Paul Wellstone became a Senator by losing a race for State Auditor, then lost a battle against an unneeded power line, and then took on the task of defeating a republican incumbent Senator in a safe seat and got the party endorsement largely because on one else wanted to be the sacrificial lamb, and then won that Senate seat twice and was gonna make it thrice when we sadly lost him. Tim Walz was just another high school teacher who got really ticked off when he took some students on a field trip to a republican campaign rally and one was turned away because he’d been involved in the democratic party, motivating him to run against and defeat a republican incumbent in a red district and he held that seat ’til elected governor. Keith Ellison defended people who couldn’t afford a lawyer in Minneapolis until we needed a state representative and he ran and won, and then went on to ignore the party’s “seniority system” and win a seat in Congress and was later elected Attorney General. Every one of these elected democrats and more won despite long odds and some times rigged party endorsements against them too.

I am continually amazed and humbled by the small “d” democrats who run in deep red districts and challenge the party hierarchy that dictates a long stepped progression up the political ladder and kowtowing to special interest groups to win endorsements. These are the brave democrats who put their own hard earned money down and file for office despite the slim odds of victory, then spend every available hour until Election Day earning more voter’s support but sadly usually not enough. Then there’s the volunteers who campaign for these brave candidates despite the long odds and not always friendly or even civil reception they get. Privately the big “D” Democrats will call you idealistic, unrealistic, and even fools for running against such long odds, but the real fools are the party bosses and big donors who refuse to support you and waste $$$ and other resources in “safe” districts and saturation ad spend in expensive media markets.

Because you dared to run and campaign regardless of the odds our Democratic Party will win everywhere in the future- Candidates and Campaigners, Thank You!

Link: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/media/3616/2018-turnout-polling-place-voting-map.pdf

Minnesota is the 3 time repeat voter turnout champion of the nation, but over a third of the eligible voters don’t bother to “exercise the franchise” when there’s no presidential race on the ballot. While the republicans haven’t won a presidential election here for a half century, those presidential only voters kept the democrats from similar off year clean sweeps until 2010. These democratic party winning streaks both in Minnesota and nationally where the republicans haven’t won an open seat presidential popular vote for three decades prove we democrats are the majority party… When we vote!

Non voters deciding an election are nothing new- In 1990 incumbent republican Rudy Boschwitz’s outing himself as a Jew may have tipped that election to democrat Paul Wellstone as bigoted republicans abandoned him. In the 2000 election in MN2 an early snowstorm that left roads in the more republican suburbs of Minneapolis merely wet while in southwest Minnesota it was colder and icy, reducing democratic turnout and ending the congressional career of democrat David Minge by a mere 155 votes. We followed that up with automatic recounts in the 2008 Senate race and 2010 Governor race, so close elections are nothing new in Minnesota.

Comes 2022 and the loyalists of both parties have become radically disparate democratic (maybe too) progressives vs. a republican faschist cult, and a well armed one at that. With control of everything but the White House determined by a handful to a dozen close races in each house and the constitutional offices, sadly the voters that don’t may throw this election…

And that’s how, without a shot fired, democracies die.

That wrap probably cost $20k+, and didn’t we already buy them a bus? Then again, $20K buys 30 seconds in the metro TV market and that bus sized billboard will be earning media for four days!

‘Bout now both parties are trying to get their followers “fired up”, rolling out wrapped busses to encourage us to “door knock ’til we drop” in the ritual of “modern” last minute panic campaigning… And most of this panic politics won’t change the results one iota.

Lets look at a “sample” ballot that happens to be mine- At the top Governor Walz and Lt. Governor Flanagan are leading by high single digits while our incumbent Attorney General, Auditor, and Secretary of State may be in the political fights of their lives. Below that in this R+ double digit district the outcome will follow the script, with republicans all too predictably winning the congressional and legislative races by huge margins. On the bottom and back of the ballot are non partisan races for 2 council members, a mayor, school board member, and judges and the only contested one is for the school board seat. Ballots for the rest of the counties voters are pretty similar, with the odd contested county board, municipal, school board, or soil and water conservation district race.

That suggests we should concentrate on getting every last democratic and leaning voter to the polls. If it were only that simple- For a start my city’s voters like 30% of the county’s rural voters automatically vote by mail, and as of today about 55% of their votes were already at the courthouse and that’s about the turnout we get in an off year election. Would be nice to know who those unvoted 45% are and which are democrats or leaners, but unfortunately our supposedly all knowing Democratic Party isn’t sharing or more likely hasn’t dug up the data. So we’re stuck blind door knocking the county’s largest city of 13,000, and the best bet is around the university. 13,000 population distills down to about 6000 homes and if we pick the precinct nearest the university that cuts it down to 2000 doors to knock which 40 democrats we don’t have might manage to knock in an afternoon so our ~20 will maybe find 200 home. Of that 200 there’s 80 republicans we’re gonna piss off, 80 are democrats of whom maybe 8 we can persuade to vote, and with some persuasion we might get 2 more independents and round up 10 more votes for statewide races where the “win number” is over a million.

That’s just one reason why canvassing is obsolete.

Couple years back labor funded a huge study in to what actually increased votes for our candidates. They found that advertising at the typical saturation levels is a waste, and calling or door knocking strangers isn’t much more effective. What they did find persuaded and encouraged voters was contact with democratic persuaders they knew and trusted. And given that most of us democrats vote and our friends do to, we’re not the best choices to do this “relational canvassing”- A young democrat with little voting experience with similar friends does a much better job. The Oshoff for Senate campaign in Georgia took this concept and ran with it, intentionally hiring newbie young organizers who motivated their networks to register and vote democratic and thus flipped a seat and made Georgia a purple state.

So relax, take deep breaths, and enjoy the excitement of the campaigns and election… And rest up for the recounts!

So many democrats at Willmar that I had to shoot from outside the office window to get them all in the picture!

Even bigger crowd in Marshall, good thing we had a whole park!

With barely a days notice rural western Minnesota democrats mobilized to support our Secretary of State Steve Simon who is being challenged by a Republican election denier who’s already calling for sheriffs to invade polling places. Yes, in the middle of a weekday 30 odd democrats came together in Willmar, a city of but ~20,000, to support fair elections and our Secretary of State who will secure them. Then despite the cold winds 40+ even odder democrats showed up in Marshall (pop. ~13,000) to support Steve!

Steve at Willmar as the crowd grew…

Followed by democratic Minnesota Senate district 16 candidate Fernando Alvarado.

In Marshall Steve again explains why we need an impartial and fail Secretary of State like him to assure fair elections.

Followed by district 15 democratic senate candidate Anita Gaul whose been campaigning so hard she broke her ankle!

And Minnesota state house district 15A democratic candidate Keith VanOverbeke.

A few hours later just across the border in South Dakota we were reminded why we need the stewardship of democratic Secretaries of State to assure fair elections- In Minnehaha County a lawsuit has been filed to stop the counting of absentee ballots alleging imagined violations, and in a smaller county they’re trashing the vote counting machines and counting by hand!

Thanks Steve!

Which for a teacher from small town Nebraska via Mankato is really just going home…

The media narrative is that Democrats don’t do rural… Which Governor Tim Walz handily disproved with appearances in Fargo and Fergus Falls. That’s the Fargo media market which covers 14 Minnesota counties with network affiliates hungry for news amidst the flat and boring Red River Valley. Thus this wise campaign move netted almost two minutes earned media on even the Fox affiliate and afternoon drive time coverage on KFGO, a highly rated talk station whose signal covers most of western Minnesota.

And to prove this ain’t no fluke, Walz is on the road again today in Duluth and democratic Secretary of State candidate Steve Simon will be in Willmar and Marshall tomorrow!

And maybe save democracy too?

I won’t bother you with the polls and prognostications, it looks bad. Neither will I waste time on some of the gawd awful strategy some of our Democratic campaigns and party has mis-deployed. At this point the goal is to hang on to enough seats in houses and senates and governor’s mansions to block the Neo-Confederate AKA Republican Party’s planned reign of terror.

It’s too late for major policy shifts which would only look inconsistent at best and pandering at worst. But last week campaign spurts are nothing new- Here in Minnesota in 1990 Paul Wellstone only polled within striking distance of incumbent Rudy Boschwitz in the last weeks of the campaign and a last minute “I’m more jewish that you” remark by Boschwitz probably tipped the election to Wellstone. In the same election the Republican candidate for governor resigned the nomination in scandal and after a court fight Arne Carlson replaced him on the ballot just weeks before the election. Arne put together a winning campaign on short notice and defeated incumbent democrat Rudy Perpich. Eight years later Independent candidate for governor Jesse Ventura was been behind by double digits all summer but after spending the week before the election on a ’round the state RV tour won the three way race by outworking his opponents from both major parties. I was on a democratic campaign tour through Minneapolis the weekend before the election and the last event was a Mexican Day of the Dead celebration, our Democratic candidate knocked off early while County Attorney candidate Amy Klobuchar stayed talking to voters until who knows when, she won a close race and started her unbroken winning streak a couple days later.

So yes, we can still turn close races around- Millions in ad buys can be shifted from saturated markets to races where our candidates are only trailing by low single digits- Iowa US Senate, IA 2&3, NE2, and SD Governor and a bunch of other “undercard” close races, I’m talking about you. And if you live in a competitive district and are able, please get out and campaign!

Half century ago the “Rocky Hour Picture Show” was born in a London theatre and grew up on the big screen, and this work of trans and otherwise -gressive comedy lives on in multiple medias and live on the big screen late Saturday nights. In response to this and other flowerings of progressive culture, the Republicans have declared cultural civil war, cultivating a deadly serious armed to the teeth house of political horrors that threatens to launch a shooting war.

Believe it or not, the Republicans did learn a few things from their enemies during their neo-crusades in Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq: Fire up enough men and a few women with fundamentalist religion, sexism, homophobia and general intolerance and they’ll fight wars for you with no need to arm them or pay them now or in veterans benefits. Indoctrinate over the internet and through a network of allied hate groups and the Republicans have plausible deniability, which comes in handy as the Republican Party has become the “political wing” of a coalition of hate groups including neo nazis, racists, misogynists, and anyone else violently opposed to 21st century science and culture.

This comes in handy for the Republicans as their brand of political backwardness isn’t too popular, resulting in their losing the popular vote in the last five presidential elections. But the republican’s alliance with their coalition of hate intimidates minority democratic voters into urban districts where their votes are often wasted in congressional and legislative elections so the Republican minority can block the will of the majority. And if that fails, they’ve got their armed thugs to scare away voters, threaten and block elections, and asassinate democratic leaders like they just tried.

Halloween and it’s fictional horrors will be over tomorrow, the Republican’s reign of terror will grow until we end it.

Short post tonight- The wound from a “DFL Strategist”‘s pronouncement that Democrats don’t need rural voters is still raw, so I took another look at the stats to see what a Democratic abandonment of rural Minnesota would do, and it’s scary. The democrats win statewide races in Minnesota largely due to excellent turnout in metro counties like Hennepin, in fact of the 7 counties with over 85% turnout in 2000 Biden won 4 with margins ranging from 9% in Washington County to 43% in Hennepin! 11 Counties had turnout under 70% and Trump won 9 of them by 1% to 38%.

Almost all of those Biden high turnout counties are in the metro and almost all of the Trump low turnout counties are rural. I gamed out the effects of increased turnout in those rural Trump leaning counties and if the republicans could have increased turnout there to metro levels in 2018 Walz and Flanagan would have narrowly won and the other 3 Constitutional Officers would have probably lost… Exactly the outcome the polls are suggesting this year! Case closed- Democrats cannot win Minnesota and rural states period without at least a respectable effort in rural areas!

Normally once the Democratic Party slate is set by the primary we democrats unite behind our candidates and put off the petty infighting until after the election. But this year too many Minnesota democrats have forgotten the election and decide having a pure but losing party is more important, demanding that democrats from the grassroots up to a sitting democratic congress member be purged for exercising their freedom of speech.

Um, make that Wellstones, and lots of ’em.

Quote from a best left unnamed “DFL strategist” in MPR News today: “The DFL formula today is you dominate inside the (Twin Cities) beltway, and then you do extremely well, in what I call what college towns” Paul Wellstone blew off that “strategy” and pretty much tore up the whole current Democratic Party playbook when he won a U.S. Senate seat in 1990 from a republican incumbent who outspent him five to one. Then to prove it was no fluke he won re-election in 1996 and was on his way to another win in 2002 when he was taken from us all too soon.

Paul Wellstone’s activism went far beyond the “beltway” and “college towns”- Before he served us in the Senate he fought rural poverty in Rice County, Minnesota. He was arrested while trying to stop a farm foreclosure at a Paynesville, Minnesota bank. Then big business outsiders took over rural electric co-ops and plotted to build a high power line to bring electricity from dirty North Dakota coal mines far beyond the rural co-ops to the big cities of Minneapolis and St.Paul. Paul Wellstone joined farmers, many of them founding members of those rural electric co-ops, in fighting a power line that offered them nothing but ugly obstacles to farm around and potential bankruptcy for the rural electric co-ops they created.

Then Paul Wellstone got elected Senator ’cause the Democratic Party thought the race was hopeless. Listen up, newbie “progressives”- Paul won and won again because he didn’t throw whole groups of individuals “under the bus” like cops for the crimes of a few. Some veterans were reluctant to support Vietnam War protester Paul Wellstone, but he won them over with great constituent service because he didn’t blame the war on the reluctant warriors. In the Senate he continued his advocacy for farmers and rural folks, and unlike too many Democratic candidates today he won by larger margins in rural Minnesota in his second race.

Our democratic FARMER-LABOR party’s roots are as much in rural Minnesota as the metro, if not more. Ignore the 40% of Minnesota that is rural and you will create a republican voting block that will make Democrats a permanent minority party.

And newbie progressives, be like Paul…

A decade ago campaigning became my full time volunteer job about now as we cranked up the GOTV and didn’t slow down until the polls closed. Today, the nearest competitive congressional or legislative race is over a hundred miles away, and less than 1% of Minnesota’s democratic voters are within 50 miles of my southwest Minnesota home so I can’t help our statewide candidates much either. We’ve got the odd door knock going on out here, but this old activists shaky legs can’t go far and doorknocks in general election races don’t accomplish much anyways.

WTH happened?

As recently as 2018 democrats Colin Peterson and Amy Klobuchar won my legislative and congressional district, and it didn’t change much with redistricting. Colin did it with his relentless dedication to agriculture and a rep for conservatism that riled the progressives despite his support for labor, tribal nations, and GLBT rights. Amy did it with similar dedication to agriculture and over $20 million in spending on 3 campaigns didn’t hurt. Down ballot we last won my legislative district in 2012 and now lose by at least 40%. Colin was finally defeated in 2020 by the Trump wave and our 2022 candidate has raised well under $100,000 while her GOP opponent in this safe GOP district has raised well over a million$$$. Down ballot our legislative candidates have raised but 5 digit campaign budgets and are fighting for just name recognition.

Where’d all the campaign $$$ go?

Campaign spending in the Georgia senate race alone is over $200 million and counting, and a handful of other senate races have passed over $100 million in spending. Median spending for a senate race is around $3 million and $1 million for a congressional race, and almost all of these median districts aren’t even remotely competitive. Down ballot competitive legislative races see six figure spending and at least one Minnesota district may go over the million dollar mark this year. And remember one of our most successful candidates here, Amy Klobuchar? Her $20 million plus in campaign spending is around $150,000 per house district, and that’s what we’d need to win out here.

About now some party hack will chime in with “But we can’t afford to waste money in “red” districts we’re going to loose, we need to save scarce campaign funds for districts we can win.”… Hack, take your “scarcity” argument and stuff it where the sun don’t shine!

Both major parties combined, their candidates, outside committees, dark money donors, and assorted lackeys will spend over $10 billion this cycle, that’s ten billion with a “B” or $10,000,000,000! About 60+% of that will be spent on advertising or $6 billion, which is more than top 10 advertisers Ford and GM spend together. Yup, GM and Ford are being outspent by the two major parties, and while the automakers at least spread that saturation level spend around the country and the year, the parties are funneling their billions of $$$ in a handful or maybe dozen at most “competitive” races for just a few months. Even the dumbest adman or woman will tell you that’s a total waste of campaign donations. The “scarcity” argument is now off the table…

So the big D Democratic Party and it’s wealthy buddies are blowing another hundred million dollars in the Georgia Senate race on top of the millions more spent on the Georgia Governors race and the two senate races and runoffs and presidential race in Georgia last cycle, just to further enrich the TV station owners and maybe add .1% to their candidate’s vote. Meanwhile in Iowa which the Democrats wrote off as “red” our senate candidate is within 3% of finally retiring Grassley and two democratic congressional candidates have thin leads in the polling. Minnesota 1, Nebraska 2, and Kansas 3 are competitive too and being ignored… Imagine what those campaigns could do with a million or three dollars diverted from the thoroughly saturated Georgia media market! Never mind investing a measly million of the Democrat’s petty cash to defeating the republican incumbent here in supposedly “deep red” Minnesota 7 who can only manage single digit net approval ratings from her own party.

So big “D” Democrats, quit asking me to door knock ’til I literally drop in districts you won’t even invest petty cash in. And don’t be surprised when I call you on your metro centric mismanagement, election’s 2 weeks out and I’m just gettin’ fired up!