Overheard at Senate District 3’s endorsing convention

Today, the Minnesota Senate District 3 Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party held its endorsing convention for House district’s 3A and 3B.

Rep. Loren Solberg (DFL-Grand Rapids) and Rep. Tom Anzelc (DFL-Balsam Township), both incumbents, were endorsed for re-election. The biggest news of the day was the terrible weather that many believed would keep people away from the convention. While those in the northern part of the district were forced to stay home (they had 8-12 inches of snow in Koochiching County) about 50 people showed up regardless, including some from Lake of the Woods County in the far northern part of the state.

Since the business of the convention was fairly routine, here’s some snapshots of what I heard today:

  • The DFL endorsement battle for neighboring House District 4A has boiled down to Irene Folstrom and John Persell. There may be more candidates but Folstrom and Persell are working the phones and have a big jump. Interestingly, both have connections to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe: Folstrom, a band member who works with the Red Lake tribal court system, and Persell, a soil and water commissioner and longtime associate of the band who has worked on environmental issues. The question now becomes, A) will Leech Lake delegates go with a member of the band or a longtime associate of the band, and B) who shows up to the endorsing convention? Party regulars or all the new people who flooded the system because of the exciting presidential race? The answers to those questions will determine the endorsed candidate. The endorsed candidate will likely be the nominee and will likely face John Carlson, who recently announced he would seek the Republican endorsement for this seat. Tony Williams is also running for the Republican endorsement, but I keep hearing Carlson is going to be the more plausible candidate. If you read the Bemidji Pioneer story you’ll see this guy Carlson is pretty savvy and gearing for a serious run at the 4A spot.
  • The Al Franken vs. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer U.S. Senate battle for delegates continues, though from the mood of the group on Saturday clearly reflects the idea that Franken is well ahead and knocking on the door of a first-ballot endorsement. The JNP surrogate who spoke at today’s SD 3 convention ended his speech by asking by show of hands who supported which candidate. By a 2-1 margin the crowd preferred Franken. Thus, the surrogate ended his speech with the phrase: “Well that went over like a turd in the punch bowl.” I don’t know that it’s that bad for JNP around the state, but despite their fervor, JNP backers have yet to show me exactly how (and I mean numerically) their guy wins the endorsement.
  • Same subject. Franken’s pledged delegates are receiving heavy calls from JNP and surrogates trying to get them to switch. I’ve been criticized for making a big deal out of this, but if your primary targets are people who swore to their friends and neighbors they would vote the other way at the convention that means you’re pretty far behind.
  • We’re all sick of snow. Everyone in northern Minnesota is sick of this fake spring we’re getting. Also, the Prairie River is expected to flood even more in the coming week. So Itasca County residents have that to look forward to.

Comments

  1. I agree, I have been a vocal Franken supporter from the beginning, and had two phone calls just last week from JNP supporters. The first caller questioned me as why I was supporting AL and how committed I was to Al. The second caller started out just like the first, I stopped them, and told them I was a solid Franken backer and I won’t be changing my vote.

  2. To me, calling delegates only makes sense. This is the group of people, after all, who will be trying to figure out in June which candidate would be the best senator and which one has the best chance of getting elected. And it also makes sense to me that Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer people should be calling Franken delegates as well as the dwindling supply of true undecided folks.

    As a volunteer, I have made those calls. There have been two frequent responses. One is that delegates have been shocked to discover that JNP is much closer to their own views than Franken is. The second is that we share the strong desire to dump Coleman, whoever gets the endorsement nod.

    Personally, I would never, ever ask a delegate to break a promise to support a particular candidate. As a volunteer for a candidate whose has stellar integrity, it would be quite odd to try to subvert a delegate’s sense of honor. In a convention, of course, we often have several ballots, so I imagine that everyone understands that we all get to re-evaluate our original votes. That is why we are having a convention.

    Certainly, I would be happy for Franken delegates to reconsider their support of Franken; I think my candidate is better. But I don’t want to do that by insulting their intelligence or the character of their candidate. I just think Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is better.

    I would also hope that Franken organizers pay a little more attention to the transparency of the process, which is where Jack supporters are quite sensitive. It offends us for Franken people to assume that Franken is the endorsee, when we haven’t had the first ballot yet. It upsets us when Franken people attempt to cut off our candidate’s exposure to the delegates by manipulating the convention speech times to 2 or 3 minutes. (Did you know that the CD3 rules committee originally set 2 minutes per Senate candidate speech?) It frustrates us a great deal to see Franken refuse to have any further forums or debates with Jack. To us, its seems high-handed and evasive.

    And we, after all, are the exact Democrats that Franken will need as supporters if he gets the endorsement. As well as the other way around.

  3. By all means, let’s have a vote. No one intends offense, nor suggestion that that the vote in Rochester shouldn’t be fair and square.

    Those of us who support Franken are just saying all the noise from the JNP camp about Franken’s candidacy stalling and JNP getting the momentum are, well…not credible.

    See the above coorepondnent’s report regarding turds and punchbowls.

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