What will the Democrats Do?

Dear Friends,

This weekend is the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party State Convention.  In fact, as I am writing the first ballot for the endorsement for Governor is going on.  It is anybody's guess who will win and regardless there will be a primary challenge from former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton and maybe others. 

For those of you not from Minnesota, in this great state the Democratic Party has kept its historical name: "Democratic Farmer Labor Party" which is a merger of several parties way before my time.  We usually just call the party "the DFL". 

It has been well over 20 years since we have had a DFL Governor here in Minnesota.  Usually people think of Minnesota as a really blue state and when it comes to Presidential elections we are, but we are also unpredictable and schizophrenic.  Remember we were the state that at one time had Senator Paul Wellstone as one U.S. Senator and Senator Rod Grams as the other.  Senator Wellstone was known as the most liberal person in the Senate.  Rod Grams was a conservative Republican who was before his time because he objected to everything that the government might do.  We also elected Jesse Venture, an independent.  That was the year that the DFL and the Republicans had a contest to see who could endorse the worst candidate.  It was a tie, and we got Governor Ventura.  He was most recently seen as a guest host on the Larry King Live show. 

Anyway, the DFL has a habit of shooting itself in the foot.  We actually have some really good candidates for Governor.  Some of them don't have a chance of being endorsed, and I hope that later today or early tomorrow morning they will all get behind the endorsed candidate.  But that is not the way the DFL usually works.  Often times we endorse a bad candidate, as we did last time when we endorsed Mike Hatch.  We had some good candidates, but we endorsed Mr. Hatch because he had been around along time and it was his turn.  That is usually the mistake that we make.

As I said before, this year we have some really good candidates.  In fact, for the first time in a long time, I think that I will be able to support the candidate that gets the endorsement.  Unfortunately, former Senator Mark Dayton early on decided to skip the endorsement process and run in the primary.  I really like Senator Dayton both personally and his political positions, but that was a really bad mistake.  It is not good for the DFL or the State of Minnesota because we need a DFL Governor.

So the DFL is not likely to have just one candidate until fall while the Republicans will unite behind their candidate in a couple of weeks.  Michael Brodkorb, the Deputy Chair of the Minnesota Republican Party is attending the DFL Convention as a visitor.  The Politics in Minnesota website has an article quoting Mr. Brodkorb as follows:

 I think the Democrats will lose the governor’s office again, regardless of who’s endorsed. After next weekend, we will be united, and they won’t have a candidate until late August.

In a perfect world, R.T. Rybak, the current mayor of Minneapolis, will win the endorsement; Senator Dayton and all the other DFL candidates will drop out and support R.T.; and Minnesota will have a DFL Governor again.  He will be a great Governor.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal