{"id":85688,"date":"2023-08-11T06:01:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=85688"},"modified":"2023-08-10T13:33:06","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T18:33:06","slug":"purple-er","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=85688","title":{"rendered":"Purple-er"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Why has <\/em>the DFL been trying to portray itself, its candidates and its agenda as unstoppable and inevitable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it’s neither, and it’s counting on finding lots of voters who can be convinced otherwise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duluth’s incumbent mayor – a woman right in the current DFL’s crypto-Maoist sweet spot – lost the city’s DFL mayoral primary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And lost bad<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, this is just the primary. But it’s Duluth, where the DFL primary is in effect the election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Former state lawmaker Roger Reinert made a bold statement in his return to local politics, easily outpacing incumbent Emily Larson in what was expected to be one of the most-competitive mayoral races the city has seen in the past 16 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reinert was by far the top vote getter in Tuesday’s primary, winning 63% of ballots cast among the five-way field, according to complete but unofficial tallies. Larson also handily advanced to the Nov. 7 general election with 35%.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Now, Reinert is another DFLer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in a Duluth that’s kept its neo-Leninist patina even as the rest of CD8 has drifted toward center-right, he may as well be Jack Kemp:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

But Reinert remains a well-known local political figure in his own right. The U.S. Naval Reserve officer was elected to the City Council in 2004 and went on to spend eight years in the state Legislature \u2014 first House of Representatives and then Senate \u2014 before stepping away in early 2017 to pursue a law degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both candidates have been longtime members of the city’s DFL establishment, though Larson easily secured her party’s endorsement as Reinert opted not to participate in the process. In challenging the incumbent, he described himself as “more of a centrist” or “business Democrat.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Larson has touted a progressive track record at the helm of the city, which includes overseeing development of some 1,700 new units of affordable housing and $19 million worth of renovations to existing units. She oversaw the creation of a dedicated street-repair fund, has pushed for sustainability and pollution-reduction measures and said crime has dropped 22% citywide since she first took office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reinert, in comparison, has pegged his campaign on “effective and efficient core city services” message. He has said property taxes and other proposed fees are proving to be a hardship on household budgets, promising to focus on improvements to streets and utilities, public safety, parks and libraries, tax-base development and housing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I fully expect Ken Martin to take the DFL’s Rescue Wagon off Julie Blaha watch and deploy it, with bags of cash, to Duluth in the coming couple of months, to restore order and obedience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is kind of huge. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why has the DFL been trying to portray itself, its candidates and its agenda as unstoppable and inevitable? Because it’s neither, and it’s counting on finding lots of voters who can be convinced otherwise. Duluth’s incumbent mayor – a woman right in the current DFL’s crypto-Maoist sweet spot – lost the city’s DFL mayoral primary. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85688","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=85688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85690,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85688\/revisions\/85690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}