Saint Paul is having City Council elections this fall. 

The usual suspects are lining up. 

On the “Saint Paul Information Forum” – a long-running email discussion group on Saint Paul politics – a thread started the other day about the voting for the group’s executive board.  My longtime political sparring partner Erik Hare – West End transit activist, recent NARN guest and proud amateur wonk – responded to me as I responded to a jab at my habit of writing my pets into uncontested races:

 I do.  I write in pets, friends and kids, usually into uncontested races (usually involving candidates I don’t like), so that I can easily ensure that my vote has been counted. 

 > Oh, but what have you done about it?

Erik has sown the wind.  He shall now reap the whirlwind.  A whirlwind of dog hair.

Saint Paul’s city council is up for election this year.  Now, in some of Saint Paul’s seven wards there might actually be some choice – an actual GOP or at least semi-conservative DFLer in the Randy Kelly tradition, one of the “pro-life, pro-assault rifle” wing of the East Side DFL – it’s fairly clear that in my own ward, Ward 4, there will be no meaningful difference.  In the Four, we’ll have our choice between someone just like crypto-Maoist Jay Benanav, the current, outgoing rep, a man so left-of-center he made Paul Wellstone blanche in muted horror, or someone just like him who wears a Patagonia skirt.

Until now.

No, I’m not running for the St. Paul City Council.  In my DFL-throttled ward full of retired union guys, state employees and teachers union members, I’d have as much chance of winning as I would of getting a called third strike on Torii Hunter.  Oh, I could be a protest candidate, all right – but then I’d have to drop the show.  Frankly – and I don’t think this is ego speaking – I think I do a lot more good for regional conservatism on the air than pounding futile pavement in the Saint Paul Four.

But my dog doesn’t have a talk show.

(portrait of the candidate as a puppy)

Clu Berg has everything one really needs to serve on the Saint Paul City Council. 

1. She barks loudly at intruders, which would make her the only genuine law and order candidate on the Council.
2. She has soft, pettable fur, which will do more for peoples’ health than anything the City Council has proposed recently.
3. She pees and poops outdoors, rather than dropping legislative turds like the “city income tax” in the Council chambers
4. She curls up around your feet on cold nights.
5. She has a better sense for avoiding unintended consequences of things like “city income taxes” than any of the currently-sitting Councilpeople.
6. She’ll have me for a chief of staff.

And so I hereby announce the (write-in) (probably) candidacy of Clu Berg for Ward Four of Saint Paul’s city council!  She’s running on the “Dog/Human Consensus” party ticket, so as not to siphon away crucial (also nonexistent) party funding from any GOP candidate who might step up.

Come election day, remember; Every Dog has her Day – and today is Clu’s!

UPDATE:  Yep, I’m stuck in the past.  Benanav is leaving.  I changed the post, above.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 7:23 am and is filed under St. Paul. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.