Its hard to believe that its only been a couple days since I got waxed last Saturday. I’ve been in non stop school board related meetings since Monday and when I wasn’t doing that I was doing yard work and gardening in the sunshine. I generally woke up in the middle of each succeeding night thinking about all that was going on and that I was not blogging about. Maybe it was the glasses of wine I had while unwinding. Last night it was the latest episode of Genious where the self absorbed Einstein finally did something courageous and refused to sign on with other scientists to the support of the German war effort in World War I. His old friend perfected Chlorine gas that was unleashed at the Second Battle of the Ypres. And I have such mundane things to report of myself.
Anywho. About that convention and the DNT’s disapproval of political parties endorsing candidates in non partisan races…
I didn’t take it that the DFL (the Democrats) weren’t for me when I got my 34 votes compared to the 234 that a no show unknown candidate got. That was tribal and that was local. For starters I had three ex school board members who don’t much care for me sitting at different tables. One had grievances against me stemming from about 1990. Another I helped replace with Mary Cameron who she in turn got dumped two years earlier in the 1999 ans 2001 elections. And finally, there was Judy Seliga-Punyko whose effort to get an extra year on the School board without facing an election I helped thwart (among a great many other longstanding strains).
Mike Jaros, who was unable to attend the convention, called me afterward and reassured me that the DFL voters who were sitting at the Duluth Air Show instead of the convention would still vote for me. I hope he’s right. I also hope the Republicans in Duluth vote for me despite my rude treatment of the current President. I think they recognize that I still have some fiscal prudence.
Why is the endorsement small potatoes? Because it pales in comparison to Citizens United the Supreme Court Decision that helped open the floodgates to anonymous contributions from the super rich who want to hide their ties to the politicians whose palms they grease to stay the super rich. That decision came in no small part thanks to the Koch Brothers that I’ve been reading about in Dark Money. And thanks to the Republicans thwarting Barack Obama’s supreme court pick a full year before the election Donald Trump got to nominate a close ally of one of the Koch’s fellow billionaires Joseph Coors of the Colorado Brewing family. I think I read somewhere that they have summer homes in the Rockies a half mile from each other. Oops, wrong billionaire. Gorsuch has a vacation home next to Phillip Anschutz.
I’ve watched for forty years as the Republicans have out maneuvered the Democrats in campaign finance and in curtailing the once mighty union money machine. Wisconsin Governor’s Scott Walker’s actions were just the latest episode in the retreat of union power. Throw in voter suppression in locales where the poor and minorities live and Court approved gerrymandering, Tom Delay, irrational government and you get Donald Trump in the White House.
So, however ill disposed the local DFL club is to a burr like me under its saddle, I got elected to the Board three times while they supported other candidates. Their endorsement also serves as a red flag for those disinclined toward their politics. At least, unlike the Supreme Court approved Dark Money, they are out in the open about their candidates. However, it is too bad they don’t allow secret ballots and force delegates to sign them. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I know three exschool board members who would have cold shouldered anybody identified as voting for me.
