Liberal in the Land of Conservative

In a matter of days, Minnesotans will go to their local caucuses and make decisions that will affect the direction of our country in the coming years. Those decisions, between old and new, change and stagnation, or between the establishment and the people will define what types of individuals will be making decisions and representing you and I. This blog has been a labor of love over the past 6 months and has yielded what appears to be some influence. Therefore, I make these caucus recommendations:

Democrats must be honest with ourselves and realize that we have had a truly amazing set of choices this election season. Down the line, with the possible exception of curmudgeon Mike Gravel, Democratic choices have been difficult only because we had to choose from the best of the best while the Republicans have spent much of the season wondering if it might be possible to dig up Ronald Reagan and run him as a resurrected human possibly negating the 22nd Amendment. My candidate of immediate choice, Joe Biden, took a quick exit in this contest to regain the White House. Since that time I have either mulled over my choices or completely ignored the field all together. However, it is time to ante up and decide which of the remaining candidates can best bring this country back to a state of "normalcy". That is why I, for one, will be caucusing for Barack Obama on February 5th.

Over the past months I have seen a man develop from a relatively empty candidate with a brilliant knack for oratory to a man that has withstood the Clinton machine and lived to tell the tale. His understanding of issues has been tested and honed in this contest against more experienced candidates and it has served to combine brilliant oratory with the less glamorous knowledge of details.

This decision has been equally as difficult as the Presidential race, not because of a choice between Franken, Ciresi, and Nelson-Pallmeyer, but rather due to the decision between Ciresi and Nelson-Pallmeyer. As I have stated before, I simply cannot and will not support a Franken nomination.

While my friend Blue Man (and Blue Woman) has clearly chosen Nelson-Pallmeyer and I encourage everyone to check out his reasons (here, here, here, and here), I am throwing my hat into the ring for Mike Ciresi. After researching, reading, and listening to Mr. Ciresi I believe it is he who understands the issues facing myself and other educators across the state. Obviously, education tops my list of issues and tends to dictate my choices in candidates. I have heard the arguments about mandates and the arguments about punishment over praise of failing schools, but it the issue of testing that really drives my opposition to NCLB. When I heard Mike Ciresi describe the utter foolishness in the method by which we test our students I immediately connected with his message. I have been thinking and saying this all along and it boggles the mind that others don't see how useless it is to determine progress in education by comparing one class to another over determining progress on the basis of a class or a student over time. This, coupled with the fact that testing does little to evaluate critical thinking skills, leads me to believe that Mike Ciresi sees what I see.

When you couple that message with the fantastic things Ciresi has done through the Foundation for Children that I have discussed earlier, I simply cannot see myself supporting someone else. That is why I, for one, will be caucusing for Mike Ciresi on February 5th.


This is going to be an amazing election season with many difficult battles ahead of us and I truly believe that nominating these two individuals will benefit Minnesota and the United States. I encourage everyone, whomever they are caucusing for, to attend their caucuses to have their voice heard so that we can elect the best and brightest to a government that hasn't always been filled with the best and brightest.

On a side note: I recently learned that my wife, who I had assumed I had brainwashed enough to give me a second liberal vote, had considered voting for Rudy Giuliani! Obviously, I am still somewhat distraught by this development and would appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

Also, remember that this Monday, February 4th I will be hosting a live chat here to discuss the Presidential race, Minnesota races, and all things politics in the official chat room of Liberal in the Land of Conservative. For details, check out this blog post or shoot me an email. I am hoping for a good turnout and would encourage those of all political stripes to chime in. In fact, I have it on good authority that one of the standard bearers of the conservative movement, Gary Gross, will be joining the conversation.

Between writing about the upcoming 6th District race and the race for the Presidency there has been a glaring lack of attention paid by myself to the upcoming United States Senate race here in Minnesota. After some thought and a little research, here are my early perceptions of this important contest to remove wishy washy Norm Coleman from the seat previously held by Senator Wellstone.

My initial inclination was to support the big name in this race, Al Franken. However, that was before my two brief encounters with the man. The first being at the 2007 Education Minnesota Representative Convention at which a friend and I approached to speak with him as he worked the room of educators. At the time I didn't think much of the fact that he barely looked at us when we spoke and constantly scanned the room. After all, there were lots of people there and as a candidate he was trying to reach as many as possible. Fast forward to last week at the house party of House District 16B candidate Steve Andrews. I found myself speaking with Franken one on one in a far more intimate setting. Literally, in the middle of our conversation, Franken walked away to speak with someone coming down the stairs. Even during our conversation his body language and mannerisms indicated a lack of interest in anything I had to say. Now I can certainly be a boring person, but having had similar incidences occur on two separate occasions tells me that this behavior was not directed at myself but rather was the modus operandi of a man believing he doesn't have to work very hard in order to win the nomination to face Norm Coleman. Therefore, I can not support Mr. Franken for United States Senate! Despite what Education Minnesota says about Al Franken being a "strong supporter of educators" I have seen little in my interactions with him to indicate that he supports me. In fact, if Franken gets the nomination it may be one of the few times that I find someone other than a Democrat to support come November.

I certainly could see myself supporting the candidacy of Mike Ciresi. After perusing his website for issue statements and video I found several things that indicate a candidate in line with my particular viewpoints. The fact that he understands the need for "a surge in diplomacy" to solve the myriad of problems in Iraq and that he is pragmatic in his vow to
"support a withdrawal plan that gets us our combat troops out within 8 months" and "a plan to redeploy our troops into training functions and on to the borders of Iraq to interdict people who are coming in from either Iran or Syria."

Beyond the issues associated with dealing with Iraq, I am always on the lookout for a candidate who understands education and can effectively voice the concerns of educators to others within the government. This video indicated to me that Mike Ciresi understands the primary complaints educators have with NCLB. While I don't know that the entire program needs to be scrapped because at a basic level it has sound goals, but Ciresi clearly understands what it is about NCLB that doesn't work. I have claimed all along that testing one group and comparing those scores to an entirely different group does little to prove either progress or failure.

Everything that I have seen and heard from Ciresi has been positive and I would have no problem supporting his candidacy.

I heard Jack Nelson Pallmeyer speak last week at the Steve Andrews event and was impressed with this candidate that I had really never heard anything about. To top it off, he has the support of Blue Man and in my book that is a pretty hefty endorsement. He has spoken with each of these candidates far more than I and anyone who was wise enough to throw their support behind Bob Olson is a reputable source in my book. Pallmeyer has a rock solid liberal stance on nearly every issue I care about and appears to have the passion we need to challenge Norm Coleman and more importantly to once again inspire the electorate ala Paul Wellstone.

On the issue of education, Pallmeyer acknowledges that in order to succeed we must invest more resources on books and teachers than we do on guns and tanks.

This brings up a problem we should all hope to have when choosing our leaders. That problem is choosing between two or more candidates that are both highly qualified to hold the position and inspirational in their message. I cannot honestly say whom I will support on February 5th but between Ciresi and Pallmeyer we have top notch choices. Hopefully people can see past the veneer of stardom surrounding Franken and see fit to choose between these other two candidates.