Monday, December 14, 2009

reNEW.mn is not Beelzebub

This fall, Take Action Minnesota started a new program call reNEW.mn, an initiative designed to try to affect the DFL’s choice of a candidate for governor in 2010. The program has five phases; one of the goals is to try to keep people or organizations from committing themselves to one candidate or another early in the process; the idea is to have an open convention where candidates will have to vie for a larger pool of delegates just prior to, or even at, the convention.

Take Action Minnesota is a progressive non-profit organization that is involved in several issues: immigration, health care, and voter registration, to name just a few. There are several organizations behind TAM; Education Minnesota (the teachers’ union) and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are a couple of them.

TAM proposes to do a membership poll in January to see who the three candidates – not just one – who are the most popular with the membership. At least that’s what Spot understands is going to happen.

Now the supporters of some candidates – particularly the candidates who’ve gotten some endorsements from labor organization or trade associations and don’t want to share – are treating reNEW.mn like it was the Prince of Darkness. Spot thinks reNEW.mn has a fair chance of affecting the endorsement, so the candidates who like the way things have traditionally been done are perhaps naturally afraid of it.

That’s probably a good sign.

Anyway, Spot will write more about this, but in the meantime, you might take a look at the video of Greta Bergstrom and Ryan Greenwood from TAM at Drinking Liberally describing reNEW.mn.

Take it away Greta and Ryan:

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