Since one of Paul Zerby's real postive qualities in this campaign has been his directness about his stands, it was quite surprising that his recent post was most noteworthy for dodging issues.
1. Paul almost completely dodged the issue of his support for disenranchisement of students from his neighborhood association. He avoided any meaningful explanation of why he supported exclusion of students from his neigbhorhood associaiton. Paul made vague proposals about how student and other groups should work together and attempted to provided a very general explanation of how PERRIA complied with NRP guidelines, which Paul himself addmitted was debatable. The bottom line is that Paul made no attempt to address the fundamental flaw in his position - that students are as much residents of their neighborhoods as anyone else. 2. Paul also dodged the substantive issue of his failure to support full disclosure of candidate's campaign finances online. He instead tried to obscure the substantive debate by focusing on the smoke screen of the personalities involved, including Betts Zerby, Phyllis Kahn, and myself. Paul is undoubtedly astute and has learned how to play politician in the course of his campaign. I understand that Paul does not have much time - quite an excuse for poor rationalizations. Even the Harvard Law degree and all the attorney experience, which is all that mattered to the Star Tribune, is not enough to help him really explain exclusion of students and making public information inaccessible to the public. Paul also mentioned that he is proud to have the support of Phyllis Kahn. I wonder, however, if Phyllis Kahn is really proud of her support for Paul. I first read about Phyllis Kahn when I was as a student at the U of M 10-12 years ago. I read an article in a rightwing student newspaper which riduculed Phyllis for proposing legislation to allow 15 year olds to vote. "What a visionary!" I thought to myself. Now Phyllis Kahn is vocally supporting a candidate who advocates the exclusion of students from full participation in community politics. How much can political hackdom undermine any ideals?! Or should we call it DFL Disease? BTW, thanks to Paul for reviewing that the only passionate post on his behalf, from Andy Pomroy, was from a DFL official. Jordan Kushner honorary ward 2 resident Go CAM! _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
