As I mentioned previously I have begun to get more involved in grassroots politics. The most recent thing was our State District Nominating Convention. It was held the evening of March 10^th. I went not only as a Delegate from my precinct, but the Chair of it as well. I had no idea what was going to happen or what to expect. My step-son (the genius) went along with me as a guest. I invited him for two reasons. The first, to get his first real taste of the political system, he will vote for the first time this upcoming November, and secondly it also allowed him to complete a project he had for his high school government class. There were assigned to go to something that showed the government system at work. It could have been a city council meeting, a school board meeting, etc. After informing his teacher of the Convention he stated that it would fulfill the project as well. So in a sense it was a ‘two-for’. I got to share something I love with my step-son and he got to do something for school. A win-win situation.

Upon arriving at the site of the convention, a church, we had to sign in. There were quite a lot of people there. The seats were arranged per district and there was a section for Alternates and guests. A little information for those who may not have a clear understanding of conventions, delegates and alternates, I know I didn’t when this all started. The Delegates and Alternates were elected at the February caucus. Our particular district was allowed 5 delegates and 5 alternates. We only elected the delegates, no one else expressed interest. So really it was a matter of 5 of us volunteering and we automatically became delegates. Many of the other precincts had a much more lengthy process. The largest precinct had I believe 26 delegates and 26 alternates. So as you can imagine there was great competition. I am learning what it was meant when someone had said that is a lot of competition to be a delegate, at any level. I am just lucky I live in the smallest precinct. Hooray for me.

If any delegates from a precinct did not show up at the convention then the alternates would be seated in order. (1^st alternate, then 2^nd alternate and so on). One of ours did not show up, and since we had no alternates we only had 4 delegates. If at any time a delegate left the convention alternates would then be seated. So even if a person goes to a convention as an alternate they have to know what’s going on because there is always a chance of being seated. I did find out after the convention that some precincts did have to seat some alternates and some did not. So it was possible for an alternate to be there the whole time and never be seated (and hence be involved in the voting process). Not exactly what I would call a fun time. That’s why I was quite proud of my step-son; he sat there the whole convention. The convention was scheduled from 7 – 10 pm (signing in began at 6:30). The convention was finally adjourned at 11:45 pm.

There were 3 main areas to be covered at the convention.

The first, and primary thing, was to endorse a candidate to run against the 1 term Democratic Incumbent in November, Paul Gardner. His seat is known to be quite vulnerable. He only won it in 2006 by 51 votes. In 2006 both the Republican Representative and State Senator lost. Only the House seat is up this year and the common theme of the convention was to retire Paul Gardner.

Our area is known to be more conservative than not, so it was quite a disappointment to lose in 2006. There is a lot of passion to regain the House seat, and in the future the Senate seat. This became even more evident when the House had just recently overridden the Governor’s veto of the “Transportation Bill” aka the 6.6 Billion dollar tax increase bill. They were only able to do so because of 6 Republicans who voted with the DFL. (In Minnesota the Democrat party is called the DFL: Democratic-Farm Labor.) So every single conservative Republican vote is needed. As a side note, at least 3 of the 6 Republicans who voted to override did not receive the endorsement at their nominating convention. All of them did suffer some sort of repercussions such as removal from certain positions by the party. This will make things interesting come this fall. In Minnesota we also have another practice I really do not understand. There is a nominating convention and a party endorsement, but we also have a primary in September to determine the candidates for November.

Normally then an endorsed candidate would run primarily unopposed in the primary, however there have been times in the past when a sitting politician did not receive the endorsement and ran in the primary. I believe there have been a few times the endorsed candidate actually loss the primary. I know once the sitting Republican Governor did not get the endorsement and ran in primary. I think he won, I could be wrong. I explain this to give a little background on the way things work up here, as well as laying groundwork for something I will mention later on.

The second thing on the agenda was Resolutions. This seemed the most tedious thing but is quite an important thing as far as a political party is concerned. During the February caucus people could submit resolutions to either add to or change something in the official party platform. These resolutions were then voted on by the precincts and those that passed moved on to this convention. This is true grassroots; this is where the platform of a party is created. Whatever is in a party’s official platform was formulated, voted on and accepted at the grassroots level. First step would be the caucus level, then the nominating convention level, from here the district level and then the state level. We voted on resolutions that had passed the caucus level. The resolution committee had to go through them all, consolidate ones that were similar in nature and generally streamline things. We were voting on the idea or concept within the resolution, not the wording. That would be worked out at the higher levels. This was something a lot of people didn’t grasp right away. There was a lot of debate about the wording of some resolutions, but once we got the idea we were voting on ideas not wording it proceeded well. A lot of the confusion I think stemmed from the fact that out of the 167delegates (and 167 alternates) I think all but about 60 or 70 of them were new people like me, so we were learning the ropes.

The third thing on the agenda was the electing of delegates and alternates for the District convention in April. Our particular State House District (53A) split between two Congressional Districts. The 6^th (Rep. Michelle Bachman-R ) and the 4^th (Rep. Betty McCollum-DFL). My district (6^th) was allowed 10 delegates and 20 alternates, the 4^th allowed 9 and 18.

The main event of the night was the endorsement. There were three candidates. A candidate had to get 60% of the votes of the delegates to get the endorsement. That was 100 votes. One of the rules of the convention was that after three ballots the lowest vote getter would be dropped. There was some discussion about this rule at the beginning of convention. It was proposed that it be changed to when a candidate failed to attain a set percentage of votes they would be dropped. This proposal was voted down. I think this was mainly due to time constraints. We were only to have the area until 10 pm, it was only the flexibility and graciousness of the church that allowed us to remain until we had a nominee at 11:30 and after 8 ballots.

The three candidates were Laura Merickel, John Kappler and Mady Reiter. Two of them had never held elected office before but were long time participants in the political process. Either as a lobbyist (as in Laura’s case) or a long time campaigner and supporter (as in John’s case). Mady had been elected to a city council twice and into the State Senate twice. She was our Senator that lost in 2006.

The most nervous time for me was when I actually had to get up and speak. I was on the three member nominating committee that had spoken to all three candidates prior to the campaign. It was our job to ask them questions and basically vet them out. Our chairman could not attend the convention and the third member is a sitting County Commissioner and would be speaking already that evening. So I was asked to speak on the committees behalf and I accepted. Like I said jump in with both feet. I had not spoken in front of that man y people since my high school graduation in 1984, I was a wee bit nervous. I had to speak of the committee’s purpose, who was on it, what we found and to share any pertinent information with the convention. Other than finding them all to be strong Conservatives the biggest piece of information I had to share was the fact that two of the candidates had agreed to the endorsement process while the third (Mady) had stated she wanted to keep her options open. Based on some of the reaction I heard from the crowd I knew that was not a popular idea among the delegates. That’s the way it played out. I can’t say for sure that played a big part in people’s decisions but the fact was that after the third ballot Mady had the lowest total. In fact she lost votes over the three ballots. (Side note: Even if we had gone with the percentage threshold as was suggested she still would have been dropped. The suggested threshold was 20%)

In between the votes, while they were being tabulated, we voted on the resolutions. Laura held the lead through the first three ballots. Once it was narrowed to two John took the lead. The finally on the 8^th ballot John received enough votes to get the endorsement, and there was much rejoicing.

http://johnkappler.com/ (Tried to make this a link but wasn't cooperating. Take a look I think he will do a great job. We need more like him.)

As for the election of district delegates those of us who voice our interest at the beginning of the convention had to go up to the microphone and give 30 – 45 second talk and why they should be a delegate. So I got to talk in front of the crowd twice. We would not find out until sometime after the convention if we were elected or not. What I found out about me was quite surprising. We had to vote for exactly 10 delegates. They then fell in order. The highest vote getter would be 1^st delegate and so on, after the 10^th delegate would be the 1^st alternate etc. The 10^th delegate received 25 votes. I received 22. I am the 5^th alternate. Hooray for me. So now I get to go on to the District convention in April. (I have already volunteered to help with the registration that evening.)

All in all I greatly enjoyed the experience and look forward to future experiences. And what about my step-son, the genius, who sat around for almost 5 hours doing nothing? I asked him the next day what he thought and this the nutshell of what he said.

It was a lot more laid back than he expected, not super formal. Not a lot of people standing around in suits. It had more of a getting the community involved feeling. It actually gave him a more positive outlook when it came to his voting. It showed him that a person can become a part of the process.

I know this was a bit long-winded but I hope you have a better understanding of some things. It is amazing what can happen when a person stops just whining about things and gets involved. Stay tuned for the next installment of Raven the ‘political insider’.

Very cool. Too bad your son didn't get to take the seat as the alternate; I assume he's from your own district, and he's obviously of voting age.

He will be 18 this May and will definitely be joining his Mom and I at the voting booth in Nov. Should be fun at the upcoming Convention. From there more delegates are selected. Eventually delegates to the Nat'l Convention are chosen. I dont see me getting that far but one can dream. Convention is here afterall. Need more people to comment here. lol You use the subscribe thing here yet? Easier than shameless plugs lol

Ah... he was still too young to step up.

Too bad.

True, but give him time. Plus he got a great mentor. Me ;)