Don't Drink the Water

Perhaps the man most responsible for Ramsey County's election of a pending felon, Jim Styczinski, writes in with more analysis of the Ramsey County District 3 Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor race:

You dismiss the influence of the Fraters endorsement for Jill Wilkinson and attribute the defeat of Marj Ebensteiner to the similarity of her name to Republican State Chairman Ron Eibensteiner. Then how do you explain the 2002 Ramsey County District 4 results?

Mary Jane Reagan received 46,386 votes, defeating an Anderson and even the perfectly named Phil Gravel. You could argue that Ramsey County voters wouldn't expect a Reagan in St. Paul to be related to Ronald Reagan, but would they really be willing to take that risk?

That result is shocking. Not for the victory of Mary Jane Reagan, but for the defeat of Phil Gravel. For the uninformed, name sensitive voter, he sounds like the perfect candidate for Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor. The only possible superior candidate I can think of would be Flo Water.

But I would argue that the name Reagan would not disqualify a candidate in 2002 in St. Paul. "Reagan" did not carry the red hot emotional baggage in 2002 that E(i)bensteiner does in 2004. Most people knew Ronald Reagan didn't have any extra kids running for office in St. Paul. Therefore, the local Democrats had no fear of mistakenly electing an evil conservative by voting for her.

Plus, Mary Jane Reagan (nee Mary Jane Rachner) is a bit of a media celebrity around town. That's primarily due to her status as a perennial candidate, for anything and everything. And she actually did change her name to Reagan for the expressed purpose of getting a sympathetic affiliation with the great man. (Although for her rather interesting career as an author, she retains her original name.)

I suspect many voters in 2002 recalled the name "Mary Jane Reagan" from hearing it mentioned in the media for the past 30 years, but didn't remember the context (i.e., crazy woman runs for office again). In politics, name ID is sometimes all you need. Although don't tell that to Patty Wetterling this week.

If all this sounds too cynical and overly critical of our fellow citizens, I refer you to the Churchill quote on the masthead of this web site. But in defense of the people, let me also say this phenomenon is more common the more obscure the race is. Normal people can't be expected to thoroughly research and get informed on every office state law dictates to appear on the ballot (which the dozens of uncontested, incumbent judges appearing on the back of your ballot Tuesday thank their lucky stars for).

That's why we're here. To tell you how to vote. And the guy that did have time to research these races for us, Jim Styczinski, provides this summary of the results of our efforts:

For many years now the DFL has been the dominant political force in Ramsey County. But for the last few of those years, the barbarians (Fraters Libertas) have been at the gate. With this election the gates have fallen and the county has been sacked. In both Ramsey County Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor races, the Fraters Libertas endorsed candidate defeated the DFL endorsed candidate. In District 2, our Dorothy Waltz edged Gwen Willems by the narrow, but litigation proof, margin of 2175 votes. Even more embarrassing for the DFL, our erstwhile endorsee in District 3, admitted Libertarian embezzler Jill Elizabeth Wilkinson, trounced DFL endorsed incumbent Marjorie Ebensteiner by a whopping 29,960 votes. Although we retracted our endorsement of Ms. Wilkinson, it was still more influential than the DFL's unretracted endorsement of Ms. Ebensteiner. Take that Mike "Emperor Odovacar" Erlandson.

While Ramsey County is firmly under our boot, there are still more counties to conquer. Our endorsee for Hennepin County District 5 Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor, Michael Wyatt finished a disappointing third. The winner was "Gay Divorce" pioneer Jonathan M. Burris of QueerLawyer.com. The runner up was Kevin W. Rodewald, he of the GlobalHemp.com e-mail address. We made the mistake of endorsing the most qualified candidate - a mistake that cannot be repeated if we are to expand our empire to the shores of Lake Minnetonka.

And succeed we must next time as the status quo is rather sobering. In Ramsey County District 3, the Soil and Water Commissioner is an admitted embezzler, in District 4 a serial candidate and sex book author, and in Hennepin County District 5, a pioneer of the gay divorce movement.

Hang on citizens, help is on the way. But for the next two years, you may want to considering drinking only bottled water.