Been digging through the campaign finance reports for the governor candidates and not finding much smoke, never mind a smoking gun… The state DFL isn’t shipping bundles of money over to the sinking Erins campaign, they’ll have to swim or more likely sink on their own. Even the DFL House Caucus, known for blessing too short a list of candidates with their $$$, is helping long shot candidates too for a change. And the GOP? While the party sings the praises of fiscal restraint, they’re drowning in debt.

So then I peruse the Swanson/Nolan campaign filings. No surprises, the long donor list is chock full of DFLers of the past and maxed out donors who just happen to be involved in law firms and industries that might have business before the next governor. Heck, even saw a few familiar names from the GOP donor lists. So I wander on to the expenditures list, which is surprisingly short…

Given that Swanson seemed to always have a couple staffers with her at DFL events even before she filed for governor, the lack of payroll expenditures listed was striking… Six weeks into the campaign and Swanson/Nolan still haven’t paid the staff? So where are the wads of $$$ going? Of the $466,386.04 spent, $420,000 went to “Canal Partners Media”. And who else has Canal Partners Media fronted for? As the Sunlight Foundation reports Canal Partners also fronts for mining interests which include the two mega mining corporations plotting to do sulfide mining in Minnesota!

Gee, I thought the Attorney General’s job was to protect us from corporate polluters…

The MSM should be covering the reports for the major candidates, so I’ll concentrate on our down ballot candidates here in southwest Minnesota for now. From the reports and talking with our DFL candidates it looks like they all have surpassed the threshold of individual contributions to qualify for public funding.

In 16A GOP incumbent Swedinski has, as usual, $28,846 cash on hand while DFL challenger Tom Wyatt-Yerka’s report isn’t in yet. Tom’s a busy working guy so most likely he’s just trying to catch up. In 16B GOP incumbent Torkelson thanks to nearly $2000 in lobbyist dollars has $17,355 on hand while DFL Challenger Marinda Kimmel has $11,123 cash on hand.

In 22A GOP incumbent Schomacker still hasn’t filed… He’s been rather scarce on the campaign trail, so has he abandoned his campaign? DFL endorsed (by a huge margin) Kaufman has $5,240 cash on hand and a gadfly Green/DFL primary challenger has $0 on hand. In 22B incumbent GOPer Hamilton struggles with fund raising and sexual harassment charges with only $9,529 on hand. DFL Challenger Cheniqua Johnson has $10,873 on hand, almost all of that came in small individual donations!

This is incredibly good news for our downballot DFL candidates, with many of our candidates on their way to setting DFL fundraising records for their districts. In 22A DFLer Kaufman may be headed to an upset victory thanks to GOP incumbent Schomacker’s lazy filing and campaigning… This is why we need to contest every election! So while the state DFL leadership is busy disciplining DFLers, down ballot we’re busy winning elections!

Hope to report later tonight on the internals of state party finances, especially subsidizing of weak endorsed candidates by both state parties…

Is the DFL Party a cult?

While the party does a lot of things well, endorsements for statewide office ain’t one of them. This cycle was no exception, as the state convention got hacked by special interest groups resulting in the nomination of a governor candidate who’s polling at 11% and a newbie lawyer endorsed for Attorney General whose name we need plastic beach toys to remember. Now that would be survivable if the party would have just stepped aside and let the voters decide. But mafias, corrupt corporations, the Trump administration, and cults don’t say “oops” and correct the problem- They double and triple down on their error as the whole organization provides cover.

So now a couple of days away from the toxic environment of the DFL party my mind is clearing and I can see the illogic of the DFL “support the endorsed candidate no matter what” policy for what it is… Insane. Thus the sane DFLers, which seems to be half the party at least, have left. The “problem on Plato Boulevard” is a shambles, with a few newbies still trying to figure out which switch works what. While the DFL finally gave in and opened some rural campaign offices, they’re mostly closed, so many DFL staffers having left that our remaining local staffer has four offices to cover by himself. None the less, like the generals whose army has deserted them, the DFL party leadership that remains keeps barking out orders demanding absolute support of their sinking candidates for governor and AG.

Two days ago I quit being Minnesota nice, told the assembled remaining couple of DFL officers that I’d been pretty much purged, and walked out of the meeting. The meeting was over anyways so I’d done my duty, and didn’t care to stay for the parade to help promote the previously mentioned failing candidates. I’m sleeping better, been out kayaking twice for the first time this summer, and enjoying life again.

Problem for the DFL is, the half of the party they’ve pushed out may not come back after the primary. Worse yet, by backing candidates who can only play a spoiler role, the DFL may hand the endorsement to Swanson, and the “Never Swanson” hashtag is already out there… If a bunch of dissenting DFLers stay home on election day that 11% lead over Pawlenty could easily disappear.

So I’m quite happy being out of DFL party leadership. But as this blog attests, I’m clearly still having a lot of fun with politics! Pretty soon the MN campaign finance filings will be out and it’ll be fun dissecting them. Then this weekend I’ll be in Iowa and Wisconsin and hope to get some “ground truth” on the races there to blog about. One of the nice things about my location is that I’m within day trip range of 9 states and visit Florida every winter, so I’ll be blogging other states democratic politics and the Iowa caucuses in the next cycle.

“Freedoms just another word for nothing less to lose”… Especially positions in the DFL!

We’ve the good fortune this cycle of some great polling of Minnesota by Marist, one of the best in the business, here’s the “internals” to pick through to your little heart’s content. The news is all good- democrats are leading the republicans in the generic congressional ballot, the special senate election, and the governors race by at least the margin of error for even the weaker DFL candidates like the Erins.

Now the Erins claim to be the most progressive Governor/ Lt. Governor team, but compare them on the issues and the Tim Walz/ Peggy Flanagan team is just as progressive with a practical side that means they’ll probably accomplish something. Further to the right we have the conservadem team of  Swanson/ Nolan, with Nolan getting some bad press for alleged coddling of a sexual harasser just as the polling was winding down. The Erins are barely polling into double digits at 11%, Walz and Flanagan are at 24%, and Swanson and Nolan were at 28%, at least before the sexual harassment story really got out. Even with the 8% margin of error the Erins have only a two or three percent chance of winning.

Now you’d think there’d be some smart leaders in the Erin’s campaign or at least the DFL party leadership that would figure out they’re splitting the progressive vote and helping conservadem Swanson get the nomination. While their names would still be on the primary ballot, there’s nothing stopping the Erins from suspending their campaign and putting fellow progressives Walz and Flanagan in the lead with their 11%

But Noooo… DFL leadership is bound and determined to double down on the stupid and waste the half of the party they’ve got left on a futile effort to gain 17 points in two weeks with candidates with no statewide name recognition and next to no ad budget. Why… ‘Cause they’re the “endorsed candidates”, never mind that endorsement was made by barely half of 1400 odd superdelegates, hacks, and the occasional actual representative of their local democrats. And hacked the endorsement was, with a bloc of 180 special interest delegates handing the endorsement to the Erins and already claiming to have a future governor in their pocket. That may be business as usual in Illinois, but not in Minnesota.

So with almost no ad budget the Erins campaign and the DFL party have been tweeting up a storm of posed pictures of the Erins with local candidates, never mind that many of those candidates have all but publicly endorsed Walz and Flanagan. Never mind that they risk handing the nomination to a team that risks losing the general election in a media frenzy of sexual harassment accusations… The “NeverSwanson” hashtag is already circulating.

So it’s time for progressive DFLers to pull together, put aside the sacred endorsement, and elect the winning team that reflects Minnesota democrat’s progressive values- Tim Walz and Peggy Flanagan!

After a half century of campaigning for Humphrey, Wellstone, Klobuchar, and a bunch of other Democratic candidates and rising(?) to the level of congressional district Democratic Party officer I’ve had it. We democrats are the majority party having won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections, but thanks to the bumbling of the capital “D” Democrats from the DNC on down we’re becoming a permanent minority party. We democrats who knock the doors and fill the campaign coffers deserve a permanent majority party, and these occasional missives are dedicated to getting us there.

I believe in the power of individual democrats, unions, grassroots progressive movements, and fair elections to choose both our party officers and candidates from the precinct level on down. I’ve had it up to here with special interests and their flawed self serving endorsement “process”, professional losing campaign hacks, and party hacks who think it’s their job to police grassroots democrats.

It’s time to start winning elections… Let’s get on with it!