As elections get ever closer, the level of vitriol keeps escalating. The crisis du jour happens to be a set of mailings that have gone out from Minneapolis Works! that have been in support of some of the less liberal candidates for city council. The hints of big, downtown money swaying the election has even brought out the most dreaded word imaginable in Minneapolis elections.
Republicans.
Now realistically we don't have Republicans as a political force in Minneapolis. Sure, we had one run for mayor in 2013, but to borrow from the legend of Keyser Soze, and like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that DFLers tell their kids at night. Run against a more liberal candidate, and the Republicans will get you. And no one ever really believes.
So this mailer comes out, and to be honest, the real story ought to be that these really rich political action groups had to crib campaign photos without permission and used poorly cropped Getty image photoshops. With that much money, if you want to be progressive with an actual 'p' then hire a northside photographer from a minority-owned business or a local arts group to take actual photos, and then get another such business to design the postcard. Instead, the uproar is that the less liberal candidates were called "progressive," when the new crop of left-wing candidates thinks that word belongs to them.
And the problem with that is that the DFL in Minneapolis is essentially the only path to political legitimacy (Sorry, Cam Gordon, but until we get more Green Party representation, I stand by the assessment). So ascendancy within the DFL party, and the DFL endorsement at conventions is not a consensus by Democrats of who represents their values. It is instead a tool to be used to gain the appearance of credibility.
Contrast that with statewide DFL conventions and endorsements...
