In Praise of Lenczewski and Hortman

Just two CD3 DFL state legislators never endorsed Terri Bonoff's unseaworthy raft of a congressional campaign: Reps Ann Lenczewski and Melissa Hortman. Everyone else marched in lockstep: Doll, Latz, Rest, Scheid, Foley, Larson, Ruud, Benson, Simon, Peterson, Nelson, Hilstrom, Dittrich and Slocum. [Please see correction in comments section. Hortman has since boarded HMS Bonoff. Happy sailing, Melissa!]

I just grabbed the following numbers off of MNpublius.com. I've replaced the euphemistic headings with ones which I think are more descriptive and less ideological:

Democratically Elected Delegates:
Madia - 52.5 Bonoff - 31 Uncommitted - 3

Non-Democratically Selected Delegates [aka 'superdelegates'; hereafter 'NDS Delegates']:
Madia - 2 Bonoff - 15 Uncommitted - 2

Total
Madia - 54.5 Bonoff - 46 Uncommitted - 5

Delegates Remaining: 53

So when CD3 senate district convention delegates get to choose a congressional candidate, they've been choosing Ashwin Madia 61% of the time. When the NDS Delegates get to choose a congressional candidate, they choose Madia 11% of the time.

If the remaining democratically elected delegates break as their predecessors have, the predicted outcome on March 15 will be:

Madia - 32 Bonoff - 19 Uncommitted - 2, for a grand total of:

Madia - 86.5 Bonoff - 65 Uncommitted - 7

[This Saturday Mayor Jim Hovland will likely get on the leader board too, as his Edina constituency makes up more than half of SD41.]

95.5 votes will be required on April 12, to secure the endorsement. If Ash doesn't get the endorsement on the first ballot, I think there is only one direction for subsequent ballots to slide: Towards Madia. On each subsequent ballot more embarrassed, locked-in Bonoff supporters will slither off the raft and put on the winning team's jersey.

The early Bonoff strategy was 'top-down,' with its emphasis on name endorsements. When you round up party leaders and get them to sign on to your preferred candidacy, you're trying to lead by example, but you're also trying to get the party leaders to perceive their having a stake in 'persuading' their people to deliver for your candidate. In such a model, the foot soldiers are motivated by love and fear. If the infantrywoman actually prefers a candidate other than the one she's being asked to support, there's one outcome she really wants to avoid: Breaking ranks with her leader and then having the leader's candidate win. But with the delegate elections having already shown a very strong preference for Madia, the fear factor has dissipated entirely. If the foot soldier disobeys her leader and succeeds in taking the hill, she knows she'll have little to answer for. The hill appears very easy for taking, at the moment.

Reps Ann Lenczewski and Melissa Hortman deserve praise. For whatever reason, they elected not to sign on to a hasty endorsement of one candidate for US Congress in CD3, prior to getting the lay of the land, in the stacked process employed by the others. Bucking the pressure to hop on bandwagons--as Reps Lenczewski and Hortman did--takes backbone.