Anybody But Ebensteiner

It is with some alarm we note the result in the Ramsey County District 3 Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor race, where erstwhile Fraters Libertas endorsee Jill Wilkinson surged to victory with 59% of the vote.

As you may recall we were forced to withdraw our endorsement from Ms. Wilkinson when it came to light that she had admitted to embezzling thousands of dollars from the Libertarian Party. Yet she ran away with this race anyway, over a DFL-endorsed opponent no less.

I shudder to think we may have unduly influenced the outcome of this election. But if not us, who? We did boldly endorse the woman, while every mainstream media outlet completely ignored the race (and of course, nobody reads the corrections columns, even on Fraters Libertas). I wonder, could this be another (Pyrrhic) victory for the blogosphere? Behold the power of the new media!

Or, behold the power of the old ignorance. While I'd like to think we had something to do with this outcome, our daily readership level argues against the possibility that Wilkinson's 97,321 supporters in Ramsey County were subject to our influence. Instead, a more likely scenario presents itself. People in Ramsey County weren't voting for Wilkinson, as much as voting against her opponent, on the basis of mistakenly associating her last name with a well-known villain in DFL circles.

Wilkinson's opponent, Marj Ebensteiner, has a last name nearly identical to that of the Minnesota Republican Party Chairman, Ron Eibensteiner. The Chairman is a well known man in this town, in an infamous sort of way (most prominently for yelling "get a job" at a motley crew of professional protesters outside of a Bush fundraiser in St. Paul in 2002). My guess is that most people thought Marj was his wife or daughter or indentured servant or something.

You will note that Ron's Eibensteiner has an extra "i" at the beginning. I suspect most voters did not note that. So every knee jerk Democrat in the county voted against her. And St. Paul is full of knee jerk Democrats. According to the Pioneer Press:

There was no change in St. Paul's all-DFL Minnesota House delegation as a result of Tuesday's elections, an expected result. The city has not sent a Republican to the Legislature in 20 years, and didn't come close to breaking that record this election.

To be specific, the Democrats running for the 8 House seats in St. Paul this year each received 59% or more of the vote (with 7 of the 8 receiving 70% or more). Yet for the Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor race, these same voters (basically) gave the Democrat only 41%. And the Libertarian (or Losertarian as Michael Medved would call her) got 59%? That Libertarian, Wilkinson, to reiterate, has no discernible qualifications for the office and is currently under indictment for stealing thousands of dollars of her party's funds.

For your sin of ignorance, citizens of Ramsey County, it sounds like you got the Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor you deserve. One not named similarly to the Republican Party chairman. Let's hope she doesn't do any damage before she gets sent off to the jug. And next year Ramsey County voters, remember to read some blogs before you vote. (Especially the corrections.)