Caucus night throwdown: Kelliher v. Rybak at Jefferson Elementary

Homegirl Margaret Anderson Kelliher was a Tuesday night no-show at a pair of precinct caucuses in her House district, but she was still Uptown’s DFL darling.

The caucuses took place on turf that both Kelliher and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak could claim as their own, with the House Speaker besting the Minneapolis mayor, 40 straw-poll votes to 30.

Neither candidate paid a visit to Jefferson Elementary School, where Democrats from Precincts 10-1 and 10-2 gathered in the basement cafeteria and adjoining gym.

One caucus-goer, reading aloud from a clipboard, stood in for Rybak, delivering his stump speech down to its trademark soundbite (”I was born in a great state and I don’t want to die in a mediocre one”).

The absence of Kelliher, who won’t run to retain her current seat no matter how she fares in the governor’s race, was felt most keenly during stump speeches by three DFLers who aim to replace her.

Tom Nordyke, the former Minneapolis park board president who lost a bid at re-election last November, likened his knack for bringing money into the district to Kelliher’s. He promised to hit the Capitol grounds walking, not running — because, he said, “no one runs as fast as Margaret.”

Katie Hatt’s opening line — “This is an election about the post-Pawlenty era” — met applause in one room and silence in the next. Hatt, an aide to Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, didn’t boast about her ties to Kelliher but made sure to tell caucus-goers that she had attended school at Jefferson, and that her sister teaches there.

Marion Greene, a Medicare analyst at St. Jude Medical who managed Kelliher’s 2006 House campaign, named the speaker as her mentor.

But there was other business at hand. As Greene spoke, veteran caucus convener Steven Price sat nearby in a blue pinstripe suit, counting dollar bills collected for the DFL in a knit cap with ear flaps and a “Lakers” logo.

There were fewer than 50 people at the DFL’s precinct 10-2 caucus down the hall in the gym, and another 75 or so at the 10-1 caucus in the cafeteria — a far cry from the Obama-fueled attendance of two years ago, Price recalled, when the school’s auditorium overflowed with caucus attendees.

Neither caucus was able to fill all its allotted delegate slots, meaning they went to whoever would have them.

The evening’s most contentious moment came when the 10-1 caucus voted to give a rules committee seat to a delegate who was uncommitted in the race for Kelliher’s District 60A seat. In so doing they passed over a Greene-backing delegate who ended up as an alternate to the committee instead.

Most of the drama, unsurprisingly, came from the non-binding straw-poll vote. The almost uniformly youthful crowd in the cafeteria favored Kelliher to Rybak, 27-16. The smaller, more mixed-age group in the gym gave their mayor the edge over their state representative, 16-14.

Placing third in the precincts’ straw-poll votes was another Minneapolitan, state Rep. Paul Thissen, who garnered five votes from each precinct. His Senate colleague, John Marty (DFL-Roseville), trailed Thissen’s total by one.

“Uncommitted,” a major player in the statewide results - and viewed by many as a crypto-vote for former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, who opted to stay off the ballot - attracted support from only four voters at Jefferson.

Two caucus-goers, meanwhile, ignored the absence of a write-in slot on the ballot and voted for Dayton anyway.

Among Republicans meeting in smaller numbers upstairs at the same school, former GOP state auditor Pat Anderson likewise got two votes for governor, despite withdrawing from that race to re-enter the hunt for her old position as auditor.

The GOP polling at Jefferson mirrored results statewide, with state Rep. Marty Seifert beating his House colleague, Tom Emmer, 11 votes to 8, out of 25 ballots cast.

Wearing a black t-shirt with “Right Wing Extremist” emblazoned above Mount Rushmore and the legend “Guess I’m in Good Company,” GOP convener Doug Daggett took in the scene as five SD60 precinct caucuses got underway in another Jefferson school gymnasium.

“I want you to look around,” Daggett said. “Every single conservative in the district is here.”

There was one GOP caucus per table, and one table had only three people. No candidates stopped by. The room was a little forlorn, but Republicans in this DFL stronghold accept their lot with camaraderie and joviality.

“The few, the proud,” Precinct 10-10 Chair Bob Davis joked. “We recognize each other on the street.”

While Democrats downstairs finished the evening debating wishful, far-ranging resolutions (to end poverty in Minnesota by 2020, to enforce laws requiring captions for deaf citizens on candidates’ TV and web ads), several of the GOP tables grappled with national issues, armed with printouts of their state party platform.

Mitch Rossow, wearing an “Enjoy Capitalism” button, tried to convince six others at the Precinct 10-11 table that the 17th Amendment needs repealing. He said the U.S. Senate should only vote up or down on bills the U.S. House of Representatives passes.

Last to adjourn at Jefferson School were the four Republicans from Precinct 10-1, still rigorously applying Robert’s Rules of Order after two hours. They debated and passed one resolution after another, moving to repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and the USA Patriot Act, before finishing the evening with a ceremonious straw poll in which environmentalist and rogue Republican Leslie Davis got one vote to Seifert’s two.

The start of a Davis surge? No, probably not.

Photos from the SD 60 precinct caucuses at Jefferson Elementary and the SD 42 caucuses at Eden Prairie High School:

One Response to “Caucus night throwdown: Kelliher v. Rybak at Jefferson Elementary”

1. Chris Says:
   February 4th, 2010 at 9:15 am

   You are absolutely wrong!

   “’Uncommitted,’ a major player in the statewide results - and viewed by many as a crypto-vote for former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, who opted to stay off the ballot - attracted support from only four voters at Jefferson.”

   The reNew campaign, a project of Take Action Minnesota, a major interest group in the State (and especially in liberal areas like uptown) were telling their supporters to vote “uncommitted” (they have endorsed three candidates and likely want to get the three groveling as much as possible before the convention). This was an organized (and well publicized) movement. I am not part of Take Action campaign but I was well aware of it. I liked to know who the “viewed by many” are. While I am sure a portion is attributable to Dayton, I would imagine an equal or greater amount is attributable to reNew.