Team Minnesota to Move Us Forward
By Brandon
Campos
As
they
say, it takes a village to raise a child. It took tens of
thousands of craftsmen more than 20 years to build the Great Pyramids
at Giza. It took dozens of engineers and thousands of workers
to build the Panama Canal. It is going to take all of us, led
by a team of five dedicated and committed individuals, to take back
Minnesota on November 7th.
On the campaign trail, we’ve been asked by the curious and by
those who ultimately have tried to copy our efforts (the Republicans),
why a team? The greatest achievements have never been done by
any one person alone. Martin Luther King had Coretta Scott
King, Bayard Rustin, and the entire Southern Christian Leadership
Conference. Frida Kahlo had Diego Rivera. Peter
Hutchinson has Maureen Reed as his Lieutenant Governor, Joel Spoonheim
for Secretary of State, Lucy Gerold for State Auditor, and John James
for Attorney General.
Each of these amazing individuals, along with each one of us, is
committed to bringing the focus of Minnesota back to the main things:
transportation that works, health care that is world class and
affordable, an environment that is sustainable and clean, and an
educational system that is fully funded, fully supported, and able to
prepare our young people for successful lives. These are the
issues that affect our lives the most and determine whether we are able
to achieve our hopes and dreams.
The Governor alone can not make the wide ranging changes that the
people of Minnesota are demanding. We need a single team of
constitutional officers who are willing to set aside self-glorification
for collective advancement by focusing on a common agenda. We
need a Secretary of State who is actually interested in assisting in
citizens expressing their right to vote instead of dreaming up ways of
making voting harder for working men and women. We need an
Attorney General who has his eye on doing the work of the people and
defending the rights of citizens before the law, rather than objecting
only after preventable legislation has been passed (all the while with
his eye on the Governor’s mansion on Summit Ave).
And, it would be nice to have a State Auditor that will build strong
working relationships between the state and local
municipalities. Lastly, Minnesotans will win when we have a
Lieutenant Governor who is a qualified and proven leader instead of a
talking head who contributes little to the governance of Minnesota in
four years time.
It’s time to get Minnesota back on track. Support
Team Minnesota: join the team!
More Media Coverage For IP Candidates: Ask
For It!
Larry
Anderson is an active member of the IP Team, chairing the Candidate
& Campaign Support Committee and the 2006 Candidate Screening
Committee.
Minnesota Public Radio has been one of Larry’s priorities to
encourage them to pay more attention to our IP Candidates, particularly
on the issue of Education. He went to one of the MPR execs to
finally receive a favorable and direct response! Mr. Bill
Buzenberg’s response pointed out that MPR has covered a
number of IP events and assigned another associate to respond with
specifics to Larry’s question. We anticipate
another productive response in our mutually positive relationship with
MPR.
Larry, we salute your fine efforts once again! Your work is
an inspiration for all of us to make similar efforts with media around
Minnesota on behalf of our candidates.
Operations Help Wanted: State Party Office
Campaign
season draws heavily on those with experience, and so it has done with
the IP's John Vinje, who has left us to work with the Fitzgerald Senate
campaign. John is our Operations Chair, and will be away from
us until November. Thus, we're seeking someone with excellent
communications and organizational skills to volunteer to fill in for
him for at least part of that time. This is a volunteer
position, but that means you would set
your own schedule and hours. It's an excellent
opportunity for someone seeking a job, as it provides a way to keep a
blank gap out of your resume, and gives you access to a complete office
environment where you can search for a job when there's nothing going
on in the office, which does sometimes happen. It's also a
great way to get involved with politics, and the Independence
Party. Our office is located in Minneapolis on University
Ave, near KSTP, and next door to the Team Minnesota (Hutchinson for
Governor) offices. This position could
be done from home, with our phone forwarding system, but enough people
come through our door that we'd prefer someone who could actually
physically be in the office, at least one day per week. If
you are interested, please contact Robert Rossi, the party's webmaster
and Operations Vice-Chair, at webmaster-2@mnip.org.
Thanks!
Latest Run Down on Team Minnesota!
By Zach Pettus, Deputy Field Director for Team Minnesota
Team
Minnesota has been
on the go! In the last month, we’ve been in more than two
dozen
parades with our fantastic parade unit--we’ve built a boxing
ring
float with sumo wrestlers wearing DFL and Republican obis going at each
other much they way they do when the Legislature is in
session.
The message we’ve taken to more than 100,000 Minnesotans has
been
met by cheers, applause, and more than one “get ‘er
done”. We’ve dropped more than
10,000 pieces of
literature in just a couple of weeks. And, we’ve
built a
strong partnership with Tammy Lee, the IP-endorsed candidate for
Congress in the 5th District. We will be working with her
staff
in the 5th District to spread our message further, faster, and more
effectively. Our entire team from field to fundraising has
been
going full force and our momentum is building rapidly.
On Thursday, August 10, 8-10 a.m., Peter Hutchinson will speak about
“The Price of Government: Getting the Results We Need in an
Age
of Permanent Fiscal Crisis” as part of the Candidate Forum
sponsored by the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, Center for the
Study of Politics and Governance. Join us in the audience.
The
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs is on the West Bank of the
University of Minnesota campus, 301 19th Ave. S.,
Minneapolis.
Admission is free and a complimentary continental breakfast will be
served. Check out our website, www.teammn.com, for our events
calendar and for other ways that you can get involved!
The Greater Good
By
David Allen, IP Platform Chair
One of the
ten Core
Values in the Independence Party’s platform calls for
“political leadership that acts for the greater
good.” (See
all ten Core Values and the rest of the platform at www.mnip.org/platform).
Some may wonder why is it necessary to state something so obvious. The
answer lies in the extremism which increasingly sways our political
system and often results in fanatic views being put ahead of the
greater good.
Consider one of the many examples of moderate politicians losing
influence within their political parties. On the national scene, many
believe Senator John McCain failed to get the Republican nomination for
president in 2000 because of opposition from the extreme religious
right. In the Democratic party, Senator Joseph Lieberman, a former vice
presidential candidate, is being opposed for reelection in Connecticut
mostly because he is seen by left-wing extremists as insufficiently
anti-Bush.
This same trend is occurring here in Minnesota. Governor Arne Carlson,
widely recognized as a very competent governor, was not endorsed by his
own Republican party when he ran for reelection because he
wasn’t
judged as sufficiently extreme on certain Republican issues. Kelly
Doran, the only moderate running for governor this year within the
Democratic party, had to drop out before the Democratic convention
because the delegates to that convention would not consider supporting
a moderate.
While many of us have beliefs that are so strong we are unwilling to
compromise them, the growing movement to insist that our political
leaders refuse to compromise on certain issues leads to ineffective
government and polarization of our society. Think about the difference
between holding views strongly and being a functioning member of a
community. Most of us don’t wear our strongly held values on
our
sleeves when we go out shopping and we don’t let these values
get
in the way of doing our jobs. We intuitively understand and respect the
fact that others have different views – and we also know that
we
won't accomplish anything constructive by trying to force our views
down other people’s throats. While we may try to get others
to
change their views, we know it would be foolish to refuse to interact
or work with all those with whom we disagree. Yet this unconstructive
foolishness is exactly how our political leadership is increasingly
behaving.
Unfortunately, this is a self-reinforcing trend. As politicians with
extreme and uncompromising positions increasingly control the big
political parties, people who share these extreme views become
energized and more politically active while those who just want
government to work effectively are forced to the sidelines. It has
gotten to the point where some cynical political leaders are even
inventing issues (think flag burning) to try to keep extremists engaged
and actively supporting them.
The fact is that most people want our government to implement
reasonable, not extreme social policies and that, for the most part,
most people don’t want the work of government to be held
hostage
to extremist views. Most of us recognize that we live in a big and
diverse society, and that some of the values we personally embrace
within our families, places of worship and circles of friends are not
going to be shared by everyone else in our society. And we also
understand that our government needs to represent everyone in our
society.
Effective leaders focus on responsible governance and representing what
they believe to be good and right. Gridlock and polarization result
when ineffective leaders promote extremist agitation over the greater
good. The Independence Party seeks to elect responsible politicians of
good character who will be effective. We don’t do litmus
tests
– we want our politicians to serve the greater good.
Ramsey County Beat
The
IP has endorsed a candidate for Ramsey Soil and Water Conservation
District Supervisor from District 4. The DFL had already
endorsed
a candidate for this non-partisan and unpaid position. This
position can help favorably influence our environment! All
Ramsey
County voters vote for all Supervisors, so check out the candidate
qualifications at his website: www.proenvironment.info
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