Into The Provinces

SCENE:  DFL headquarters in Saint Paul.  Behind a door with a sign labeled “Field Worker Training”, Avery LIBRELLE is leading a group of DFL employees, including Moonbeam BIRKENSTOCK, Edmund DUCHEY, Gutterball GARY, Cat SCAT  and about a dozen other activists being trained to start working for the DFL’s 2018 campaign season.  

LIBRELLE:  OK, everyone.  It’s been a good session.  Can you recap the lessons so far?  (Points to DUCHEY).  Start?

DUCHEY:  Say whatever it takes, because none of our voters are going to check facts anyway.

LIBRELLE:  Excellent.  And… (points at GARY) you?

GARY:  We’re running against Trump!

LIBRELLE:  Because…?

SCAT:  He’s literally Hitler.

LIBRELLE:  Good!   And…(to BIRKENSTOCK) You.

BIRKENSTOCK:  Tax hikes put people directly back to work for the children.

LIBRELLE:  Outstanding.  Now – each of you has an envelope in front of you.  It’ll explain where you’re assigned for this campaign.

(There is a mad rustling of papers as the trainees open the envelopes and take out their assignments)

DUCHEY:  W00t!  I got South Minneapolis!

SCAT:  I got Edina!

GARY:  I got Crocus Hill in Saint Paul!

BIRKENSTOCK:  (looking and sounding crestfallen)  I got…Marshall?

(The other trainees visibly wince)

LIBRELLE:  Do you have a problem with your assignment?

BIRKENSTOCK:  Well, for starters – where is it?

LIBRELLE:  I have no idea.  You’ll have to Google it.

BIRKENSTOCK:  But isn’t that way outstate?  Where they…grow corn and stuff?

LIBRELLE:  Could be.  I didn’t make the assignments.  They’re places where people…well, voted, I guess.

BIRKENSTOCK:  But they voted…Republlican.  Right?

LIBRELLE:  They’re farmers, though.  Right?   And the “F” in “DFL” means Farmers.

GARY:  Is that what it means?

LIBRELLE:  I guess.  Anyway – Moonbeam, that’s your job.  Do outreach in Marshall.

BIRKENSTOCK:  But there’s no DFLers there.   Who wijll I do outreach to?

LIBRELLE:  Well, I have no idea.  But good news!  You can pay people to talk to you!

BIRKENSTOCK:  Ah.  Problem solved!

LIBRELLE:  It’s good to be Democrat!

And SCENE

11 thoughts on “Into The Provinces

  1. You can pay people to talk to you!

    Aye, but will the DFL listen is the question. It seems that the DFL is more about ideological purity than helping non-metro residents. After all, they resorted to busing in metro activists to make sure that caucuses in Duluth selected their desired candidate. (Naturally they failed at that, too, but whatevs.)

  2. I’m all for it. as nerdbert points out, ideological purity is the key, Rural MN must be brought into line by their more advanced metro area progressive mentors who can eradicate the false consciousness that republicans (and Yes, Hubert Humphrey) have used to exploit and oppress them, while educating them to the intersectional nature of their institutionalized racism, misogyny, and identity denial. 2018 must be the beginning of the Great Leap Forward for rural MN. Only the purest of the pure should be sent.

  3. query for clarification:
    Is that the city of Marshall in Lyon County or Marshall County (which is a fair commute from Mpls)?

  4. $100K?

    That pittance can hardly pay for a part-time St. Olaf or Carleton Advocacy Action graduate. How about tapping into the fortune that Tom Steyer made on coal?

  5. Mac, in my head I assumed it was the town of Marshall, but now I think there might a raving lunatic leftist or two in the vicinity because of the SW State. So, I think you’re probably right about the county option.

  6. Hopefully Birkenstock will be stationed there for the duration of the 2018 election cycle. Then we could look forward to periodic “progress reports’ from his 12X14 room at the Elm Crest Motel in Warren MN. A nice touch on the reports would be if the last paragraph was always some variation of him apologizing for his ideological failings and begging to come home.

  7. Dear Diary: Arrived to take up my new post as DFL Regional Commander for Southwestern Minnesota. My colleagues in St. Paul are plainly pranking me. The GPS coordinates they provided led me to a 12-unit one-story motel with kidney-shaped swimming pool in front and sign proclaiming “Color TV in Every Room.” The pool is dry and the TV gets only Sioux Falls, which is a Fox affiliate. Ha ha, guys, very funny. Hope the local cuisine is better than lunch. Stopped at “Mom’s Diner” in some dinky town where the lunch special was Turkey Commercial but the server didn’t know if it was humanely raised free range turkey nor whether the coffee was made from fair-trade beans. Dismal meal. People at the next table actually took off their seed-corn hats, bowed their heads and PRAYED before the meal. Right in public! I definitely need my safe space tonight.

  8. Joe Doakes, I’m pretty sure the title is obergrupenfuhrer, not regional commander.

  9. Pingback: In The Mailbox: 05.16.18 : The Other McCain

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