Here we go again. The entrenched insiders believing in their stupor that the single-endorsement process is working so well. The Ramsey County Board special election endorsement is hardly a testament to a bad system that has seen few statewide victories by its demand that several qualified candidates must issue a phony oath of loyalty to an unforgiving party machinery or risk being shunned by the convention.
The fact is, since 1978 and the Minnesota Massacre where both DFL Senate candidates (one of which beat a statesman the likes of Don Fraser) and one governor (the unelected Rudy Perpich), endorsed candidates of the stubborn DFL party (and I was as as immersed in it as Dennis Hill has ever been) has lost important statewide race after race based on that idiotic loyalty oath, which, in effect, is only issued by those who have no intention of voting for your endorsement anyway. The equally qualified and more electable candidates who have refused to swear such fealty to this process (because the process is one of controlling the candidate, not winning elections) have found themselves on the outside looking in on a decaying endorsement system and saying, "Hell, no. The voters at large are the ones who elect candidates, not the few hundred delegates to a party convention." The litany is a long one of the candidates who have said this and gone on to win, simply because the party hates Minnesota's open primary so much that it digs in deeper every time it loses, despite having to crawl to winners like Skip Humphrey and Mark Dayton and asking them to allow the party to endorse them after the endorsed candidate lost. Winners get courted. Losers get shunned. And still the party doesn't budge on its losing proposition. Only multiple endorsements will revive the gravitas of a party that elected Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale. The endorsement process forces all of the candidates and their supporters within the party to demonize their opponents instead of sending them out as a team of three or four qualified and electable candidates to face the public's scrutiny and suggest that any one of them is there because they have the party's blessing and recommendation for voter consideration. All the "good ol' boys" like Dennis and Chuck Repke will flood you now with all sorts of reason why nothing should change, and that endorsements are the only way for the "little guy" to have a leg up on the moneyed candidates. Well, they've been proven wrong time and again, because of the party endorses a "little guy" who's unelectable, money or no money, and a moneyed challenger wins the DFL primary - like Dayton or Ciresi - then all the principles of a single endorsement go out the window and the party loses another race, in the process, shattering the party faithful to shards during the endorsements, then trying to recover their pride by drawing the winner back into the fold. The Ramsey County race worked for the DFL because all of the leading candidates swore to "abide" (hate that word) by the endorsement, which drew, what, how many delegates to Macalester? Thirty, forty? Toni Carter is the only contender who's won a a race, and it was citywide, so that, absent any real money to defeat her, the usual turnout of some 4% of eligible voters put her and Anne Harris in the general election where a massive turnout of maybe 10% will elect Carter to the Board. This is representation? This is an endorsement of endorsements? Right. Spare us the nostrums of the old party processes. They're losers, and the 2006 convention(s) and elections better reflect some reasonable reforms -- or we'll lose another several offices. You want to neutralize the money? Get off the dime and plug for public financing with strict limits on expenditures and contributions plus free broadcast media time instead of treating campaigns like so much soap and forcing them to produce commercials instead of ideas. Andy Driscoll Crocus Hill/Ward 2 -- "Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity." - Lord Acton -- Visit our weblog: http://newswired.blogspot.com From: d-hill <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> On 14 Jan 2005, CRISTY DELACRUZ wrote: > Advice to the next Ramsey County Commissioner replacing Sue Haigh: > Do not agree, before you have been to an endorsing convention, to abide by the > endorsement. As a former member of the DFL I can tell you that the process is > flawed unless tremendous changes have taken place, since newcomers to the > party are usually kept out of party business, despite their creativity and > fresh perspective. > > I'm expecting the DFL to endorse either Mogen or Iosso, good ol' boys who have > surely served their time and are "next in line" to serve. A very old-fashioned > way to choose candidates, but one time-honored by all the politicians who tell > me they know better than my naive self. > Cristy, Perhaps I missed it but I don't recall you posting any post convention observations about how wrong you were about the DFL Party and our endorsement process with regard to this election. Toni Carter won the endorsement in in rather quick decision. I'd like to encourage all DFL list members and DFL wannabe's to participate in the St. Paul DFL endorsment process which begins with your precinct caucus meetings this Tuesday, March 1st, at &PM at a location near you. And remember to vote for Toni Carter for Ramsey County Commissioner in the Special Election on March 15th. Dennis Hill DFL Good Ol' Boy Ward 2 - West 7th Street ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------------------- JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY: http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- POST MESSAGES HERE: [email protected] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
