2009 Minneapolis Election Rundown: Mayor's Race

It's that time again: Minneapolis has citywide elections (official site) every four years in the election "off-year." This year's election on November 3rd will have two new twists: the most dramatic change is the shift to Ranked Choice Voting or Instant Runoff Voting for city offices (promoted by FairVote MN); also, the Board of Estimates and Taxation may get dissolved by referendum, consolidating more power with the Mayor and City Council. [More: "The auditor would report to the audited"]

The official outreach website for the City's IRV is at VoteMinneapolis.org and they are tabling local events until Election Day. Find your precinct and sample ballot here. Multi-lingual election info is available en Español (Spanish), Hmoob (Hmong) and Soomaaliga (Somali) - call 311 or 612-673-3000 for language help. Public awareness of how it works, especially among disadvantaged communities, looks really bad right now.

What's on the ballot? Mayor, City Council wards, the 2 at-large members of the Board of Estimate and Taxation, and the Park and Recreation Board (3 At-Large & 6 District Commissioners). The vote is expected to take several weeks to completely count everything (one reason the city cites for not calling it "instant" runoff).

Will Ranked Choice Voting mix up Minneapolis' dull & entrenched political establishment? Probably, for one reason in particular: The word from inside the RT Rybak for "Mayor" campaign is that the highly paid consultants running everything are "lollygagging" around waiting for the 2010 governor's race to start, but they don't really care about the city races.

Below the fold, all the candidates and links for mayor... Going deeper: 2009 Minneapolis election rundown: City Council, our favorite shady local deals & more!

Mayoral Race: A quick rundown of everyone. Endorsed DFL incumbent RT Rybak looks pretty good on the national scene because he got on board with Obama early and has luck "looking sharp" while fighting the Republicans over the state budget cutbacks. It will be virtually impossible for him to net less than 51% and enter into the Ranked Choice Voting runoff system. But over the years he let predatory lenders install bad mortgages all over many neighborhoods, is working to centralize control of NRP money, and has done virtually nothing to compel Wells Fargo et al to cram down mortgages after home values crashed.

While an old-school pol like Hubert Humphrey would have had Minneapolis on full lockdown, Rybak seems indifferent and not too busy working on backing up fellow establishment DFLers like Robert Lilligren or Gary Schiff. This should net more votes for anti-establishment forces. His opponents have complained he's impossible to find and virtually invisible; meanwhile a new "mayoral" campaign office just opened by all the other gubernatorial campaigns on University Avenue near Highway 280.

Rybak has bravely refused to discuss the issues with his opponents in any forum, because the DFL machine will be able to get him 51% without any risky appearances. It's sad that this is actually legal. (The city DFL delegates didn't complain enough when he refused to do a hardcore Q&A before endorsement. Surprise!)

Longtime local musician Papa John Kolstad (GOP/Independence Party Endorsed) carries the beat for gruff old dudes and claims a broad spectrum of Libertarians, Greens and DFLers. He says "this City Council and Mayor have fostered an attitude of arrogance and abuse against Minneapolis residents, creating an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and paranoia.... This has become a hostile and abusive Government. The citizens of this city do not have to continue to tolerate this oppression." Nice. (His Myspace Music page)

Al Flowers (DFL) is from the Northside. Flowers recently hit the city with a lawsuit after cops seized his laptop and cell phone. There's some kind of drug charge from a house he was at. It's a good example of how police intelligence and defamatory social control techniques (the 'War on Drugs') can nuke the mayor's rivals in election season, especially candidates that criticize the police for years. All this "anti-gang" social data modeling they're doing at the city (see below) can obviously be used by the establishment to "attack" the political base, especially of candidates from minorities. (In many communities the people that have "graduated" through gangs can form the "middle level" of society, then get repressed by the State, as this incident appears to show.) He's got support from Michelle Gross, Farheen Hakeem and Spike Moss.

James Everett (Social Entrepreneurship) has been around the scene for some time and runs a Northside hip-hop group called Sub-Zero Collective; he's quoted in articles for years about police abuse and media access. Here's a campaign flyer for what he memorably dubs the (1930s Governor) "Floyd B. Olson Project."

Bob Carney Jr. ("Moderate Progressive CENSORED") wanted his party listing as "Moderate Progressive Republican" but the city blocked that. He fought for the Political Candidate Refund program which GOP Gov. Pawlenty nuked recently. His video chasing Rybak is pretty awesome, bow tie and all -- it even questions the premise the mayoral election is "real" and the Mayor's campaign office didn't even exist at the address marked on the Web. He also has a bikes-in-skyway plan!

Bill McGaughey (New Dignity Party) was the Independence Party candidate against U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison last year, and got 22,318 votes (6.92%). He self-published four books and in 2004 ran for President on the Democratic ticket in Louisiana, finishing fifth among seven and "defeated Dennis Kucinich by a wide margin." He is running along with John Butler for Park Board and Jim Swartwood for Board of Estimate and Taxation. Signs were spotted on 26th Ave. S. by I-35W.

Tom Fiske (Socialist Workers Party) has spoken up on the FBI infiltration of the Somali community as a basis for more "spying and disruption" against everyone else.

John Charles Wilson (Edgertonite National Party) has a great website as a transit historian, politician and founder of the Lauraist faith: "I am a non-traditional Communist. I believe that Laura Ingalls Wilder is God... Essentially, I am a libertarian regarding personal freedom and a Communist regarding State ownership of the economy." Fascinating: "Due to visions I began seeing in May 1982, I believe that Laura Ingalls Wilder is God. Do to disputes over my right as a citizen to preach the doctrines of the Lauraist faith, I was a political prisoner in the mental 'health' system from 1983 to 1987."

Joey Lombard (Is Awesome party) has a Facebook page and has "no position on any issues" and will go with what's popular. He will put "his years of playing Sim City to use."

Dick Franson (DFL) is a conservative perennial candidate who has run more than 20 times for office and says that National Guard "should be in use in high-crime areas every summer until crime goes down. They need to be trained anyway."

I couldn't find anything on Christopher Clark (Libertarian) but will add if provided.

Next post: City Council and other stories

Candidates for Mayor