Great living,
Election Day is a little more than 2 weeks away. I’m still on fire, but ready to conclude the race. Most of the people I’ve met on the campaign trail are supportive to the extent that I have a great chance of upsetting BJ. Most of the people I’ve met are ready for her to be unseated. I’m very optimistic about the outcome, win or lose, but I have a deep feeling that I will be elected. I give thx!
Without conceit, I confidently believe that I am the best candidate in the 4th Ward City Council race. A Troy Parker supporter who attended the candidate debate this past Thursday October 15th, told me yesterday at her home, that I had performed better than all of the other 3 candidates. She told me I was the only one presenting clear goals that resonate with everyone. It was deep meeting this woman because when her daughter answered my knock at their door, I had arrived just as she intended to ask her mother about her opinion of me. Before I left them, the mother, who had initially told me she wanted to remain loyal to Troy’s campaign, said she’d reconsider ranking me as her first choice. Troy is afraid because I have been gaining many votes at homes with his yard sign posted and because people who grew up here want someone else who has grown up here to represent the community. This is why he’s constantly telling people he’s lived over North for 15 years. I’ve gained the support of many traditonal Barb supporters too. It ain’t personal; it’s business.
I consistently encourage people to make reasonable comparisons between the candidates instead of settling with the first candidate, or only candidate that they meet during the campaign season. I consistently discourage people from supporting a candidate for superficial reasons, sacrificing responsible decision making on behalf of the community (intentionally or not, indirectly or not) for a supposed friendship. I’ve knocked on THOUSANDS of doors and at least half of them were unanswered, so I want the 4th Ward to know that I’ve tried to meet nearly all of you, and not simply deliver door hangers.
All of the people who have read the various press articles that have been published in recent weeks tell me that my ideas were most clear and compelling. I humbly agree.
I sat in church several weeks ago listening to a brilliant sermon which referred to a biblical story… I recall the moral lesson admonishing against boasting about being the best. It struck me. We as candidates are supposed to present ourselves as the best choice for voters, the Minneapolis City Council and our communities… It feels egotistically conflicting at times to have to publicly declare and explain - repeatedly - how I’m ‘better’ than my opponents, but this is a competition, so many voters ask us to tell them. However, because electorates are so often willing to support candidates for the wrong reasons, the wrong candidates are elected to public office too often! I’m at peace with declaring and explaining why I’m different and why I believe I’m the best candidate, because I lack confidence in my opponents ability to make a high enough rate of wise, informed and visionary public policy decisions for the community and/or be influential enough with their colleagues.
I want the face, voice and vote representing the 4th Ward on the Minneapolis City Council to be an intellectual and an organizer who is from North Minneapolis, a young, energetic person who understands the complex issues that challenge Northside neighborhoods and cares enough to be equitable, engaging and effective in leveraging the power of community activism to organize and improve the Northside. I have a comprehensive vision of a better North Minneapolis and I believe I can provide this kind of powerful, progressive leadership because I’m building widespread community support for Northside Change.
At the last debate I challenged my opponents and the community members present to another debate, which would only be the 3rd one! Both of my fellow challengers accepted the challenged, but the incumbent didn’t say a word, effectively declining. When I asked the crowd if they believed we should have another debate dozens of people applauded, but there were dozens of BJ supporters who sat stuck in silence. The 5th Ward has 7 scheduled from what I heard from two candidates in that race. This Ward 4 debate was somewhat dull, less contentious than the first one, but it was momentarily exciting when I made the public challenge. When Troy and Granted accepted and Barb sat silently and refusing to even turn her head towards me with a response, I told her she was “outnumbered.” It’s unlikely that another debate will happen, but I’ve spoken with both TP & GC about collaborating on a GOTV rally before Election Day. Grant is interested, but Troy says it depends on when. If an event is feasible, I’ll invite BJ too, to be inclusive. I’ll see what’s possible and get back to y’all, those of you readers out there in the blogosphere… Such an event would be more about the community than any single candidate.
I felt like I was off at the debate, yet I still outperformed my opponents. Strangers have confirmed it. Sometimes I feel like we’re expected to fill the entire 90 seconds or 2 minutes of time alloted per candidate to answer each of the debate questions. Some questions require more than that much time to be answered thoroughly, while others need only brief explanations. I wish they were recorded so I could post it online and we could have them broadcasted on MTN to give more residents the opportunity to witness and listen to their candidate options. It’s good to have these forums because all of the candidates are able to collectively raise many relevant issues and offer interesting ideas. Presenting a variety of perspectives is important because all of the issues we need to address and deal with are as complex as all people are, and you know human beings are so complex that we’re largely dysfunctional, even those of us who mostly function healthy! I’m just “keeping it real.” (Can you believe VW trademarked that phrase?!)
I have consistently attempted to anonymously referrence people I’ve encountered while campaigning when I blog about them. A woman at the debate on Thursday told me to “wait your turn,” implying that Barb deserves to keep her seat - it’s entitled to her, isn’t it? - and that I won’t get the position until Barb voluntarily retires. She did inherit the seat, but it’s time for BJ to go.
Although some aspects of campaigning are fun, most of the experience is not and I don’t know if I’ll ever run again, if I’m not elected this year. My wife is supportive, but she doesn’t like me being a candidate. Those of you out there who believe in my ability and destiny for this work, at this time in my life, please do what you can to get out the vote because I’ll make my wife like it if I am elected. She can’t fathom the amount of support I’ve been gaining or the viability of an underfunded campaign, says most of my friends aren’t supportive enough. Yes, I told her, sadly too many of my peers are apolitical, disaffected. The re-election campaign would be well funded then and extraordinarily engaging and positively influential. I don’t want to be a Councilmember for life, but I believe I’d do well for the Northside, for 2 or 3 terms.
At this point I’m encouraging everyone to rank all of the candidates you’d be comfortable electing, but don’t rank BJ at all. Many people have told me they won’t. Another BJ supporter I met yesterday, at his home, told me he was only ranking Barb. An advertisement of hers seemed to subtlely encourage her voters to do just that. She and her supporters know all of her challengers are targeting her as the main opponent. I like the new Ranked Choice Voting system (RCV) and understand that it neither benefits nor harms me if my supporters rank another candidate 2nd or 3rd choice, so I encourage everyone to play this new instant runoff voting (IRV) game. It’s definitely going to be interesting and it levels the playing field if most people make multiple candidate choices. Moreover, I’m asking my opponent’s loyalists to rank me as their 2nd or 3rd choice if they won’t consider me #1, so why wouldn’t I encourage my voters to rank other candidates as their 2nd or 3rd? The more people rank multiple candidates, excluding BJ, the more likely it is she will be unseated. 3 terms is enough!
TP had a stack of foolish campaign letters at the debate. One line read,”It may be easy to copy or echo my message, travel in my footsteps block to block, but it will be difficult to duplicate my years of commitment, dedication and relationships that has [HAVE] earned me the support of so many of our neighbors and friends.” Is this cat serious? It’s obvious he’s talking about me, but the it is an enormous falsehood to imply that I’m copying his message or following him. We certainly have similar positions on many, if not most of the popular issues and we’re both campaigning for the same elected office, against each other, so we’re obviously reaching out to the same electorate… He may have been dreaming about becoming a City Council person since he was in his early 20’s, but this guy is not the most articulate statesman, so I’m definitely NOT trying to copy his message or be like him, even though in many non-electoral-campaign ways he’s a model citizen. I announced my campaign before him and began canvassing while he was beginning to lit drop, and he’s recently admitted that he doesn’t have a systematic canvassing strategy. He’s mostly aggressive about proliferating signs, which don’t vote or inspire many new votes, especially when the competition is better. I respect him as a man, but as a candidate, I’m not confident in him. I recommend him as a 2nd or 3rd choice only to increase the odds that one of us unseats BJ, but GC is definitely more collaborative. Know that. Rank Marcus Harcus as your 1st choice, or any of the other challengers, but not the incumbent! The status quo is unacceptable - BJ has to go!
Quiest as it’s kept, I already have several incumbent allies on the City Council now, and I have both incumbent-challenger and open seat candidate allies campaigning in other words, so I am optimistic that once I’m elected we may have enough progressive votes on the next Minneapolis City Council to improve the way City Hall does business in the next term. Do any of you seriously believe TP has any relationships like these? He doesn’t. Does any of his supporters actually believe he’ll be effective at organizing support from the other Councilmembers to move his agenda? No. Being a nice guy and a passionate community or partisan activist does not qualify one to be a skilled elected official. BJ definitely knows the system after a lifetime of exposure and enough experience to retire on, but she is an unacceptable elected official. I will not wait my turn!