When Rep. Frank Moe made his surprise announcement Saturday that he would not seek reelection in Minnesota House District 4A, the Bemidji Pioneer quoted two names as being on the minds of 4A DFL delegates: Irene Folstrom and John Persell. Folstrom officially joined the race for the DFL endorsement on Tuesday; Persell did so Wednesday. DFL sources in the Bemidji area tell me these are two good candidates, but I must admit I don’t know much about either of them except that they’ve both run for office before and fallen short. When the fuller picture is clear I may try to get them to talk about their candidacies here. I welcome anyone running in 4A to contact me if they’d like to introduce themselves.
Here’s what we learned when I ran Rep. Tom Anzelc’s campaign in 3A in 2006. We were running to replace Rep. Irv Anderson who didn’t retire until after the precinct caucuses and endorsing convention. A special endorsing convention was called. I’ll spare you the details, but the thing that Folstrom and Persell now deal with is a fixed delegate list. The delegates eligible to vote at the special convention came out on precinct caucus night for a thousand reasons — Obama, Clinton, Franken, Nelson-Pallmeyer, a resolution on multiple cat ownership, to make the voices stop, you name it. None of them came out with Irene Folstrom or John Persell on their minds (except, you know, Irene and John). Now the candidates have to round up a sufficient number of these delegates to reach the 60 percent threshold out of a turnout that could range from 50 to a gabillion to win the endorsement. If a candidate’s brother or neighbor or Uncle Joe aren’t delegates, they can only watch. You’ve got to cold call delegates from a list you had no role in writing. Connections are key and as past candidates I expect both Folstrom and Persell are working on familiar names from that list this week. It’s not about getting yesses, it’s about getting yesses to show up.
I’m going to assume (and hope) that the candidates honor the endorsement. The candidate Tom Anzelc faced at the special 3A convention in 2006 honored the endorsement but we had to battle a different candidate in the primary and it cost some serious folding money. (3A is the size of a New England-style state and includes three counties).
I wasn’t at the District 4 convention last weekend, but the Itasca DFL convention several weeks ago was a cauldron of new voters who were extremely excited about the presidential race but unfamiliar with local tradition. Are they going to come out for something called the “District 4A Special Endorsing Convention?” Maybe. If so, you can’t argue with raw numbers. Anyone who can harness the first time delegates in 4A is likely the endorsed candidate.
UPDATE: The Bemidji Pioneer has the Persell announcement in today’s edition. My gut reaction as an outsider is that Persell and Folstrom will have built-in support from people who backed them before but that they both must show what they’ve learned from past unsuccessful attempts for endorsement. Persell’s 63-37 defeat in his recent county commissioner race also strikes me as damaging, though I need to find out more about that before I count it against him. I also want to know where the unions are going to go.
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