Senate race shows need for runoff system

By: Nick Hannula , Duluth News Tribune

As I write this, the 2008 election for U.S. Senate in Minnesota is, as of yet, undecided. Incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman and challenger Al Franken each won about 42 percent of the vote. Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley scored 15 percent. Coleman and Franken are separated by hundreds of votes, with Coleman holding a slim advantage. Per Minnesota law, ballots are being recounted to decide the race’s winner.

Whichever candidate prevails will have barely won a narrow victory to the dissatisfaction of the majority of Minnesota voters; 58 percent will have not voted for the winner.

This race and other recent elections underscore a need in Minnesota to reform election law.

Coleman also failed to meet the 50 percent threshold in his 2002 election. The last three gubernatorial elections — in 1998, 2002 and 2006 — were won with 37 percent, 44 percent and 46 percent of the vote, respectively. And this year, two Minnesota congressional seats were won without a majority of the vote.

The fact that most voters did not choose former Gov. Jesse Ventura, Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Sen. Coleman, Rep.-elect Erik Paulsen and Rep. Michele Bachmann in their respective races is problematic. Voters’ choices are not accurately being portrayed through the election results.

Third-party candidates have skewed results from whichever candidate is actually preferred by the voters.

The Independence Party and other third parties hold a strong place in Minnesota, and, as such, should not be disenfranchised in our system. Rather, they should exist within a system that allows a candidate, no matter the party, to win with a majority of the vote.

To solve the problem of the non-majority electoral victory, Minnesota should adopt either a two-round runoff system or an instant runoff system.

A two-round runoff system would mean that, if no candidate attains an absolute majority on Election Day, the top two candidates would proceed to a second round soon afterward. The winner at the second round wins the office. Similar systems are in place in states and localities nationwide, including Louisiana and Georgia.

The other choice is instant runoff voting, or IRV. In IRV, voters mark their choices for any given office in order of preference. If their first choice is not among the top two vote-getters, their vote is redistributed to their second choice. For example, in this year’s Senate race, a voter could have marked Barkley as their first choice and Franken as their second choice. As Barkley ended up in third place, his votes would have moved to Franken and Coleman, depending on how individual voters marked their ballots. The end result would have been a majority victory for either Franken or Coleman. This would result in a faster victory for one candidate or the other, but tends to be more confusing than the two-round system.

Whichever choice is made, electoral reform is needed in Minnesota. We cannot have our elected officials take office without the election results being anything but the best representation of the voters’ choice.

Nick Hannula grew up in Duluth, graduating from Denfeld High School in 2006. He’s a senior at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., double-majoring in political science and economics. He interned this summer in the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar

forwarded to me by Michael Schaefer

10 Surprising Stories About Election 08 from FairVote

1. Electoral Reform on the Ballot – New Victories and Implementations for Instant Runoff Voting:

This November’s ballot measures showed that Americans are ready to transform our politics. Landslide majorities voted for spoiler-free, majority elections through instant runoff voting (IRV) in Memphis, Tennessee (71% - see www.yesonfive.org) and Telluride, Colorado (67%), which extends a nearly unbroken string of wins for IRV in ballot measures since 2002. Meanwhile, an opportunity to win the ranked choice form of proportional representation lost in Cincinnati (see www.eightisgreat.org) after a late infusion of opposition money and deceptive advertising dropped the majority support won among early voters down to 47%. Other FairVote-endorsed reforms won with more than 70% of the vote in Maryland (for early voting) and Connecticut (for 17-year-old primary voting), while redistricting reform won in California.

Instant runoff voting had a terrific first election in Pierce County, Washington, accommodating a full range of voter choice in a high-turnout general election. If early returns hold up, the system will elect the first women county executive in the state’s history, with her victory dependent on the preferences of the third and fourth place candidates that vaulted her from second into first. San Francisco also held its fifth set of IRV elections; local press lauded the impact it had in reducing the degree of negative attacks that too often dominate our politics.

Stay tuned for major reforms in the coming year that we expect can be won in legislatures and on the ballot. The nation had learned a lot about why we need to care about electoral rules and mechanics. Now is the time for action.

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2. The 2008 Spoiler Effect – Key Non-Majority Winners (and non-winners):

Speaking of instant runoff voting, despite the decisive and incontestable victory of, the spoiler problem again showed the need for IRV. Minor party candidacies had a major impact on several races:

• Even with Barack Obama’s strong national numbers and the low vote totals for minor party and independent presidential candidates, electoral votes in three states and one congressional district were won over the opposition of most voters in that jurisdiction. Obama’s 49.9% of the vote in Indiana defeated John McCain by a margin less than Libertarian Bob Barr’s 1.1%. Obama won North Carolina with 49.7% of the vote (Barr won 0.59%), while McCain carried Missouri with only 49.4% of the votes (where Obama won 49.2 % and Ralph Nader 0.6%). Obama also looks likely to pick up an electoral vote by taking Nebraska’s second congressional district with less than 50%.
  
  
• Nine U.S. House seats were elected with less (and sometimes far less) than a majority of the vote, including Ohio’s Second district that was won with only 45%.
  
  
• The Senate had several non-majority results. In Oregon, Democrat Jeff Merkley will win narrowly with less than 49% of the vote, while Republican Ted Stevens looks likely to be re-elected in Alaska with a similar vote-share. In Minnesota, where fully 14 of the last 20 statewide races have been won with less than 50%, Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley won 437,377 votes (15%) and two other candidates won more than 20,000 votes in an election in which incumbent Republican Norm Coleman leads his Democratic challenger Al Franken by merely 326 votes – they are now going to a recount. IRV would have given the backers of Barkley and the other third party candidates a way in choosing between the frontrunners, both of whom won less than 42% of the vote.
  
  Meanwhile, Georgia requires its Members of Congress to win a majority of the vote, and incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss leads with 49.8% in a race where Libertarian Allen Buckley won 3.1%. Chambliss will face Democrat Jim Martin in a December 2nd runoff. Turnout is sure to plunge from Georgia’s record participation this week, and the candidates and their backers will spend millions. IRV would have given us a clean winner on election night.

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3. Closer Than You Think – How McCain Could Have Won While Losing by Seven Million Votes:

Barack Obama apparently has won 365 electoral votes (if he picks up Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district), which is 95 votes more than needed to win. He also has won a comfortable majority of the national popular vote, defeating John McCain by more than seven million votes. But remarkably a shift of less one-third of a percent of all votes cast would have elected McCain.

Thanks to the current Electoral College system, our President is elected through 56 separate contests (50 states, five congressional districts and the District of Columbia), rather than a single nationwide contest. A shift of fewer than 398,615 votes in seven states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Indiana, North Carolina, Colorado, and New Hampshire) would have given Sen. McCain a majority of 273 electoral votes.

Indeed, in five of the last 12 elections, relatively small shifts of votes would have elected the second-place winner. In 1976, for example, shifts of 3,687 votes in Hawaii and 5,559 votes in Ohio would have resulted in a win for Gerald Ford despite Jimmy Carter’s 1.7 million national lead. Similarly, in 2004, a shift of 59,393 votes in Ohio would have nullified President Bush’s 3.5 million-vote lead nationwide and elected John Kerry.

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4. The Electoral College Swing State Map Grew Smaller, Not Larger – The Real Presidential Partisan Geography:

Despite many pundits’ claims that the Electoral College map has been redrawn, this election in fact reduced the number of swing states in a nationally even year. A state is only a true swing state when it has a real chance to decide the election. This year, Barack Obama won by 6% nationally, allowing him to win states like North Carolina and Indiana that he didn’t need to win – and that he would not have won in a nationally even contest this year.

The biggest changes in the underyling partisanship of states have been states moving further into the non-competitive realm, with the number of competitive states (partisanship between 47% and 53%) dwindling. By our partisan measures that are remarkably accurate predictors of likely swing states four years before an election, only 11 states are now likely to be competitive in a 50-50 year in 2012, down from 13 after 2004,16 after 2000 and 33 after 1976. Of the 13 states with the most competitive partisanship, 11 are repeats from 2004, with Indiana and North Carolina moving into competitive range and Michigan and New Mexico shifting to a pronounced Democratic tilt. The great majority of states did not shift their partisanship definition by more than 3%; the biggest movers were two non-swing states, Hawaii (moving decidedly toward Democrats and their home state candidate Obama) and Arkansas (moving sharply toward Republicans)

Look for FairVote’s updated Presidential Election Inequality report to come out by early next year. We will also use information from our Presidential Candidate Tracker (www.fairvote.org/tracker) that showed that the candidates held 99% of their campaign events in 17 states.

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5. Making History (or not) - Stagnant Representation of Women and People of Color:

In this year’s presidential election, the candidacies of African American Barack Obama, Latino Bill Richardson and women Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin captured the imagination of millions of Americans. Sen. Obama of course became the first person of color ever elected president. But that excitement did not translate into notable gains for diversity in congressional and gubernatorial races:

• African Americans if the Illinois governor does not select an African American to replace Obama. Two women won (Kay Hagan in North Carolina and Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire), but there is only a net gain for women of only one seat, making the Senate 83% male.
• In the House, there was a net gain of only two women – notching women up 0.5% to 16.5%. There were no gains for African Americans and an increase of one Latino, with Ben Lujan’s victory in New Mexico.
• Women defeated men in the two close gubernatorial elections, but there was no net gain for women in governor’s mansions.
• Women did win a remarkable seven statewide offices in North Carolina, while, according to the invaluable analysts at the National Conference of State Legislatures (http://ncsl.typepad.com/the_thicket) the New Hampshire state senate became the first woman-majority state legislative chamber in our nation’s history. On the other hand, the South Carolina state senate became the first legislative chamber to not have a single woman representative since 1991, and the share of women in state legislatures stayed flat at 23.7% -- less than 3% higher than it was in 1993.

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6. Dubious Democracy – The Power of Incumbency Lives On in No-Choice House Races

FairVote’s Dubious Democracy and Monopoly Politics series of reports on congressional elections have played a key role in generating public awareness of the appalling lack of meaningful voter choice in U.S. House races and how partisan imbalance in districts is the key role in determining most winners. This year again showed the overwhelming power of incumbency, with only a handful of incumbent defeats despite “change” being this year’s campaign mantra. Most incumbents won overwhelming victories, with the average victory margin again sure to top 30% and be far beyond the impact of potential changes in redistricting practices or campaign finance laws. Indeed only one reform would give every voter a meaningful choice in House races in every election: replacing winner-take-all elections with a form of proportional representation, as has become the international norm.

As one measure of the frozen nature of U.S. House races, our Monopoly Politics model allows us to project winners in the great majority of upcoming U.S. House races as soon as we know the presidential and congressional results in each district in the previous election--- with our projections only modified by whether a seat becomes open and by what is projected to be the national two-party partisan division. This year our model projected 157 Members who were not expected to face serious challenges in either a strongly Republican year (55% Republican) or strongly Democratic year (55% Democratic). All of these Members indeed were re-elected, and only 11 did not win by landslides of at least 20%.

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7. Voter Turnout and the Swing State Effect – Why Turnout Dropped in Many States:

For years, pundits have argued that young people don't make a difference in elections, but sure wasn’t true in 2008. The organization CIRCLE (www.civicyouth.org) estimates that young people made up a sixth of voters on Tuesday, with somewhere between 22 and 24 million voting – at least a 2.2 million increase from 2004.

This election had the highest overall voter turnout in an American election since at least 1964 -- with a lowball estimate of 62.6%, with ballots still being counted. But our turnout will still be lower than most other well-established democracies, and even that overall rise can be misleading. According to preliminary data, nearly a third of our states (16) experienced a decline in turnout this year. Fourteen of these states were ignored in the presidential race as non-battlegrounds; the only battlegrounds with lower turnout are Pennsylvania and New Mexico. These results are consistent with CIRCLE’s findings in 2004, when eligible voters under 30 were a third more likely to vote in the ten closest states than in the rest of the nation.

This fall, FairVote conducted field research throughout Maryland to determine the most effective tactics to increase youth participating. Results will be released this winter, but in the meantime you can find more information about FairVote's student voting curriculum at fairvote.org/learningdemocracy

. To find complete turnout information for 2008, visit George Mason University Professor Michael McDonald's website (elections.gmu.edu).

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8. Winner-Take-All in the Northeast – A New Era of Democratic Domination:

In the last dozen years, Democrats have won sweeping victories in the Northeast, with the region’s Republican Party now on life-support. After the1992 elections, Republicans in New England and New York collectively held 20 of 54 U.S. House seats and held at least one House or Senate seat in every state. The intervening years for Republicans in the region have been devastating, especially in 2006 and 2008. New England’s last Republican House member, Chris Shays of Connecticut, was defeated this week, and Republicans now hold only 3 of 29 seats in New York and no Senate or House seats in Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont.

The shift has affected down ballot races as well, in both New England and broader swathes of the Northeast. In 2006 Democrats took control of both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature, and this year took control of the New York Senate for the first time in four decades, gained monopoly control in Delaware and greatly expanded their margins in state legislatures throughout the region.

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9. Cleansing Republicans from Democratic House Districts – The Roots of Polarization in Congress Lie in Voters and Winner-Take-All Rules:

Each federal election cycle, FairVote projects U.S. House results (www.fairvote.org/mp) based on the impact of incumbency and which party holds a partisan advantage in each Congressional district as determined by the relative performance of the major party candidates in that district compared to their national average. First developed in 1997, our measure of partisanship was adapted by Charlie Cook for his partisan index. Our initial report that year showed just how powerful the role of district partisanship held. After the 1996 election, of the 82 districts that were at least 59% Republican, Democrats held four. Of the 98 districts that were at least 59% Democratic, Republicans held only one.

Since that time we have seen just how powerful the role of partisanship is in determining which party wins open seats. This year, for example, out of 33 open seats with decisive results, there were 29 went to a candidate with the party that would be expected to win in a 54% Democratic year, including eight of the ten Democratic gains. We also have seen partisanship as the most reliable predictor of where incumbents will lose.

Today, after two consecutive strong elections for Democrats, the impact of partisanship can perhaps be most clearly shown by the steep decline in Democratic districts. After the 1996 elections, Republicans held 37 of the 189 districts with a Democratic partisanship, including more than a third of the 91 districts with a Democratic partisanship between 50% and 58%. Today, however, Republicans hold only ten of the 199 districts that now lean Democratic. Democrats indeed hold all of the 146 most Democratic districts, including every single district that is more than 55% Democratic, and hold all but four of the 177 districts that are more than 51.6% Democratic (with one of those seats still possibly shifting Democratic this year if Dave Reichert loses in Washington State). Of the 44 districts that Republicans held in 2005 in districts that were at least 47.4% Democratic, they now hold just 18.

Democrats today are doing somewhat better in Republican terrain, but watch out – if there is any comparable national toward Republicans in 2010, expect a wipeout of dozens of Democrats in such “red” districts. Republicans have the advantage over Democrats of being able to win a majority of the U.S. House without winning a singe district that is less than 52% Republican.

These numbers tell an important story for those seeking less partisan voting patterns in our legislatures. Many of the Republicans who have lost in Democratic districts were particularly respected by moderates, such ahs Maryland’s Connie Morella, Iowa’s Jim Leach and Connecticut’s Chris Shays. What overpowered them was the combination of winner-take-all elections and voters growing more consistent in their voting patterns. The fact is that the crosscutting representatives that some pundits like to extol are less likely to come from competitive districts as from the other party’s districts. And it is those representatives who are not surviving in today’s highly charged partisan climate.

The only remedy for electing people from the minority party in a majority party’s terrain is a form of proportional representation. One modest example had a highly positive impact in Illinois, where in three seat state legislative districts it took just over a quarter of the vote to win a seat in elections from 1870 to 1980. That system opened the door regularly to the kind of crosscutting representatives who are increasingly unlikely to win today.

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10. Democrats Winning Control of the Process – A Near-Sweep of Secretary of State Races:

Throughout the 2008 cycle, FairVote has tracked Secretary of State races because of that office’s critical role in most states in proposing and administering election policy. This year, six states' chief election officials were up for election, and it’s likely that Democratic women candidates will win five of them. The results are as follows:

• West Virginia -- Natalie Tennant (D)
• Oregon -- Kate Brown (D)
• Montana -- Linda McCulloch (D) leads incumbent Brad Johnson (R) 49%-48% in a raced still too close to call
• Missouri -- Robin Carnahan (D)
• Vermont -- Incumbent Deb Markowitz (D)
• Washington -- Incumbent Sam Reed (R)

FairVote hopes to work with these (and other) officials throughout their term to debate and implement electoral reforms and improve election administration throughout the country. For more on Secretaries of State and our surveys this year of county election officials that were published in five reports on local preparedness and uniformity in election administration, visit www.fairvote.org/sosresearch

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St. Paul Green Chides City Council

Council's runoff voting action defies law

Let the will of more than 7,100 St. Paul citizens be heard. They signed a petition to put instant-runoff voting on the ballot in St. Paul in November. City Council members (except Russ Stark) went against the will of the citizens they were elect[ed] to serve when they chose to ignore the signatures and not put IRV on the ballot (“Instant-runoff voting put on hold” July 30).
The law says that if 5,100 citizens sign a petition to put a referendum on the ballot, then the referendum is put on the ballot. The council defied the law and the will of the people of St. Paul. The council is not above the law or the will of the people. Stark is the only member who seems to know that.
I want a better democracy. It starts when elected officials obey the law.

Amber Garlan, St. Paul

Ranked Choice Voting at Minnesota Senate Subcommittee on Election

Senate Subcommittee on Elections
AGENDA - Ranked Choice Voting
20 November 2007

Senator Dan Larson - Committee Chair

1) Jeanne Massey - FairVote Minnesota

Intro to Ranked Choice Voting by FairVote Minnesota via powerpoint

Senator Chris Gerlach R-Apple Valley - [ Clearly upset, angry about this issue. Wanting to throw a temper tantrum? ]

When he asks for a logical conclusion in an election of 100%, Is he calling for consensus elections? Could we have a blocking concern against a candidate and block the outcome of an election as a single voter? Elections would never have a conclusion in Gerlach's assumption of election consensus. [ Photo is of Gerlach making this leap of logic at consensus voting ]

"Abraham Lincoln elected by a majority"
Partisan primaries and general joined together? Gerlach has not done his homework on IRV when he asked this ridiculous question. He was only given the talking points against Ranked Choice Voting.

2)

John Gilbert - Wake Co. N.C. Board of Elections 2007 -

Carie - 112,000 suburb of Raleigh - saved $28,000 in election costs

Hendersonville 12,000 in Western part of county -

No split votes, neither were partisan. Objectives of county election judges
1) Election conducted with integrity
2)Do all they can within limited authority to facilitate voting by all citizens

2004 Wake County outvoted many other counties, including Charlotte, N.C.
Don't count votes people are not entitled to vote for.
Designing voting laws is not rocket science. This brings us as close as possible to a fair government. Election proved that IRV is as easy as 1,2,3. Rankings only affected one race, an at-large race.

Opponents insist on it being complicated, but people are used to making choices. Exit polls confirmed that voters liked it and had no problems with it. It was the same regardless of ethnicity, income, where they lived, age, or any other criteria.

Gerlach "agrees it simple at the front end. Behind the scenes the choices are manipulated through math and formulations. How many understand how it works?"

Gilbert - "About as many as can explain how are President is elected. The powerpoint makes it look complicated, but it really isn't. There are different ways of tabulating. What we did in Carie was simply voting by hand, though computer programming exists. What people often don't understand, is that their second choice can never be the enemy of their first choice, it brings you closest to majority rule."

Gerlach - "Far more people understand how electoral votes work. Clearly IRV creates a gymnastics of confusion. It is far more complicated than you make it appear."

Gilbert - "IRV is not a left or right issue, is not a Democrat or Republican issue. If you believe that Democracy is that over half the people are right most the time, this brings you the closest to this. "

3)

Betsy Hodges - City Council - Minneapolis

Voted as a council to put Ranked Choice Voting on the ballot. 65% of the voters approved in 2006. Many events to inform public, citizens very enthusiastic of RCV after they understood it.

Cyndy Reichert - Director of Elections - Minneapolis

Studied election law extensively and released a report. ( http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/irvoting.pdf )

Working towards a 2009 elections, and may delay until 2013 to replace equipment with Rank Choice compatible

4) Beth Fraser - Secretary of State's Office

Excited about the process. A statewide issue, other cities are examining this method such as Red Wing and Hopkins.

5) Joe Mansky - Elections Manager for Ramsey County

No position for or against RCV. All voting equipment certified by Secretary of State prior to RCV proposed, currently a "Winner takes all" system. Two voter equipment vendors are working to create equipment that will meet Federal voting standards. We will not use a different or new voting system for a statewide election system.

Cities do not have authority on their own to change their voting system. Cannot be recommended that two different forms of voting occur in the same election. Believes this situation should be prevented. One quarter of Saint Paul's electorate speak another primary language.

Our voting equipment can do a 1st round voting system. We cannot reallocate votes in subsequent rounds. A counting center could do this manually or with different voting equipment. Current equipment allow instant results on our websites in 2008 and 2012.

Replacing the voting equipment, and currently cities and county work together. This becomes a cost issue for both cities and counties. The year 2011 would be the time when most voting equipment in the state would be in need of replacement.

Our election law does not accommodate for RCV.
-maximum round limit for runoff voting
- maximum votes one can cast, permitted to rank all candidates
- procedures for counting
-rules how we can tell voter intent
-how would we conduct a recount

According to the Attorney General, RCV may be unconstitutional in general elections. It does appear as though there may be no constitutional issue with primaries, and RCV could be restricted to these elections. It could also be used in a presidential primary.

Manufacturers understand more demand for RCV and other voting methods. Vendors will not put effort into something they cannot make money on. New generation of voting equipment is needed, but a law is needed to assist us in buying them. Hand-counting is the least accurate form of vote counting in Minnesota.

6) Andy Cilek - Minnesota Voters Alliance ( MNVoters.org )

[ Also seems angry ]

We oppose IRV and RCV - Barbara Johnson [ A corporate-owned DFLer - could easily join the GOP along with Paul Ostrow and Chris Stewart - as Norm Coleman has ] also opposes this.

In Raleigh, they felt it disenfranchised many voters.

Plan to file a legal case against IRV in Minneapolis on December 4th, 2007.

Cannot cast a single choice more than once.

Fatal flaw, voters don't know whether they are helping or hurting their cause.

Senator Sandy Pappas - DFL - Saint Paul - Confused about IRV and normal runoffs.

Andy Cilek also wanted Pappas reprimanded for speaking out of turn.

Gerlach believes votes are not counted fairly. Majority 1st choice voters get a less fair chance.

Gerlach - What value is there a vote in a vote not counted?

Pappas - 3rd Party voters are told their votes are pointless

Gerlach - A vote for Hatch was the same weight per voter as Pawlenty. IRV is a weighted system.

Pappas - Minnesota does not have a runoff election. Only if you have 2 candidates would you have an election where voters can create a majority winning candidate.

7) Fran Hesch - Hopkins - Charter Commission

Volunteer on the Ranked Choice Voting committee

25 page alternative voting taskforce. 6 different voting options were recommended for Hopkins. Supporst alternative voting method choice. Document Hopkins concerns for STV in smaller cities.

1917-1959 Used STV. Hopkins encouraged state of Minnesota to purchase voting equipment that would be STV compatible. IRV is different than STV in multiple seats. IRV could be used for mayor and special elections only,per Hopkins city charter. STV could be used in Hopkins for multiple seats.

Please don't legislate for plurality or STV methods. Minneapolis is the urgent issue and legislation is needed. Any language should not impact a choice of voting methods.

8) Senator John C. Hottinger - Saint Paul

Also volunteering to assist IRV implementation. FairVoteMN.org

2nd Round of counting, you DO count both votes twice. You don't have to come back to the polls again. Voter support for a victor with a majority of the vote. IRV alleviates the concerns of voters. Peter Hutchinson couldn't be voted for because he was outside the two parties, yet he should have been an option instead of seen as a "spoiler."

There will always be discontent over elections. Those who win with less than majority serve as if they were mandated by the voters. 2% of voters turnout for primaries. 2 elections instead of one hurts Democracy.

Minnesotans are frustrated in the way political parties choose their primary candidates.

Pappas - Constitutionality of IRV.

Hottinger - David Schultz from Hamline goes through the Constitutionality of IRV. All votes are counted again during the second round.

Pappas - This is a Minnesota Constitutional issue, not a Federal. How does this voting system work here?

Hottinger - Unsure of how RCV applies to Minnesota Constitution

Link to video podcast:

Real Media Format
http://stream1.video.state.mn.us:8080/ramgen/Senatevideo/cmte_stgovelections_112007.rm

Windows Media Format
mms://stream1.video.state.mn.us:8080/Senatevideo/cmte_stgovelections_112007.wmv

[ All of my comments in parantheses. These are notes and highly paraphrased. But the primary ideas of each individual are expressed ]

Dennis Kucinich -- a can’t lose campaign

Progressives now have a candidate for president in 2008 in Dennis Kucinich.

The corporate media made him their enemy during his 2004 run, when they either ignored him or attacked him. But despite opposition by the powers that be, progressives can only win by his running.

The corporate media have made their choice clear, as in this Associated Press statement on the day Kucinich announced, “New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is considered the party's front-runner, closely followed by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.” Considered by whom?

Ahh, there’s the rub. Considered by the transnational corporations and their Democratic Leadership Council filter on behalf of transnational investors who don’t give a damn about this country or its people, other than what they can steal from both. Hillary and Obama are going to be buried in cash and favorable media coverage as the backup plan, in case the transnational investors can’t cram another Republican down the throats of the electorate.

The corporate media have convinced the American public that candidates such as Kucinich are “out of the mainstream,” which is an outright lie. Their own polling shows the views of Kucinich are indeed mainstream. He wants universal health care, as do the majority of citizens. He wants to cut defense spending, as do the majority. He wants to clean up the environment, as do the overwhelming majority. He wants to bring the troops home from Iraq, as do the majority. You couldn’t be much more mainstream than Dennis Kucinich.

But the mass media have little to do with the mainstream. They represent their owners, board members and advertisers. These are connected to those making billions from war, billions from pollution, and billions from the cruel “health care” system whose primary function is to produce profit, not care.

The corporate media see Kucinich as their enemy and will savage him if he should get decent polling numbers, otherwise they can be expected to try to destroy him with silence, not covering anything he does from fear that he might become a blip on the electoral radar if a profile is raised.

Howard Dean showed that in the Internet age, it is possible to get financing without kneeling before the Big Boys and kissing Big Boy butt. It scared the establishment so much they echoed “the Dean scream” for days throughout corporate media in belittling him in an attempt to destroy his credibility. They won as Dean sizzled to toast from their flames.

It wasn’t that they disagreed with Dean on much outside of the war. It was more the fact that he hadn’t taken their money and they weren’t sure they completely owned his soul. How could such a man be trusted to hold the White House for them?

Now we have a wonderful choice with Kucinich. Old leftists like me, knocked down and knocked out so many times I’m sure there are those who think we must be punch drunk to keep trying for an outbreak of democracy, are urging people to get behind Kucinich in a Can’t Lose Campaign.

Already liberal friends are braying at me that Kucinich doesn’t have a chance. Corporate media echo this suggestion every four years in keeping the sheep in the fold. Stray from the corporate-backed candidates and the world may come to an end. The lesser of evils is the way to go, my man, vote evil -- let me assure you that evil is the way to go.

But Kucinich is not endangering the sacred “two-party system,” staying within the lesser-of-evil shuffle, so at least we don’t have to listen to the whimpering, “If you vote for a Green, the Republicans will win” (so vote for an evil Democrat, who will then stick bamboo shoots under your fingernails, but only nine fingers, unlike his greater evil opponent, who will go for all 10).

I believe Kucinich can actually win the primary if only two things happen. First, he has to raise big bucks on the Internet as Dean did. And second, a massive campaign of education must take place, much like what I do daily at Liberty Underground, informing liberals and leftists of the news beyond the corporate crap which passes for news in the Land of the Free, often framing it within the historical context ignored by the corporate media.

An informed voter must learn early about what will come from the corporate media to savage Kucinich: that he will be accused of being out of the mainstream, a lunatic, a man who will bring down the republic, cause economic doom and despair.

And they will have to learn about the lies told by the corporate media about his opponents. That, for example, Barack Obama is a “peace candidate” who wants out of the war in Iraq. The magnificent black writer Glen Ford pretty much popped that balloon with his recent article.

Obama is for leaving when the Iraqis are trained to be more obedient, like the Bush plan, but we don’t call Bush a man of peace for some reason (could be those hundreds of thousands of innocent dead who kind of stink up that kind of propaganda, or corporate media would go for it). The Bush/Obama plan ends when we have a replacement for Saddam in power, responding to “fetch boy, now roll over, now turn on the oil spigot -- good boy, here’s a biscuit.”

The Kucinich plan is to cut off funding for the war, except for enough to finance bringing our troops home. Now, as a combat vet, that’s what I call supporting the troops!

“Peace candidate” Obama has stated he would bomb Iran or even Pakistan under the right conditions. "Indeed,” he said, “given the depletion of our forces after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will probably need a somewhat higher budget in the intermediate future just to restore readiness and replace equipment." Citizens are not getting defense cuts from Obama.

Senator Hillary Clinton of the leadership of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, the DLC, we are told by corporate media columnists, wants socialized medicine! Wouldn’t that be wonderful, except again, the corporate media are lying. The then First Lady’s program was to roll up managed care insurance companies into giant Wal-Marts of medical care for efficiency. The efficiency might not have resulted in any additional medical care, but it certainly would have created increased profit for the big insurance companies. Which is why, when she announced it in New York, representatives of the big medical insurance companies gave her a standing ovation.

Dennis Kucinich is pushing for an actual single-payer system like Canada’s, in which even the poorest workers have a shot at getting their broken arm set without having to wonder if they’ll lose their lodging in the deal.

The corporate media are hyping Obama insanely because he drew crowds of hundreds in New Hampshire. Shouldn’t a Democrat draw hundreds of Democrats in local city meetings, let alone meetings hyped nationally by all the major TV networks? You would think he had accomplished another Woodstock phenomenon from the coverage he got for this.

Although Obama is not a member of the Democratic Leadership Council like Hillary, Lee Sustar recently wrote, “In fact, Obama's book explicitly endorses Bill Clinton's "Third Way" - -the attempt to shed the Democrats' supposed leftist excesses and borrow pro-business policies from the Republicans.”

The corporate media know Obama, like Hillary, will sell out the American people on behalf of the owners, who keep these two as their backup plan. Sure, they want a Republican if they can get one. Republicans have shown themselves to be better lackeys, more savage and cruel. But Hillary and Obama heel well on command, and have proven their service by backing the transnational investors who run the planet and finance the political campaigns, often through their “American” corporations.

Dennis Kucinich cannot lose, and every progressive should put their weight behind him now. At the very least, a message will get out that Obama, Hillary and the Republicans will most of the time be on the opposite side of, a message citizens should be allowed to hear. The only way progressives lose is by not backing this dark horse, thusly allowing a field of butt-kissing sycophants to run unchallenged.

Jack Balkwill does Liberty Underground of Virginia (LUV) and authored "An Attack on the National Security State" about Plowshares activists. He can be reached at libertyuv@hotmail.com.

Jack Uldrich: Blame Hatch for his own defeat

There's no reason to think Peter Hutchinson's presence in the governor's race was a factor.

Famed Wall Street investor Warren Buffett once said that the problem with conventional wisdom is that too often it is long on convention and short on wisdom. I was reminded of this recently because in the aftermath of the election it has become conventional wisdom among the politicos, pundits and DFLers especially that Peter Hutchinson "cost" Mike Hatch the gubernatorial election.

This is wrong.

In a democracy, a person is free to vote for whomever he or she believes is the best person. To suggest people should willfully vote for a candidate whom they believe is inferior is the antithesis of democracy. The solution for DFLers is not to blame Hutchinson; it is to endorse better candidates.

There is a solution to this problem, and it is called instant runoff voting. Unfortunately, the DFL Party has never embraced it. This is in spite of the fact that many of the same people now blaming Hutchinson for Hatch's defeat still blame Tim Penny for Roger Moe's loss in 2002.

The DFL had four years to forge a solution. It did not. To be fair, it is entirely possible that such legislation would have been blocked by the Republicans or vetoed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. But that does not excuse the DFL for refusing to either embrace the idea in its party platform or introduce a bill in the Legislature.

This continued indifference to a solution suggests the DFL remains impervious to the notion that many Minnesotans want more political options -- not a continuation of the status quo.

There are three reasons why the conventional wisdom about Hatch's defeat is wrong. First, according to the Star Tribune's own exit polling, 43 percent of self-proclaimed independents voted for Tim Pawlenty, and 43 percent voted for Hatch. This suggests that independents -- who were the people Hutchinson most appealed to -- were equally inclined to vote Republican as DFL. Therefore, a strong argument could be made that Hatch's defeat would have been no worse without Hutchinson in the race.

Many of Hutchinson's most visible and prominent supporters were Republicans, including former Lt. Gov. Joanell Dyrstad; former House Speaker Rod Searle, and scores of other prominent business leaders.

Second, and again using the Star Tribune's own polling, Peter Hutchinson's support in the polls from the time of the State Fair through Election Day remained consistent at about 7 percent. This implies that any last-minute erosion of Hatch's support did not go to Hutchinson, but straight to Pawlenty.

This leads to the third and most important point: It was not Hutchinson who "cost" Hatch the election, but Hatch.

Without Judi Dutcher's E85 gaffe and his own overblown response, it could very well have been Pawlenty complaining that Hutchinson cost him the election.

Of course, he, too, would have been misguided because a person's vote belongs to no one but the person for whom the vote was cast. But I guess that's the beauty of conventional wisdom. It doesn't have to submit itself to the facts.

Jack Uldrich is the former chair of the Independence Party of Minnesota.