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naomikritzerRIGHT. ::cracks knuckles:: Might as well get started, I guess. It's about 150 degrees outside (okay, it's 95. But I am a fragile northern flower that wilts in anything above 87) and getting out and enjoying the beautiful day -- or, you know, setting foot outside the air conditioning any more than I absolutely have to -- is incredibly unappealing.
(I actually did have to go out earlier -- we needed milk -- and you know what, I swear you will see more people outside in Minnesota on a Sunday when it's 30 below. Our cold weather makes us PROUD OF OUR STRENGTH AND FORTITUDE whereas really hot weather makes us want to curl up and die. With the exception of weirdos like my friend Greg, who LOVES this sort of weather. How he wound up living in Minneapolis instead of New Orleans or Houston, I'm not sure.)
So. When looking at a list of thirty-five candidates, from which voters will be allowed to rank three, there are a couple of really basic questions we need to ask.
1. Who here could plausibly do the job?
2. Who here could plausibly win the election?
"Could this person plausibly do the job" is always a question that ought to be asked, honestly. Or, even more basically, "Does this person have a basic grasp of what the job involves?" This is extra important when we're talking about an executive sort of job where the person is running a city or a state. We did, in fact, elect someone to the Governorship who didn't really know what he was doing, and the results, well, we got some very funny t-shirts out of it and I still have my Governor Jesse Ventura action figure, but I wouldn't say the results were great for the state.
If someone has served as a City Council member or a County Commissioner, I'm willing to assume that they can plausibly do the job of Mayor. They might not take the city where I'd want it to go, but they at least know how to drive the car. The people coming at this with no political experience need to bring some credentials to the table that will at least persuade me that they have some grasp of what the Minneapolis Mayor does all day.
There are small towns where the mayor is entirely ceremonial. Minneapolis isn't one of them.
ON TO THE CANDIDATES. Cut for length.
I'm thinking I'll attempt batches of five. Going in alphabetical order, that gives me:
Mark V. Anderson (Simplify Government)
Merrill Anderson (Jobs & Justice)
Mark Andrew (DFL), former Hennepin County Commissioner
Neal Baxter (Independent)
Troy Benjegerdes (Local Energy/Food)
Mark V. Anderson (Simplify Government)
Website is here: http://markvandersonformayor.org/
Mark Anderson is a CPA who wants the city to focus on "basic services" and license fewer things. He has no endorsements, no political experience, no lawn signs, and no link to donate or volunteer.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No. Well, maybe. He's a CPA and he talks about the city budget on his website, so clearly he at least grasps that a big part of the job is allocating money.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Not that I can think of.
Also, I want to argue with his site. He's absolutely right that Minneapolis licenses and inspects too damn many things, but then the first example he pulls out is tree trimming. Tree trimming is a deceptively complicated task, and carelessly lopping off a heavy branch in a densely populated urban area can result in (a) serious injuries (if it falls on a person), (b) major property damage (if it falls on a car), and (c) major outages (if it takes an electrical wire with it). The licensing of tree trimmers became hugely controversial because in the wake of the North Minneapolis Tornado, there were people who were forbidden even from helping people to clear trees that were already DOWN and yeah, that was ridiculous, but licensing tree trimmers is not IN ITSELF a crazy idea that shows how out-of-control Minneapolis government is.
The example I would give from my personal experience was that years ago, after we had a dishwasher installed (by a licensed plumber) we were charged a fee because someone was supposed to come inspect it, only the inspector never actually did (when you called the inspector, you got this extremely grumpy-sounding voicemail saying to leave your name, phone number, and address, and to NEVER BOTHER HIM HE WILL GET TO YOU WHEN HE GETS TO YOU and I followed the instructions and we had no further contact.)
I looked through the licensing requirements and they ranged from "no shit, obviously" (to get a business license for a dance hall, it has to be inspected to show that it meets fire codes) to "no shit, are you serious?" (you have to get a business license for a "courtesy bench," i.e., a bench sitting outside your home or business for people to sit on while waiting for a bus or eating their ice cream or whatever, and you need insurance for it). This is a real problem, but he's coming at it from a very strange angle.
And in fact one of the ridiculous things about his angle here is that he decided the best way to make an impact on this is to RUN FOR MAYOR. A more effective option would be to contact the mayoral candidates who have a shot at winning and ask them what they're going to do to address this problem, and then campaign for that person. You could even get a group together that is concerned about this problem, interview candidates, and do an endorsement. Any of these options would be more likely to result in this problem getting fixed than a quixotic run for mayor. But hey, they'd also be more trouble than filing for office.
Merrill Anderson (Jobs & Justice)
Merrill Anderson doesn't have a web page, but he has a Facebook page where you can read a mix of random campaign-y sorts of things and deep thoughts like, "Just enjoyed a root beer float on the back deck." Having perused his web page, I'm going to say that he's a cranky older man who doesn't balk at re-sharing stupid crap on Facebook ("AMERICA TAKES BETTER CARE OF ILLEGALS THAN ITS VETS") because someone in his feed told him to share if he agreed.
1. Is there any reason to think he could plausibly do the job? Oh my god, no.
2. Could he plausibly win? No way in hell.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Maybe you had some unresolved issues with your late grandfather, who was a cranky veteran who would go on long Fox-News-inspired rants at the Thanksgiving table, and you think that casting your vote for this guy will somehow help you come to terms with your family history? Other than that, no.
Mark Andrew (DFL), former Hennepin County Commissioner
And here we come to the first real candidate. (YES, MARK AND MERRILL AND THE REST OF YOU CRANKS WITH GOOGLE: I SAID THE FIRST REAL CANDIDATE.) I'm going to do the basic questions first this time.
1. Is there any reason to think he could plausibly do the job? Yes.
2. Could he plausibly win? Yes; he's arguably the front-runner.
which makes question three
3. Should you vote for him?
So, let's take a look at this guy.
His website is here: http://www.markforminneapolis.com/ Unlike every other candidate so far, Googling just his name, even though it's Mark Andrew, got me his mayoral website as a first hit. (This may not be true if you're in another city when you Google.)
Mark Andrew seems to elicit strong responses; on my last post, he was described as a "corporate shill" by one detractor, another person said that his corporate marketing push was terrifying, and when Gary Schiff dropped out of the race and endorsed Hodges, he made it clear he was trying to keep the "progressive candidates" from being steamrolled by Mark Andrew. Since I'd never actually heard of him before he got into the race, I found this all a little startling.
As a candidate, he touts both his environmental record, and his environmental plans. As a Hennepin County Commissioner, apparently he helped implement curbside recycling and the Greenway bike path. His big "when I'm mayor" thing involves solar collectors on public buildings. Other than solar energy, most of what's on his website is the standard candidate puffery about empowerment and jobs and how great Minneapolis is, blah blah blah. Looking for "corporate shill" stuff, I did find this:
"We must cut regulatory red tape to help turn good ideas into good businesses and jobs. As mayor, Mark will work to improve and deepen relations with the downtown business community and renew the 'advocate for industry' role at City Hall. Cutting red tape means supporting our local business owners so they can continue to grow and thrive. Mark will work to strengthen incentives and support home-based businesses across Minneapolis."
...which, you know, could be fine or could be a huge red flag. This is one of those things that is harder when EVERYONE (with a chance of winning) is a Democrat, you know? I am fine with cutting regulatory red tape when it involves NOT requiring that people have $50,000 of liability insurance to put up a bench. I am less enthusiastic about it when it involves a failure to enforce things like "all apartment units must have working smoke detectors." I'm fine with deepening relations with the business community when it involves things like legalizing food trucks (as happened a few years ago); I'm less enthusiastic when it involves, oh, spending 8 gazillion dollars (I'm rounding) to build a downtown Target store.
When everyone (with a chance of winning) is a Democrat, and everyone's saying more or less the same "blah blah LAKES blah blah BIKE PATHS blah blah GREEN COLLAR JOBS" sort of stuff, I find that the endorsements are often extremely helpful for sorting people out, so let's take a look at his endorsements. (Like the other real candidates, he has them.) His endorsements page is here. Loads of unions; Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, which means he has deep pockets; Jim Davnie, who I like tons; a bunch of school board members; Betty McCollum, Mike Freeman, Walter Mondale... no one who catches my eye as noteably evil (I think they're all backing Jackie Cherryhomes)
Anyway, my tentative answer on Mark is "maybe," but I'd like to invite his supporters and detractors to tell me why they love him / why they hate him.
Neal Baxter (Independent)
Neal doesn't have a candidacy website but he DOES seem to have an election-related website: http://www.electiontrendsproject.org/bio.html It seems to be mostly archiving of data about past elections. It's completely unclear to me why he's running for office but my best guess would be that he wanted to be in his own data.
1. Is there any reason to think he could he plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Nope.
Troy Benjegerdes (Local Energy/Food)
Troy's website is here: http://mayortroy.com/ You can also find the remains of his GoFundMe site, where he and his wife tried to raise money to put solar panels on their roof. They DO now have solar panels on their roof, but it appears they mostly had to go fund it themselves. I recognize the house; it's a short walk from my old house in Minneapolis.
One of the local controversies in the last year was whether Minneapolis should municipalize their electricity. At present, their electricity is provided by Xcel, which pays Minneapolis quite a bit of money to lease the land for the lines and substations and stuff. They also have their headquarters in Minneapolis, and employ several thousand people there. After a huge storm in June knocked out power to many city (and suburban) residents, Xcel had workers come in with trucks from Kansas and the Dakotas to restore power. It didn't happen overnight, but neither did the removal of all the downed trees blocking the streets.
I consider myself progressive on stuff related to utilities. I believe strongly in the value of regulation, because utilities are inherently monopolies; it's not practical to have a half-dozen electric companies running lines through your town. But you'll note what happened when Minneapolis was supposed to inspect my stupid dishwasher; I can tell you various hilarious horror stories about pretty much any city service, from trash pick-up to snow plowing, going weirdly awry, and the bureaucratic maze that results when you need something fixed. And that's the stuff they've provided for decades, in general, as opposed to electricity, which they would be BUYING and TAKING OVER and holy crap, seriously, how on earth does anyone think this makes sense?
Troy is a proponent of municipalization. I submit that's really all you need to know. He's also obsessed with Bitcoin.
He also appears to be Facebook friends with four of my Facebook friends, which makes me think he's going to have defenders.
1. Is there any reason to think he could plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? No.
Whew.
Maybe I'll come do another five later. I feel like I'm on a roll.
Election 2013 Index of Posts.
(I actually did have to go out earlier -- we needed milk -- and you know what, I swear you will see more people outside in Minnesota on a Sunday when it's 30 below. Our cold weather makes us PROUD OF OUR STRENGTH AND FORTITUDE whereas really hot weather makes us want to curl up and die. With the exception of weirdos like my friend Greg, who LOVES this sort of weather. How he wound up living in Minneapolis instead of New Orleans or Houston, I'm not sure.)
So. When looking at a list of thirty-five candidates, from which voters will be allowed to rank three, there are a couple of really basic questions we need to ask.
1. Who here could plausibly do the job?
2. Who here could plausibly win the election?
"Could this person plausibly do the job" is always a question that ought to be asked, honestly. Or, even more basically, "Does this person have a basic grasp of what the job involves?" This is extra important when we're talking about an executive sort of job where the person is running a city or a state. We did, in fact, elect someone to the Governorship who didn't really know what he was doing, and the results, well, we got some very funny t-shirts out of it and I still have my Governor Jesse Ventura action figure, but I wouldn't say the results were great for the state.
If someone has served as a City Council member or a County Commissioner, I'm willing to assume that they can plausibly do the job of Mayor. They might not take the city where I'd want it to go, but they at least know how to drive the car. The people coming at this with no political experience need to bring some credentials to the table that will at least persuade me that they have some grasp of what the Minneapolis Mayor does all day.
There are small towns where the mayor is entirely ceremonial. Minneapolis isn't one of them.
ON TO THE CANDIDATES. Cut for length.
I'm thinking I'll attempt batches of five. Going in alphabetical order, that gives me:
Mark V. Anderson (Simplify Government)
Merrill Anderson (Jobs & Justice)
Mark Andrew (DFL), former Hennepin County Commissioner
Neal Baxter (Independent)
Troy Benjegerdes (Local Energy/Food)
Mark V. Anderson (Simplify Government)
Website is here: http://markvandersonformayor.org/
Mark Anderson is a CPA who wants the city to focus on "basic services" and license fewer things. He has no endorsements, no political experience, no lawn signs, and no link to donate or volunteer.
1. Is there any reason to think he can plausibly do the job? No. Well, maybe. He's a CPA and he talks about the city budget on his website, so clearly he at least grasps that a big part of the job is allocating money.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Not that I can think of.
Also, I want to argue with his site. He's absolutely right that Minneapolis licenses and inspects too damn many things, but then the first example he pulls out is tree trimming. Tree trimming is a deceptively complicated task, and carelessly lopping off a heavy branch in a densely populated urban area can result in (a) serious injuries (if it falls on a person), (b) major property damage (if it falls on a car), and (c) major outages (if it takes an electrical wire with it). The licensing of tree trimmers became hugely controversial because in the wake of the North Minneapolis Tornado, there were people who were forbidden even from helping people to clear trees that were already DOWN and yeah, that was ridiculous, but licensing tree trimmers is not IN ITSELF a crazy idea that shows how out-of-control Minneapolis government is.
The example I would give from my personal experience was that years ago, after we had a dishwasher installed (by a licensed plumber) we were charged a fee because someone was supposed to come inspect it, only the inspector never actually did (when you called the inspector, you got this extremely grumpy-sounding voicemail saying to leave your name, phone number, and address, and to NEVER BOTHER HIM HE WILL GET TO YOU WHEN HE GETS TO YOU and I followed the instructions and we had no further contact.)
I looked through the licensing requirements and they ranged from "no shit, obviously" (to get a business license for a dance hall, it has to be inspected to show that it meets fire codes) to "no shit, are you serious?" (you have to get a business license for a "courtesy bench," i.e., a bench sitting outside your home or business for people to sit on while waiting for a bus or eating their ice cream or whatever, and you need insurance for it). This is a real problem, but he's coming at it from a very strange angle.
And in fact one of the ridiculous things about his angle here is that he decided the best way to make an impact on this is to RUN FOR MAYOR. A more effective option would be to contact the mayoral candidates who have a shot at winning and ask them what they're going to do to address this problem, and then campaign for that person. You could even get a group together that is concerned about this problem, interview candidates, and do an endorsement. Any of these options would be more likely to result in this problem getting fixed than a quixotic run for mayor. But hey, they'd also be more trouble than filing for office.
Merrill Anderson (Jobs & Justice)
Merrill Anderson doesn't have a web page, but he has a Facebook page where you can read a mix of random campaign-y sorts of things and deep thoughts like, "Just enjoyed a root beer float on the back deck." Having perused his web page, I'm going to say that he's a cranky older man who doesn't balk at re-sharing stupid crap on Facebook ("AMERICA TAKES BETTER CARE OF ILLEGALS THAN ITS VETS") because someone in his feed told him to share if he agreed.
1. Is there any reason to think he could plausibly do the job? Oh my god, no.
2. Could he plausibly win? No way in hell.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Maybe you had some unresolved issues with your late grandfather, who was a cranky veteran who would go on long Fox-News-inspired rants at the Thanksgiving table, and you think that casting your vote for this guy will somehow help you come to terms with your family history? Other than that, no.
Mark Andrew (DFL), former Hennepin County Commissioner
And here we come to the first real candidate. (YES, MARK AND MERRILL AND THE REST OF YOU CRANKS WITH GOOGLE: I SAID THE FIRST REAL CANDIDATE.) I'm going to do the basic questions first this time.
1. Is there any reason to think he could plausibly do the job? Yes.
2. Could he plausibly win? Yes; he's arguably the front-runner.
which makes question three
3. Should you vote for him?
So, let's take a look at this guy.
His website is here: http://www.markforminneapolis.com/ Unlike every other candidate so far, Googling just his name, even though it's Mark Andrew, got me his mayoral website as a first hit. (This may not be true if you're in another city when you Google.)
Mark Andrew seems to elicit strong responses; on my last post, he was described as a "corporate shill" by one detractor, another person said that his corporate marketing push was terrifying, and when Gary Schiff dropped out of the race and endorsed Hodges, he made it clear he was trying to keep the "progressive candidates" from being steamrolled by Mark Andrew. Since I'd never actually heard of him before he got into the race, I found this all a little startling.
As a candidate, he touts both his environmental record, and his environmental plans. As a Hennepin County Commissioner, apparently he helped implement curbside recycling and the Greenway bike path. His big "when I'm mayor" thing involves solar collectors on public buildings. Other than solar energy, most of what's on his website is the standard candidate puffery about empowerment and jobs and how great Minneapolis is, blah blah blah. Looking for "corporate shill" stuff, I did find this:
"We must cut regulatory red tape to help turn good ideas into good businesses and jobs. As mayor, Mark will work to improve and deepen relations with the downtown business community and renew the 'advocate for industry' role at City Hall. Cutting red tape means supporting our local business owners so they can continue to grow and thrive. Mark will work to strengthen incentives and support home-based businesses across Minneapolis."
...which, you know, could be fine or could be a huge red flag. This is one of those things that is harder when EVERYONE (with a chance of winning) is a Democrat, you know? I am fine with cutting regulatory red tape when it involves NOT requiring that people have $50,000 of liability insurance to put up a bench. I am less enthusiastic about it when it involves a failure to enforce things like "all apartment units must have working smoke detectors." I'm fine with deepening relations with the business community when it involves things like legalizing food trucks (as happened a few years ago); I'm less enthusiastic when it involves, oh, spending 8 gazillion dollars (I'm rounding) to build a downtown Target store.
When everyone (with a chance of winning) is a Democrat, and everyone's saying more or less the same "blah blah LAKES blah blah BIKE PATHS blah blah GREEN COLLAR JOBS" sort of stuff, I find that the endorsements are often extremely helpful for sorting people out, so let's take a look at his endorsements. (Like the other real candidates, he has them.) His endorsements page is here. Loads of unions; Sam and Sylvia Kaplan, which means he has deep pockets; Jim Davnie, who I like tons; a bunch of school board members; Betty McCollum, Mike Freeman, Walter Mondale... no one who catches my eye as noteably evil (I think they're all backing Jackie Cherryhomes)
Anyway, my tentative answer on Mark is "maybe," but I'd like to invite his supporters and detractors to tell me why they love him / why they hate him.
Neal Baxter (Independent)
Neal doesn't have a candidacy website but he DOES seem to have an election-related website: http://www.electiontrendsproject.org/bio.html It seems to be mostly archiving of data about past elections. It's completely unclear to me why he's running for office but my best guess would be that he wanted to be in his own data.
1. Is there any reason to think he could he plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? Nope.
Troy Benjegerdes (Local Energy/Food)
Troy's website is here: http://mayortroy.com/ You can also find the remains of his GoFundMe site, where he and his wife tried to raise money to put solar panels on their roof. They DO now have solar panels on their roof, but it appears they mostly had to go fund it themselves. I recognize the house; it's a short walk from my old house in Minneapolis.
One of the local controversies in the last year was whether Minneapolis should municipalize their electricity. At present, their electricity is provided by Xcel, which pays Minneapolis quite a bit of money to lease the land for the lines and substations and stuff. They also have their headquarters in Minneapolis, and employ several thousand people there. After a huge storm in June knocked out power to many city (and suburban) residents, Xcel had workers come in with trucks from Kansas and the Dakotas to restore power. It didn't happen overnight, but neither did the removal of all the downed trees blocking the streets.
I consider myself progressive on stuff related to utilities. I believe strongly in the value of regulation, because utilities are inherently monopolies; it's not practical to have a half-dozen electric companies running lines through your town. But you'll note what happened when Minneapolis was supposed to inspect my stupid dishwasher; I can tell you various hilarious horror stories about pretty much any city service, from trash pick-up to snow plowing, going weirdly awry, and the bureaucratic maze that results when you need something fixed. And that's the stuff they've provided for decades, in general, as opposed to electricity, which they would be BUYING and TAKING OVER and holy crap, seriously, how on earth does anyone think this makes sense?
Troy is a proponent of municipalization. I submit that's really all you need to know. He's also obsessed with Bitcoin.
He also appears to be Facebook friends with four of my Facebook friends, which makes me think he's going to have defenders.
1. Is there any reason to think he could plausibly do the job? No.
2. Could he plausibly win? No.
3. Is there any other reason to vote for him? No.
Whew.
Maybe I'll come do another five later. I feel like I'm on a roll.
Election 2013 Index of Posts.
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no subject
Date: 2013-08-26 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-19 06:40 pm (UTC)Shouldn't we at least consider putting the public grid out for public bid?
I'm also speaking on behalf of my retirement goals, which are to own farmland and wind turbines, and I can either start a business, make a crapload of money, and buy some consultants and a political party, or I can just skip the nonsense and make the political connections directly by running for Mayor.