I want to make a comment about the feminist caucus endorsement in
Minneapolis. From talking to the organizers of the Stonewall Caucus I was
informed that they inserted Feminist caucus questions in their screening and
they never informed the candidates that they were screening for two
endorsements. Also only one member of the Feminist caucus was in the
audience at the screening. Somehow this seems rather duplicitous to me.
Folks who are screening need to know what endorsements they are screening
for.
Lisa McDonald
Tenth Ward Council Member
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michele St. Martin [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 28, 2001 7:49 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [Mpls] Eva & the DFL
>
> Dennis Hill makes a good point when he says "What Eva and so
> many other folks have a hard time accepting is that a group of
> individuals can join together and form a political party and
> perate under any rules they want to agree to." As Eva well knows,
> in order for any chartered DFL Party organization to use the
> name "DFL" in their name, they must not work against the Party's
> endorsed candidates.
>
> I'm a former Board member of the DFL Feminist Caucus and
> as I recall, we always asked the "endorsement question" too. I
> think they still do. Chartered party organizations like the Feminist
> Caucus and Stonewall DFL don't purport to represent all
> feminists or all glbt & glbt friends: their constituency is the members
> of these groups that identify as DFLers. Did the Feminist Caucus
> endorse anti-choice DFLers? Nope. Sometimes we took a pass,
> when the Party endorsed candidates whose positions we disagreed
> with on important issues differed from ours. We worked like hell to
> get our candidates endorsed, and if they were not, we took a
> second look at the candidate the Party backed. Sometimes that
> candidate's views were acceptable enough to us that we could
> then endorse them. Other times we took a pass and worked on
> other races. The same is true of Stonewall (of which I'm a member,
> albeit not an active one). That's the nice thing about electoral
> politics -- there's always another race to work on.
>
> Eva Young has repeatedly referred to "being thrown out of the
> DFL." I'd like to set the record straight.
>
> At the time Arne Carlson was running for Governor, I chaired
> the 60th District DFL Central Committee (now the 61st District).
> Eva was a Director of the organization.
>
> Several members of our Central Committee witnessed Eva and
> her friend Vicki Oace campaigning for Arne Carlson literature.
> They were understandably taken aback, and requested that I ask
> for her resignation from her position as a party officer. This was
> clearly a no-brainer: party officers just don't campaign for the
> election of candidates of other political parties. (As an aside: this
> is the same Vicki Oace whom Eva quotes as not thinking that
> Stonewall should ask candidates if they'll abide by the party's
> endorsement. Obviously Ms. Oace, with her track record of
> supporting Republicans, is not a credible source on the matter of
> how DFL-chartered organizations should run themselves.)
>
> In terms of Eva's current affiliation with the Republicans: it seems
> to me that there are so many problems in the Republican Party in
> Minneapolis (IS there a Republican Party in Minneapolis?) that
> trying to build any type of organization would keep even someone
> with Eva's incredible energy and vast talents busy. I mean that
> sincerely, having worked on several campaigns with Eva in the
> past. Eva, if you are dissatisfied with your venture into Republic-
> anism, come on back to a party that actually values the contribu-
> tions of ALL people, including glbt ones. But it's a lot harder to
> work on building a party, be it the nearly-nonexistent Minneapolis
> Republican Party or the thriving Minneapolis DFL, than it is to
> stand outside and throw stones at it.
>
> I'm glad that there's so much discussion of Stonewall's practices:
> it shows that this crucial organization is thriving!
>
> Michele St. Martin
> Bryant Neighborhood, 61B
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