[Mpls] 8th ward convention

[wmmarks]

I handicapped this one right. Five for six. (We need not talk about Mr. 
Robinson, who failed to find someone to nominate him from the floor and 
was thus excluded by his own hand.)

Despite the errors made by the City Pages reporter, it is still true 
that race played a part in the result of no endorsement in the 8th. 
Class played a larger roll, but the no endorsement comes, I think, from 
other sectors entirely.

Of the candidates who stepped up to the mike--Hayden, Hauser, Glidden, 
Bediako, and Tifft,--not one of those five seeking endorsement was 
clearly "the one." While I would still assert that Hayden was the best 
of them, none of the five could collect a secure majority on his/her own 
hook.

Points I noticed:

In a ward with a high concentration of blue and pink collar families, 
only one, Hauser, talked about labor. For many in the ward organized 
labor is a step up to better wages, benefits, and better treatment at 
work from the unorganized labor they now have. That's a failing on the 
part of all the candidates who ignored those constituent needs. This 
might more accurately indicate  why many of Hauser's delegates moved to 
no endorsement.

The long-standing, frequently refreshed, enmity between King Field and 
other parts of the ward influenced, to some degree, whether people would 
vote for Glidden. Some were absolutely unwilling to consider a candidate 
from King Field. Whether any from King Field held to that standard, 
refusing to vote from someone not from KF, I cannot say.

Two main candidates, Glidden and Hayden, lost delegates when, after the 
fifth ballot (maybe the fourth), the candidates declared themselves 
against the 35W Access Project in an attempt to gain ascendancy. There 
were several delegates who were furious at that declaration and yanked 
their support, choosing no endorsement.

There was at least a small contingency who wanted no endorsement because 
they wanted all the candidates out on the hustings to hear from the 
residents of the ward over the summer. To me, that indicates not only 
that no candidate was clearly "the one," but that those delegates did 
not want to take responsibility for promoting Mr. or Ms. Almost-the-one.

WizardMarks, Central