[Mpls] 6th Ward race/8th ward race

[Tim Bonham]

>  It includes this speculation:
>
>People are wondering aloud who will replace Samuels in the new 3rd Ward.
>Lisa Dziedzic's name comes up most frequently, but former candidates like
>Olin Moore, who lost the DFL endorsement to Samuels by a hair's breadth,
>Makeda Zulu and others, cannot be counted out. One speculation has Dziedzic
>declining the opportunity to compete for the seat, and Dean Zimmermann
>moving into the district to run.

Boy, there's so much wrong here, you wonder how a self-respecting newspaper 
could ever print this.

"Lisa Dziedzic"?  Karen (Kari) Dziedzic is the name I've heard 
mentioned.  I don't even know if there is a Lisa in the Dziedzic family.
(And there are other, even more well-known, names being mentioned.)

"Olin Moore, who lost the DFL endorsement to Samuels" -- Olin Moore won the 
DFL endorsement; Don Samuels did not, he came in second.

And "by a hair's breadth"?  It was 62% to 38%; not what I'd even call 
close.  (All the actual numbers for that, and every DFL endorsement contest 
since 2001 are available online at www.mpls.dfl.org, to anybody who takes 
the time to do research before printing.)

Besides, no DFL endorsement is ever close -- the rules require at least 60% 
vote for an endorsement.  That means that the 2nd place candidate has to be 
at least 20% lower.  If there are more than 2 candidates still in the race, 
it means all the rest of them put together must be more than 20% lower.  If 
it's close, the Convention will deadlock, and no candidate will be 
endorsed.  (Like the 2001 City Convention, where candidates Sharon Sayles 
Belton & RT Ryback were within ± 2% of each other, for multiple ballots 
over several hours.  Neither was ever close to the 60% needed for endorsement.)

"Makeda Zulu and others, cannot be counted out."  Unless she's moved since 
last March, Makeda now lives in 8th ward, so probably CAN be counted out 
for 5th ward.  Unless she too is planning on moving into the ward and 
starting a candidacy in the next 5 weeks.

Finding this many errors in one paragraph of a story I know about makes me 
wonder about the accuracy of the other stories in the paper, where I don't 
know enough to recognize any errors.

Tim Bonham, Ward 12, Standish-Ericsson