The band of people trying to revive the all-but-dead Minneapolis Republican Party have no illusions. Not about their political clout, nor about their candidates’ ability to actually win elections.
But lowered expectations also mean there are opportunities for small victories for the 34 delegates who attended the city Republican Party’s endorsing convention earlier this week at the Eagles Lodge in the Seward neighborhood. Over the calls of a Bingo announcer in the bar next door, delegates spent two hours organizing, talking strategy, and considering which candidates the party will endorse for what are nominally non-partisan municipal offices.
“It’s kind of hard in Minneapolis to be a Republican because they have managed somehow to totally demoralize us,” said city party chair Christina Pierson. “I’m a fighter and very rarely demoralized. But some folks are afraid to show up and even let their neighbors know they’re Republican.”
In what may be the most-liberal and Democratic city between Chicago and Seattle, to be a Republican is to be vastly outnumbered, and always outgunned. Though Donald Trump received nearly 26,000 votes from Minneapolis voters last November, Hillary Clinton got 174,585.
So if their candidates can’t win, why bother?
The kiss-of-death factor
Party activists say they would rather win than lose, of course, and feeling politically impotent is what led to the dissolution of the city party after the 2013 elections. “Our first objective is to elect a Republican mayor and a Republican city council — good luck with that,” quipped Alan Shilepsky, a former GOP candidate for state Legislature and secretary of state.
But Shilepsky thinks city Republicans can at least play a role in city elections. They can look at the candidates for mayor with an eye toward finding someone who is better than others from a GOP perspective. And in a close ranked-choice-vote election, those votes could make a difference. “I sure know who in the general election for mayor will be my second choice,” he said. “And if we don’t have a candidate, that person will be my first choice, because I’d rather have them than Ray Dehn or Nekima Levy-Pounds or Jacob Frey.”
Besides, offering tacit support to candidates running as DFLers could show other residents that the party is reasonable, he said. “We’re not saying we only accept Republicans for mayor and city council. We have second choices and we see a difference between some of these people,” he said.
The problem, however, is that there are DFL campaign teams that would relish having one of their Democratic opponents being praised by Republicans. Shilepsky acknowledged that reality. “I will say the one thing that worries me is the Kiss Of Death Factor,” he said. “Maybe in this city it could hurt some candidates. It’s something we need to think about, maybe talk to some people, whether they welcome or totally disdain our encouragement or support.”
Still, Pierson said her central committee will consider providing GOP voters with some suggestions to distinguish among the candidates for city offices. Party rules permit only one candidate to be endorsed by the party and to carry that label with them into the election, but Pierson said her committee will consider whether it should recommend second or third choices to members and on sample ballots.
A dearth of delegates
The numbers of city Republicans willing to show themselves Tuesday, or perhaps willing to devote a summer evening to politics, was meager. A credentials report revealed that while the party had allocated 347 delegate slots to the city’s 13 council wards based on the 2013 GOP vote for governor, only 34 delegates arrived to claim them. Wards 2, 4, 5 and 6 had no delegates present and the tables set aside for them sat empty.
Wards 1 and 10 had just one delegate report. That led to an odd situation when the convention moved to endorse council candidates. That sole Ward 10 delegate, Bruce Lundeen, was also a city council candidate seeking the GOP endorsement. Under the rules, only delegates from each ward could vote on endorsements. So, technically at least, Lundeen voted to endorse himself.
To give him company, convention chair Carlton Crawford allowed everyone to join in the voice vote. And one delegate joked that the minutes should at least record that Lundeen was endorsed unanimously. Lundeen has been a loyal GOP ballot filler over the last several elections, last serving as the party nominee for state Senate district 62 against incumbent DFL Sen. Jeff Hayden. Lundeen managed to capture 11.7 percent of the vote.
There were no delegates from Ward 6, for which Fadumo Yusef was seeking the party endorsement for her challenge of Minneapolis Council Member Abdi Warsame. The city central committee will consider endorsing her when it next meets, Pierson said. In the meantime, Pierson said she would appoint Yusef to the empty chair of the ward organization, making her a member of the central committee.
Wards 1, 2 and 5 remain without a representative on the committee, something Pierson said she hopes to remedy soon.
When nothing is better than something
The party did give endorsements to six candidates. For at-large seats on the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, it endorsed Jonathan Honerbrink and Rob Sullentrap. Honerbrink had until this week been running for mayor, but changed because he has more knowledge of the park system, he said.
For the district 6 park board seat, the party endorsed Jennifer Zielinski. And, in addition to Lundeen in Ward 10, the convention also endorsed Joseph Kovacs for city council in Ward 7.
And what took the city’s DFLers 12 hours to not accomplish took Republicans just two. They did not select a party candidate for mayor of Minneapolis. While the Democrats failed to choose among seven hopefuls, the Republicans had just one. But rather than endorse that candidate — Bob “Again” Carney — the convention followed the recommendation of its nominations committee to reject him and go with no one instead.
Brian Bergs, the chairman of that committee, told delegates that after interviewing Carney, the four members found that he “did not have a strong background to be mayor” and was focused on a single issue: transportation and transportation funding.
And then there was the fact that Carney has written a book calling for the impeachment of President Trump. One delegate said he recalled speaking to him and that Carney noted that he hadn’t voted for a Republican for president in 48 years.
Said Carney: “I voted for Romney.”
Having supported GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 wasn’t enough for delegates, though. The motion to not endorse for mayor was approved on a near-unanimous voice vote.
When Republicans ruled
It wasn’t always this way. Delegate John Bergford recalled that when he was GOP leader of the Minneapolis City Council, there were 10 Republicans and three Democrats.
That was during the 1960s. The current council is 12-1 but the one isn’t a Republican. It’s Green Party member Cam Gordon, who is to the left of several of the DFL members.
Pierson was apologetic for the stripped down arrangements and the paucity of delegates. Until a microphone was provided by the lodge, speakers struggled to compete with the Bingo caller. But she said the city party will try to become more organized and more conspicuous, showing up at city council meetings and attending truth in taxation hearings in the fall.
“We’re still putting the spokes on the wheel so we can get the wheel on the wagon,” she said.
Slow news day
You have made this fringe party seem much more influential than they are.
Curiosity
What with the DFL having a large surplus of people, what might happen if hordes of them were to go to GOP caucuses and through sheer numbers take them over.
realism
Republicans should quit wasting their time fantasizing about winning elections in big cities, and start doing 2 things right now.
1. Try to cut their party loose from Donald Trump.
2. Start talking sense about global warming, evolution, vaccination, and other scientific issues.
I don’t agree with the Democrats on everything. But until those 2 things happen, there’s no possibility I’d vote for a Republican, at any level of government
Afraid to be known as Republican?
Fascinating comment, that some of these GOP folks are “afraid” that their neighbors would know they are Republicans because they went to this caucus/convention.
“Afraid” of what? That they would have a beer stein flung at their face, leaving lasting scars (Trumpites have done this to a Muslim woman in a TC suburb)? That neighbors would stop greeting them on the street?
Come on, folks! This is like the ubiquitous adjective “hysterical” used for characterizing all liberals and Democrats in GOP/Trumpite/alt-right lingo. It’s an exaggeration meant for effect so we’ll feel so sorry for the Republicans/Trumpites who are not only a minority in the country, but especially in almost all large urban centers like Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Stop being anti-city
Republicans nationally do everything in their power to punish cities for trying to deal with their issues. In Minnesota and other states have tried, sometimes successfully, to preempt the actions of city government.
That is what Republicans like to call “government overreach.” When Republicans understand and support cities, maybe they will attract city voters.
I think there may be a place in Minneapolis politics for an old-fashioned intellectual conservative who would support the city making wise, incrimental investments, support property rights and development to raise the tax base, and act as a check on spending on certain big, dumb projects.
Sadly, I’m not convinced there’s anyone left in the party who is remotely serious. I’ll eat my shoe if there was anyone at that convention who values diverse urban places and isn’t just grinding an axe about millennials and bike lanes.
“… support the city making wise, incrimental investments, support property rights and development to raise the tax base, and act as a check on spending on certain big, dumb projects.”
Just add “and understand the huge role cities have to play in reducing carbon emissions” and you might even get my vote.