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urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer Will Tell Stories For Food Naomi Naomi 2014-07-01T03:13:25Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:285227 Convergence schedule 2014-07-01T03:13:25Z 2014-07-01T03:13:25Z Convergence -- our ENORMOUS local summer con -- is this weekend, and as usual, I'm going and will be on some panels. Should you wish to find me, here's where to look:

Thursday, July 3rd

5 p.m. Sci-Fi Mirror
How does the sci-fi of an era reflect society's concerns, hopes, dreams, and politics? Panelists: Elizabeth Bear, Naomi Kritzer, Haddayr Copley-Woods, Ozgur K. Sahin, Kenneth Konkol. Atrium 4.

10 p.m. Ultimate Evil Overlord 101
An interactive guide to becoming the ultimate evil overlord - with audience participation. Panelists: Naomi Kritzer, Brian Salisbury, Craig Cormick, Laura Thurston, Christoforo Pasquarette. Atrium 6.

Friday, July 4th

8:30 p.m. Tell Me That Again
Most stories have been told before! What folktales, myths, and legends did Shakespeare tell in his plays? What classic stories are being retold in episodes of Star Trek, the Avengers, or the Big Bang Theory? Panelists: Naomi Kritzer, Sarah Prentice, Joseph Erickson, Tex Thompson, Aimee Kuzenski. Atrium 7.

Saturday, July 5th

I have nothing scheduled but might do the Steam Century mystery. Molly, having played the mystery LARP for years and years now with great enthusiasm, has now joined the cast. Ed is predicting that I will lose miserably because Molly will conscientiously refuse to tell me ANYTHING.

Then again, if the weather's nice, I may try to lure my friends into coming and hanging out with me on the patio (last year the RadishTree had a lovely, lovely patio off the back end of the hotel, with comfortable furniture and fresh-grilled food for reasonable prices. There was even a bar out there. Smokers were all off in their special corral where their fumes would not irritate anyone else.)

Sunday, July 6th

2 p.m. Women in Genre Not Talking about Women in Genre
Panelists talk about everything EXCEPT what it's like to be a woman working in genre! Which is better, Star Wars or Star Trek? What YA series will be made into a TV show next? Audience questions will be drawn randomly and answered by the panelists. Panelists: Martha Wells, Damarra Atkins, Lynne M. Thomas, Danielle Indovino, Naomi Kritzer. Edina Room.

3:30 p.m. Urban Legends: Myths, Facts, and Half-Truths
From alligators in the sewer to clowns in the attic, urban legends walk the line between total absurdity and being just so outrageous that they might be true. Where do these stories come from, and why do they capture our imaginations so effectively? Panelists: Jason Thibeault, Anne Sauer, Naomi Kritzer, Bug Girl, Shawn van Briesen. Atrium 6. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:284979 In the try-on room at Savers (or any other thrift shop) 2014-05-11T16:33:03Z 2014-05-11T16:33:03Z 1. How did I not notice the enormous stain on this item when I took it off the rack? Oh, AND it's ripped. Excellent.

2. When it won't even go on over my hips, that makes it easy.

3. This makes me look fat. Ginormous, in fact.

4. What on earth happened with this seam? Skirts should flow down over your hip, not stick out at a right angle. Was this an intentional design or some sort of sewing mistake?

5. I can envision a woman of my exact size and shape who would totally ROCK this item of clothing. And I sort of wish I were that woman, but I think I need to just accept the fact that I'm not.

6. This doesn't even REMOTELY come CLOSE to fitting....oh, that would be because it's a children's item that got hung with the adult women's clothes by mistake.

7. What was I even thinking when I took this one off the rack and put it in my cart?

8. It fits me and feels good, but I wanted pockets and a different color. I'd be sold if it were $5, but it's $10.

9. Wait, this item I grabbed impulsively actually looks AWESOME on me! ...naturally, it's one of the $14 items instead of one of the $7 items. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:284822 Marscon 2014 Schedule 2014-03-03T22:39:46Z 2014-03-03T22:39:46Z I'll be at MarsCon this coming weekend, March 7th - 9th. If you're hoping to see me there, here's my schedule:

Getting into the mind of a religious fanatic
Saturday 11:00 a.m., Exec Lounge (Krushenko's)
Uber villain or bit player, what are they like? Are there any useful generalizations? Are they likely to be suicidal and does that depend on the religion or the person? How can they make for interesting novels and stories without being stereotyped and one dimensional?
With: Naomi Kritzer, mod.; P M F Johnson, Lyda Morehouse, G. David Nordley, David E. Romm, Ozgur K. Sahin

The Press vs. Science
Saturday 1 p.m., Atrium 2 (Re(a)d Mars)
What are some of the greatest howlers in science coverage? What's the most common kind of reportorial error? What happens when scientists try to write their own press releases? What happens when institutional PR departments do it?
With: Rob Callahan, mod.; Dr. Tom Gardner, Naomi Kritzer, G. David Nordley

Timing and Pacing
Sunday 11 a.m., Exec Lounge (Krushenko's)
What does timing have to do with writing? How do you know where to put your action/dialogue/sex scene? How can you tell if you have it in the wrong place? How does this differ between novels and shorter works? What horrible things can go wrong? Why do writers' groups have trouble gauging pacing in novels? Is there such a thing as too fast in pacing?
With: S.N. Arly, mod.; Naomi Kritzer, Lyda Morehouse

Finding the Key to Your Imagination
Sunday 1 p.m., Exec Lounge (Krushenko's)
What is imagination? Where does it come from? Some of us are blessed (or cursed) with an excess, and others have very little. Most folks think it's okay for kids to engage in imaginary play and exercise their imaginations, but a lot of folks think it's odd of grownups to do the same. Does our culture hinder and damage creative impulses? How do you find your imagination if it's gone missing? How do you keep it engaged and strong? Is it a use it or lose it proposition?
With: Esther Friesner, S.N. Arly, mod.; Haddayr Copley-Woods, Stryder Dancewolffe, Naomi Kritzer

I will also be around, possibly with kids in tow (I apologize in advance if someone wants to chat with me and I get dragged off by a demanding ten-year-old). urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:284635 Stories Published in 2013 (that you can nominate for awards, should you feel moved) 2014-01-10T21:36:45Z 2014-01-10T21:36:45Z This is an Award Awareness Post, where I'm going to tell you, "Here's what I published last year! In case you want to nominate it for shiny prizes!") I will note in my defense that when nominating stories, I appreciate being able to find out easily whether things I liked were Short Stories or Novelettes and precisely where they got published in which month (since you always have to write that stuff down). So. In case you think I'm awesome, are nominating for one of the genre awards (or non-genre! heck, feel free to nominate my penis story for the arty-est most thoroughly literary award out there, if you're on the nominating committee) and want to know what all I published last year so you can nominate for me for ALL THE THINGS... here you go!

Novelette

"Solidarity," The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2013. This is a seastead story, with the same setting and characters as "Liberty's Daughter" and "High Stakes" (which were published in F&SF in May/June 2012 and Nov/Dec 2012.)

Short Story

"The Wall," Asimov's Science Fiction, April/May 2013. This is my time-travel-Berlin-Wall story, in which a college student in 1989 is approached by a woman claiming to be her, from the future, and trying to persuade her to go to Berlin to see the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Bits, Clarkesworld, October. This is the penis story. It's online and it's free, so you could go read it right now if you haven't already. I realized the other week that if you look me up on the Internet, it's currently the third hit. So this means that the lady I was chatting with at the parent coffee at school, who found out I was an author and wrote down my name: if she googled me, she's probably now read it.

Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

Bits, Clarkesworld, October. There's an audio version! Read by Kate Baker. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:284199 Yuletide and fanfic 2014-01-03T21:02:24Z 2014-01-03T21:02:24Z For years, I've enjoyed reading Yuletide stories. Yuletide, for those who are not aware of it, is an annual fanfic exchange. When you sign up, you request a story (you actually have to give multiple possible options) and you also offer to write one (ditto). You volunteer and request based on "fandoms," which in the context of Yuletide can sometimes be as narrow as a single blog post or a TV commercial. Yuletide does require that the fandoms be small, or at least smallish -- you can't request or offer Harry Potter-based stories, Avengers, anything that has a huge amount of fanfic already.

Stories have to be turned in by late Christmas Eve, and everyone gets their story on Christmas Day. Authors remain secret until January 1st. All the stories are in an archive and can be sorted by fandom, so you can poke through and read all the stuff that appeals to you. (A Little Princess? Allstate's "Mayhem" commercials? Georgette Heyer's Venetia? They're all in there.)

This year I decided I wanted to play. I was assigned to write for someone who wanted Code Name Verity fanfic, and wrote a story called Damask Roses (it's also Rose Under Fire fanfic) and I wrote a Treat (an unassigned story I wrote because I looked at a bunch of prompts and felt inspired) about Disney Princesses at a college called Four Things That Weren't Adequately Covered in Mulan's RA Training.

The story I received was Addams Family (the movie) fanfic called College First. It's perfect -- filled with spot-on bits of deadpan dialog.

I've written derivative work before -- in fact, I've sold it, as you can totally do if you're deriving from something in the public domain. "In the Witch's Garden" (published in Realms of Fantasy in October 2002, available now in Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories) is loosely based on "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen. "The Golem" (published in Realms of Fantasy in October 2000, available now in Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories) draws on the Jewish legend of the golem created by Rabbi Loew.

I've also written straight-up fanfic, but not on AO3 and not in Yuletide, so that was really a new experience.

"Four Things" ... was really popular. And here's the thing about fanfic -- no one's writing it for money, obviously, so there's this whole culture surrounding it where people are rewarded for their writing and encouraged to write more with compliments. You do get compliments with pro writing; I've gotten some really lovely e-mails over the year, and my most recent published story, Bits, has a comments section with eight comments. By contrast, "Four Things" has 353 kudos (basically like a Facebook "like," only more specifically adulatory) and 40-some comments, all of them saying things like, "you are SO AWESOME."

You just do not ever get that sort of feedback in pro writing normally. Unless you are so famous that you are also getting stalkers. It's a funny thing.

And the weird flip side of this is that with pro writing I also always feel slightly embarrassed and awkward about compliments. (I avoid reviews, even good ones; they tend to paralyze me. The bad ones make me think, "oh my god, she's totally right: I DO suck." The good ones make me think, "oh my god, I'm totally going to let this person down." This is totally neurotic, and yet I know a lot of other writers with this same problem -- it's not just me.) Whereas with the fanfic I read every comment and let everyone's opinion of my brilliance buoy me up. It felt good.

Anyway. Yuletide was fun. Whether I do it next year will once again depend on whether I remember to sign up, though. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:284016 Election 2014 already! 2013-12-17T04:36:17Z 2013-12-17T04:36:17Z (Cross-posted to LJ just because I love Jo.)

Apparently it's election season again ALREADY.

So the mayoral election in Minneapolis is over, they've counted everything, and I hung up my political-blogging hat in mid-November thinking, "done with THAT for a while."

But...it turns out that here in my new district in St. Paul, our State Rep, Michael Paymar, is retiring. (He's represented this district since 1996. So -- for a while, although our State Senator, Dick Cohen, has been representing District 64 since 1986.) The caucuses are in February (February 4th, I think; I wrote it down on the calendar) and the Senate District Convention is in March (late March, thank goodness! it shouldn't interfere with MarsCon). And if things in this district run like things in my old district, odds are excellent that it's the Senate District Convention that will effectively pick our next State Rep.

I mean, officially there is a primary, and there's an election. But the DFL endorsement holds an awful lot of weight in these races, and the DFL-endorsed candidate has a definite edge in the primary. And come the general election, well, I expect that a Republican will run, but I would be pretty shocked if they won.

(DFL = "Democratic-Farmer-Labor." It's just the Minnesota name for the Democratic Party.)

Anyway. I feel much less well-informed in St. Paul, mostly because I have less of a sense of who the jerks are. In Minneapolis, there are certain endorsements that people will put in their materials that will cause me to write them off unless they are also endorsed by the people I know I like, to balance them out. I'm sure St. Paul has a similar crowd of People I Would Hate, If I Knew Who They Were, but I don't know who they are yet. (Does that mean I pay more attention to who you know, than what you believe? Well, not exactly. It's more that I pay more attention to who your buddies are, than I pay to what you say you believe.)

This is all preamble to note that I got a phone call this evening from Matt Freeman, a candidate to replace Michael Paymar. He gets points for being the first candidate to call me, although mid-December is honestly a point at which even I do not really want to be thinking about elections. We chatted a little (I told him I'd moved last year from Jim Davnie's district; he wanted to know why I moved, and it wasn't until I was telling him my answer that it occurred to me that I might be tipping my hand about how best he could craft his pitch. I don't think he did, though.) I wrote down the caucus date and his name and then told him to go ahead and give me his pitch.

The two big issues he talked about were (1) raising the minimum wage, and (2) improving the opportunity gap with Early Childhood education.

Having listened to that amazing This American Life episode about free universal preschool as well as having read about studies, I'm on board with Early Childhood education funding as a potential panacea for the opportunity gap. I'm also a fan of raising the minimum wage, although I was curious what he wanted to raise it to. Matt said he thought $9.50 was achievable although he would prefer $10.50; he also wants to peg it to inflation and to work for mandatory sick leave and parental leave. (Universal paid sick leave is one of those "everybody wins" sorts of ideas. Totally aside from the fact that letting sick people stay home is the humane and reasonable thing to do, I do not want people with the stomach flu handling my food.)

I asked him about his stance on gun control (which has been one of Michael Paymar's signature issues, not that he's had much success with it.) He talked about background checks and mental health screenings, which is actually a huge red flag for me because what exactly does that mean? Does this mean that people who seek help for mental illnesses are going to go into a database accessible to gun salespeople? Because no. I'm a big fan of medical privacy, particularly regarding mental health records. He backpedaled when I asked for details and it was clear he hadn't thought about this much.

One thing he had thought about was that we needed to work harder to figure out how to sell gun control to outstate Minnesotans. And he's right about that. Minnesota has a strong hunting culture in the rural parts of the state, and guns just have a different place in people's lives when they live in the country as opposed to the city.

(My friend Elizabeth, who is a Quaker and a committed pacifist, bought a gun when she moved to the country, because they were raising chickens and were troubled with possums. In the city, if a possum moves into your garage, you can call Animal Control. In the country, you have to deal with this stuff yourself, and that means either owning a gun, or having a neighbor with a gun.)

Anyway. He does not have a smooth, polished political pitch down yet, and I'm wondering now how long he's been making these calls. You would think people would start with the people who've been to caucuses in the past, but we haven't been to a caucus in this district yet so presumably he got my number off the voter registration records and that suggests he's cold-calling registered voters. Seems impractical, but what do I know about this stuff? (He was Chris Coleman's campaign manager so I expect he knows what he's doing.)

There are currently seven people running for this seat, I think. (All of them Democrats.) In looking for information, I discovered that someone else is already obsessively blogging about this race, relieving me of the responsibility: http://www.theracefor64b.com/ I'll probably write about it anyway, though. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:283656 Gift shopping for people you hate 2013-12-08T22:29:06Z 2013-12-08T22:29:06Z My annual passive-aggressive gift shopping ideas piece is on my WordPress blog this year, because WordPress makes it much, much easier to incorporate pictures than LJ does, and this year I wandered around Menards taking pictures of horrible things and I particularly wanted to share the photo of the giant stuffed dog.

Here's a direct link: http://naomikritzer.wordpress.com/2013/12/08/gift-shopping-for-people-you-hate-the-passive-aggressive-shopping-guide/

If you wish to leave comments here rather than there, feel free. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:283457 Election 2013 Wrap Up 2013-11-25T02:31:27Z 2013-11-25T02:31:27Z So, it took them a few days to count ballots, and I followed it on Facebook, and then I meant to post a final wrap-up but had other stuff going on and now enough time has passed that it feels utterly ridiculous to do a wrap-up but I also feel like my Election 2013 Blogging is incomplete without a wrap-up, so... HERE. HAVE A WRAP UP.

The calculations for the mayor's race took several days. The data was in a huge Excel table and although a competent computer programmer could have written them a script to do it all automatically in approximately the time it took them to re-assign the Communist Lauraist's votes, there are all sorts of laws about ballot-counting automation. I actually support these laws in principle and really, it didn't take THAT long to count everything. Remember the Coleman/Franken Senate race? THAT is an election that took a long time to (re)count.

In the end, though:

1. Turnout was fine. It was somewhat lower than the general election turnout was in 2001 (the last time there was a seriously contested mayor's race) but substantially higher than the primary was that year. Also, apparently turnout in local elections has been falling; this is a nationwide trend.

2. Most voters used the option to rank. (Not all, but most.) (Apparently bullet-balloters were much more likely to be Mark Andrew supporters, which I find interesting, and were especially likely to live in the 6th ward. Since Mark was the #2 candidate in the end, they were right that it didn't much matter who else they ranked.)

3. Betsy won with a plurality, not a majority, but it was not particularly close by the end, and there was no reason to believe that allowing people to rank six candidates rather than three would have swung the race to Mark.

4. The same was true for the other races that were won with a plurality; none were all that close by the end. The closest in terms of percentages was Linea Palmisano (48% vs Matt Perry with 45%); the exhausted ballots would have had to go overwhelmingly to Matt to swing it the other way.

5. I don't think any of the races this time actually swung in the later rounds of ballot-counting -- the person leading after the first round of counting went on to win in every race. Note that it does not have to work that way -- someone can be behind after Round 1 but pick up a bunch of second-choice votes and come back to win. It just didn't happen this time.

...see, this is why I didn't do a post. There's just so little to say at this point that's interesting. But this is all really good news for IRV (well, except possibly for #5 -- if one race had swung like that, it would have given people the opportunity to understand that aspect of the ballot.) I was concerned that turnout would be way down, and it was not. I was concerned that the final result would be unnervingly close (close enough to have swung the other way with fewer exhausted ballots), and it really wasn't. (I was right that it was a plurality win rather than a majority win; that might have been true even with more choices, though, because of people who just weren't interested in either of the top candidates.)

I will say that the Star Tribune's poll results were shockingly, shockingly off. I mean, they did poll in September. And it was a difficult race to poll. But they had Dan Cohen with 16%, tied for first place with Don Samuels. He finished with 2.28%. The only major candidate who did worse was Stephanie Woodruff; both were outpolled by Bob Fine, who did so poorly on the Strib poll that they dropped him from serious consideration.

I don't know enough about their polling methodology to assess what exactly went wrong here.

I was sort of hoping that one of the races I endorsed in would be super close and won by the person I endorsed, so I could claim to have swung a race, but nope. Most of the candidates I backed either didn't win, or won by a comfortable margin (Lisa Bender had almost a 2,000-vote margin and carried it on election night without even requiring the second-choice votes). Alondra Cano won by a pretty narrow margin and I endorsed her, but I know several people who read my write-up and happily voted for Ty Moore because they TOTALLY ARE socialists (there are quite a few, in Powderhorn).

I have heard from A LOT of people who have found my posts useful, though. Including a few who wanted to know if I had a tip jar set up. I do not have a tip jar, and I feel kind of weird about them (for myself, mind you. I don't begrudge other people their tip jars.) I will admit that I find money tremendously validating, though, so if you would like to show tangible appreciation for my research, gossip, and snark, I have set up a fundraiser:

Donate to YouthLink

(Yes, it's through GiveMN/Razoo. LOOK, IT'S BACK UP! Heh. They wanted me to set a goal. I'm going to feel like a total dork if my fundraiser gets, like, $10 in donations. I did a time-limited fundraiser; it ends December 31st.)

If you've read more than my political posts, you'll know that I've volunteered at Project Homeless Connect in the past, and that the issue of homelessness in the Twin Cities is one that I am deeply concerned about. YouthLink was the charity I was pointed at when I asked about donating to a group that specifically supports homeless LGBTQ teenagers -- they support and advocate for homeless youth generally, but they have a particular focus on homeless LGBTQ youth.

You can also feel free to buy one of my books, if you like SF/F.

I am going to transition away from LiveJournal (like almost everyone else); I've set up a WordPress blog. Currently here, although I'm going to make it naomikritzer.com soon. I am still pondering whether to do the political stuff in a separate blog so as not to chase away the people who just want my writing news or the posts about my children.

In the meantime, I will still be checking comments, and you can find me on Facebook (always) and Twitter (intermittently).

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:283138 Disaster Relief 2013-11-11T19:19:18Z 2013-11-11T19:34:37Z If you're looking for an efficient, effective, secular organization you can donate to to help with Typhoon relief in the Philippines, I'm going to suggest the International Medical Corps. I first heard of IMC because my friend Jason Goodman's father works for them. Ed and I have supported the organization since sometime in the late 1990s, and there's a lot we like about them, including the fact that they don't use half our donation to inundate us with more requests for money.

I also like the fact that although they absolutely do disaster relief, the organization has an overall focus on building local capacity in the long term. I also really appreciate that they provide mental health care as well as physical, and treat people for psychological as well as physical trauma. I approve of the fact that they view maternal health as integrally connected to child health. (There used to be an article up on their website about breastfeeding support in crisis situations.) They're an excellent organization.

Here's a donation link for Typhone Hayaian-related relief. A more general donation page is here.

If, on the other hand, you don't care whether your disaster relief organization is secular or not, I'll note that if you want to get money where it's needed really quickly, a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself, "What is the dominant religion of the population of the devastated region?" and then "Does this religious group have a relief organization, because if so, it's probably already there."

The answer here would be "Catholic" and "yes, it's CRS, and they're very good at relief efforts." (Ed and I support CRS as well as IMC; we started donating to them during the refugee crisis in Kosovo, because they were the group managing the refugee relief there.) On their page about their work in the Philippines, they specifically mention disaster response, saying, "The Philippines is vulnerable to typhoons, floods and other natural disasters. Catholic Relief Services and our Church partners respond to emergencies by providing victims with urgent items like food, blankets and housing materials. In addition, CRS runs cash-for-work programs that pay survivors to remove rubble and rehabilitate flooded areas. As communities recover, CRS works with families to rebuild houses and make them stronger than before." (Click on the "Programs" tab in the upper right corner, then expand "Disaster Response.")

You can donate to Catholic Relief Services specifically for Typhoon relief here, or you can make a more general donation here.

Finally, a couple of notes about donating to support disaster relief, in general.

1. The good organizations work together and coordinate efforts. Donate to whichever group you prefer and know that by supporting the work of one, you're supporting the work of all.

2. Be wary of groups that you've never heard of. This is hard when we're talking about a disaster in another country, because if it's an NGO in that country, they could be a totally awesome group that you've never heard of. If your Filipino friend says, "Donate to [group], because I'm familiar with their work and they're awesome," that's a good sign. But if you get a fundraising phone call, or an e-mail solicitation, be really wary because there are scammers who will take your money and line their pockets. If in doubt, give to one of the big groups like the Flipino Red Cross (the Filipino Red Cross site is here. Note that (1) donating to the American Red Cross is NOT going to be an especially effective way to help people in the Philippines and (2) your donation will be denominated in pesos, not dollars. John Scalzi says the current exchange rate is 43 pesos/$1.)

3. Donating in response to a disaster is good. But it will take days or weeks before your contribution translates into help for people who are suffering. Right now, ALL these groups are relying on the donations they got last month or earlier. If disaster relief is important to you, consider making a regular non-inspired-by-the-headlines donation to the organization of your choice on a regular basis -- because then the money will be there for the next disaster. There WILL BE a next disaster; it might or might not be big enough to make the news in the U.S.; but the victims of that storm, earthquake, war or tsunami will be suffering just as much.

4. (Edited to add this.) Send money, not stuff. Here's an article explaining why. There are a few exceptions. For example, after Sandy, there were groups doing clean-up that needed specific items like giant sturdy trash bags. Some of them used Amazon.com wish lists to request what they needed, and people could buy those requested items and ship them in. If you are responding to a request, you can do a gift-in-kind. There are some organizations that will take very specific gifts-in-kind pretty much continuously -- some homeless shelters and women's shelters may appreciate tiny bottles of shampoo collected from hotel stays, little bars of soap, etc., and the "can food drive" is pretty well accepted at this point (although even there, if you have the choice between taking $10 to the store and buying cans to donate, or donating $10 to the food shelf, they can make that cash donation go MUCH further than you can.)

For your second-hand cast offs, pretty much anywhere you go in the U.S. you will find organizations that will eagerly take your old stuff and re-sell it in a thrift shop that raises money for their programs. I recommend ARC and the Epilepsy Foundation over Goodwill. Or hold a garage sale. Or offer it up on Craigslist. Just DO NOT SEND IT TO THE PHILIPPINES. They do not need your old shoes, they do not want your old shoes, and sending them your old shoes will create problems rather than solving them. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:283056 Endorsements: St. Paul 2013-11-04T05:12:14Z 2013-11-05T05:30:00Z This one's going to be shorter even though St. Paulites can rank up to five (or maybe six, if there's that many candidates?) instead of just three.

Mayor
1. Chris Coleman

School Board
Jean O'Connell
John Broderick
Chue Vue

(No rankings in that one because the votes are counted traditionally and not in IRV-style. Vote for three, and order doesn't count.)

City Council Ward 1
1. Dai Thao
2. Noel Nix
3. Johnny Howard
4. Kazoua Kong-Thao
5. Mark Voerding urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:282723 Endorsements: Minneapolis 2013-11-04T05:02:14Z 2013-11-05T05:27:58Z For the convenience of people who just want to vote as if they were me, a cheat sheet.

Mayor
1. Betsy Hodges
2. Don Samuels
3. Stephanie Woodruff

I spent a lot of time pondering Cam Winton vs. Mark Andrew on the assumption that if it's not Betsy vs. someone or Don vs. someone in the final round, surely it'll be Cam vs. Mark.

But you know, in all honesty, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know who's going to turn out for this or how they'll vote. The only poll was frankly really pretty useless. So rather than tying myself in knots trying to guess who the final two might be and which of those two is the lesser evil, I've decided I would just vote for my three favorites and hope for the best. (I am not super optimistic that Stephanie will even still be in play in that third round, but you never know. I like her focus on transparency; it's something Minneapolis could definitely use more of.)

City Council Ward 1
1. Kevin Reich

City Council Ward 2
1. Cam Gordon

City Council Ward 3
1. Jacob Frey

City Council Ward 4
1. Barb Johnson
2. Kris Brogan

City Council Ward 5
1. Ian Alexander
2. Blong Yang
3. Brett Buckner

Ian vs Blong is a close call, but I like Ian's background in public policy.

City Council Ward 6
1. Abdi Warsame
2. Robert Lilligren

City Council Ward 7
1. Lisa Goodman (running unopposed)

City Council Ward 8
1. Elizabeth Glidden (running unopposed)

City Council Ward 9
1. Alondra Cano
2. Charles Curtis
3. Ty Moore

City Council Ward 10
1. Lisa Bender

City Council Ward 11
1. Matt Steele
2. John Quincy

City Council Ward 12
1. Andrew Johnson
2. Chris Lautenschlager
3. Ben Gisselman

City Council Ward 13
1. Matt Perry
2. Linea Palmisano
3. Missy Durant

Board of Estimate and Taxation
1. Carol Becker
2. David Wheeler
3. David Pascoe

Park Board At-Large
1. Jason Stone
2. John Erwin
3. Ishmael Israel

(After talking to John Erwin I moved him back to #2. I like both Jason Stone and John Erwin; I'd like to see both of them on the Park Board. I'm keeping Jason Stone at #1 because I think he's more likely to need the help. ORDER MATTERS IN THIS RACE. You should pick three and rank them IN YOUR ORDER OF PREFERENCE, even though there are three open seats.)

Minneapolis Charter Amendments

YES and YES urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:282472 Election 2013: Volume 8, Issue 1. It's Almost Time to Vote 2013-11-04T03:04:25Z 2013-11-04T05:06:22Z So it's Sunday night; the election's Tuesday.

Before you go vote, take a look at your ballot. For any precinct in Minnesota, you can visit http://pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us/ -- plug in your ZIP code and address, and you can find out where to go vote, and there will be a link to your sample ballot. I highly recommend checking this out, even if you've been following my posts, because there are races I didn't cover.

If you are still puzzled by Instant Runoff Voting, here is an excellent video that covers the basics: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/05/11/video_irv (At dinner, I was trying to explain IRV to Kiera and she was getting increasingly baffled. So I pulled up this video and had her watch it and she went from "I do not understand this at all, WHY is this a good idea?" to "THIS IS AWESOME. THIS IS THE BEST WAY EVER TO VOTE.")

Even if you understand how IRV works in the mayoral race, you may still want to watch this second video, which explains how IRV works in races like Park Board At-Large, where more than one person wins. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/10/22/how-instant-run-off-voting-works (stargoatpdx, you might want to bookmark that video for future use when explaining this method to people. The visuals help a lot.)

An important note on this is that in the Park Board At-Large race, order matters. There are three open seats, and you can vote for three candidates. But it's actually important to put your favorite candidate first, your second-favorite second, and your third-favorite third. (Or, you might list your long-shot candidate first because s/he is most likely to need the help.) But ORDER COUNTS. Previously in this race, there'd be three open seats and you got to pick three candidates and they each got one vote. Now, you get fractions. Watch the video -- it's complicated. The short version is just, order counts.

It also counts in the Board of Estimate and Taxation race, but I think it's less likely to matter there.

Finally, I liked this post from R.T. Rybak about looking to see who's funded by whom, before casting your vote: http://rtrybak.tumblr.com/day/2013/11/01 urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:282146 Election 2013: Volume 2, Issue 8: Mayoral Closing Arguments 2013-11-04T00:08:27Z 2013-11-04T02:39:14Z The Star Tribune today ran a piece in their editorial section where they let the six they considered to be the top choices give a brief final pitch for their candidacies. So they had Betsy Hodges, Mark Andrew, Dan Cohen, Cam Winton, Jackie Cherryhomes, and Don Samuels. But not Bob Fine or Stephanie Woodruff.

Honestly, I don't think they needed to include all 35, but excluding Bob and Stephanie is bogus. I assume it's because both did poorly in the poll the Strib did last month -- but given that the leading candidates got a whopping 16%, I'm hesitant to take that poll all that seriously. Stephanie notes that she's raised more money than Dan Cohen, and Bob will point out (repeatedly. you'll have a hard time getting him to STOP pointing this out) that he's the only candidate who's been elected to city-wide office.

So, for those who are looking for some last-minute info (probably for their third pick. Is everyone stuck on their third pick? Because that's my impression) here is the Star Trib's piece with the final pitches.

I checked out Bob Fine's website and this looks like what he'd have said if he'd been allowed to submit one.

And I left Stephanie a note on Facebook and she replied in a comment here.

A couple of comments.

* Bob Fine says he listed his home phone number on his candidate web site. The fact that it's still there, days from the election, is not a good sign for his victory. I mean, this suggests that even the cranks aren't bothering him. (It's good to be accessible. That doesn't mean you want your home phone to ring at 3 a.m. because someone just read something on the Internet about [Fukushima / Fluoride / Mercury Exposure / Alien Abductions / who knows] and wants to know how Minneapolis is going to respond to this TOTALLY PRESSING ISSUE.)

* Stephanie Woodruff emphasizes transparency (her city experience involves a volunteer position on the city's audit committee) and talks about wanting to set up a website with information from the city. I think this is a great idea; the sad thing is how few people would probably ever look at the information if it were available.

* Mark Andrew says he "led the DFL for Sen. Paul Wellstone's re-election" -- what the heck does that mean? (OK, I googled, and he was Chair of the local DFL during Paul Wellstone's re-election campaign. Here's what it actually means: Mark Andrew wants you to associate him with Saint Paul, and I don't mean the town.)

* Jackie Cherryhomes is very, very cleverly spinning her political defeat years ago as a plus -- you want someone who will place "the city's needs before her or his own political future," and clearly she did that since she lost her seat. You need to remember why she lost her seat: because she supported genuine boondoggles like Block E.

* Dan Cohen starts off with this:

"The heart and soul of my campaign is restoring the basic right of our democracy: the right to vote. It has twice been denied us.

We got the vote on the same-sex marriage amendment. We got the vote on voter ID. But when it came to the Vikings stadium deal, we didn't get the vote, we got the shaft: a bill for $500 million, and a deal that puts us in business with a judicially certified civil racketeer. We are entitled to a better deal than this, and I will get it for us. And the right to vote on it."

...Dude? SERIOUSLY? Are you trying to suggest here that voting on the civil rights of my gay friends was a positive thing?

I'm totally in favor of the Vikings Stadium vote the council didn't hold. But that attempt to pass the amendment was bullshit.

* Betsy clearly wants you to think, "Mayor R.T. version 2.0: less stadium and even more progressive." Which....okay. I could live with that.

* Don is going for the "big picture" approach. His big picture is that things are way better than they were, but are about to slide back into the pit if he's not elected.

* Cam embraces specifics (he talks about potholes!) but it includes specifics that are totally, 100% out of plausible reach for him, and I don't know who he thinks he's kidding. ("I'll seek school board appointments to push through reform policies, including the end of 'last in, first out,' a policy that prioritizes the interests of mediocre adults over exceptional children." "Last in, first out" is also know as the seniority system and is pretty much core to the union contracts. There are concessions you might be able to get the union to make; this isn't a likely one, and he's not in a position to argue with the unions anyway because that mayorally-appointed school board member idea is a complete non-starter.)

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:281857 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 9: Minneapolis City Council Ward 13 2013-11-01T21:44:39Z 2013-11-01T21:44:39Z When I lived in Minneapolis, I lived way over near the eastern edge, almost to the Mississippi River. In my mental map of the world, Minneapolis ends at about Hennepin Ave. So whenever I've driven out to Edina on city streets (Minnehaha Parkway, then 50th Street), this is the part of Minneapolis where I look around in amazement and say, "I'm not in Edina yet? How is this still Minneapolis? Seriously?!?"

(There's over half an alphabet of streets after Hennepin, in case you're wondering! Hennepin falls sort of in the Alphabeticals -- there's Aldrich, Bryant, and Colfax, and then apparently Minneapolis thought that we could use a few extra H's because if you're driving on 36th street there's Hennepin, Holmes, and Humboldt. But Holmes gets lost somewhere in the lakes and by the time you're in Ward 13 they seem to have winnowed it down so thoroughly that on 50th Street you don't intersect with an H at all. Then they pick up again with Irving and James -- although Irving doesn't intersect with 50th because there's a park -- and continues on all the way through Xerxes, York, Zenith. Then the alphabet actually starts over again and when you hit France Avenue, you're in Edina.) (Although, looking at the Ward 13 map, this appears to be untrue if you go a little south: from 54th Street down, Minneapolis ends at Xerxes.)

Anyway! The people who are running to represent almost-but-not-quite-Edina are as follows:

Missy Durant (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Linea Palmisano (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) (DFL-endorsed)
Matt Perry (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
David Regan (Libertarian Party) (endorsed by the Libertarian Party of Minnesota)
Bob Reuer (Independent) (endorsed by the Minneapolis City Republican Committee)

The incumbent, Betsy Hodges, gave up her City Council seat to run for Mayor.

Missy Durant (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://www.missydurant.com
https://www.facebook.com/missydurantcitycouncil

Missy is a former corporate HR professional. She's kind of fond of business buzzwords. ("She's a thought-leader with deep expertise in the design and successful deployment of programs and initiatives focused on the 'human capital' side of business.") Looking through her info, where she talks about budgeting from a corporate perspective, I thought she probably should have run on the Independence Party ticket instead of DFL; she'd have stood out more, and possibly had an endorsement to motivate a few extra volunteers. (Definitely not Republican, given that she talks about her partner, Samantha.)

I will admit I consider her self-published inspirational book to be a strike against her. ("What Matters...Gratitude," and on her campaign website she describes herself as an Author and says, "In 2009, Missy decided to spend less time flying around the country and more time at home with her family, shifting gears away from her role as a corporate executive. That journey led her to write a book – 'What Matters... Gratitude' – inspiring others to let gratitude for the things that matter most (people) set the course for their lives." The fact that she self-published in 2011 and didn't put it up on Kindle makes me think she jumps into things without actually knowing what she's doing.

She says her curiosity is her biggest selling point. I do see curiosity as a really valuable trait in an elected official, but overall, she doesn't blow me away.

Linea Palmisano (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) (DFL-endorsed)
http://www.lineapalmisano.org
https://www.facebook.com/LineaPalmisanoForWard13

Linea currently works as a manager (of...something, I'm not entirely sure what because it's in corporatespeak) at United Health Group; she has lots of experience volunteering for various neighborhood advocacy groups and non-profits (she's on the board of the Linden Hills farmer's market, she founded a group that does bike route advocacy, she founded a program to help immigrant teenagers go to college...)

She has lots of specifics on her website, and clearly has a lot of interest in urban planning, which is good.

She's endorsed by both Mark Andrew and Betsy Hodges (along with a long list of other Council people, current and former, the nearby State Legislators, etc.) although given that she's endorsed by the DFL, it looks pretty bad when elected DFLers endorse anyone else.

Matt Perry (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://www.votemattperry.org

Matt lost endorsement at the DFL convention but got the Star Trib's nod. He's served on a ton of city boards, including Zoning and the Capital Long Range Improvements Committee. The Star Trib liked Linea as well, but thought Matt's experience made him a better candidate in a year that was likely to see a whole lot of new Council members; they might have a point. The comments to the endorsement editorial make for interesting reading -- there's someone who said that Matt is rude, but most of the comments about him are supportive.

I suspect that he didn't get endorsement because he opposed municipalization. (He does think we should negotiate strongly for fair rates and increased renewable energy investment, but thought that holding a referendum on municipalization was a bad idea.) As I've noted in other posts, I agree with him on this.

(Linea doesn't exactly support municipalization either, actually, judging from her response on it here. But it sounds like she at least tried to sound like she supported it at some previous point.)

David Regan (Libertarian Party)

He lists the Libertarian Party as his party but I could find absolutely nothing else about him other than that based on the e-mail address he put on his Affidavit, I bet he plays D&D.

Bob Reuer (Independent) (endorsed by the Minneapolis City Republican Committee)
http://www.reuercitycouncil.com

Bob Reuer's website is notable for what it leaves out. It doesn't mention that he's endorsed by the Republicans, although I can't say I really blame him. It also doesn't mention that he's an ex-felon. I guess I don't blame him for that, either, but it does make the law-and-order parts a little funny to read. ("I will seek to bring new leadership to the Minneapolis Police Department, focused on reducing crime, improving morale within the Department, partnering with the Community, and relying on past successes. The current leadership in the MPD has failed in all of these respects and has been focused on pandering to political correctness, rather than reducing crime." I GUESS YOU'D BE AN EXPERT ON THAT...) According to the SWJ journal, his convictions were in 1990 and 1997, so a while ago. I do sort of wonder if his claim of 50 years of residence is gliding over time served, or if he got probation. (He was convicted of receiving stolen goods.)

Anyway, he has absolutely no particular relevant experience. I suppose if you're a Republican and you want someone who's NOT A DEMOCRAT you might vote for him.

I'd probably go for (1) Matt Perry, (2) Linea Palmisano and (3) Missy Durant, but #1 and #2 are a close call. Like the Strib, I was kind of sold on his extensive relevant experience; I also liked that his opinion on municipalization reflected mine really well. If you're a DFL party wonk, you'll definitely want Linea first (Matt promised to drop out if he didn't receive endorsement, then reneged). And I'm sure she'd be excellent -- either she or Matt is an excellent choice. My overall impression of Missy was "enthusiastic but flaky" (never, ever list your self-published inspirational book in your candidate site if you want me to think of you as "not flaky," especially under the bolded heading of "author") and my overall impression of Bob was that he was a crank who wouldn't really know what to do with the job if he landed it.

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:281650 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 8: Minneapolis City Council Ward 11 2013-11-01T20:10:16Z 2013-11-01T20:10:16Z As I was doing the previous mass-writeup post I was expecting this one to be similarly quick and easy. Nope! This one's got two real candidates (although I don't actually know how well Matt Steele is doing. I don't spend that much time in Ward 11, and thus lack the observational "have I seen this guy's yard signs?" metric.

Here are the candidates that will appear on the ballot:

Bob Schlosser (Non-Party Affiliate) (it actually says that on the ballot, I checked)
Matt Steele (Independent) (endorsed by the Independence Party)
John Quincy (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) (incumbent, DFL-endorsed)

Bob Schlosser

No website, no Facebook, no candidate questionnaires, although I guess he did show up at one of those downtown "Mayoral Forums" organized by Bob Carney and say he wanted to have one for Council members.

I found a couple of Bob Schlossers on LinkedIn but I'm not sure which is this guy and it didn't want to let me see their profiles anyway.

John Quincy
johnmquincy.org

John Quincy is one of those incumbent Council Reps whose name only barely rings a bell, which means that he tends not to be in the paper much and his constituents must not complain about him all that often (I do have a number of friends who live in his ward). He voted for the Vikings stadium deal, which is probably the main reason he's got serious opposition this time. The fact that it doesn't look like he was seriously opposed for the DFL endorsement suggests that in general he's pretty popular with the Democrats in his district.

His website mentions that he's the Council's representative on the Heading Home Hennepin collaboration, which makes me like him. (Heading Home Hennepin is pretty cool. They're the people who did the Project Homeless Connect events I've volunteered at in the past.) He's heavily involved in neighborhood and school stuff, he serves on various important and powerful committees, and in a year when a lot of things are in flux, there is a definite advantage to being represented by one of the incumbents (provided it's not a complete loser like Meg Tuthill).

He's endorsed by pretty much everyone, suggesting that he's effective and well-liked.

If I lived in Ward 11, I would probably vote for John Quincy.

But:

Matt Steele
votemattsteele.com

I have to admit I found Matt Steele genuinely intriguing.

John's site is heavy on the kitten-petting (he supports "investing in our roads, bridges, parks and bike trails. Promoting the recycling of metal, plastic, glass and organics and maintaining a state-of-the-art water system that provides high quality drinking water for our residents." It really sets him apart from those Minneapolis politicians who don't want to invest in roads, promote recycling, and who totally want to give us all filthy, contaminated water to drink.)

Matt's site embraces specifics. Lots of specifics, nerdy specifics, and intelligent specifics. He's clearly an aviation nerd, and has all sorts of very specific ideas for improving the airport noise situation (a big issue in his ward). Some of them are exceedingly specific ("advocate for greater use of Runway 35 for departures, which MAC built within the last decade at a cost of $700 million, so a higher percentage of departure noise is moved to the uninhabited Minnesota River Valley"). Others are probably out of reach for the Minneapolis City Council but totally worth thinking about generally (he suggests that a high-speed rail connection between Minneapolis and Chicago would significantly decrease noise given that there are nearly 50 flights a day between these two cities -- and he's totally right, although there are all sorts of political complications.)

He also provides an impassioned defense of the traffic calming project on Park and Portland, which will probably either sell you on him as a candidate or cause you to cross him off your list entirely.

But, you know -- if you're a transit nerd (and I seem to know a lot of transit nerds), I think Matt Steele should be your first pick. If you want to cast a protest vote against the Vikings Stadium bill, that's what inspired him to run, and from his website I think he'd probably be a good Council Rep, so you'll be fine regardless of who wins. (Just don't vote for Bob "Couldn't Be Bothered" Schlosser.)

tl;dr -- (1) John Quincy (2) Matt Steele, unless you're a transit nerd or REALLY mad about the Vikings Stadium, in which case (1) Matt Steele (2) John Quincy.

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:281390 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 7: Mpls City Council, Ward 1, Ward 2, Ward 4, Ward 7, and Ward 8! 2013-11-01T18:49:12Z 2013-11-01T18:49:12Z It's the Friday before the election! I think I'll wrap up my coverage by seeing how many of the remaining Minneapolis City Council wards I can get through. I've done 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 12. Still to do: 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, and 13.

Why don't I just a bunch of these in order.

Minneapolis Ward 1

Vincent Coffeen
Mark Fox
Kevin Reich (DFL-endorsed, incumbent)

Vincent Coffeen
https://www.facebook.com/Vinceforward1

Vincent is a member of the Pirate Party. He'll answer questions on his Facebook but he doesn't seem to actually have any policy positions there, just lots of stuff about door-knocking. He does, however, have a nice picture of himself with Bruce Schneier. This picture suggests "look, I'm practically endorsed by this well-respected figure!" but you know, I sort of know Bruce Schneier through local fandom and while he's got a certain amount of personal reserve, I don't think he'd duck and run if someone wanted a picture with him.

The closest thing I found to a political philosophy from him was this: "We are bringing city government back to basics. We are proposing the largest shake up of local politics in decades. We invite the local media to come to our event and report on the platform of the campaign. We are proposing to put the platform of the campaign and agenda back into the hands of the voters. Vincent is not an entrenched politician he is ready to make big changes in Northeast."

I find it really hard to take seriously claims about radical shake-ups when all people say is, "I'm going to shake things up radically!"

Mark Fox
http://2013.electmarkfox.us/
https://www.facebook.com/Fox4Ward1

Mark Fox informs you vocally on his site that he's not running. Despite this, he's got a lot more policy positions where you can find them than Vince Coffeen does. Browsing through his Facebook, I found the suggestion that we ban pit bulls, that we make cops wear cameras, and that we make all buses free ("Now, I know many who don't like spending a nickel on transit of any kind. I sympathize. Setting aside philosophical arguments, the political reality is that transit will be subsidized. I say let's get the biggest benefit for the neediest people from whatever subsidy we spend.") He's officially an Independent but I think he's probably a Ron Paulite Minneapolis Republican (socially liberal, anti-tax) because of statements like this: "The proper focus for City government is core services. I am delighted that there are ever more accomodations and conveniences for bicyclists on City streets. But we must not lose sight of the fact that most of our stakeholders prefer and depend upon roads built for motorists."

Anyway, the main reason he's running is because he's totally pissed off by Kevin Reich's pro-stadium vote and he wants people to be able to vote for him to register their disapproval. Also, despite the fact that he says on his website that he's NOT REALLY RUNNING he's super indignant that the various local papers have endorsed Reich. Many of them sort of tepidly. (Dude, maybe if you were ACTUALLY RUNNING FOR REAL like you say you're not, they'd have endorsed you!)

My friend Dave joked that he considered filing for mayor under the "Don't Vote for Me, I'm Busy" party just to see what I'd say about him. The #1 problem with this is that you only get three words, so he'd have to be Dave (Too Busy) or Dave (Don't Vote Dave) or something else less funny than "Don't Vote for Me, I'm Busy." Anyway, this guy looks like he started out as the Don't Actually Elect Me I Don't Want the Job protest candidate and forgot that he wasn't a serious candidate somewhere along the way. He's running a lot more actively than plenty of people who think they're running (he's filled out all the questionnaires, etc.)

Kevin Reich
http://www.kevinreich.com/pages/

Kevin Reich is the current incumbent and is endorsed by the DFL. His website talks about paving roads and making things better for bikers and getting single-sort recycling and conveniently doesn't mention anywhere that he voted for the Vikings Stadium.

If I lived in Ward 1, I'd vote for Kevin Reich despite being irritated by the Vikings Stadium vote because his opponents are so completely underwhelming. It's not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it's an endorsement.

If you're REALLY REALLY PEEVED about the Vikings Stadium, go for Mark "Not Actually Running" Fox with vote 1. I think he's probably a safe protest vote, but I'll note that I'm not 100% sure. (I think it's hard to predict how people will use IRV and what will happen with turnout in this race, but I do think it's a pretty safe race for Kevin Reich.)

Minneapolis Ward 2

Cam Gordon (Green Party)
Diana Newberry (Socialist Workers Party)

Why yes: the only person challenging Green Party member and City Council Rep Cam Gordon is running from the left. (Sort of.)

Cam Gordon
http://www.camgordon.org/

Cam Gordon is the incumbent. The people I know represented by him generally like him.

Diana Newberry

On her affidavit of candidacy, Diana Newberry lists the Socialist Workers' website as her website, what appears to be their generic e-mail address as her e-mail, and she doesn't seem to have bothered with any of the candidate questionnaires.

I did find an article about here here. Apparently she does spend some time door-knocking. I think the funniest line in that article is from a Socialist Worker colleague saying that Diana is "very passionate about the importance about posing an alternative to the two main parties." Because SHE IS RUNNING AGAINST A GREEN.

I mean, it's possible that in the context of Minneapolis she means "the two main parties -- you know, Democrats and Greens," but in that case she probably should have elaborated a little.

I'd vote for Cam, but it doesn't matter all that much because his opponent is REALLY in no danger of winning.

Minneapolis Ward 4

Kris Brogan (DFL)
Barbara A. "Barb" Johnson (DFL - Endorsed, Incumbent)
Dan Niesen (Republican Party of Minnesota)

Kris Brogan
krisbrogan.com

DFLer, was a policy aide under Sharon Sayles-Belton, works as a Real Estate consultant now. She sounds like she has a fair amount of relevant experience even if she's never held political office before, but she hasn't gotten much traction, probably in large part because she didn't get the endorsement. (She was yet another candidate who said she'd abide, at least according to her Stonewall DFL questionnaire, but is still on the ballot; it's possible she just quit campaigning but didn't withdraw.)

If you're really irate about Barb's stadium vote, list Kris Brogan first.

Barb Johnson
http://www.barbward4.com/

As City Council president, Barb is arguably the most powerful politician in Minneapolis (or at the very least, she's up there). With the significant turnover that's about to happen (it's a fair bet that some of the non-endorsed running-anyway incumbents will lose their races, and we're definitely getting a new mayor) she's going to be even more powerful.

The fact is, it's to your advantage to be represented by a power broker, unless they're totally evil. So yeah, if I lived in the 4th Ward I'd vote for Barb without a lot of hesitation.

Dan Niesen

He doesn't have a campaign website but I found his Facebook page, which showed that he's a Republican who was totally infuriated when the shutdown ended. He's also incoherent, inarticulate, and a big fan of some Facebook game called myVEGAS Slots. Sample insight from his Facebook page: "The arguments for abortion is you do not have to get one, and this makes perfect sense to pro-choice people. Why do the same people want to ban guns when they do not have to own one."

Don't vote for this turkey.

Minneapolis Ward 7

Lisa Goodman (DFL, endorsed, incumbent) is running unopposed.

Minneapolis Ward 8

Elizabeth Glidden (DFL, endorsed, incumbent) is running unopposed.

That leaves Ward 11 and Ward 13. Both of these have real and interesting races and will get their own posts.

Index of Election 2013 Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:281298 Election 2013, Volume 2, Issue 7: Let's Try a Mayoral Flow Chart 2013-10-26T05:38:51Z 2013-10-28T19:19:57Z So, if you're voting for mayor in Minneapolis, you have 35 candidates, 8 of them plausible and serious, and you need to pick three in ranked preference. I'm going to try to game out a couple of options for you.

Just as a quick refresher (for me -- I want to be able to look at this while I'm writing this), here are the eight major candidates:

1. Dan Cohen (stadium-hating casino-promoter)
2. Betsy Hodges (progressive DFLer)
3. Mark Andrew (corporate DFLer and greenwashing marketing stooge)
4. Don Samuels (passionate and slightly odd Northside Council Rep)
5. Cam Winton (socially liberal Republican)
6. Stephanie Woodruff (Independence-party endorsed fiscal conservative businesswoman)
7. Jackie Cherryhomes (former Sayles-Belton crony, will never live down Block E)
8. Bob Fine (Park Board guy, hardly anyone knows he's running)

So let's say that this is you:

I am totally infuriated about the stupid Vikings stadium deal. I want a mayor who will cancel the deal or at the very LEAST I want a mayor who didn't vote for it or support it in any way.

Anti-Stadium candidates include Dan Cohen, Betsy Hodges, Stephanie Woodruff, and Cam Winton. Dan Cohen wants to actually trash the deal, so if you hate it THAT MUCH, maybe do (1) Dan Cohen, (2) Betsy Hodges, (3) either Stephanie or Cam, depending on how you feel about Republicans.

Got the idea? OK. Let's see what other scenarios I can come up with.

I'm your basic Minneapolis progressive. Tell me who the DFL ought to have endorsed so I can vote for that person.

1. Betsy Hodges. 2. Don Samuels. 3. Mark Andrew. (I still think I personally would pick Cam Winton over Mark Andrew, but I'm not going to claim that the DFL would have gone for Cam over Mark.)

I'm a Green Socialist Lefty. FIGHT THE MAN. Who should I vote for?

Well, you might want to avail yourself of the minor candidates list, but let me warn you that the people listing themselves as Greens are flaky and disorganized at best (there is an endorsement process for the Green Party! neither bothered to take advantage of it) and the Socialist is of the "Cuba is a worker's paradise" variety of socialist rather than a "health care, $20/hour jobs, and pet unicorns for all!" variety of socialist. So I would suggest that you vote (1) Jayme Kelly (Stop Foreclosures Now) -- she's the woman who's on the brink of losing her house; hilariously, running for mayor actually succeeded in bringing a bunch of attention to her plight; (2) Troy Benjegerdes, the solar-panel-building Bitcoin supporter, and then (3) Betsy Hodges, because you should pick one of the serious contenders for your third pick and you're not seriously thinking you'd vote for Mark Andrew, are you?

I'm a Republican/I'm not actually a Republican because there are too many assholes in the party, but I'm a fiscally-conservative Independent, and I want someone who won't spend money on stuff I think is stupid. Also, I think almost all the stuff government spends money on other than snow plowing and pothole filling is stupid.

This one's easy. 1. Cam Winton; 2. Stephanie Woodruff; 3. Bob Fine.

I'm a Libertarian.

I'm going to send you to the "minor candidates" list because Christopher Zimmerman's Facebook page is totally awesome. 1. Christopher Robin Zimmerman. 2. Stephanie Woodruff. 3. Cam Winton.

I want a woman to be mayor.

1. Betsy Hodges. 2. Stephanie Woodruff. 3. SUCK IT UP AND VOTE FOR A DUDE, YOU DO NOT WANT JACKIE CHERRYHOMES.

I LOVE the Vikings deal and want to REWARD the supporters of it. GO VIKES.

Sure. 1. Don Samuels. 2. Mark Andrew. 3. Jackie Cherryhomes. (Mark and Jackie say that they would have supported the stadium deal if they'd been on the Council; Don Samuels voted for it.)

If I failed to cover your personal concern, you could chime in in the comments section and I'll see what I can do!

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:281015 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 6: City Council, Ward 3 2013-10-26T04:49:17Z 2013-10-26T04:49:46Z One of the things I really like about this race is that FOR ONCE it looks like a bunch of politicians will actually pay a political price for voting for a stadium deal. Most of the City Council reps who voted against it are doing fine. (The exception is Lilligren, but redistricting gave him a very different ward than he'd started with.) Most of the City Council reps who voted for it are on the ropes. (The exception is Don Samuels, who might be doing fine in the mayoral race -- it's hard to know, given that there was only one poll, and I don't think anyone other than Dan Cohen took the results all that seriously.)

So: Ward 3 has another incumbent who voted for the Vikings stadium deal, who didn't get the DFL endorsement and who stayed in the race despite not getting the DFL endorsement. (She apparently managed that a little more smoothly than Meg Tuthill did, but she had said beforehand she'd abide by endorsement, at least on the Stonewall DFL questionnaire.)

Jacob Frey (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Diane Hofstede (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) and the incumbent
Kristina Gronquist (Green Party)
Michael Katch (Libertarian)

Jacob Frey
http://www.jacobfreyforourcity.com/

The hazard of putting specifics on your website instead of just vague platitudes is that you'll probably include specifics I don't like. Frey has specifics I like a lot (bike paths! streamlining processes for small businesses! treating homeless people with respect! amenities for families in downtown!) and he has specifics I don't like (streetcars!) and then he has specifics that I have to admit worry me a bit (getting rid of surface parking lots in downtown because they're ugly, or at least requiring people to make surface parking lots a whole lot prettier -- sure, yes, that will definitely improve aesthetics, but I also want to be able to PARK when I go downtown. Although I nearly always head for a parking garage, rather than a surface lot, anyway.)

His endorsements section includes a bunch of City Council members -- basically all the people who voted against the stadium. Apparently a lot of Diane Hofstede's coworkers would like to see her fired.

Jacob is also endorsed by the DFL. Looking up the Stonewall DFL questionnaires over in St. Paul was surprisingly helpful, so I did that here, too. Jacob gives a lot of really good answers, which is not surprising given that he's the organizer of the Big Gay Race (a big fundraiser for marriage equality). He says in the questionnaire, "GLBT Equality is not something I picked up when it became politically expedient to do so. This issue has, for as long as I can remember, been a central tenant of my ideology," and gives details to back that statement up.

I think I like him.

Diane Hofstede
http://dianehofstede.com/index.html

Diane also embraces specifics, and has a bunch of specific accomplishments that sound pretty good, including projects that reduced crime and a bunch of housing developments. On the other hand, there's also the Viking stadium deal, which she sets out to defend. She also tries to defend the decision not to hold a referendum on it. Let me just C&P that bit, because I'm not sure I can entirely do it justice. "Some people are unhappy that there was no ballot referendum. Susan L. Segal is the City Attorney for Minneapolis. She researched the City Charter before there was a vote to determine if the Vikings Stadium required a referendum. In her professional opinion, it did not. Some say that she gave the recommendation that she thought the City wanted to hear. But how would she know what we wanted to hear? We had never taken a vote on it. Ms. Segal is a woman of great integrity and I do not believe she would jeopardize her career for a stadium. I voted to accept her report that a referendum was not necessary. Why not do it anyway? Timing was a problem. Timing of the referendum would have made it extremely difficult to get things prepared for the State legislature, which also needed to act."

...Yeah, I would describe this as specious bullshit. They explicitly overrode the city charter in the stadium bill. They knew that an overwhelming majority of Minneapolis residents wanted a referendum so they could vote no on it, and they didn't hold that referendum to keep that from happening.

She's endorsed by a bunch of old people, several people I don't like very much (like Mark Stenglein) and a few of her coworkers who were, I think, also stadium supporters, including Meg Tuthill.

Her Stonewall DFL questionnaire is frankly pretty hilarious. I think my favorite line is this: "Civil unions and all aspects of equal opportunity are my core beliefs based on the premise that all people are created equal."

I think I like Jacob Frey better than her.

Kristina Gronquist
http://gronquistforcitycouncil.nationbuilder.com/

Her website appears to have a lot of boilerplate from the Minneapolis Greens. If you like the Green boilerplate, you'll probably like it fine: she wants to get rid of the garbage burner, become a "zero waste" city, municipalize the power, support local food growers and food co-ops, etc. If she's your first pick, then by all means put her down as your first pick. I'd strongly encourage you to put Jacob down as your second pick, in that case, as I think he's a much more progressive candidate than Diane.

Michael Katch
http://katch4council.wordpress.com/

So this one is by far the most entertaining.

He has a website suggesting that he ran for Congress in 2012, although I seriously DO NOT REMEMBER HIM. (And it appears I didn't find him listed as a candidate when I wrote about the race. Maybe he put the website together but forgot to actually file?) I guess on one page he says he's "exploring a run" so I guess he didn't file.

For Council, he's running as a Libertarian (and in fact has their endorsement). This despite the fact that he's possibly pro-municipalization ("He believes the voters must choose whether electricity should be a city-owned utility, or should continue to be outsourced to a particular blessed monopoly") and I would expect Libertarians to be firmly against it. He's pro-referendums in general (people should vote on EVERYTHING) which I suppose is not a completely unreasonable approach for a Libertarian, but the thing about a referendum is that it's expensive (and it costs public money) to hold one. He also says, "It was heinous when the Minneapolis City Council gave away our remarkable Libraries, and kept the debt. It was criminal when they sold our parking garages, and kept the debt therefrom, which are still operating privately at a profit, just not for the city." I agree with this (especially re the libraries) but I would really not expect this to be a Libertarian stance. He's firmly anti-stadium, though, so there's that.

Anyway. He seems extremely flaky.

I'd say this is basically a two-and-a-half person race; Michael Katch isn't going to win, Kristina Gronquist probably isn't going to win, and even if one of them is your first choice, you'll need either Diane or Jacob as a fallback. (Heck, even if Kristina Gronquist is #1 and Michael Katch is #2, you get to pick three! Also, I question your commitment to the very concept of a political philosophy, but if you really want to vote whimsically, I'm not going to try to talk you out of it.)

I would vote for Frey. If I lived in Ward 3 I'd probably just mark a vote for Frey and leave it at that.

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:280812 Election 2013, Volume 7, Issue 1: St. Paul School Board -- now with accurate candidates! 2013-10-25T04:14:41Z 2013-10-25T04:15:33Z I swear to God that when I looked up my ballot over on http://pollfinder.sos.state.mn.us/ on September 21st, the candidates were Jean O'Connell, John Brodrick,
Chue Vue, Luis Ortega, David Martinez, and Sarah Lechowich.

Today we got a Highland Villager with election coverage and they had the candidates for St. Paul school board as Jean O'Connell, John Brodrick,
Chue Vue, Greg Copeland, and Terrance Bushard. I thought, WTF? Who are some of these people? and looked it up again. I don't know if I was looking at outdated data or if I actually got my data somewhere else or what, but in fact, here are the candidates:

Jean O'Connell (Incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
John Brodrick (Incumbent, DFL-endorsed)
Chue Vue (DFL-endorsed)
Greg Copeland (Republican endorsed)
Terrance Bushard

This actually makes it a lot simpler.

Greg Copeland

Greg Copeland is a Republican and apparently spent some time as a ludicrously incompetent city manager in Maplewood. He coordinated a campaign against the school funding levy that passed last year.

Yeah, he's easy to rule out.

Terrance Bushard
http://americanvotersassociation.com/index.php

Terrance Bushard is a weirdo with a very specific fixation. I'm going to just quote from the voter guide in the Highland Villager: "If elected, I will develop, at little or no cost to taxpayers, a 10-hour course for high school seniors that I am calling, 'The Importance of Financially Accountable Politics.' I want to develop this course because I believe high school seniors need to know that politics is, among other things, an ongoing process through which financial advantages and disadvantages are distributed throughout society."

He's essentially the school board equivalent of the people who run for park board because there's some specific thing that annoys them at their local park, only he's really, really, REALLY specific. (Seriously, read this mostly baffling page from his website.)

He's also easy to rule out.

That leaves:

Jean O'Connell
http://oconnellforstpaulkids.com/

John Broderick
http://brodrick4kids.com/

Chue Vue
http://www.chueforschoolboard.com/

When I did my first pass, I liked Jean O'Connell and Chue Vue and preferred one of the other candidates to John Broderick, but that guy has since dropped out and there's absolutely no question that I like John Broderick better than either Terrance or Greg.

So! Straight DFL-endorsed ticket it is. Jean O'Connell, John Broderick, Chue Vue. I don't have to rank them; because the State Legislature regulates how school board races are held, this one is not done with instant runoff. I get to vote for three candidates because there are three open seats, and the count is done by straight-up counting, nothing more complicated.

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:280477 Election 2013, Volume 7, Issue 3: St. Paul Ward 1 Council 2013-10-24T05:16:15Z 2013-10-24T14:44:49Z So over in St. Paul, my neighborhood's races are utterly dull. We have the mayoral race and we have a school board race and that's it. We don't even have an unopposed City Council incumbent running (like Minneapolis Ward 8). I'll show up and vote because I always show up and vote, but it's not very interesting to write about.

But over in Ward 1 they have a City Council race, because the current Council rep resigned. This is a special election, so it's only for two years.

In Minneapolis, you get to add three words that appear in parentheses after your name on the ballot, so if I were running for office over there I could be be Naomi Kritzer (Democratic-Farm-Labor) or Naomi Kritzer (Sarcastic Progressive Writer) or Naomi Kritzer (Don't Elect Me) or Naomi Kritzer (Ha Ha Ha) or whatever. Although apparently I can't be Naomi Kritzer (Farming Is Awesome) because the DFL has a monopoly on farms, nor could I be a Moderate Progressive Republican if for some reason I wanted to do that although I could totally declare myself to be a Republican. Presumably they also wouldn't let me be a Conservative Green or a Socialist Libertarian although if I wanted to run as a Capitalist Laurist my guess is that they'd let me.

ANYWAY. In St. Paul, you just get the list of names. Here they are:

Noel Nix
Paul Holmgren
Debbie Montgomery
Dai Thao
Mark Voerding
Kazoua Kong-Thao
Johnny Howard

Also in St. Paul, you get to rank all of them in order of preference; you're not limited to the top three. The ballot design suggests a machine reader; I wonder if they're going to tally the data electronically and then do the actual preferential calculations by hand, or if they have software that can handle as many candidates as run?

The DFL didn't endorse anyone, though apparently seven people tried for endorsement and Noel Nix and Dai Thao came the closest.

Noel Nix
http://noelnix.com/
https://www.facebook.com/NoelNixWard1

Noel doesn't highlight his DFL affiliation on the front page, which indicates that either it might be an advantage to have people NOT know your party affiliation, or he just assumes people know. His supporters include MN Young DFL, some labor organizations, the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, and a bunch of people whose names I don't recognize. (This is one of the hard things about changing cities. In Minneapolis, I recognize the Democrats I LIKE vs. the Democrats I really DON'T like. In St. Paul, I'm less familiar with the political landscape.)

His Vision for Ward 1 starts with thoughts about the Central Corridor. The whole project has been incredibly contentious and has hurt a lot of businesses, but I don't actually know what the controversial bits are at this point. Noel says he wants to "ensure light rail works well for our community by bringing additional on-street parking. options back to University Avenue and supporting Historic Rondo, Little Mekong, and other initiatives to bring new visitors to our local businesses." That sounds like a good idea; I'm not sure whether this is at all controversial (are area residents pushing for permit-based parking even though it would screw over the area businesses even more? Or is this like saying he supports kittens and thinks we should all pet adorable kittens?)

Most of his other vision items definitely sound like pro-kitten stances. ("Work with the Saint Paul Police Department to ensure our streets and neighborhoods are safe." Yes, that definitely helps to see how you're different from your opponents.)

He seems to have done a lot of outreach to young people -- hence the Young DFL endorsement. He also spoke at UST.

Paul Holmgren
https://www.facebook.com/HolmgrenForCityCouncil

Paul Holmgren is endorsed by the Republicans. Here's an interview he did with one of the neighborhood papers, and here is a questionnaire he completed for the local Republicans. He thinks the worst problem facing Ward 1 is that people think they're poor, and this is the fault of the government because the government tells them that they're poor and offers them stuff. (It couldn't possibly be that people think they're poor because they can't afford food, medical care, and adequate housing? NO OF COURSE NOT IT'S ALL THE FAULT OF BIG GOVERNMENT.) He wants to lower taxes and he's also anti-LGA ("Our city currently exists as a welfare recipient of the federal and state governments. Saint Paul needs to determine its own course and not rely on state and federal programs to fund its budgets and set its vision"). I think he thinks that it'll all work out financially if we just don't build any more ballparks. (LGA, for those not in the know, is Local Government Aid, money which is collected statewide and then given to cities throughout the state for various purposes. Because, in fact, if you live in Burnsville and work in Minneapolis, you're taking pretty hefty advantage of the snow removal, road repairs, fire and police protection, etc. of the big city and so you get to pay a very small amount to help support the services you're using here.)

I'd say that this guy pretty well personifies the problem with the Republican approach to "fiscal responsibility." Saying that you're going to cut revenue and then pointing at a handful of high-profile projects you'd cut and pretending that the numbers add up is right up there with saying you're going to create hundreds of $15/hour jobs for teenagers and then pointing at a handful of high-profile projects you'd cut and pretending the money adds up there, too. Republicans: remarkably like socialists in terms of their actual budgeting process. Except I'm pretty sure that when you're a socialist, everything gets paid for with magical unicorn rainbow farts whereas when you're a Republican, everything gets paid for with the tears shed by hungry children when you snatch away their hope for the future.

Don't vote for this guy.

Debbie Montgomery

Debbie Montgomery was the former Council Member for Ward 1 -- she was beaten in 2007 by the guy who's now stepping down to take a different job. So, she's a candidate with serious and legitimate credentials and that makes it utterly baffling to me that she has no web site. I can't even find a Facebook page for her campaign.

She's done a bunch of interviews, like this one, where she talks about intervening with the Midway Target when they were converting it into a SuperTarget to get them to not lay off all their employees. Which is awesome.

But you know what, I cannot recommend voting for someone running for City Council who can't be bothered to set up a website. As I noted in the Meg Tuthill/Lisa Bender post, you are more likely to have personal contact with your City Council rep than just about any other public official, because they're the person you call when you're having some frustrating and annoying problem with your neighbors, or a local business, or the city. This means you need someone who's not pointlessly obnoxious (so: not Meg Tuthill) and it also means someone you can get in touch with. If someone doesn't HAVE A CAMPAIGN WEBSITE does that suggest to you that she'll read and respond to her e-mail or return voicemail messages? No. No, it really doesn't.

It's possible she has a website out there somewhere that somehow put in the code that keeps Google from indexing it; if I find it I'll update this post.

As a final note, I will mention that her Stonewall DFL questionnaire made me wince. (She refers to trans people as "transgenders," as in, "Transgenders should not have to face the public humiliation of being frustrated in the decision of public service use. I think that it would be smart to create gender neutral restrooms and other services similar to this, whenever possible, so that Transgenders feel comfortable when they use services in public." She also failed utterly to respond to the part of the question that was about dealing with trans people in the city jail. A lot of people are not up on nomenclature and terminology when writing or speaking about trans issues, and you'll note that I'm going here with "trans" rather than "trans*" and there are people who'd complain about that. But, yeah. You know what? Talking about how the TRANSGENDERS should feel comfortable when the question was about "trans* people" reveals a pretty hilarious level of tone-deafness.

After reading hers, I looked up Noel Nix's Stonewall DFL questionnaire and it's better in every way. He shows a genuine understanding of the issues and actually sounds like he gives a shit about them, rather than being willing to check off the "yay marriage equality" box in the most pro forma way possible. (Although they only gave him a B; their A-rated endorsed candidate is Dai Thao.)

Dai Thao
http://www.daithao.org/
https://www.facebook.com/DaiThaoforStPaulCityCouncilWard1

Dai's top priority is apparently living-wage jobs for ward residents, and he says that businesses receiving tax money need to be required to provide living-wage jobs and offer them to Ward 1 residents first. (I assume that he means that businesses in Ward 1 need to be offering them to Ward 1 residents first -- honestly, while I have no problem with saying that the city should only be subsidizing businesses that are creating GOOD jobs for people, I'm hesitant to demand that they MUST hire people from the ward where the business is located. There are other neighborhoods in St. Paul with a lot of poor people, and the Central Corridor business district, if revitalized, ought to have a whole lot of jobs which incidentally will be pretty easy to get to what with the transit route being right there.)

I really liked his responses to the Stonewall DFL questionnaire and I can see why he got the endorsement. He talks about how he worked in the Hmong community doing outreach against both of the proposed constitutional amendments, and how this was difficult because he was up against the traditional norms of the community: "I risked long-standing relationships with conservative clan elders because I believe the freedom to love is as powerful as love itself—and that the pain I experienced through racial discrimination in my life was akin to the pain my LGBT friends were experiencing. It was a matter of clarifying for Hmong Americans that the two amendments were two separate issues meant to achieve one single outcome: the further marginalization of groups already accustomed to oppression. Loyalty, courage, and awareness of intersectional identities are the kind of values and convictions I will bring to City Hall."

So, yeah. Okay. He gets extra credit there.

Mark Voerding

Mark Voerding was apparently an aide to the Ward 1 Council Member in the 1980s and is currently an aide to Ramsey County Commissioner Janice Rettman. You'd think that at least his most recent boss would have mentioned to him that if you're running for office, you might want to put up a web site.

He does respond to questionnaires, anyway, like this one from the MN Progressive Project, where he says that his first step into public policy was to pressure the city to fix the storm sewers in Frogtown and then notes that he "worked on the effort to allow women to work as Saint Paul firefighters," so clearly he's been at this for a long time. (This is no excuse for not having a website, mind you.) I am not impressed by his answers to the Stonewall DFL questionnaire.

Kazoua Kong-Thao
http://www.kazoua4ward1.org/

Usually when a candidate describes herself as "faith-based leader" they're an extremely conservative Fundie Christian type Republican. Kazoua is clearly not in that category, though, and while her responses to the Stonewall DFL questionnaire weren't brilliant, she's clearly liberal.

The MN Progressive Project's questionnaire suggests that she is not great at following instructions (either that, or MN Progressive Project isn't great at formatting interviews). Their instructions were to answer each question with a paragraph of no more than 300 words; she skipped to the end but her paragraphs seem to match up with the questions pretty well.

One of the things I like about MNPP's questions is that they request specifics ("Please provide an example where you stood up for people or for rights against a powerful organization") -- Kazoua doesn't really give them ("I have been an advocate for woman's rights within the city at large and in the Hmong community and I will continue to advocate for public policy that supports this position.") And that sort of sums up my issue with all her material -- lots of vague warm fuzzy stuff, no specifics. She seems like a nice person and she'd probably do an OK job, but I'm less impressed with her than with others.

Johnny Howard
http://johnnyhoward.net/

Johnny Howard is Green-party endorsed, although he apparently initially sought DFL endorsement. He's a neighborhood organizer who put together block clubs in a part of town that had a lot of prostitution, so in his statements he talks about working with the police and doing a John Education program where people convicted of soliciting prostitutes get to learn about the harm they cause.

I like his enthusiasm and his willingness to embrace specifics. (On the Central Corridor, he says, "Light rail related development means that hundreds of new residents will soon be living in our neighborhoods. There will soon be hundreds of new customers, looking for restaurants, clothing stores, coffee shops and dozens of other businesses that most of us can hardly imagine right now. This is an amazing opportunity. Now is the time to make it easy for Ward One residents to get in on this gold rush. We need entrepreneur training and loan programs that help new business people get started while we support existing locally-owned businesses." Yes! Exactly!!) He gives a markedly better answer than Kazoua on the MN Progressive Project questionnaire when they ask about standing up for people: "At the Thomas Dale Block Clubs I successfully organized hundreds of people. Because we had numbers and a means of communicating with members, we were able to convince public officials that it made more sense to join us than to fight us. We got huge improvements for our neighborhood that included John School (for customers of prostitutes), community policing that brought beat cops to Frogtown, a special community prosecutor to handle quality of life cases that are key to creating a sense of neighborhood security, excessive consumption of police services laws and much more."

The Pioneer Press article that provides short summaries about the candidates says that Johnny has said that "the city comes down too hard on landlords with its property inspections," and that he was part of a team of plaintiffs that filed a federal complaint against the city for housing discrimination and "forced gentrification." I kind of want to know more about this -- I think in Minneapolis we see the reverse problem, housing inspectors that don't enforce codes that really need to be enforced. Vigorous code-enforcement can raise the cost of housing, but are we talking about landlords being required to do lead mitigation and provide smoke alarms or are we talking about landlords being harassed because their houses are not pristine and manicured? Here's the article I found about the lawsuit. I'm still not sure, actually.

So given all that, here's how I would rank the candidates if I were voting in Saint Paul Ward 1.

1. Dai Thao
2. Noel Nix
3. Johnny Howard
4. Kazoua Kong-Thao
5. Mark Voerding
6. Debbie Montgomery

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:280287 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 5: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 9 2013-10-23T03:13:26Z 2013-10-23T04:24:03Z Minneapolis Ward 9 is where huge number of my Minneapolis friends live -- it includes a big chunk of Longfellow (though not the chunk I lived in) and a big chunk of Powderhorn and pretty much all of Corcoran (if I'm reading the map right). It's been represented by Gary Schiff, who is pretty popular with his constituents, but he stepped down to run for Mayor, and then ended up endorsing Betsy Hodges instead of running.

I actually have no clue who's endorsed, if anyone, but I have faith in my googling skills. Here's who's on the ballot:

Ty Moore (Socialist Alternative)
Gregory McDonald (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Abdi Abdulle (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Alondra Cano (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Charles Curtis (Politics with Principle)
Pat Fleetham (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)

Ty Moore (Socialist Alternative)
http://www.tymoore.org/

Ty Moore lists himself as a socialist, but is also endorsed by the Greens. I find it interesting that he went with "Socialist Alternative" on the ballot rather than "Green" -- has the Green brand just gotten too corporate? Ty Moore is a genuinely serious candidate, unlike most of the people who list as socialists ("serious" as in "the dude has actual yard signs that I've seen when driving around Powderhorn").

He wants a $15/hour minimum wage, an end to corporate welfare ("City Council's $678 million give-away to billionaire Zigi Wilf for his Vikings stadium is just the tip of the iceberg") and for the city to use eminent domain to seize foreclosed homes from banks. (Also, he wants the city to refuse to use police resources for evictions "until quality housing is treated as a basic human right.") He wants to allow non-citizens to vote in city elections (actually, looking at this, he says "extend voting rights in city elections to all Minneapolis residents who live, work, and pay taxes here," which also suggests that working minor teens should be allowed to vote). On public safety, he says that good youth employment options are the best public safety measure and so "the city should create hundreds of living-wage, part-time union jobs for young people, providing necessary community services."

He's a little vague about where the money would come from for hundreds of living-wage part-time union jobs for teenagers. Raising the citywide minimum wage to $15/hour would cause the city to lose a lot of the jobs that currently employ teenagers because it's relatively easy to relocate a business to the suburbs. (If you raise a minimum wage statewide, this is also a risk, but a lower one. Basically, the smaller the entity that's making it a little more expensive for businesses to do their thing, the easier it is for them to move elsewhere. I favor a higher minimum wage on the state level and the federal level but really not on the city level.) I think probably the policy suggestion here that I most dislike is for the city to refuse to do evictions. It's an appealing idea when you're talking about homeowners who've been screwed over by predatory loans and are losing their houses to foreclosure. But people also get evicted from rental property and sometimes it's for PROFOUNDLY legitimate reasons like that they were an asshole who was threatening their neighbors, smoking in a non-smoking building, or keeping an aggressive dog in violation of their lease.

Many (most? I'm not actually sure about the percentage) of the landlords in Minneapolis are small business people who own a handful of units. Some own duplexes and live in one of the units. Many depend on the rental income to pay the mortgage on the house. If you make it impossible for people to evict tenants for not paying rent, no one in their right mind will become a landlord and the problem of affordable housing in Minneapolis will very quickly get much, much, MUCH worse.

I guess you could say that my fundamental issue with this guy is that I'm not a socialist.

He could totally win this, so don't vote for him unless you actually want him as your City Council rep.

Gregory McDonald (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://gregmcdonaldward9.com/Home_Page.html

Greg McDonald has a website. He sure does. It has a URL and a home page and everything. Well, maybe not "everything," if by "everything" you might mean things like "policy statements" or "a contact address." But it is TOTALLY a website and, in case you were wondering when Election Day will be, the website will tell you.

Abdi Abdulle (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://vote4abdulle.com/

Hey, it's another Abdi! This one's a real candidate. I would say that his distinctive feature is that he thinks the City Council rep should have a neighborhood office where they spend most of their time, which is an interesting if somewhat impractical idea -- there's a reason you put everyone in city hall, which is that while it's important to listen to your constituents, you actually work with the other City Council members and you should have an office near your coworkers. (I think a somewhat more practical approach would be to hold an "office evening" at a local cafe on a weekly basis, although let me just note that I imagine there's a reason most City Councillors don't do this, which is that a disproportionate number of the people who would show up for something like that are precisely the constituents you most want to avoid. Would YOU go to coffee with an aggressive 9/11 Truther? WHAT IF THEY WERE ONE OF YOUR CONSTITUENTS? Yeah, me either.)

I found a Star Tribune blog post about a candidate forum (which Greg McDonald didn't show up for) and I would characterize most of Abdulle's answers as "comfortably vague." He wants to "find a solution to the gap between the city, the police, and the community members." On the issue of protecting tenants from awful landlords, he says that "citizens need to be part of the solution." Usually, I think that vague platitudes are an attempt to not piss people off, but he also stood up for Xcel, which is probably NOT a winning move in the 9th Ward. So, who knows.

I'd probably go for Ty Moore over Abdi Abdulle since at least he's willing to embrace specific ideas.

Alondra Cano (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://www.alondracano.com/

Alondra Cano is the DFL-endorsed candidate, but I missed that when I first looked at her website because she puts it in cursive script at the top and I guess I have started just mentally filtering that sort of thing out as being probably just decorative. I clicked on her Endorsements page, and she doesn't mention the DFL endorsement there. Dear Alondra: maybe you should put it on your endorsements page, just in case?

She's worked as an aide in City Hall, apparently. For Lilligren. Now she works for the school district. She's an immigrant from Mexico.

If you visit her website, she's got little essays "on the issues" which get into some decent specifics (although she's still fond of platitudes, like saying she'll bring stakeholders together to find solutions on various issues without, you know, actually talking about the sort of solutions she'll push for...) I like that she specifically mentions finding a permanent home for the Midtown Farmer's Market, which is definitely a priority for me even though I've moved out of Minneapolis. (It is a FANTASTIC farmer's market that incidentally accepts EBT and brings fresh, farm-raised vegetables into a poor neighborhood. There is absolutely nothing not to like here, so to be fair, this is a little like saying that you favor petting kittens. Mentioning it on her website, though, at least elevates it to a PRIORITY and the Midtown Farmer's Market is a specific kitten I'm very attached to.)

She was one of the LEADERS in trying to buy out Xcel, but let's face it, in Ward 9, that's practically the conservative position. (I don't know who the Republicans vote for in Ward 9, but I'm actually not sure whether any Republicans live in Ward 9. If so, I imagine they avoid political conversations at the neighborhood barbecues. It would just lead to a lot of awkwardness.)

Charles Curtis (Politics with Principle)
http://curtisforcitycouncil.com/

Let me start by saying that I hate his mustache. I KNOW, IT'S SHALLOW TO START WITH THAT, I'M SORRY. If he had a full-on scruffy beard I would probably withhold judgment because hey, maybe he hates shaving? But he's obviously shaving anyway, just not the upper lip.

The fact that he wasn't claiming to be a Democrat (or a Socialist!) made me wonder if he was a closet Republican. I imagine that probably half of the dozen or so Republicans living in Ward 9 will totally vote for him because NOT A DEMOCRAT but his website makes it clear that he totally is a Democrat which makes me think that putting "Politics with Principle" after his name on the ballot was pure snottiness on his part. Yeah, that Ty Moore: he is ALL ABOUT DOING FAVORS FOR DEVELOPERS, that unprincipled pig. Alondra Cano: SUCH A SELLOUT.

(At least they don't have mustaches although Ty Moore has a scruffy hipster goatee. It's still better than Charles Curtis's mustache.)

He does, however, understand why a city-based minimum wage is a stupid idea. (Also, that article notes that it's an open question whether the city CAN raise the minimum wage on its own; Gary Schiff rather snarkily says that this idea suggests that Ty Moore doesn't actually understand the job he's running for.)

His statement on safety focuses on domestic violence (apparently he used to work as a prosecutor and that's what he prosecuted). He wants a residency requirement for newly hired Minneapolis police officers (I'm not sure that'll help, but it probably won't hurt). He wants the Minneapolis animal shelter to be a no-kill shelter. (Here's the thing about every no-kill shelter I've encountered -- if you need someone to take your cat today, they can't. They don't have space. There are good ways and bad ways to discourage surrenders -- the Animal Humane Societies in the area have started requiring people to make appointments, which makes it little harder and gives them an opportunity to do some counseling and figure out if there's a way they can help you keep your animal. On the other hand, if you need to surrender your cat because you were just evicted from your apartment and you're moving in with your sister who has a cat allergy and lives in a building with a no-pets policy, you really need a place that can take your cat TODAY.) San Francisco has a no-kill public shelter; when I looked at their website, it says that if you adopted your pet from the shelter, they'll always take it back; they'll take kittens and puppies if they were born in SF; and they may be able to accept your cat or dog that you got from somewhere else.

When no one will take surrenders, you increase the abandonments. It's a balance, and just saying, "animals deserve it!" is not really a useful way to frame the issue, IMO.

He opposes municipalization of utilities for the same reason I do (i.e., the city already does a lot of things really badly, so let's not add "electricity" to the list). He wants to rehab existing homes, and notes that seizing foreclosed homes via eminent domain is essentially a city-paid bailout of the bank (since you don't actually get to just TAKE the property -- you have to pay fair market value for it).

So -- he's totally a Democrat but from the Republican perspective might be the least of the available evils? Except for the mustache. (You know, he's extremely young looking; possibly he grew his mustache because he was hoping to stop getting carded every time he ordered a beer. I bet it's not working.)

Pat Fleetham (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://pfleetham4mplscitycouncil.com/index.php

Pat's website has a section on goals for the ward; he starts with #4 (traffic calming on Cedar Ave), then #3 (raise the minimum wage to $9.50), then #2 (a housing renewal program to fix up distressed properties.) And then it stops, so I have no idea what his #1 goal is.

He also has an "Issues that Matter" section, so I guess these are the issues he thinks matter: safer streets; enforcement of environmental regulations; traffic calming and prohibition of heavy trucks on Cedar Ave; improved access to transportation; better traffic control; addressing housing stock; developing employment opportunities; plan to replace "fading grey industries" with green jobs; term limits for City Council.

I'm going to say given how much he highlights it that he's running for City Council because he's really annoyed by Cedar Avenue. (Although to be fair, he also really hates the garbage burner.)

Of all the Minneapolis wards, Ward 9 is the one that most reminds me of Madison. Reading some of these platforms has filled me with the weird of mix of nostalgia and loathing that I get whenever I read an editorial page from a Madison paper.

So! If I lived in Ward 9, I think I would vote for Alondra Cano first. She's solidly progressive and has good connections at City Hall. My second choice would probably be Charles Curtis, despite my irritation with his party name and his facial hair; he has an actual campaign organization and most of his views line up with mine. #3, well, the fact is, it doesn't matter; Pat, Abdi, and Gregory aren't going to win, so I might as well list Ty Moore as #3 so that when I send him an irate e-mail later I can claim to have voted for him.

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:279904 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 4: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 6 2013-10-22T22:19:58Z 2013-10-23T00:27:50Z So this is a particularly interesting race. Incumbent Robert Lilligren is a long-time City Council member and claims credit for some stuff I really liked -- he says that when he first got elected he focused on that miserable life-of-the-neighborhood-sucking abandoned Sears building and now it's the Midtown Exchange, which is awesome. Since one of the issues in this race is minority representation, I'm going to point out that he's Ojibwe. He's also gay, although I think that if we're talking about representation and consideration of people's interests, gay men in Minneapolis are doing okay at a city level.

But, he represents a Ward that is heavily Somali immigrants (many of whom have become naturalized citizens, making them a force to be reckoned with when elections roll around). There are no Somalis on the City Council. Abdi Warsame, a Somali immigrant, ran for the endorsement and got it. (Lilligren was smart enough not to make any promises about "suspending his campaign," unlike Met Tuthill). A number of Lilligren supporters complained that they were harassed and intimidated by Warsame supporters at the Precinct Caucuses or the Ward Convention. (There's a good article about that here but for God's sake don't read the comments. I clicked to see if there was anyone who'd BEEN AT THE CONVENTION adding their 2 cents but gave up because it's a sea of xenophobia and racism with a side of hating the Irish -- I wish I were kidding.) Shortly after the convention, Star Tribune columnist Jon Tevlin speculated that the sudden appearance of two more "Abdis" on the ballot was because Lilligren had recruited people with similar-looking names to run and divide the vote and sow confusion.

WHAT FUN.

A note: I have been trying to consistently refer to candidates by their first names in these posts, but due to the "Abdi" issue, I'm going to use last names this time around.

There are six candidates on the ballot for the Ward 6 Council seat:

Abdi Addow (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Abukar Abdi (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) <--note, I'll be referring to him as Abdi, because it's his last name
Sheikh Abdul (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Mahamed A Cali (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Robert Lilligren (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
Abdi Warsame (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)

I looked up the name Abdi several years ago, because it really does seem to be the approximate Somali equivalent of "John." It means "Servant," and is sometimes paired with a name that is one of the words used to refer to God in Arabic, so you'll get Abdirahman, which means "Servant of the Benevolent One" (I think). But, someone named Abdirahman might get called Abdi for the exact same reason that probably most of the Christophers in your life get called Chris. One of the not-the-same-guy candidates is Abdul rather than Abdi -- the names have the same root. So imagine if you went to the polls and saw the following ballot:

Chris Johnson
Chris Jackson
Mark Christopher
James Kristopher
Fred Smith

...yeah, there might have been shenanigans. Although, there are a LOT of Somalis with names that are variants of Abdi. A LOT. And, Somalis are not a monolithic group. I think I was first struck by this back in 2001 when the Midmorning show on MPR (which had a call-in format) did an hour on the recent decision of the Feds to block money transfers to several Somali money-transferring services. (These were heavily used by local immigrants to send cash back home to their families; some of the money was apparently being diverted to terrorist groups.) Anyway, Katherine Lanpher wanted to know what people thought. I don't think she realized just how many Somalis listen to public radio. (It turns out, it's a great way to improve your English comprehension.) She took about fifteen calls in a row from Somalis, all vehemently disagreeing with each other.

Anyway. My point is, you don't necessarily need an agent provocateur to get a bunch of Somalis to run against each other, and it's POSSIBLE they all just happened to be named Abdi.

Abdi Addow (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)

Okay. Googling this name got me a half-dozen Twitter users. One of them was in Minneapolis but didn't seem to be talking about politics. I also found this interview but it's in Somali (with occasional English phrases like "the root cause of the problem" and "West Bank community coalition" mixed in.) It's a 17-minute video but since I speak no Somali, not super helpful to me. I can tell you that he's wearing a suit and acting like a serious candidate, at least.

In a Star Tribune article speculating about shenanigans, Addow is quoted as saying that he filed "because I think I can unite this community," and they say he said he didn't bother with the endorsing convention because those events were all a show, and noted that Governor Dayton didn't get endorsed so what's the problem, exactly?

If this guy's a spoiler, he's at least a spoiler who's willing to put some real effort into his fake campaign. (Not to the point of putting up a website or any information that's accessible to non-Somalis, so you know, I wouldn't VOTE for him.)

(The Strib article also notes that Lilligren said some of his Somalis supporters came up with the idea of recruiting extra Somalis to run and it's pretty clear that his response was something along the lines of, "just don't tell me about it, OK?")

Oh, hey. I also found an e-democracy thread about him that notes he initially filed as Abdirashid Addow and as a member of the Independence Party, then changed his affidavit of candidacy to be Abdi, a DFLer. And....this still doesn't prove anything. One of his friends might have said, "c'mon, EVERYONE calls you Abdi! and you'll NEVER win as anything but a Democrat!" Anyway, the next two are plenty shady enough.

Abukar Abdi (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)

According to that same Star Trib article, this guy's address on his campaign filing form doesn't actually exist. (here's the form, and Google Maps agrees with the Strib that this isn't a real address.) The fact that he's still listed as a candidate is honestly kind of puzzling to me. Why even have people fill out these (legal!) forms if you're not going to contact them and either remove their name or fix the form if they wrote down a false address?

I found no other information on him.

Sheikh Abdul (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)

Didn't return calls to the Star Tribune. I looked at his candidate filing and found a few really odd things. He does at least has a real address; it's on the outskirts of downtown. But his e-mail address, which is an augsburg.edu address, is listed as email@example.com. Most universities hand out e-mail addresses in a rather predictable and boring way that is based on your name, and Sheikh Abdul would probably be sabdul or abduls or sheikh.abdul.

So I searched email@example.com and turned up a kind of dated page of student announcements. The page is from 2010 and the e-mail address belongs to a student named Abdulaziz Ahmed. I'm going to hazard a guess that the person who posted the announcement in 2010 no longer owns that e-mail address and it now belongs to someone else with the last name Ahmed and a first name beginning with the letter A who attends Augsburg.

Admittedly, it's just a contact address for your campaign; it doesn't have to actually be the candidate's e-mail. Given the complete lack of an actual campaign, though, it smells pretty thoroughly fishy.

Mahamed A Cali (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)

Cali tried for endorsement but didn't get it. In interview in the Southwest Journal, he's quoted as saying, "I want to show that anybody can be a leader of their community. This is a great opportunity."

You know, "I want to prove that anyone can do this job!" is one of the least-convincing vote-for-me arguments of all time. Also, he's definitely a real candidate in the sense that he's not a deliberate spoiler, but he fails my "is this person a real candidate" test with his lack of a website.

Which brings us to the only two real candidates in the race.

Robert Lilligren (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://voterobert.com/
https://www.facebook.com/VoteRobertCampaign

So. I like Lilligren. I mentioned the Sears building and how much I appreciate the fact that it's no longer empty; he also has been working on re-opening Nicollet (and it sounds like he's actually claiming to have DONE STUFF, unlike the candidate I reviewed yesterday who favors re-opening Nicollet as well as favoring the petting of kittens and the baking of apple pies, I'm guessing.) Unlike most of the incumbents who lost endorsement, he voted against the Vikings Stadium. If we're concerned about minority representation, you would be hard-pressed to find a more chronically underrepresented minority in Minneapolis than Indians (and let me just note for the record that he's an enrolled tribal member, not a white guy who thinks he has some Indian ancestry somewhere like Johnny Depp). He doesn't own a car, but gets around by bike or transit, which I think is pretty cool.

The "recruit a bunch of sound-alike spoilers" counts as shenanigans (even if he's not personally doing it) but I'm not sure it counts as seriously dirty politics. I'll give him a little bit of credit for admitting that some of his Somali supporters suggested that they find other Somalis to run, and he's right that it's not illegal. It's definitely one of the hazards inherent to Instant Runoff Voting, though -- if you have a primary, it'll be the rare, freak situation when people get so confused they put one of the total weirdos on the ballot for the general election.

Abdi Warsame (Democratic-Farmer-Labor)
http://www.votewarsame.com/
https://www.facebook.com/VoteWarsame

I have to admit that one of the first things I noticed when I looked at Abdi Warsame's website was that his daughter does not wear a hijab. One of the things you'll notice walking around Minneapolis is that there is an incredible range in variation of Somali Muslim dress; you'll see girls in hijabs and the loose-fitting long tunics, girls in ankle-length skirts but tight-fitting blouses and a hijab, girls in blue jeans and t-shirts and a hijab, and girls who are with hijab-wearing mothers but who are not wearing hijabs at all. (If I see a girl who looks East African but isn't wearing any sort of hijab, my first guess is that she's Ethiopian. Obviously, some of the time I'm totally wrong.) The hijab is always the last thing to go.

I've seen this particular evolution up close at my daughters' old school. The first step seems to be talking your parents into letting you wear snow pants (because those are PRACTICAL and you NEED THEM to play in the snow!) and then pointing out how totally uncomfortable a long skirt is when you stuff it into your bib-style snow pants. Kiera had a classmate who had to wear the long tunic or a dress most days but got a "casual day" once a week when she could wear blue jeans (still with the hijab, although once she was at school it seemed to fall off and wind up in her locker on a semi-regular basis).

Anyway. Warsame's daughter is pictured in jeans, a t-shirt, and a hair ribbon. She's adorable. She's six years old, so pretty clearly he was just fine with American dress from the start; six is when Somali girls in Minneapolis tend to START pushing hard for jeans. (Either that, or he decided that American-style dress was a perfectly fine compromise that would reassure jumpy non-Somali Ward 6 residents that he wasn't going to try to write Sharia Law into the Minneapolis Charter.)

Does any of this matter? Not particularly, I just found it interesting, since I so strongly associate the hijab as a Somali-in-Minnesota cultural marker. It does suggest that he's socially liberal (but Hussein Samatar, who died a few months back TRAGICALLY young due to cancer, was also socially liberal, and I'm pretty sure his female family members wear hijabs.) There are some extremely socially conservative Somalis. Most socially conservative Christians join the Republican party, but since Somalis are not inclined to join a party full of people who openly hate (a) immigrants and (b) Muslims, they're pretty much ALL DFLers. (Fortunately, the crazy-ass Christians have never actually sat down and compared social views with the crazy-ass Muslims and instead have SWORN ETERNAL ENMITY and we are spared the horrific dystopia that would result if these two groups ever actually allied with each other, at least for now.) Anyway, the fact that he is endorsed by Phyllis Kahn and various other high-profile DFLers is also reassuring in that regard.

Moving on to some actual issues. He talks in some detail on his website about affordable housing and acting as a representative to renters. He mentions that he worked to make the Cedar Riverside towers smoke-free. There's not a lot that really differentiates him from Lilligren, other than their backgrounds.

Honestly, if I lived in Ward 6, I'm not sure who I'd vote for. It might depend on how much I liked Lilligren from past interactions.

I think Warsame's going to win.

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:279757 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 3: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 10. Meg Tuthill vs. Lisa Bender 2013-10-22T02:06:45Z 2013-10-22T19:48:14Z So, we're getting into the home stretch of the election and interestingly, people honestly have NO IDEA who's going to win. When I chat with Minneapolis friends I often ask them who they're voting for and most of them haven't decided and don't know much about the candidates.

If you're one of the people who's reading this because you want to see if my opinions mesh with yours (as opposed to one of the people reading because you're hoping I did your homework for you) and you have a strong attachment to a particular candidate, I would STRONGLY suggest that you TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS and ask them to vote for your favorite. Chances are excellent that they haven't been paying attention to the race, and if you talk to them, they'll figure, "well, he always shovels his walk promptly and I like his dog. Sure, I'll vote for his mayoral candidate for my first choice. Or at least my second choice, or my third choice." For that matter, if you don't have a yard sign for your candidate, put one up! This could be a race where the yard signs actually matter.

Anyway! Today I'm going to write about the Ward 10 race. There are four people running:

Meg Tuthill (DFL, Incumbent)
Scott Hargarten (Pirate Party)
Nate Griggs (Independence)
Lisa Bender (DFL, endorsed by the DFL)

Meg Tuthill
http://www.megtuthill.com/

Looking at Meg's website, the first thing that makes me raise my eyebrow is this statement: "She has been one of the Council's strongest supporters of the City's firefighters and police." In a city that has had some serious ongoing issues of police misconduct, saying that you're one of the "strongest supporters of the police" without any caveats makes me think you might be kind of an asshole. She's endorsed by the Police Federation, making me further concerned that she's not a great person to have weighing the costs vs. benefits of the current oversight system.

Also, she voted for the stadium. You know, one of the things that has made me happy in this election is that a LOT of the Council Members who voted for the Vikings Stadium deal have paid a political price for it (or are on the brink of doing so).

She's in favor of snow shoveling, she's opposed to cars running over pedestrians, and she's in favor of re-opening Nicollet at Lake Street. I don't think any of these are particularly controversial stances.

One of the other things that strikes me about her website is that for lots of the warm, cozy, kittens-and-unicorns stances, she says she "supports" or "favors" stuff, not that she worked on it in any way. "Meg supports increased recycling by Minneapolis residents and businesses by switching to single sort recycling. East Calhoun was one of the two neighborhoods chosen for the single sort pilot program, which was a huge success. Citywide implementation of single sort recycling began in November 2012 and will be completed in April 2013." Note the lack of agency here -- she wants you to think she deserves credit for the implementation of single-sort, but she's not actually claiming it. I doubt that's out of modesty.

Moving on. Meg failed to get endorsement at the DFL Convention; she'd previously said that she would suspend her campaign if she failed to get endorsement, and then a month later jumped back in the race. (I had this memory of her insisting that she'd said she would "suspend" her campaign and she hadn't said for how long! and she DID suspend it and now she was un-suspending it so shut up with your complaining. However, I think I may actually be remembering something an entirely different candidate did. Possibly in another state. Meg's statement is all about how people were calling and begging her to keep running so IT'S THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE and we need STABILITY in the 10th Ward, which is totally why she ran in the first place four years ago against an incumbent, who incidentally bowed out of the race because she got the endorsement.) (Edited to add: found it! "The Uptown convention may prove to be the most decisive, since Tuthill pledged during the proceedings to suspend her campaign if someone else took the endorsement. When Bender won after five ballots, however, Tuthill questioned what 'suspend' really meant. 'It didn't say for how long, it didn't say permanently, it didn't say for 20 minutes, it didn't say for four years,' Tuthill said. 'I don't know.'")

The City Pages describes her as a patio-hating joykill and has the audio of an incredibly snotty, patronizing voicemail she left for a would-be brewpub owner. She's a patio-hating joykill because she picked a fight with the Uptown restaurants in 2011 over patios. Her website talks about "finding balance" and yeah, I can imagine that if you live in Uptown it's probably annoying to deal with parking problems and late-night noise, but you know, you chose to live in Uptown and for the vast majority of Uptown residents, there was a thriving restaurant/bar district up the block when they moved in, so my sympathy is limited. (Apparently there was/is a particular business that generated a lot of obnoxious drunks. So, you know, there are ways to deal with businesses that generate surplus obnoxious drunks that don't take down all the other nearby businesses.

(Her defense of both the patronizing voicemail and her patio-hatred is here, if you're interested.)

Anyway. I have lived in Minneapolis for long enough that I remember when the stretch of Lake Street that was east of 35W and west of Hiawatha was a miserable stretch of mostly-empty buildings, broken up by the occasional "Checks Cashed Here!" place. (That's not Uptown; Uptown was already doing pretty well when I moved to town. But that stretch on the border of Powderhorn and Phillips was in terrible shape.) Meg says that Uptown doesn't need to be revitalized; that it's VITAL and thriving. And it is. But that can change, if you're an arrogant dick to business owners and jerk them around and treat them like the enemy. And as annoying as parking problems undoubtedly are to Uptown residents, a sea of empty buildings just to your north would be a lot worse.

I actually remember the voicemail message from the time, and I would be strongly disinclined to vote for any politician who would respond to a request -- even an unreasonable request, which this IMO was not -- with that sort of condescension and scorn. You can say "no" without being an asshole about it. The fact that she felt the need to be an asshole (and doesn't even apologize for it, in her defense! she basically doubles down!) says a lot about her, none of it good.

Scott Hargarten (Pirate Party)
No website; you can find his Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ScottHargarten

Scott appears to be an Occupy activist. The Pirate Party website says, in its summaries of the candidates, "Scott has advocated for electoral reform and direct democracy for almost 3 years. He has helped found multiple projects dedicated to the involvement of citizens in their democracy, and has advoated for comprehensive campaign finance reform at the state capitol." (Typos theirs.)

The Southwest Journal put together a voter's guide to the ward 10 candidates that doesn't have a lot about him, but says, "Top priorities: Hargarten is promoting the concept of 'liquid democracy.' Policy would be developed through regular community forums." The Pirate Party website talks about Liquid Democracy, which appears to be a project to direct policy decisions by way of Internet polls. That might be a little unfair, but it's hard to say; the first link on that page doesn't work, and the second link (to the Liquid Democracy Beta) gave me a warning that the security certificate was forged and someone might be trying to hack my computer.

I'm not impressed, but I'll admit that I was not expecting to be.

Nate Griggs (Independence)
http://www.abetterminneapolis.com/

So, let me just say that I am truly impressed that he scored that particular URL. I really would have expected one of the mayoral candidates to have scooped that up. It's an overly flashy website that's kind of difficult to read, though the "Pro-Love, Pro-Indiana Jones, Anti-Michele-Bachmann" rolling bit on the front page is amusing.

The most important thing to know about Nate Griggs is that according to the campaign Facebook page, he dropped out of the race yesterday due to taking a job that requires relocation. Dear Nate: update your campaign website, not just your Facebook page which lots of people looking for info won't even see.

Lisa Bender (DFL, endorsed by the DFL)
http://www.votelisabender.com/
https://www.facebook.com/votelisabender

I looked at her Vision statement and she looks like a pretty standard-issue Minneapolis DFLer. Pro-bikes, pro-curbside-composting, pro-small-businesses. She doesn't talk on her website about patios or her ability to respond to phone calls in a non-assholish way, so I'm not sure where exactly she stands on the hot-button issues of Ward 10.

But there's also this excellent interview: http://www.ouruptown.com/2013/04/lisa-bender-ward-10-candidate/ There were a couple of pieces here that made me think, "Oh. I would like being represented by her." She talks about improving pedestrian infrastructure: "Pedestrian improvements can be expensive. While it's important to find funding for improvements, this makes it even more important to take advantage of every street construction project possible to improve our pedestrian environment." And -- yeah. That's an excellent way to approach it. A lot of pedestrian improvements actually AREN'T that expensive if they're being done with other stuff, and if you're paying attention, you can improve things in lots of ways. And then this, later, in response to a question about conflict: "One thing that is very important to me is authentic public engagement. I hate the public meetings that are designed to keep everyone quiet and where staff explain what can't be done. I've been in that position myself, and it's important to let people's voices be heard. We learn a lot from hearing our neighbors' priorities and concerns."

So yeah, THAT is important to me.

She also had her second baby on the 14th. Campaigning while pregnant is seriously badass, IMO.

So, the key info:

* Nate Griggs dropped out; this is actually a three person race.
* Scott Hargarten fails the "is this person a real candidate" test (no website of any kind, unless you count Twitter. I don't count Twitter.)
* That leaves Meg Tuthill vs. Lisa Bender. I'm endorsing Lisa. If you really hate Meg Tuthill, mark Nate as your second choice; he'll still be on the ballot and plenty of people don't know he's dropped out. (The bottom line, though, is that it's really Meg vs. Lisa; you don't need to make a second choice unless your first choice is Scott.)

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:279532 Election 2013, Volume 4, Issue 2: Minneapolis City Council, Ward 5 2013-10-08T03:57:33Z 2013-10-08T03:58:07Z The 5th Ward of Minneapolis is currently represented by Don Samuels, but he's running for mayor, so the seat is open. The DFL failed to endorse a candidate at their convention in the spring; there are three DFLers and one Green running for the seat, so if you're a Republican in Ward Five, you really don't have anyone to vote for. But given that there are approximately zero Republicans living in Ward Five (I rounded), I'm not sure that matters.

This ward covers a large part of what's referred to by Minneapolis as "Northside." Let me just spell this out for the people who live outside the area but read these anyway: Northside is the poorest part of Minneapolis. It has some of the worst schools. It tends to be structurally neglected. North Minneapolis got hit much harder by the foreclosure crisis. It also got hit by a tornado in 2011, and the city did an unimpressive job of cleaning up or helping the residents.

It's affordable as heck, though. I just looked on a realty website and there are a ton of houses up there for $50K or less. (Admittedly, most of them didn't have any interior pictures, which is never a good sign.)

Anyway, the candidates:

Ian Alexander (DFL)
Blong Yang (DFL)
Brett Buckner (DFL)
Kale Severson (Green)

Ian Alexander
http://www.voteforian.com/

Ian came the closest to landing the DFL endorsement (within two votes, apparently, which must have been frustrating as heck). He's a lawyer (family law and civil rights) with a degree in public policy; he's been active in neighborhood politics. He lost his home in the tornado and replaced it with a fixer-upper that he's been fixing up (he deserves to score points for that, seriously).

He says his first priority is economic development and launches into a rather complicated description of very specific ideas he has to streamline the process of people opening businesses in North Minneapolis. I'm not an expert on this but his ideas look good to me.

His second priority is public safety, and he hammers on both the need for more police officers and the need for the police to treat law-abiding residents, including rehabilitated former offenders, with respect. I totally agree with him there.

Finally, he talks about housing, and again, I like his ideas, which include affordable rental housing that's not overly concentrated in one spot.

There is apparently concern about the fact that he's a former Republican. He was a Republican as recently as 2008, and he ran for office as a Republican while living in D.C. (I'm not an expert on D.C. politics, but isn't that nearly as quixotic as running as a Republican in Minneapolis?) His opponents have suggested (or encouraged their supporters to suggest) that he's a naked opportunist who changed parties solely because he realized that he'd never get elected as a Republican around here. Which.....doesn't ring true to me, honestly, partly just because of where he lives.

But, hey. This explains something I ran across while reading about the DFL convention that failed to endorse. During the Q&A they got asked, "Describe the moment in your life when you realized you were a democrat." I'm going to bet that was asked by a Ken Foxworth supporter, given his fantastic answer.

Foxworth: "When my mother was put in prison for protesting a lack of teachers." (That's a badass answer.)
Yang: "In August 1998 when I became a citizen, came to law school here and was the only Hmong. Then when Barack Obama was elected I thought 'my kids can be president.'"
Alexander: "November 11, 2009 I opened my family law practice in North Minneapolis." He recalled something a Republican said to him then that made him realize that party "was not for me." (Okay, that is a C&P from TCDailyPlanet and I'm annoyed that they didn't tell us the full quote.)
Buckner: "Birth." (That's a stupid answer. Babies have no political opinions. Little kids will generally echo their parents. At some point, you have to think about your opinions and decide what you believe, and if you never moved beyond echoing whatever political orthodoxies you were raised with, even if you were raised liberal, I'm a lot less impressed by you.)

(Ken Foxworth seems to have dropped out after the convention -- he's not on the ballot, so I can't look up the backstory on his mom.)

Anyway. I have to admit that despite the former Republican affiliation, I like this guy. Some of my favorite Democrats in the state are actually former Republicans -- I loved Judy Dutcher, for instance. (By the same token, one of the Republicans I loathe most completely was once a Democrat...that'd be Norm Coleman, if you're wondering. I SWEAR HE LEAVES A TRAIL OF SLIME BEHIND HIM AS HE WALKS.)

Moving on.

Blong Yang (DFL)
http://blongyang.org/

Blong Yang has a compelling personal narrative (he is Hmong, was born in a Thai refugee camp, and immigrated to the U.S. when he was three years old). Like Ian, he's a civil rights attorney. His wife is a writer and sounds pretty awesome (that's kind of beside the point, though, since she's not the one running).

His top priority is public safety; he says a lot of the same stuff the Ian said, like that Northside should get the same basic services as the rest of the city (which they should!) and that the police should treat the citizens decently. I raised my eyebrow at the line, "we [need to] work hard to eliminate the perception that North Minneapolis is unsafe," which suggests that this is about perception rather than actually addressing crime, but the next line says, "If we can increase safety in Ward 5, residents will stay, new residents will move in, and new businesses will want to locate here," so I think what he's saying is that we need to fix perceptions by fixing the actual problem that people are perceiving.

He wants more jobs in the ward, and I have to admit I like the "we need more jobs, and they need to pay a living wage" approach (his) more than the "we need careers, not just jobs" line from Ian. Careers are all very well and good but when you're dealing with real poverty and lack of basic opportunities, I would start by focusing on living-wage jobs.

He says most of the same stuff about housing: preserve, rehab, keep it affordable. He mentions helping to solve the problem of homelessness, which is a good addition.

He lists Civil Rights as a priority -- did I mention that he works for the Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights? Here's a quote: "The Minneapolis Department of Civil Rights (MDCR) has played a huge role in making our City a better place to live and work for all people. The Minneapolis Civil Rights Ordinance provides additional protections not found in the Minnesota Human Rights Act. We must not allow the outsourcing of the MDCR's complaint investigation functions to the State Department of Human Rights. We must fully fund the MDCR's contract compliance function so that minority hiring goals are not just lip service. The future of Ward 5 depends on a strong and fully-funded MDCR. Without the MDCR, we would see a parade of horribles. The impact on Ward 5 would be devastating."

...I'm not sure what I think about this. I mean, I am a fan of civil rights; I'm not clear on what the MDCR does, and how it helps the city, and why it shouldn't be handed over to the state, and I'm not sure he really explains that to me here.

Finally, he mentions Education, saying that the "achievement gap" is a failure of the system and not of the children, and it's a product of racial injustice (and poverty). He goes on to say, "In the Minneapolis Public Schools, children of less educated families, usually of minority backgrounds, tend to be relegated to failing schools. Education funding needs to change so that every school in the district receives the financial support needed to ensure a high-quality education. The neediest schools in Minneapolis should receive the best teachers and the most resources." On one hand, he's right. On the other hand... Minneapolis teachers choose where they want to work, based on seniority. The district can't just assign teachers to schools (and although in theory they could negotiate with the union for the ability to assign teachers places, I think this would be a bad idea for a lot of reasons). I know someone who taught at Lucy Laney, briefly; she had a parent of one of her students threaten her with a gun. There are a lot of reasons that the teachers with more seniority don't typically choose to teach at the Northside schools.

Also, identifying the "best teachers" is one of those things that is fraught with political peril if you want the union to like you.

Also, the stuff that can be done here, like paying teachers extra for hardship assignments and trying to provide smaller class sizes and so on...this is outside the domain of the City Council. He does acknowledge that, and go on to talk about enrichment programs and so on, and sure, that's a good idea.

I like him, too, actually. Hmm.

Next!

Brett Buckner (DFL)
http://www.brettbuckner.com/

Here's Brett's plan, courtesy of his website:

1. Enlist the energy, passions and talents of all Northside residents and institutions to work together on our common challenges.
2. Reconnect our community to the activities and opportunities of the broader region; we must rebuild our homes, our infrastructure and our institutions.
3. Develop an inclusive vision that provides pathways for our youth to become leaders.

I tend to be intensely skeptical of any political candidate that believes they're going to enlist the energy, passion, and talents of [any group of people who are not members of their personal cult, or employees they are paying a salary] to [accomplish anything that would require work as opposed to speechifying and platitude-quoting].

My skepticism increases with every additional platitude offered.

The guy's got some experience (he helped run Keith Ellison's campaigns) and knows how to be a community organizer. I am not at all convinced that he knows how to be a Council Member.

Nope. Next!

Kale Severson (Green)
https://www.facebook.com/Kaleforcitycouncil

His website is a Facebook page and has lots and lots of pictures and pretty much nothing about the issues.

According to his profile on Daily Planet, his big accomplishment was keeping North High open. I'm unconvinced that was actually a good move. Frankly, the residents had voted with their feet; hardly anyone was sending their kid there. Part of why Minneapolis class sizes are so shockingly big is that they have a number of massively underenrolled schools that no one wants to send their kids to because their test scores are so atrocious. Under no circumstances would I have sent my kids to North, so I really don't blame the residents of Northside for not sending their kids there. And once a school has hit the death spiral it can be damn hard to pull it out.

They didn't close it and I haven't been following the news closely so maybe it's rebounding and kids are enrolling and it's awesome, in which case...I'm still not even remotely impressed by this guy because if you're going to insist on using a Facebook page for your campaign website, you need to be providing some substantive content, not just pictures.

I'm going to say that if I were voting in Ward 5, I would rank the candidates (1) Ian Alexander, (2) Blong Yang, (3) Brett Buckner. Brett's a distant third and Ian and Blong are pretty close, but I am really impressed by Ian's background in public policy and urban planning and I think he has a lot of specific expertise that would serve Northside well. The "used to be a Republican" thing makes me mildly nervous, but not enough to not support him. Though if I actually lived in the neighborhood I might watch one of the forums or seek out the opportunity to meet Ian and Blong at meet-and-greets to see if that swayed my vote.

Election 2013 Index of Posts urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:naomikritzer:279060 Election 2013, Volume 2, Issue 6: How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways. 2013-10-08T01:56:56Z 2013-10-08T01:58:39Z So, in doing my research on the various races I keep running into things I hate about all the (serious) candidates. (The non-serious candidates have their own problems; I'm less meticulous about how I rank them, in general, but trust me, I can find plenty to hate about all of them, too.)

I was pondering whether typing it all out would help me identify the Lesser Evil(s), so I'm going to give it a shot. Here are all the things I dislike about the top eight mayoral candidates.

Stephanie Woodruff

She is overly fond of business buzzwords and content-free puffery (although someone edited her website after my first visit and got rid of the diagrams that looked like they'd come out of a bad PowerPoint presentation) and her political experience is pretty minimal.

Cam Winton

The sad fact is that right now, I'm not sure I would vote for a Republican for dogcatcher. Even a moderate, sensible Republican who was running as an Independent. Sorry, Cam. Also, although he supports bike lanes he doesn't think we should be spending public money on bikeways and bike paths -- things like the Greenway are unlikely to happen on his watch, which I think would be a shame because it's innovative stuff like this that makes Minneapolis a great city.

Betsy Hodges

Betsy likes streetcars, which I think are kind of a stupid idea.

Don Samuels

Don Samuels voted for the Vikings stadium deal. The "envelopes full of money!!!" quote did not suggest corruption to me so much as a totally weird political naivete of the sort that could get him into huge trouble if he's not careful.

Dan Cohen

Dan Cohen is clearly a crank, I loathe the idea of a downtown casino, he's basically trying to buy his way into office, and finally, although I'm not opposed to public funding for the arts, I think offering a bailout NOW to the Minnesota Orchestra sends entirely the wrong message (unless it's predicated on the resignation of the entire board and the firing of the CEO).

Mark Andrew

The people who says he's a corporate shill are 100% correct. He run a greenwashing company, he's friends with all the wrong people, and he'll dodge any question he doesn't like (he never replied to my e-mail, never replied to my question on his Facebook page, and you'll find an unnerving lack of depth if you dig at all on his website). Creepy, but affable. You know who he really, really reminds me of? Norm Coleman, except that Norm Coleman was so slimy he left a trail behind him like a snail; Mark Andrew is a lot more personable than Norm Coleman ever was, but similarly willing to say whatever he thinks will get him into a position of power.

Jackie Cherryhomes

Jackie Cherryhomes personally represents the worst of the Sayles-Belton administration. On her watch the city screwed over small business people in order to throw buckets of money at enormous corporations. When she lost, she shredded heaps of constituent records rather than pass anything along to the woman who defeated her. I desperately don't want to see her return to political office; she was an absolutely terrible person to have in any sort of power.

Bob Fine

Bob Fine was responsible for one of the most atrocious Park Superintendents Minneapolis has ever had; he shoved the guy into power because he'd known him in high school. As much as I like some of Fine's ideas and priorities, that sort of cronyism is disastrous enough in the parks system; I really don't want to see it in the mayor's office. Also, even if he were my #1 choice, on the poll the Strib did last month, he'd have been outpolled by Captain Jack Sparrow if Captain Jack had been in the poll.

I think if I had to vote today (in Minneapolis) I might do:

1. Betsy Hodges
2. Don Samuels
3. Cam Winton

Election 2013 Index of Posts