So here’s the deal, if you get a second call any of these numbers, call them as many times as possible, and talk to them about, I dunno, the weather, the annoying nature of political stunts. Whatevs.
651.296.4184 — Mike Brodkorb’s desk phone
651.296.4924 — Cullen Sheehan’s desk phone
651.842.0100 — Mike Brodkorb’s RPM phone
651.792.5315 — Mike Brodkorb’s cell phone
Thanks.
2. We’re hearing that EdMN will be endorsing MAK sometime soon.
3. We’re hearing that SEIU will endorse Rybak before the convention.
That is all. Thank you for your time.
So far there have been a few endorsements but many of them have been of the favorite son/daughter variety. The Nurses endorsed Paul Thissen (chair of Health Care and Human Services), the Carpenters endorsed Tom Bakk, the Steelworkers endorsed Tommy Rukavina, and womenwinning endorsed Anderson-Kelliher. And well… AFSCME’s endorsement of Mark Dayton was so out there it makes me consider whether or not I wish to continue being a dues-paying AFSCME member.
With AFSCME’s endorsement basically ceding any input into the DFL endorsment I think MAPE’s approach is going to be trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, and provide as much of an influence on the DFL Endorsement has AFSCME had provided previously.
As well, if this is true MAK will be picking up another superdelegate in Kendal Killian, MAPE’s political director, and my lifelong nemesis.
MAPE is the largest professionals union in the state with 12,700 members.
Edit: It’s official. MAPE endorses MAK.
There are two Holy Cow! moments to deal with today. The first being AFSCME’s amazing endorsement of Mark Dayton, which we’ll deal with shortly, and the amazing announcement that the local OFA organizer is planning to take on Phyllis Kahn. What makes it so amazing is that it comes in an article in the New York Times.
Mr. Griffin also has a more direct plan to keep the ball rolling. He is contemplating running for Minnesota’s Legislature — against a 19-term incumbent, Representative Phyllis Kahn. Ms. Kahn is not an obvious target for the progressives Mr. Griffin hopes to rally. A Yale-educated biophysicist, she rides a bike to work and has championed the environment and — of interest to college students — later closing hours for bars.
But to Mr. Griffin, she stands for the inertia that takes hold in local politics when incumbents are re-elected by a handful of voters and rarely face primaries. She represents the district that includes his campus and is home to thousands of students who campaigned for Mr. Obama or registered to vote in that election. So he believes he can challenge her in the Democratic primary, ride Mr. Obama’s coattails and take her by surprise….
…[H]e may face an uphill battle to get those students to turn out for a local primary. Mr. Griffin, who was asked to run by a classmate who is starting a career in political consulting, said he would pray hard and make a decision soon about whether to run.
I’ve got to think this was a neophyte candidate making a neophyte mistake, but that isn’t the place to announce ones intentions, particularly in Mike’s case.
I was formerly Representative Kahn’s campaign manager, so I’m a bit biased, but if there is going to be a challenge that knocks off Phyllis it will come out of a cohesive campaign engaging the University students. This has been attempted before, and didn’t work. While that was 10 years ago and plenty has changed one key peice will change as well, the DFL primary will be before school starts, making his road even harder.
Good thing he got such an audacious start.
Today Margaret Anderson Kelliher’s campaign released her first list of supporters. While it has inspired some silly ‘snark’ in some corners of the blogosphere the real issue is getting down to the numbers. There are 35 37 super delegates on the list (I just eyeballed it, but I have 34 legislators and Lori Bergland Olson, Allison Myhre and Alyssa Harrington DFL Executive Committee members). Entenza lists 9 super delegates on his endorsments page.
As well on Kelliher’s list there are a few old hands who should be expected to be delgates (and some young hands like DJ Danielson). I’d go so far as to say that there is somewhere between 40 and 50 votes for endorsment on that list. And obnoxiousness on the internet aside (which I have contributed more than my fair share of) the next big step is going to be the endorsement process. Kelliher’s list is a pretty spectacular opening salvo and cements her place as (in my mind, Zach and I disagree on this) the frontrunner for the DFL endorsement.
With the abbreviated endorsement schedule momentum is going to be very important. Right now I would venture to guess that MAK, RT and Thissen (T-sun) are the frontrunners for the endorsement, I exclude Entenza, because I think with the depth of this field, and with their experience in 2006 DFL activists won’t be interested in giving the endorsment to someone who isn’t going to abide by it.
If I had to bet, I’d say that next August MAK will be taking on Matt Entenza, Mark Dayton and a player to be named later (I expect someone on the liberal vanguard will mount a pretty forgettable run).
You can check out our own Matt Martin on Air America AM950, on Mondays at 6, and you can read up on Representative Thissen and his run for Governor at his website.
I think the obvious benefactor of this is RT who has already had a pretty clutch month with the Teamsters endorsement and who now has one less viable competitor for the DFL endorsement. I think the other winner out of this is Matt Entenza who has been competing with Coleman for union endorsements**, and in fact I’m curious if a major public employees union telegraphed to Coleman that he wasn’t going to get their endorsement and was this announcement because he didn’t think he had the math to win without that major endorsement?
The race is starting to shake out and I figure it’ll get a whole lot clearer in the near future with the earlier DFL convention date. It’s time to separate the chaff from the wheat.
(** I just wanted to point out that obviously all the candidates are competing for union endorsements, but particularly in Coleman’s case I think it was more important for him to have union support because he had no real obvious constituency otherwise, or at least he had no unique constituency. As well, Entenza has been actively courting union and institutional endorsements and I would be very very curious to see what happens with AFSCME’s endorsement now.)
Update: in a release written to disguise his joy, Matt Entenza comments on the loss of Coleman from the field he never actually entered.
Further updates: someone in a position to know said it wasn’t AFSCME. But that’s why we speculate wildly about local politics, so you don’t have to.
Kuttner will be speaking on the Obama administration so far. The event is co-hosted by Growth and Justice.
Come on down!
ST. PAUL, Minn.— Just like they did in the last governor’s race, Minnesota Republicans will gather in Minneapolis next year to endorse a candidate for the state’s top office.
State GOP chairman Tony Sutton said today that the late-April event will be at the Minneapolis Convention Center. It’s more than a month before the traditional state convention season.
Republicans met there in 2006 when Gov. Tim Pawlenty was endorsed for his second and final term. At least nine Republicans are vying for the party nod.
Democrats will gather in Duluth for their three-day state convention beginning June 4.
Everyone should take a second to consider those bold parts before they decide that hopping off the endorsement wagon is the thing to do.
Finally, one of these weekends will have a hard fought endorsement battle and parties that will be talked about for years, the other one will feature frightened suburbanites driving through downtown with the windows up and the doors locked driving to a battle with a predetermined ending, much like you would find at a WWE match.
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Consider that the following things would need to happen for a health reform bill to become law:
1. Senate Finance Committee writes a bill.
2. Finance bill is reconciled with HELP bill.
3. Reconciled Senate bill passes full Senate.
4. House Rules Committee reconciles the slightly different versions of the House bill.
5. Reconciled House bill passes full House.
6. Conference Committee reconciles House and Senate bills.
7. House passes conference report.
8. Senate passes conference report.
9. President signs bill.Right now, the most important thing is to get through steps (1), (2), (3), (4), and (5). At the moment it appears that you can’t do (4) and (5) without a public option. It also appears that you can’t do (1), (2), or (3) with a public option. And that’s all just fine since this is what step (6) on the process is there for. At step (6) the appropriate thing to do is to press for a conference report that includes a public option. If progressives win that fight, then step (7) should be easy and there’ll be a tough fight over step (8). If progressives lose that fight, which I think may well happen, then I really do think it would be time to give up on the public option. I think it would be silly for the House of Representatives to vote “no” on a basically good health reform package merely because it didn’t include a public option.
Until anyone can tell me how we get through steps 1, 2, 3, 6 and 8 with a public option I’ve got to say again, please sweet God in heaven, do not kill this bill if it doesn’t contain a public option.
IF, WITH Barack Obama’s acquiescence, Senate Democrats drop the public plan from their health-care reform bill, that measure will likely end up looking very much like The Economist’s vision for health-care reform in America. Which is odd, because I never considered this paper a bastion of socialist thought…
There seem to be three rings that move from left to right across the stage (and political spectrum). In the first ring, liberal Democrats are having a debate with their moderate colleagues over the merits of different aspects of reform. Right now, it appears, the moderates are winning. In the second ring, moderate Republicans are having a debate with their conservative colleagues over reform. That debate seems to be going nowhere, with most Republicans staunchly opposed to any reform. In the third ring, we have the freak show: people screaming about socialism and death panels, and a few even packing heat outside presidential events…
Perhaps it’s a matter of perspective. If you like the status quo, then these changes (and any change that seriously addresses the flaws in America’s health-care system) are probably going to seem radical to you. But if you believe that the American system is not functioning as it should and, therefore, needs to be reformed, the changes currently on the table are actually quite moderate. Or maybe, just maybe, we’re all socialists.
I end this post with a pitiful plea to the liberal members of our Congressional delegation,
Please, sweet God in heaven, do not kill this bill if it doesn’t contain a public option. The history of health care reform is long one, the first attempt at universal health care started under Truman and arguably came closest to fruition under Nixon until killed at least partially by liberals and labor unions who thought they could get a better deal under the next President who wasn’t going to be Nixon (he was in the heat of Watergate at the time).
How did that work out for them?
Come September the actual brass tacks of this bill are going to have to be sorted out (the real irony given all of the hyperbole and bullshit now, there is no bill to really be hyperbolic about). So, to Keith Ellison and any other member of our delegate who is willing to vote against a bill without a public option, please please please think very hard before you vote against health insurance reform if it doesn’t have a public option. Incremental change is better than no change, particularly if we’re going to have to wait 30 years for another shot at it.
The Dear John letter, after the jump.
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