Endorsement conventions, it turns out, are a colossal waste of everyone's time and ticker tape.
I don't want to hurt your feelings if you're a fan of picking winners months and months and months before primary voters get a say. The conventions were supposed to whittle the field of candidates down to a chosen few. Yet we are neck-deep in would-be governors, lieutenant governors, state attorneys general and congresspeople. We have more DFL candidates now than we did a week ago.
So many 2018 hopefuls crowded in to file with the secretary of state on Tuesday, I'm still not sure who they all are or whether I might be one of them.
The primary ballot's going to look like Where's Waldo, if the page was nothing but Waldos and all the Waldos were running for office and wanted to talk to you about ethanol subsidies.
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson lost out on the DFL endorsement and sidestepped into the governor's race instead. So U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison sidestepped into the race for state attorney general. So half the city of Minneapolis stampeded for his seat.
Pop some popcorn — or ask Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon to bring you some — because Minnesota primary season is going to be amazing.
"He's running. She's running," we used to joke, every time a Minnesota politician said something or didn't say something, or strode purposefully across a cornfield with sleeves rolled up and a jacket tossed breezily across one shoulder. And then we laughed and laughed because that would be absurd if that many people actually ran.
But he's running and she's running and everybody's running.
