Attorney Mike Ciresi said this afternoon that he is dropping out of the race for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination in Minnesota.
His decision leaves political satirist and commentator Al Franken and University of St. Thomas professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer as the leading Democratic candidates seeking to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.
I heard some variation of the line, 'Oh he's just a comedian' after the Blue Majority endorsement. Comedy writing and performance is extremely hard and involves nuanced truth-telling. It is in many ways the perfect training for progressive politics, since it is entirely organized around observing and articulating uncomfortable facts about ourselves in a way designed to acknowledge and empower us.
Al Franken is brilliant, hardworking, and substantive, and if I were Norm Coleman I'd be terrified. This is a guy who wrote 'Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot' way before the rest of the Democratic world recognized what was going on.
Campaign finance reports released Monday show that Franken's campaign spent around $900,000 in the last reporting period on fundraising consultants, telemarketing and other efforts aimed at raising money. That helped Franken pull in $1.9 million for the three-month period, which ended Sept. 30....
DFL candidate Mike Ciresi spent a few thousand dollars on direct mail, but those expenses were for mailings to delegates, not for fundraising, campaign manager Kerry Greeley said. She said the campaign did not spend any money on fundraising.
Franken isn't just fundraising, he's building a political network of volunteers and donors to draw on in the future. This is the new model of campaigns that Jerome Armstrong has described, with an earlier burn rate to build up a volunteer network and slightly less bunched spending at the end for TV ads. I think it makes sense. Investing in relationships with supporters isn't just about connecting with your base, it's also about communicating with early adopters, or as Seth Godin calls them, 'sneezers'.
Except people-powered candidates to have higher burn rates. There's more overhead in sustaining relationships earlier, since Franken is producing campaign videos, a good website, and lots of content. That'll pay off later, like accounts receivable, though it doesn't show in his current cash on hand.
I wasn't around the blogs during last years primary mess but I'm still learning to hate the national blogs. Matt Stoller, Chris Bowers, and the other members of Open Left have decided to launch a campaign against the following Democratic members of the House of Representatives that they've dubbed the "Bush Dogs", a play on the Blue Dogs.(…)
As you can see the list includes two Ohio Rep.'s, Zack Space and Charlie Wilson.
Now it's one thing for people who know the district to complain, it's another for someone that knows absolutely nothing to start meddling around. Sure Space and Wilson haven't always voted the way we've wanted but have they looked at their districts?
Christ but I am pissed. We're half a year from the caucuses and out-of-staters from our own movement butt in and tell us who to support? How could this have possibly passed any sane netivist's radar? How is this one iota different than the DSCC fucking with last year's primary?
Chris Bowers invited me into his BlogAds group, and I have always thought well of him. I never dreamed that he or one of his groups would barge into Minnesota and screw with our process. Never.(…)
No more. I just decided to endorse Mike Ciresi. And if Chris Bowers' Blue Majority/Act Blue wants to butt into any other primary races between qualified progressives anywhere else in the country, I'll be endorsing the other candidate in those races as well even though I feel strongly that outsiders shouldn't butt into primaries unless one or more of the candidates really bite.
Considering the comments to the later post in particular, these are not the only two bloggers upset with an out of state activist like me "meddling" in elections and with Democratic members of the US House elsewhere in the country. Even apart from me, these are complaints that I see pop up in many elections concerning many groups. Since I see these complaints often, and since I do not think they are very well founded, I would like to take some time to address all of these issues raised here as clearly and concisely as I can:
STATE BLOGS
