Young: So, what, exactly, did Minnesota’s party caucuses for 2010 show?

Minnesota became famous for its caucus system of selecting candidates and party leaders. Yet today our political system seems out of touch with the people-and given over to gridlock and intransigence.

To me, Tuesday’s caucuses revealed themselves to be part of the problem.

According to the Minnesota Secretary of State’s website, in the 4,106 reporting Republican caucuses across the state, some 19,452 party activists attended. At the 3,399 DFL reporting caucuses, some 22,374 attended.

Registered voters in Minnesota: 3,178,050 persons.

Small tail; big dog.

Average attendance was roughly 5 to 6 people per caucus. And they speak for the people?

When a party cell gets down to those numbers, the party has lost touch with the people. Activists become those with their own axes to grind; they tend to be narrow, if passionate, in their thinking and loyal to particular causes, interests and personalities. Such a party is more a faction than a traditional American political coalition.

Plus, such a party is more easily controlled by insiders.

So, when DFLer Mark Dayton decides to skip the caucuses and go to the people, seeking their support through a primary, I find it hard to fault him.

My take on the caucus results is that they confirmed the status quo within the Republican Party but provided some new dynamics for the DFL.

On the Republican side, Rep. Marty Seifert of Marshall and Rep. Tom Emmer of Delano roughly split the straw poll votes of those who attended; the way I see it, even though Seifert got 50 percent and Emmer 40 percent, the results confirm a core of party activists split into two camps.

There are the regulars who line up behind an establishment centered on the state party office and who for the most part follow directions; then there is the opposition or the “grass roots” candidate. In general, the opposition is more conservative, more emotional, more mistrustful of those in power and more demanding of accountability toward the core values of family, work and fidelity to Christian teachings. These days, the folks who are “grass roots” are populist and angry over America’s slide in the financial crisis, which was none of their doing though they were the most vulnerable to recessionary trends.

The “grass roots” just does not see its values reflected in government and so resents taxation to support what it does not believe in and those who oppose, disparage and undermine its beliefs.

But if Tom Emmer and his allies could not pack the caucuses with his supporters, that is a sign of something. For him to get only 40 percent support among caucus attendees does not bode well for his getting the endorsement for governor at the state convention coming up in a few months.

Perhaps the alienation of the grass roots is not so widespread, or perhaps, more likely, members of the grass roots don’t identify with the Republican Party as much as they once did, seeing the GOP as dominated by the wealthy and by certain business interests.

On the DFL side, the ability of Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak to edge out House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher of Minneapolis in the straw poll was an important straw in the wind. Even within a small pool of party activists, Rybak’s ability to get the support of more than 4,000 attendees after a late entrance into the race for endorsement as governor showed his appeal.

And yet, his base of Minneapolis could well account for most of this support. Winning the straw poll in a few caucuses with many attendees - relative to all the other caucuses - would be enough to reach that total of support.

One would have thought that with her prominence, her endorsements by significant leaders and her early entrance into the race, Anderson Kelliher would have done better than 20 percent of the straw poll. From this I conclude that DFL activists are looking for some quality of celebrity charm and flair in a candidate.

Supporting this thought was the poor showing of the two Iron Rangers in the caucus straw polls: Neither Sen. Tom Bakk of Cook nor Rep. Tom Rukavina of Virginia did well at all in the poll. Bakk got the support of 1,290 attendees and Rukavina that of 1,517. That’s not a lot of people turning out for either man.

Yet, in the results of fundraising for 2009 announced this week, Bakk reported raising $339,925, a most respectable figure when compared with the amounts raised by other candidates. But money raised does not always translate into voter appeal.

In combining caucus support with money raised, it is hard to see how Susan Gaertner can continue with hopes for eventual success in getting party’s endorsement for governor. Gaertner raised $163,910 last year and won the straw poll support of 441 persons.

Of course, the caucuses didn’t tell us much about the prospects of two prominent DFL candidates for governor - Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza. They are saving their efforts for the primary. And Dayton is now committed to self-financing his media outreach to the primary voters.

I myself like the idea of primaries, but I don’t like the link between primaries and cash spent on advertising. The flaw in our primary system is its dependence on spending money in an age of television and other social media.

In this respect, our political system resembles more a Mall-of-America, short-term, feel-good-right-now consumerism than it reflects understanding of tough issues and commitment to long-haul solutions.

Steven B. Young is executive director of the Caux Round Table, an international network advocating ethical principles for business and government. He was dean of Hamline Law School and now teaches ethics at the Carlson School of Management. He ran for the Republican Party nomination for the U.S. Senate in 1996. You can reach him via e-mail at Steve@cauxroundtable.net.