And the Winner Is.......??

Minneapolis completed their municipal elections Tuesday. With low voter turnout, it was easy to determine the mayor was re-elected. They used the new ballot with ranked choices. Use your ballot to chose your first, second and third choices. They called it ranked voting or IRV aka instant runoff voting. The instant part is overstated. Results are not instant unless there is a clear cut winner. Winners of other races will be revealed in six weeks after the hand count is completed.

We don't get much of a break between elections. The Minneapolis mayor's re-election was announced on Wednesday and on Thursday he announced he was filing to be a candidate in the state's gubernatorial election of 2010. Does that make sense?
There were already 20 candidates running for governor. May as well have one more.

The state Independent Party which gave us former Governor Ventura said it has not found a credible candidate to run for governor. Does a candidate really have to be credible? That quality didn't dampen the spirits of one guy who ran for Mayor of St. Paul. His platform was to bring back the bus routes and fare prices of 1970. Go back to the good old days. He didn't win. That might be our loss but who knows for sure. The idea of candidacy is to find an issue that inspires voters.

The other night we watched a PBS program of Bill Cosby receiving the Mark Twain award at the Kennedy Center. Many comedians and famous people shared stories about Bill. Dick Gregory was on the program. I remember when he was a comedian but they introduced him as an activist and former presidential candidate. It gave me an idea. My 50th high school reunion is coming up in a few years. Wouldn't that be nice if I were introduced as a "former gubernatorial candidate"? It would even look good chiseled on my tombstone. You could put me in the section of the cemetery by Harold Stassen, perennial Minnesota presidential candidate of years ago.

I'm throwing my hat in the ring. My platform is; bring back the price of a Doctors visit to 1970 rates. Who wouldn't like that except, of course, the doctors. It would stop a lot of political fighting in this country and let congress figure out how to get our money back from Wall Street and Detroit automakers.