The Marty Mystery

 

 

 

 

"Unlike Scott, I have met Marty, talked to him more than once, and Marty had the courtesy to come to the endorsing convention..."

First a bit of disclosure. I like Marty Seifert. He is a nice man. Not a perfect man, but a nice man. In addition, he has had experience in both the public and private sector. He has a great family. That being said, I am disappointed in him that he has not thrown his support behind the endorsed candidate for governor.

Down in Rochester, I was on Team Thompson from the get-go. I had my green shirt on and even helped inside the campaign team room. When it became obvious after a few ballots the numbers were not with him, Dave Thompson gracefully and eloquently conceded. He then pledged his support to the soon to be endorsed candidate, Jeff Johnson.

When the time came for Marty to do the same, he did not. He withdrew from the race and then released his supporters. I was not there when it happened, so the following is antidotal. I was told he did not release them to support Jeff, rather he released them to leave the convention. By doing so, it could have put the entire endorsing process in jeopardy as the numbers would not have been there to conclude endorsement. Fortunately they were, and by the end of the day, we had Jeff Johnson as our endorsed candidate.

I understand not all are fans of the endorsing process. Some believe we should go directly to primary and skip this meaningless step. My feeling is different. We have a process in this state, in our party. It starts with the precinct caucus night (anyone can come), then the BPOU endorsing convention, then the CD endorsing convention, and finally the state endorsing convention. Much time, effort and money is spent to get us to that point. Once we have the endorsed candidate, we need to be "team players" and get behind the winner.

I wish nothing but the best for Marty in his future endeavors. He is a talented man and will do good things for our state. I do however, worry that Marty may have hurt himself (even in the short term) by how things played out in Rochester. I have said before, taking on a sitting governor, which will use the Minnesota DFL machine, is not going to be an easy task. It will take unity and a strong team. A fractured team will most likely result in four more years of Dayton.

My plea to Marty, Kurt and Scott is simple - let us please do the right thing for the people of this state. A term only lasts four years. If Jeff cannot deliver on what was promised, there will be another day. This day however, belongs to Jeff Johnson.