[Politics] DFL CD5 Convention
Keith Ellison.
Ugh.
While it was nice that the 5th district convention saw fit to endorse a candidate for Congress in fairly short order (instead of taking 15 ballots to do it), their choice leaves me wanting. Several of the candidates were more impressive: Mike Erlandson (who pulled out early since he was not going to abide by the endorsement), Gail Dorfman, and my own candidate Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. Ellison just didn't seem to have the gravitas, the intellect, or the details down. While a charismatic man, his speeches were fairly canned and stilted, his issues of limited impact in the grand scheme, and his overall political thrust just isn't where the I think the DFL needs to be right now. Never before have I been less impressed by a slate of state and federal level candidates as I have been with this electoral cycle. The only race I have any real enthusiasm for is the gubernatorial run by Becky Lourey. Go Becky!
There is still a lot of work to do, and I'll be there to help get it done in June in Rochester at the state convention, but the Democratic party in Minnesota seems to be having a crisis of picking a coherent identity.
On the upside (I hope), the 6th Congressional District Republicans have seen fit to endorse that raving right-wing religious loony Michelle Bachmann. The DFL candidate in the 6th should hopefully make a serious challenge in what has traditionally been a conservative district.
The CD-5 convention was a zoo, as expected. Eleven candidates running for congress, eight of whom initially sought endorsement, lead me to think I might have been there all night. I was an alternate and did not get to vote, but if it had gone long that situation might very well have changed. As it stood, I got out of there in plenty of time to see Osmo Vänskä conduct Shostakovich tonight. I'd have gladly given up the Minnesota Orchestra in order to endorse a better candidate, but it was not to be. I'll obviously support whoever the DFL candidate for congress is, I'm just not sure yet if Keith Ellison will be getting my vote in the primary.
UPDATE: Shostakovich - fantastic. Golijov, great, and Dawn Upshaw is the least annoying soprano I've ever heard. That second song 'Lúa Descolorida' just nailed me. Mahler - the Adagietto (4th movement) is wonderful, but the rest of Symphony No. 5 is an overlong, incoherent epic mess like most of Mahler's works I've heard. Wonderfully played though, as always.
4 comments:
A couple of observations by another delegate at the convention.
'My message is simple: I am for peace now, for universal health care, and for a sustainable future.'
Truly, this sounds like a proven, progressive leader as indicated by his banner.
I have no knowledge of the players in the race, but I wonder if he was a safe choice? A bland reintroduction of the country to democrats before (hopefully) the liberals ride into town. Ease 'em into it. Americans are very jittery. We don't want to startle them.
I should start scaring more Americans. Tax the rich! Educate prisoners! Legalize marriage for all couples! Gut the military, for real, spend on education! Spend even more on social programs! Fire ass hole pharmacists! Legal abortions for those who need it, no insulting waiting periods or restrictions on those in need! And down with capital punishment!
The problem as I saw it was that he was simply the politician. He co-opted whatever messages he thought might get him elected. Calling himself a 'peace-first' candidate was an attempt of blatant theft from JNP, who has a 30 year history of being a peace-first guy. Even Gail Dorfman started bandying about these ideas because they underestimated that current in the convention delegates, and wanted to get in on some of it. While I have no doubt that Rep. Ellison is is in fact quite progressive, he is only so in the most superficial and bland way. He was absolutely the safe choice, the compromise choice. My other feeling is that despite being quite progressive, this guy just isn't that smart. He's a mediocre public speaker (state representatives with law degress should not use words like 'y'all' in the detroit accent he should have consciously ditched years ago), and he seems to throw out the kind of pseudoemotional talking points and buzzwords that political candidates throw out that they think the people want to hear, without understanding a lot of the complexities and difficulties of the issues. For me, he comes off as just another slippery politician with less substance that I would have liked. Congress needs more college professors, scientists, doctors, engineers, and frankly, less lawyers. It does not surprise me at all at the outcome, he had just the right mix of touchy-feely (something Gail Dorfman had in abundance), charisma, and a lack of any genuine substansive depth - in short a perfect metaphor for the DFL right now.
Americans should be scared, although frankly the more scared they get the more conservative they become, which usually makes the problem worse. With almost any issue I can think of, when you get down to it, history almost always sides with the liberal and againt the conservative (I suspect that may even eventually apply to things conservatives are currently claiming victory on.). Things will not get better until government has a hell of a lot more educated, smart, pragmatic liberals in charge and a lot fewer reactionary demagogues. Sending the status quo to congress is not going to help. Unfortunately, I don't see anyone else running that is electable and even close to my own views, so I guess I'll just have to live with disappointment and hope that this candidate has more substance than I heard in speaking with him.
actually, Cp wasn't a delegate.
btw - a nice job done by the JNP supporters. I was very fond of his "I LOVE taxes!" answer in the q&A.
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