It’s been fairly quiet on the DFL Senate endorsement front lately, but I did get a tip last night that yields some insight on the Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer strategy to close what seems to be a wide deficit between him and Al Franken in pledged delegates. Apparently, JNP is inviting pledged Franken delegates to meet him Thursday at Chisholm’s Tom and Jerry’s, a classic Iron Range bar co-owned by former State Sen. Jerry Janezich. No doubt the conversation will include a pitch for these delegates to switch sides on the first or subsequent ballots.
I’m not sure that this strategy will work, in fact I doubt it greatly. I suppose Nelson-Pallmeyer has few other options, though. With little exception Al Franken performed extremely well in the quest for pledged state delegates. I have not seen a hard count but many in the chattering class are speculating that a first or second ballot endorsement for Franken is possible.
The fact that Nelson-Pallmeyer is now working the Iron Range is rather symbolic. Back on March 15, when SD 05 and Itasca County held their conventions, Franken crushed Nelson-Pallmeyer by a combined 26-11 in pledged delegates. Why? Franken — the “famous” frontrunner was there and talked to any county delegate who had a question. JNP — the “grassroots” candidate — sent a surrogate. Also, Franken had labor backing, had been out earlier and, frankly, had run a better campaign to that point. So Nelson-Pallmeyer has every right to woo delegates on the Range tomorrow or any day, but he’ll never win over as many elected and pledged Franken delegates as he needed to win last month on convention floors across the state.
This is the equivalent of pulling the goalie when you’re down three goals in the last minute.
You might be surprised how close things are on the first ballot. The delegate count is closer then people realize, why else would Franken be staying mum on his campaign’s delegate count?