Primary

Everybody is all upset about Trump and his Republicans, but in truth, that seems to matter little. Here in Minnesota we had a local house district open, there was a special election, and the Democrats didn't even try to win it, apparently. So they lost it. It was probably winnable. Same with GA-06. This is one of four seats opening up because of Trump appointments. Will the Democrats try to win these seats? Of course not. The Democratic Party does not seem to care that the Republicans are in charge, and will not fight them vigorously. The official word from the DCCC is "... we have to…
You may be asking yourself the same question, especially if, like me, you vote on Tuesday, March 1st. For some of us, a related question is which of the two is likely to win the nomination. If one of the two is highly likely to win the nomination, then it may be smart to vote for that candidate in order to add to the momentum effect and, frankly, to end the internecine fighting and eating of young within the party sooner. If, however, one of the two is only somewhat likely to win the nomination, and your preference is for the one slightly more likely to lose, then you better vote for the…
I'm going to make this simple. The primary season has not started yet. It starts in a few weeks. Everything we are doing now is pre-Primary. Not one person has put pen to checkmark in a voting booth. Once that process starts, everything changes. Suddenly there is more polling in downstream states. Starting before the first primaries, but then ramping up as we head towards states that matter (and no, Iowa and New Hampshire don't matter despite what you may have been told). Same with campaigning. We've seen a few debates, there's been a lot of speeches, but you ain't seen nothing yet. And…
Lincoln Chafee, Hillary Clinton, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, and Jim Webb faced off in the Facebook-CNN sponsored debate. Who won? The individual who "won" is the individual whose poll numbers went up the most, and we don't know that yet. But there are other ways to win, and other ways to talk about winning. Winners Barack Obama I am pleased to note that the candidates running for the Democratic nomination were not running away from the President. That proved to be a bad strategy for House and Senate Democrats during the last election, and we are not seeing it today. One of the…
How do you say “Surprise” in Norwegian? The word is “Entenza.” I am not making that up.* DFL activists and party leaders were both surprised and annoyed when perennial candidate Matt Entenza filed at the very last moment to run for Minnesota State Auditor against sitting Auditor Rebecca Otto in this year’s primary. He claimed he would fight corporate giveaways at the local level and scrutinize spending on education, addressing the state’s achievement gap. Also, he would be nice to out-state local governments and not favor the Metro, because he was born out-state. Entenza has a habit of…