State Central Committee highs and lows

First, before getting into the notes that I received from a friend attending Saturday's State Central Committee meeting, I have an important announcement to make. I am officially Jeff Johnson's campaign manager as he campaigns for the GOP endorsement to defeat Tim Walz as governor of this once-great state.

Now that I've made that announcment, it's time for me to express my official disappointment with the State Central Committee. Saturday morning, Councilman Jeff drove from St. Cloud to Redwood Falls to participate in a candidate forum amongst the gubernatorial candidates at the State Central meeting. There's just one problem. Nobody told the delegates assembled there that there would be a candidate forum. Further, at the meeting, we were told that there wouldn't be a forum because this isn't an endorsing year.

If the state party was smart, which is definitely questionable at this point, they would've invited the candidates to the State Fair, aka the Great Minnesota Get Together, to participate in a candidate forum. Throw in a straw poll to see who the audience liked most. Use the straw poll to find out what's got people worried.

That way, you bring some sizzle to the process. Do the same thing at FarmFest and at the Game Fair. By holding these events, each of the candidates get to practice their elevator pitch. That way, the candidates get to grow their name recognition. Who knows? They might find a gem of a candidate that the Establishment didn't consider. I won't pretend that Councilman Jeff has high name recognition. I don't have to pretend that Jeff is a leader through and through. In 2017, CAIR-MN called Councilman Jeff their usual litany of insults:

Johnson's draft resolution was quickly condemned by local groups, including #UniteCloud and the Minnesota chapter of the Council of Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN), who called it a "despicable, racist, xenophobic, Islamaphobic and ill-informed motion targeting refugees."

It turns out that Councilman Jeff was right in proposing the temporary moratorium. Thanks to Lutheran Social Services, St. Cloud's ER is frequently understaffed, the schools have had to drop AP-level classes to use that money to teach remedial reading to children of refugees. St. Cloud wasn't equipped to deal with those additional refugees. What this taped interview doesn't include is Councilman Jeff getting pushed into a corner of the St. Cloud City Hall Chamber by CAIR:

The people who opposed Jeff's moratorium resolution aren't on the City Council anymore. Mayor Dave Kleis isn't an elected official either. Further, the thing that Jeff fought for, transparency, eventually happened, thanks only to Jeff's persistence. Finally, thanks to Jeff's persistence, the woman who played a major role in the Refugee Resettlement program, Jodi Harpstead, went on to become Gov. Walz's Human Services Commissioner. Harpstead, it's been revealed, is a central figure in the Medicaid scandals.

No other candidate in this race can say that they laid a glove on Harpstead. It's time for the MNGOP to join the 21st Century. It's time, too, for them to put all of their gubernatorial candidates in the best possible position to with. It isn't their job to winnow the field.