
candidates. But, if he can, and I just don't know it, well then I have a
list of things that I'd like him to attend to."
I can't, believe me! I will stick with persuasion by argument,
which I much prefer over persuasion by plumbing.
Those who label the Minneapolis DFL Party a "machine" assume that
the Party is, or is capable of acting like, a single rational mind. If only
it were so!
For the purpose of electing candidates to public office, the Party
is its delegates, acting together in convention. Many of those delegates
get together before the endorsing conventions in the hope that their
interests will coalesce in a way that will influence other delegates: the
Stonewall DFL Caucus, about which we hear so much, is one such example.
But, while I have never seen hard data on this point, I suspect that most
delegates attend the endorsing conventions as individuals--as taxpayers, as
homeowners, as consumers of police and fire protection and other government
services, as employers or employees--rather than as stalwarts of any
particular "machine" or special-interest group. They hear the candidates;
they listen to other delegates who would persuade them, including the
special-interest groups who have put forward a considered opinion in
advance; they weigh that input for what it is worth; and, in the end, they
vote their consciences and, naturally, their self-interest. The democratic
process (with or without a capital letter) not only assumes, but depends on
divergent interests participating in such a manner. As Brandon's message
evidences, the view of the Party leadership or the Stonewall Caucus or any
other organized group will influence that process only in proportion to the
input's quality and to how many delegates the group can bring around to its
view. If and only if a group can persuade the majority (in this case, a
supermajority--sixty percent) will its view prevail.
It is true in the Minneapolis DFL Party, as it is true everywhere,
that (a) the world is run by those who show up, (b) those who learn the
process enjoy an advantage over those who do not, and (c) some people will
pursue their own self-interest at the expense of the community's interest.
To change those facts would require amending human nature, though, not just
the DFL Party's structure. The Party has exerted its best collective effort
over the years toward ensuring that its process is as open and fair as
possible, and toward developing rules that make sense and are not subject to
easy manipulation by those who know the arcana of parliamentary procedure.
Sometimes the Party, or the public offers elected under its banner,
acts in a way that it short-sighted, or that benefits one group at another's
expense, or that departs from the Party's platform. The risk of such a
result is the price of a highly decentralized Party organization, whose
delegates connect with the permanent organization only for the one-day
convention every other year, and generally do not even know their own
organization's elected leadership. But the alternative is much worse: a
political party that is directed from the top down, a political machine,
like the New York of Tammany Hall or the Chicago of the first Mayor Daley,
about which Jay Clark has recently written so informatively. Those
political organizations were not short-sighted, but they achieved control
and enforced a long-term view at an awful price. If there is a way of
avoiding short-sightedness while also avoiding party discipline, I am all
for it, and would be very interested in hearing any idea along those lines.
BRM
Brian Melendez, Chair,
Minneapolis DFL Party
St. Anthony West (Ward 3)
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