Calling It For Rebecca Otto

I've spoken to a lot of Minnesota DFLer's (that's what we call Democrats 'round these parts) about today's Primary, especially in relation to the auditor's race. Rebecca Otto, who, full disclosure, I don't know at all but whose husband is a friend and colleague, is the incumbent. Rebecca has really put a shine on the Auditor's office. I understand that the previous auditor, a Republican, pretty much sucked, so that might have made looking good a bit easier for Rebecca, but it can't be true that all of the other auditors across the country also suck, and the various professional associations that deal with this sort of thing have awarded Rebecca with top level official accolades over and over. So, she is clearly about the best Auditor in the country, and in Minnesota, the best one to come along in a while.

Now, it turns out, that two or three of our Governors were formerly Auditors. I don't know why Auditor would be a stepping stone to Governor, or even, if it really is. That might just be a fluke, like every president elected in a year that ends in zero getting killed or almost killed. The point is, it has become local political folklore that Auditor is a good jumping off point for Governor.

So, there's this guy named Matt Entenza who has run for Governor before. He used to be in the State Legislature. Mostly though, his political career consists of spending huge piles of family money on running races that he loses. I'm pretty sure Matt wants to be be Governor, and he wants it so badly that he is virtually delusional about the prospects. Or, perhaps, he simply has a deep and unabiding disdain for Minnesota voters. He thought he could just spend a lot of his family money on a campaign and unseat a well liked and widely respected incumbent.

In Minnesota, we use the Native American system of choosing our candidates by party to run in the general election. No one fully understand the process but it involves a lot of standing around in a special room that you need permission to be in. People join in groups and hold up symbols of their political beliefs and the candidates they support, then move between groups, sometimes combining groups. A Caucus Chief occasionally tells all the people in this or that group that they must disband, and those individuals then join other groups. If a group gets big enough and they are fast enough they can form two groups. The exact number of groups that are formed and their exact configuration can determine who ultimately is chosen by the Caucus. At various points the Caucus is frozen, and tough looking guys working for the Caucus Chief make sure no one crosses certain lines that are sometimes marked on the floor with Duct Tape. It might be unfrozen and refrozen a couple of times, but eventually the Caucus Chief calls an end to it and each of the clusters of people elect a certain number of representatives who are supposed to vote a certain way on the first ballot at a district convention. But no one knows who these people are because the Caucus Chief works for a secret society that maintains all the rules of the caucus system, and runs it, but does not provide any information from it, so the supporters of the various candidates have to rush to one end of the room where those elected by the Caucus groups are required to go to state their name and how they will vote to a group of very old people who can't hear a thing. The friends of the candidates try to glean the names of the elected ones, and the elected ones often try to interfere with this process, which seems ridiculous because the first thing you get if you are elected is the candidate buys you a cup of coffee later in the week at Caribou or Starbucks.

Amazingly, this system works rather well, and eventually produces a set of "endorsed" candidates. Rebecca Otto, who is a successful well liked and widely respected incumbent, was endorsed by the party. Then moments before a special deadline, after the endorsement, this guy Matt Entenza, who really wants to be Governor, filed to run. So there was a primary challenge within the party.

Entenza lied and lied and lied. He lied about himself, he lied about Rebecca, he lied about what the Auditor's job is, he lied about what he would do if elected (we know he lied because he's not an idiot and he made claims that he would do things that the Auditor simply does not do).

So the Primary was today. They are still counting votes as I write this. And, as I said, I have spoken, especially today, to a lot of DFLer's (Minnesota Democrats.)

Most of them strongly support Rebecca Otto and are annoyed at Entenza. I spoke today to one person who said he'd vote for Entenza, and I think maybe his wife was to. I spoke to an Entenza staffer -- a paid employee of Matt Entenza's campaign -- who quit a couple of weeks ago "... because Entenza lied to me, he lied to us, we all told him to go to hell ..." who is voting for Rebecca.

Last time I looked 17% of the vote was counted and Otto was ahead by over 80%. I'm calling it for Otto.