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Eric Black Ink

TakeActionMinnesota endorses Rybak, Thissen, Anderson Kelliher and almost Marty

By Eric Black | 01/31/10

At the end of an extensive screening process and an unusual voting process among its members, TakeAction Minnesota has endorsed three DFLers for governor -- Mpls. Mayor R.T. Rybak, state Rep. Paul Thissen of Mpls. and House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, also of Mpls.

After allowing each member of the organization to vote for up to three choices, and having announced that there would be three winners, TakeAction also released the result of the vote, which suggested that Rybak actually finisihed first by a substantial margin, and that state Sen. John Marty of Roseville, who finished fourth, was almost rounding error away from third place. Here are the vote totals:

  • Rybak                          336 votes
  • Thissen                        264 votes
  • Anderson Kelliher          261 votes
  • Marty                           250 votes
  • Former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton: 138 votes
  • Former state Rep. Matt Entenza: 105 votes
  • Former state Rep. Steve Kelley of Hopkins:104 votes
  • State Rep. Tom Rukavina of Virginia: 92 votes
  • State Senate Tax Chair Tom Bakk of Cook: 48 votes
  • Ramsey County Attorney Sudan Gaertner: 46 votes

You see what I mean. Based on the pure numbers, Rybak gained a solid win, and Thissen, Anderson Kelliher and Marty virtually tied for the next spot. But TakeAction set up the process to produce three co-equal winners and will now encourage members to caucus for and otherwise support the top three.

Entenza and Dayton, both of whom participated in the screening and both of whom are usually rated as top tier contenders for the endorsement, would have to be rated as the losers.

Not that this is necessarily a giant endorsement. TakeAction a liberal group, with Twin Cities origins and ties to many labor organizations. But I give them credit for holding a very open process and being transparent about their results, even though the numbers are slightly awkward for the idea of three winners.

Here's the full writeup on the TakeAction site.

Comments (3)

Submitted by Mark Gisleson on February 1, 2010 - 10:31am.

You would think a vote like that would result in no endorsement, but that's the most corrupting aspect of the DFL endorsement process. You MUST have an opinion, you MUST pick someone before the long primary season has had a chance to winnow out the weaker candidates.

No other state abuses the caucus process like Minnesota does, and in no other caucus state does the Democratic party fail to leverage their numbers on election day like the DFL routinely does in Minnesota.

Parties who aren't afraid of the voters let the primaries decide these things. Minnesota Democrats and Republicans, alas, are more clever than that.

Submitted by Bernice Vetsch on February 1, 2010 - 8:27pm.

Mark -- It sounds as though you believe TakeAction is part of the DFL, but it isn't, and the DFL party is not obligated to accept its endorsements as its own (although it usually takes them into consideration). It just happens that no Green is a candidate and that no Republicans or independents share TakeAction's Wellstonian values and therefore were not screened.

I believe the TakeAction vote may have been a little skewed toward Rybak by the fact that so many members are from Minneapolis. The fact that Marty really came close (11 votes out of third place, 14 out of second) would indicate that many, many people want his Minnesota Health Plan to become a reality -- including nine of the ten DFL candidates.

Submitted by rolf westgard on February 2, 2010 - 7:36am.

The son of two teachers, Rep. Paul Thissen graduated from Harvard and Univ of Chicago law school.
He is chair of the MN House Health & Human Services committee and a first rate prospect to be Governor of Minnesota.