Not to be missed in the MinnPost
While it has consistently retained its “major party status” on the strength of gaining at least 5 percent of voters in a statewide race — and while IP
candidate Jesse Ventura won the governorship in 1998 with 38 percent of the vote
— can the IP burst out of its tiny silo?
A very important question that been asked and reasked over the years.
However most article stop at that point, Jay Weiner instead takes us into the issues that are facing the IP.
But the party apparatus and treasury has barely grown, with Uldrich allowing that there are today about 5,000 Minnesotans who consider themselves IPers, with about 500 statewide activists.
Jay even focused on the Legislative Races
While the IP ran an extensive slate of candidates, even those that Uldrich and other party faithful thought might do well in legislative races, didn’t. The IP ran seven state Senate candidates and 10 House candidates. Of those 27 challengers, two scored higher percentages in their races than Horner did in his. The rest were in single digits.
“It needs to be more focused," Carlson said of the IP.
All in all an extremely well and though provoking article.
1 comments:
What an excellent and thought provoking article, it is worthy of high praise.
As a blogger and commentator on the Independence Party I think there are several things that the IP needs to do to break its “glass ceiling” which may or may not be self-evident.
The IP unfortunately appears and disappears from the radar screen of the majority of the people of Minnesota before and after election cycle. From Tim Hutchinson to Tom Horner only the brief period of time that Dean Barkley was in the news for the Senate race did the IP make the news. While elections of course increase exposure the IP needs to stop from completely disappearing off the radar screen during these times.
With the advent of Social Media it is unquestionable easier and even more accessible to create the virtual party as Tim Penny has suggested, but that means the IP party needs to build the infrastructure and the leadership to push forward such a vision. Thus in reality they need to do both what Traditional Parties and the Virtual Party are envisioned of doing. So hiring an Executive Director and an assistant or two as well as bringing in better Social Media experts to work on Web-Presence.
All that requires money and not just during the election season but 7x24x365, so the idea of professional fundraiser is also not out of the question.
My choice for the first paid Executive Director would be Tom Horner.
Social Media is a key ingredient in keeping a diverse group in contact but the importance of personal contact is also a key. Quarterly meetings at the local library or in someone’s home to discuss the IP position and platform are more important now than ever before. A face to face conversation can generate so much more interaction and understanding than a posting or a tweet.
Another change I would love to see is rather than people floating in and out of the parties as candidates I would hope the IP would take a more long term approach to finding, recruiting, and dare I say educating candidates. It is not party building if your candidates appear on filing day and disappear the day after the election. In addition the IP really needs to get more candidates involved.
It was great that the IP had candidates in 17 state legislative races, but the reality is the party need candidates in at least half of the 201 legislative races. The party has a long way to go on that regard and more importantly the party has to continue to be involved in the “same” races; it does no good to have a candidate in 59B in one election cycle and then no one in the next while someone different runs in 59A.
Much was made of Bob Anderson candidacy in the 6th Congressional District for a second time. Without question he had little if any at all chance of succeeding in his bid, but his presence generated plenty of exposure for the party. The same can be said to a lesser degree about the state districts.
The IP should be working with candidate like Amy Smith of the 65th State Senate District to determine her interest in running in the next election cycle. If she or any of the other candidates are than the IP should begin working with them on Fund Raising plans, speaking plans, and other forms of engagement.
In the end it all comes down to two forms of capital, people and money, in politics you can’t have one without the other?
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