What If They Had a Convention and Nobody Cared?

Minnesota's Independence Party is sort of like Crispin Glover. Nobody knows why either of them got where they are.

Oh, with the IP it's not that complicated; back in a sillier, more trivial time when most Americans were oblivious to the threats that faced us as individuals and as a nation, Minnesotans accidentally turned an overgrown frat prank into a four-year experiment in pseudo-celebrity government, electing wrestler Jesse Ventura to serve as governor. The party who adopted him for name recognition as part of a plot to get five percent of the vote (which confers "Major party status" in Minnesota, complete with state funding and automatic ballot placement until such time as they fall below 5% for more than one election), then called the "Reform Party", the frazzled leftovers of Ross Perot's 1992 campaign, was traditionally down among the Libertarians and Socialist Workers in the great scheme of Minnesota politics. Ventura cared as much about the "Reform" party as he did about Hulk Hogan; within a year of his election, his apathy to Perot led the Minnesota delegation to split from the RP and rename themselves "Independence". Ventura, the only genuine personality in the party, engaged in absolutely no party-building, leaving that to the men that spent four years pulling his gubernatorial strings, Dean Barkley and Tim Penny. While Ventura maintained his national rep as a "libertarian conservative", he governed as a slightly-centrist DFLer, spending money like a crack whore with a stolen gold card and snuggling up to Roger Moe (or, perhaps more accurately, being snuggled up to Moe by Penny and Barkley).

Since Ventura's exit, the IP has clung to the ragged edges of legitimacy; they remained a "major party" after the 2002 election only via a legal technicality (which will likely expire after this election, barring an unlikely outpouring of people giving a damn about a "party" that doesn't include Jesse Ventura).

So I note that today was the IP convention only as a curiosity.

Oh, and to note that for all their palaver, the IP is, after all these years, still "DFL Lite":

3:44 - Peter Hutchinson speech begins. Most of the delagates in the crowd are waving Hutchinson signs. Thanks eveyone, and Wally the beerman (he's passing out water today). "Minnesotans know that politics in this state is broken, they want us to get things back on the right track....met a man who asked 'are you an incumbant?' 'no, sir, I'm a challenger.' 'Well then, I'm voting for you!.'"

Distracting us with 5 g's - guns, god, gays, gambling and gynocology. Now, they are adding Green cards.

When professional career bureaucrats - perfectly fitted in the IP - start insulting plebeian concerns with peasantries like the Second Amendment, the sanctity of marriage, the presence and centrality of faith in their lives, distaste with abortion and national security, you know they're out of touch with their subjects.

Er, would-be constituents.

Show of hands - who cares about the IP?

Posted by Mitch at June 24, 2006 08:45 PM | TrackBack