{"id":35374,"date":"2013-03-25T07:40:53","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T12:40:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=35374"},"modified":"2013-03-25T07:49:15","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T12:49:15","slug":"missions-stated-and-unstated-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=35374","title":{"rendered":"Missions Stated And Unstated – Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cam Winton is running for Mayor of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n

Winton – a former DFL activist who told of seeing the economic light after going into business – is running as a fiscal conservative and social moderate, and not as an endorsed Republican, per se<\/em>. \u00a0I attended his kickoff rally a few weeks back in Minneapolis, and had a pretty singular experience for a GOP activists, standing in the same room and cheering along with people who’d opposed the marriage amendment (which Winton also opposed) and listening to Ashwin Madia, a couple of lesbian marriage activists, and Winton’s business partner extolling the candidate’s virtues.<\/p>\n

And it was in that crowd, I thought, that one might see a successful challenge to DFL hegemony in Minneapolis; a candidacy that attacks the DFL’s weak spot in Minneapolis – its incompetence at running a city – while ignoring the GOP’s big weaknessses\u00a0in places like Minneapolis<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now, some – including my friend John Gilmore<\/a> – have asked “is Winton Republican or conservative enough?” \u00a0 He, and they, point to the fact that Winton is a former Democrat, and was in fact a prominent enough activist through 2008.<\/p>\n

As a former Democrat myself, I’m pretty forgiving of Road to Damascus conversions. \u00a0And if you want to grill a candidate to assess the sincerity, or at least integrity, of their beliefs, then a debate\u00a0could\u00a0<\/em>be a fine place to do it.<\/p>\n

And there’s the problem.<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

The Minneapolis mayor’s race is an expressly non-partisan one. \u00a0Party identification doesn’t appear with candidates on the ballot.<\/p>\n

The Humphrey Center – the U of M’s Poli-Sci think tank and, if you ask conservatives, DFL hatchery and retirement home – is hosting a debate of these candidates this coming Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The DFL ones.<\/p>\n

Let’s rephrase that for impact; the Humphrey Institute – a public institution whose mission is at least ostensibly\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>“furthering the DFL’s interests and hindering their opposition” – is hosting a debate for a non-partisan office in the city in which the Institute resides. \u00a0And they’re only inviting DFL candidates to it.<\/p>\n

According to the Winton campaign, he\u00a0has\u00a0<\/em>been invited to a second<\/em> debate. \u00a0At this second debate – which will have virtually no media coverage – Winton will appear on a panel with\u00a0Bob Carney and Leslie Davis, a couple of perennial candidate who are shunted into a side-debate to isolate the comic relief from the “Real” race…<\/p>\n

…which, the Humphrey Institute has decided in its infinite institutional wisdom, is among the DFL candidates, who will get the “real” debate.<\/p>\n

This brings up a couple of questions:<\/p>\n

Is the Humphrey Institute serving as a DFL campaigning tool?<\/strong>: Why the seemingly arbitrary cutoff at “DFL”, in a race where\u00a0every candidate goes to the final ballot<\/em> (Minneapolis uses “ranked choice” balloting, resulting in slow, unreliable elections with\u00a0no need for party endorsements or primaries<\/em>. \u00a0 Having a fully-partisan “debate” is not only against the Humphrey Institute’s stated mission – it’s\u00a0supposed to be\u00a0<\/em>irrelevant to the contest at hand.<\/p>\n

Is this a debate or a DFL campaign rally?<\/strong>: \u00a0The Humphrey Institute’s planned event will include five DFL candidates who differ on policy only in the most tangential incidentals. That’s not a “debate”, it’s a support group meeting.<\/p>\n

“Debate” implies “difference of opinion”<\/strong>: \u00a0But this “debate” – the one the U of M will actually publicize, the one the media will attend – studiously ignores a sharp, articulate candidate who sharply differs from the DFL on some issues where the DFL itself knows it’s vulnerable – spending, taxes, regulation, public safety, infrastructure.<\/p>\n

I asked the Humphrey Institute’s Dr. Larry Jacobs about this last week.<\/p>\n

I’ll have that part of the conversation tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cam Winton is running for Mayor of Minneapolis. Winton – a former DFL activist who told of seeing the economic light after going into business – is running as a fiscal conservative and social moderate, and not as an endorsed Republican, per se. \u00a0I attended his kickoff rally a few weeks back in Minneapolis, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,17,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tc-media-bias","category-minneapolis","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35374"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35376,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35374\/revisions\/35376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}