DFL candidate for governor Mark Dayton beat Matt Entenza and Margaret Anderson Kelliher, bucked the DFL party endorsement and vanquished several big unions' preferred candidate.

Now he's making nice and finding some new friends.

Since the Aug. 10 election, he's picked up the teachers and carpenters unions endorsements, which had given Kelliher their nods earlier, and AFL-CIO and SEIU endorsements, which had not supported any candidate before.

He's also met with Entenza and his wife Lois Quam, has a meeting planned with Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak, who lost the DFL endorsement to Kelliher and dropped out, and met with Kelliher this week.

"I met with her yesterday afternoon. We had a good meeting. And she's willing to be helpful," Dayton said. He said the passage of time has been helpful in helping to heal their "heartbreak."

He said he and his staff have also had a series of meetings with DFL staffers to start working together.

Mark Dayton/Star Tribune files

A little reminder of Dayton's relations with the party from back in April, when he appeared at the DFL convention in Duluth even though he had decided to buck party endorsement:


That move cost Dayton some embarrassment when he was refused entry to the convention floor by party officials. He called the move "petty."

But Andy O' Leary, DFL executive director, said Dayton's decision to go to a primary sealed his fate. "He has chosen his own path," O' Leary said. "His path did not include floor passes."

Now that the DFL and Dayton's paths again coincided, their fates have again merged.