100 Democrats braved the cold weather, extreme windchills, and two foot snow drifts to elect delegates to the Congressional and State conventions, pass resolutions, hear from US Senate candidates, and elect local party leaders.
Many of these people played a large role in our 2006 State Senate run out here and I am always thrilled and appreciative to reconnect with this great group of activists.
I went to the McLeod County Convention looking to help Jack Nelson Pallmeyer. It was an interesting experience. Some of the people in the room had never heard of Jack.
I lost my first sign war ever. We were outstaffed and volunteered by a 15:1 margin by both the Ciresi and Franken campaigns. I did have a few Ciresi people who gave me a hand and it was much appreciated.
I did my best to introduce Jack to some wonderful party activists in our area I have known for quite some time. In the end, we have to be proud that Jack got one delegate and one alternate to the State Convention.
JNP delivered a fiery speech. I was holding our digital camera at the same time I was trying to clap and trying to watch the reaction of the room as he was speaking. Truth be told, both JNP and Mike Ciresi had the full attention of the crowd. People were listening intently, they were engaged.
After the speeches, I had several people approach me and ask me more about JNP. I did my best to push more and more people over to talk to him. People asked me why they had never heard of him before. People I know even apologized to me for who they were supporting but that they were already committed.
My gut feeling was that we walked into the McLeod Convention as a long shot. Jack delivered a powerful speech and he walked away with a delegate and an alternate.
In my opinion, he's the candidate that best represents the hopes and dreams, the ideology of progressive democrats. I still have no idea how people can be so enamored with a certain other candidate...
3 comments:
My impression is JNP does represent a voice too long absent or marginalized.
Wellstone was such a voice. Wellstone was strong in state and would have beaten Coleman last Senate cycle for that seat, but nationally his voice was marginalized as a matter of numbers.
Party regulars - not activist regulars but Daly machine kinds of regulars - DCCC regulars - do not want a JNP candidate. Owners of media set the policy of their outlets and they do not want a JNP.
John Perkins, the "Economic Hitman" author, has a view of globalization that presently matches with JNP's, and he repudiates his past as pushing the get them in debt - get them on payments - then screw them royaly view of the third world.
http://www.johnperkins.org/
JNP has a global view that is honorable, and that is too, too rare.
The interest in Obama, which I truly hope pays off in a person who delivers and does not just talk the talk, is akin to people saying that what JNP says rings true at a core level that often is not reached or deliberately avoided in political discourse.
Do we have to only consider a choice between candidates with narrowly differning agendas?
So far it is what DCCC and NRCC king makers offer. It is an offensive process that way.
Only if we don't work enough to change things - or crash and burn trying.
JNP is refreshing. If nothing else can be said, he is that. And if "can win" narrowness buries his effort, with Cerisi the likely candidate, then he might be a one hit wonder.
Unless Coleman wins.
Then all bets on conventional candidates taking the seat away are off, and six years from now, next shot at Coleman, JNP or another progressive will be more favorably accepted.
My guess, Cerisi gets endorsed. Cerisi defeats Coleman. Cerisi turns out to be okay but not as radical a change for the good as JNP might have been. Cerisi gets reelected and entrenched is more likely than Klobuchar getting entrenched. The only thing that would cut against the probability of that scenario would be if Cerisi becomes as discouraged with DC as Dayton became.
Franken - Coleman? That would be too hard to call if Franken gets endorsed.
Cerisi and lots of yellow signs is what I foresee ramping up to November next year.
Thank you Blue Man for keeping the faith. JNP has so much for the progressive movement. If we put him in the Senate, he, more so than any two or three Senators, changes the face and quality of that House.
It really is just a matter of slow daily, patient plodding onward. New converts are born every day.
Come convention day, Undecideds, Franken, and Ciresi delegates will drift to Jack. They will do so because many of them are where they are at right now because they have not had the information and choices you and I have had. They have been within the information bubble of celebrity, fame, wealth, and main stream media. Thus, they choose from there. But come state convention, it's a whole new day, baby.
Here is how it could work for Jack:
State convention delegates, even if they once favored Franken, realize that Franken has too many negatives to get elected and that he doesn't represent their views anyway.
Ciresi delegates realize that they don't have the delegate strength to pull off the endorsement, but they really would prefer a nice guy candidate (like Jack).
JNP rides in on a white horse (or maybe it is a dark horse in this case) and takes the nomination.
In a perfect world, Al Franken stays in the race another two or three weeks to tell Minnesotans about all Norm's little warts and blemishes, which he does with many witty, sometimes off-color, but always memorable phrases. Then both Franken and Ciresi donate all their money to Jack's campaign, he buys up all the television stations in the state, all of the big newspapers, and by November everybody knows about Jack.
They know he's a nice guy.
They know he understands the big picture of everything that's going wrong.
They know that he see the solutions.
They all vote for him.
Norm Coleman leaves the Senate by the end of the year, spending most of his time either shopping or on a boat in Lake Minnetonka.
OK, so maybe some of this is a bit far-fetched. I suppose we will just have to get on the phone and tell them about Jack. That might actually work.
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