Minnesota Lawyer
DFL gubernatorial nominee Mark Dayton (Staff file photo: Peter Bartz-Gallagher)
A slate of prominent Minnesota Democrats are hosting a panel at a private residence Tuesday night to talk to DFLers who are considering voting for Independence Party candidate Tom Horner instead of DFL nominee Mark Dayton in the general election.
The panel will include Dayton campaign advisers and members of the business community who will “help everyone get clear answers on who they should vote for, and why,” according to an email sent out to DFLers about the event.
Panelists include Dayton advisor Tina Smith, WIN Minnesota Executive Director Ken Martin, Jeff Blodgett, head of Wellstone Action, and Alan Wilensky, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
Among others, House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Rockefeller heiress Alida Messinger, former DFL gubernatorial candidate Matt Entenza and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak are listed as hosts.
It’s great to see the Dayton campaign helping Horner out!!!
I think this is a good idea. I have heard a lot of interest in Horner from many different people..
Shun secrecy! Not a healthy idea. I appreciated Sen. Dayton’s bus to Winnipeg for less expensive medications, but candidate Horner has a broad picture of what needs to happen. Let the voters listen and decide, rather than pushing one candidate at a secret meeting, please.
Pauline in Rochester
When all is said and done, I still believe the DFL Party blew it in spades when they endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher over Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak at this year’s state convention. Margaret is an intelligent, competent state legislator; however, she was and is not electable on a state-wide level. On the other hand, R. T. Rybak is highly electable state-wide, is well-known and well-liked, and would have been a guaranteed win for the DFL had he been the party’s endorsed nominee for governor. If circumstances in the endorsement process had played out with a “touch of common sense” rather than surrendering to who had control of the party machinery, the DFL would not be in the position it is now of having to grapple with an unsavory, puzzling candidate like Mark Dayton. While less poison than the completely unelectable king of self-promotion Matt Entenza, I do believe that, after Minnesotans begin to focus on the November elections in earnest — and after the smoke clears on election day — the next governor of Minnesota will either be Tom Emmer or, considering Minnesota’s propensity for fluke candidates, Tom Horner. If I am proven wrong, then I will be the first to say that, politically speaking, Mark Dayton has more lives than a cat.