KEITH ELLISON UPDATE

Hi, it's Howie's friend, Isaac Peterson in Minnesota coming at you with another stream of consciousness rant about politics here in the Icicle State. You're not going to see a lot of what I'm about to tell you in most other places.

Well Keith Ellison did it. He won his primary race yesterday convincingly against three Democratic Party challengers and is now only one step away from becoming both the first black person to represent the land of lakes, icicles, and mosquitoes in the US House of Representatives as well as this country's first Muslim in the federal legislature.

In the field of four candidates, Keith took 41% of the vote, with the next leading opponent pulling in 31%. And that's pretty remarkable considering what Keith was up against.

First, Keith had to contend with not only the right wing smear machine, but the mainstream media set out at top speed to sink him from the very first minute he got the endorsement last spring. They
had a field day with Keith's being Muslim. Interestingly, that only seemed to have traction with the far right.

And a real funny thing happened with that tactic. While the media was flogging his Muslim ties and how it was causing tension between Keith and the "Jewish community," prominent Jewish residents of Minneapolis were speaking in support of Keith and his candidacy. One threw his weight and muscle behind Keith and hosted fundraisers. One of his most vocal supporters was a fellow member of the Minnesota House who is Jewish and stumped unceasingly and unapologetically for Keith. His name
is Frank Hornstein and he is honestly one of the nicest, most sincere guys I've ever met.


So the media kept digging for any dirt they could find. Keith had had tax troubles; Keith wasn't filing his campaign paperwork on time; Keith had unpaid traffic fines, etc.

Meanwhile, his opponents got a complete free pass on everything, and they each had some serious unreported baggage. While Keith was getting pilloried in the press, the reports on his opponent Ember Reichott Junge were about her being with Up With People during the Viet Nam War, for one instance. No mention of how she has screwed up everything she's touched since she was in the Minnesota Senate about 800 years ago. They did mention how her campaign ads gave the impression she was DFL endorsed and was forced to recall all those materials, but no big deal was made about it. Definitely nowhere near what it would have been if it had been Keith.

When it got to be too obvious to deny that the election was Keith's to lose, the major daily here, the Star Tribune finally ran a couple of articles that weren't critical of Keith. Their political reporter couldn't resist getting in a comment that Keith had been dogged by criticism, but she neglected to mention that she was one of the lead dogs in the pack.

In all of this, Keith ran a smart, positive campaign, which at least one of his opponents couldn't say. Keith kept to the high road through it all and talked about progressive ideas and values. He did not deny some negligence on his part in the past, owned up to and took responsibility for missteps and came across as forthright and sincere, which I think he was. Keith's natural ability as a dynamic speaker served him well, but I don't think he was putting on an act for the cameras.

That played real well when it turned out that the campaign manager for one of Keith's opponents, Paul Ostrow, was directing some behind the scenes smears against Keith. He was forced to resign, and Paul's campaign took a serious PR hit that it never recovered from. Also, a tape surfaced with the campaign manager actually planning some smears. Paul Ostrow until recently was the president of the Minneapolis city council, which has more power than the mayor. Not one of his colleagues
endorsed him.

Paul ended up with 5% of the primary vote and egg on his face.

Mike Erlandson was the one that landed 31% of the primary vote. He was an aide to Martin Sabo, whose office Keith and the others were running for, and former chairman of the Minnesota DFL. He
was also Sabo's choice for his own replacement.

No one seemed to get around to mentioning the reason Mike isn't the chairman any more. He would not have survived a re-election vote for that office. Confidence in him was in negative numbers. Among other things, Mike presided over the DFL when the GOP became the overwhelming majority in the Minnesota House of Representatives. His philosophy seemed to be that DLC idiocy that Democrats need to run as faux-Republicans to win.


And while Martin Sabo endorsed Mike, Keith topped him there--Minnesota
favorite son Walter Mondale supported Keith.

A last couple of things and then I'm gone.

Keith is running in the same district that elected a black woman from the Green Party to city council late in 2001. She only served one term though--she was defeated in the last election by a black man
who is a Democrat. That district is not afraid to ignore popular "wisdom."

For Keith to have gotten this far is nothing short of amazing--he was only first elected to public office in 2002, and all his opponents are long-time public officials. Party animals really, and all plain vanilla, so to speak. With Keith as the front runner from the start of the first lap, every single one tried to run as progressives. But even with the full weight of the media behind them and against Keith, I think people were able to figure out who was the real-deal only progressive in the race. That district is one of the most solid Democratic strongholds in this blue state, and people voted for the only real progressive in the group.

And the last thing: Alan Fine, who won the GOP primary for the seat on Tuesday has already started attacking Keith with the same crap his former opponents and the media got nowhere with. He's got no ideas, no vision, so all he can do is attack. The previous attacks on Keith backfired and actually made him more attractive to some voters that may not have voted for him otherwise.

I can't wait until the day after the general election in November. I love the smell of napalmed Republicans in the morning.

You can't buy entertainment as good as watching politics in this state.