What makes the race interesting is what is happening in the scrum for the scraps Laine leaves on the table. Tim Utz of the Constitution Party has a chance of getting more votes than the Republican nominee, Camden Pike. Utz ran as a Republican a few cycles back but had a falling out with the party and has spent the last 4-6 years as something of a perpetual candidate, driving around the area in a green and orange vehicle. Over time he's managed to peel off a significant number of erstwhile Republicans and gained their support. For his part, Pike is a young guy (about 25 or 26) who comes from the Ron Paul wing of the party. Since the district is something of a hopeless cause for the Republican party, Pike has gotten essentially zero support and has been running his campaign on a shoestring. Some of the signs he has up are hand painted. Meanwhile, Utz has signs up all over the district and was able to snag an interview with Mitch Berg earlier in the year. Laine is going to get at least 60% of the vote on Tuesday. How that remaining 40% of the vote gets divvied up will be an interesting thing to watch.
Friday, October 31, 2014
A brief note on the local scene
I've not written anything about the local race for house in 41B; initially I'd hoped to get involved in this race but this year life has been far too complicated to find time for any political activity. My district is heavily DFL, primarily because most of Columbia Heights is in the district, along with St. Anthony and the southern half of New Brighton, which are both purplish at best. As a result, there's been little doubt that the incumbent, Education Minnesota rubber stamp Carolyn Laine, will win easily. She's barely had to campaign.
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5 comments:
Wonder how the vote would turn out if the Republicans would give up fratricide and work together?
I do too, Jerry. It's hard enough to get something done in 41B without splitting up otherwise like-minded people.
The problem for me is this — since I'm not active in the district at this point, my opinion probably doesn't matter very much to the people in the arena, which I completely understand. Still, the notion that the Constitution Party is going to somehow triumph seems, well, unlikely.
I don't really know Utz; I've talked to him once or twice in passing. His heart is in the right place, but there's a little bit of Ahab in what he's doing and unfortunately he's managed to recruit a fair number of activists to his Pequod.
The problem seems pretty simple and straightforward. Party units all over insist that the activists have "earned the right" to select the endorsed candidate and demand to "preserve the value of the endorsement." They have. What they fail to understand, though, is that THEY are responsible for the value of the endorsement, by selecting the candidate most likely to win the primary and general election. The value of endorsement is if it is tantamount to victory. In other words, by considering the opinions of people like you and me who may not be hard-core CP or LP type conservatives. I love the literary reference, but I've usually referred to "those folks" as "Quixotic." Same idea, and yet they never seem to learn .
I think there's a different type of learning that's going on, Jerry.
The redistricting really hurt us; at one point we'd hoped that Columbia Heights would end up in a different district, but instead of being a 53/47 DFL district, we became a 60/40 or even 65/35 DFL district. It's easy for Tim Utz to make the argument that the Republicans are ineffective because even if you could get every like-minded person in the district to vote for a Republican, you'd still fall short.
I suspect in our district, where the chances of actually winning are rather small, it's easier to indulge in purity exercises than it might be in a district where there'd actually be a chance of winning. As Mr. Zimmerman put it, when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.
The problem is what you've recognized; in chasing moral vanity you fall further behind and help to enable the very things you decry. Carolyn Laine never has to answer for anything because her putative opponents are fighting each other instead of paying attention to her.
Meanwhile, I'd be remiss in not mentioning that I like Camden Pike a lot -- although he's very young and can come across as a little bit on the callow side, he's a sharp guy and I hope he stays in the game. From my somewhat distant perch, I can say that he's improved as the campaign has gone on.
Well, we see the results clearly now, and the reason why "you guys" in the cities-- the 4th and 5th-- need to get your act together and make a solid attempt. Republicans generally carry outstate voters, so a few more GOP votes in the Cities would put our statewide candidates over the top.
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