Britt Robson's message assumes that the "Minneapolis DFL" is, or is
capable of acting like, a single rational mind. If only it were so!
There is something to Britt's point about the Party being "a
confederation of special interest groups," but not in the way that Britt
means. For the purposes of endorsing candidates, the Party is its
delegates, acting together in convention. Each delegate, including the
"'ordinary' homeowners/taxpayers" to whom Britt's message refers, is in a
way his or her own "special interest group." Many of those delegates get
together before the endorsing conventions in the hope that their interests
will coalesce in a way that will influence other delegates: the Stonewall
DFL Caucus, about which we have heard so much in the past few days, is one
such example. But, while I have never seen hard data on this point, I
suspect that most delegates attend the endorsing conventions as
individuals--as taxpayers, as homeowners, as consumers of police and fire
protection and other government services, as employers or employees--rather
than as stalwarts of any particular "special interest group." They hear the
candidates; they listen to other delegates who would persuade them,
including the "special interest groups" who have put forward a considered
opinion in advance; they weigh that input for what it is worth; and, in the
end, they vote their consciences and, naturally, their self-interest. The
democratic process (with or without a capital letter) not only assumes, but
depends on divergent interests participating in such a manner. The view of
the Stonewall Caucus, or any other organized group, will influence that
process in proportion to the input's quality and to how many delegates the
group can bring around to its view. If and only if a group can persuade the
majority (in this case, a supermajority--sixty percent) will its view
prevail.
It is true in the Minneapolis DFL Party, as it is true everywhere,
that (a) the world is run by those who show up, (b) those who learn the
process enjoy an advantage over those who do not, and (c) some people will
pursue their own self-interest at the expense of the community's interest.
To change those facts would require amending human nature, though, not just
the DFL Party's rules. The Party has exerted its best collective effort
over the years toward ensuring that its process is as open and fair as
possible, and toward developing rules that make sense and are not subject to
easy manipulation by those who know the arcana of parliamentary procedure.
It is also true, as Britt's message suggests, that the DFL Party's
processes have produced results that are sometimes "short-sighted" if not
downright boneheaded (my word, not Britt's). The risk of such a result is
the price of a highly decentralized Party organization, whose delegates
connect with the permanent organization only for the one-day convention
every other year, and generally do not even know their own organization's
elected leadership. But the alternative is much worse: a political party
that is directed from the top down, a political machine, like the New York
of Tammany Hall or the Chicago of the first Mayor Daley. Those political
organizations were not short-sighted, but they achieved control and enforced
a long-term view at an awful price. If there is a way of avoiding
short-sightedness while also avoiding party discipline, I am all for it, and
would be very interested in hearing any idea along those lines.
Meanwhile, the Minneapolis DFL Party is not so easily characterized
as Britt's message suggests. No single "special interest group" is, or
controls, the "Minneapolis DFL." For the past several months, the City
Party's officers and the senate-district chairs have been busily organizing
and planning thirteen ward conventions and a City convention, and nowhere
have I seen any single group trying to unfairly "rig" the process. I have
seen many groups, composed of citizens who care about their (our) community,
trying to persuade their fellow delegates about their view of what is best
for the community. From what I can see, the process is working like it is
supposed to. As Churchill reminded us, "No one pretends that democracy is
perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst
form of Government, except all those other forms that have been tried from
time to time."
BRM
Brian Melendez, Chair,
Minneapolis DFL Organization
Ward 3 (St. Anthony West)
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