TakeAction Minnesota ramps up role in gubernatorial contest

Greta Bergstrom and Ryan Greenwood, of TakeAction Minnesota

In 2007, the board of TakeAction Minnesota’s political action committee gathered at the group’s St. Paul office to discuss a seemingly far-off event: the 2010 governor’s race. The discussion turned, inevitably, to the futility of DFL candidates in recent decades. Not since Rudy Perpich won the 1986 contest has a Democrat triumphed in a gubernatorial campaign in Minnesota.

The scope of that electoral drought became painfully evident when an informal census was taken to see how many of the dozen or so people present had ever voted for a successful gubernatorial candidate. The conclusion: only two of the board members had experienced the novel thrill of casting a ballot for a candidate who actually became governor.

“I was just stunned,” recalls Roy Magnuson, one of those two. “These are people with a history of activism. But you’ve got to go back a ways.”

Indeed you’d have to be over 40 years old to have cast a ballot for Perpich. Democrats have only been shut out from the state’s top post longer in Utah, South Dakota and North Dakota.

That discussion, in part, has led to a novel organizing campaign that TakeAction Minnesota hopes will finally lead to the end of that drought in 2010. Since January the progressive advocacy group has been holding meetings with people across the state. The topic of discussion: What’s your vision for the state of Minnesota?

“What we wanted to get to was people’s guts,” says Mark Schultz, a board member of the group’s political action committee. “We used phrases like convictions and values.”

On Saturday, TakeAction Minnesota will unveil that vision during a gathering at St. Paul’s Arlington High School. It’s the kickoff event for the group’s “Renew Minnesota” campaign, which it hopes will result in the election of the first progressive governor in more than two decades. The vision statement is not a political platform with specific policy prescription, but more of a philosophical framework for discussing the governor’s race.

“It’s kind of a holistic belief system or world view that is very different from Tim Pawlenty’s world view,” says Greta Bergstrom, TakeAction’s communications director. “The era of individual, do-it-on-my-own, pull-myself-up by my bootstraps, has failed miserably. Our state is much worse off.”

Ryan Greenwood, the organization’s political director, says that they heard similar themes as they traveled the state, even if the specific issues of importance varied.

“When we talk with people in Wabasso out in southwest Minnesota, they care about how public policy is supporting family farmers,” Greenwood says. “Maybe that’s not first on the list for somebody in Woodbury. But the themes that come out of that are people start to realize we’re all in this together as a state. There’s actually a profound connection between folks who live in Woodbury and those family farmers out in Wabasso. And that’s true for folks on the Red Lake reservation and people at a senior center in Rochester.”

Four years ago, TakeAction Minnesota was still a fledgling organization, the result of a merger between Progressive Minnesota and Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action. But it has quickly emerged as a significant force in progressive politics, helping Democrats strengthen their majorities in the state House and Senate during the last two election cycles, and adding organizing muscle to Al Franken’s U.S. Senate campaign. An indicator of that clout: all 11 potential DFL gubernatorial candidate’s will be at Saturday’s gathering.

But the gubernatorial campaign represents the first time that TakeAction has sought to have a major influence on a statewide contest from its inception. While the Renew Minnesota campaign is purposefully eschewing talk of candidates and electoral politics in its early stages, the process will ultimately result in the group’s members voting on which candidate in the field to endorse. The outcome of that endorsement battle could then have a major influence on the outcome of the DFL convention in June.

“The DFL endorsement in this very crowded governor’s race is a really important step for a number of the candidates,” says Jeff Blodgett, executive director of Wellstone Action. “The TakeAction effort is potentially a really powerful force in influencing who the DFL chooses to put up as their candidate.”

Theories abound as to why the DFL has spent so much time in the gubernatorial wilderness. Blodgett argues that the party has devoted too much time to worrying about the impact of third-party candidates and wooing independents, rather than mobilizing its base.

“We have to inspire them,” he says. “Our last four or five candidate have failed to do that.”

Magnuson believes it comes down to a fundamental problem: poor candidates. “The Republicans turn the wheel a little better,” he says. They always seem to have a fresh-looking candidate who makes people think they have fresh ideas.”

Whatever the reason for the electoral malaise, TakeAction is hoping that its lengthy organizing process will change the dynamic in 2010. In addition to seeking input from Minnesota residents about their vision for the state, the group is also asking participants to commit to helping elect a progressive governor and then assist in pushing a legislative agenda. The commitments can be simply talking to friends and neighbors about the governor’s race, or participating in next year’s DFL caucus process. The hope is that when the party’s nominee is finally selected there will be a cadre of volunteers ready to put sweat equity into the campaign and beyond.

“It’s not enough to just tell a candidate here’s what we want from you,” says Greenwood. “We have to be willing to say here’s the work we’re going to do to help you win an election and to help you govern after you win an election to enact this vision. This is a group of  people who are willing to do the work, who are committed to making this happen.”