This is another easy one.
On the DFL side of the ballot, your options are:
Steve Simon
Steve Simon is the incumbent and I think he’s done a fantastic job. A+, absolutely voting for him, no question.
Steve Carlson
Steve Carlson’s website includes the year “2018” in it and also “forUSSenate,” so apparently he still hasn’t taken the free advice I offered him back in 2014, when he was running with a website that had the year “2010” in it, which is that if running for offices is your hobby, you should register a website that names neither a specific office nor gives a specific year.
Anyway. He ran for Senate as an Independence candidate in 2014. He ran for the 4th district US House seat in 2016 and the main thing I took from his website is that he’s not a good rapper. (He’s an old, white, conservative dude, so this should not be surprising.) In 2018 he ran in the DFL Primary for Senate against Amy Klobuchar and in 2020 he ran in the DFL Primary for Senate against Tina Smith.
In order to run in a partisan primary, he had to sign an affidavit of candidacy affirming that he’d either gone to his DFL Precinct Caucus in 2022 or that he intended to vote mainly for Democrats in November. He says he went to the caucus (I asked) and I am more willing to believe that Steve actually went to a DFL caucus than AJ Kern, because over on his Facebook he has a post that at least mentions caucuses, and his latest hobbyhorse (which he has ranted about over and over and over at length and in detail on Twitter) is that the DFL has a rule requiring gender balance for delegates elected to the State Convention, which makes me think he tried to become a delegate to the State Convention. (Or some slightly more selective convention, it might not have been the state one.)
Steve’s biggest obstacle in being a DFL delegate is not his race or sex but the fact that he’s an anti-gay, anti-Muslim Trump supporter with complete contempt for the bodily autonomy or human rights of women. Democrats mostly do not choose as delegates people who are this far out of step with DFL principles. Do not vote for him.
On the Republican side of the ballot you’ll find:
Erik van Mechelen
Kim Crockett (GOP endorsed)
If you take a look at Erik’s website, you will find a website devoted to Trump’s Big Lie, that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. (Also, he wants to ban all machine counts and require a hand count of every election. I will note that we did a painstaking hand count a few years back and it took a really long time, cost a lot of money, and the Democrat won.) If you look at Kim’s website, you’ll find a bunch of doublespeak about “safeguarding” and “protecting” and “empowering.” Just to be clear, Kim is just as much of an election denier as Erik — she just knows how to say the quiet part quietly.
ETA: She managed to get fired from her job at the Center for the American Experiment (an ultraconservative area think tank) back in 2019 by being openly racist in an interview with the New York Times. “I think of America, the great assimilator, as a rubber band, but with this — we’re at the breaking point. These aren’t people coming from Norway, let’s put it that way. These people are very visible.” She issued an apology at the time, but doubled down in April of this year.
The Republican party has made it really, really, really clear that they have complete contempt for the entire concept of government of, for, and by the people. No one should trust them with elections, in Minnesota or any other state.
In addition to writing political commentary, I write science fiction and fantasy. My book that came out in April 2021, Chaos on CatNet, takes place in a future Minneapolis. It’s a sequel to Catfishing on CatNet and signed copies of both books are usually available from Dreamhaven. You will also be able to get them from Uncle Hugo’s when it reopens at 2716 E 31st St! (and maybe by mail order now? I’m not sure how much mail order Don is doing while getting ready to re-open.)
I do not have a Patreon or Ko-Fi, but you can make a donation to encourage my work! I get a lot of satisfaction watching fundraisers I highlight getting funded (or, in the case of the Movement Voter fundraiser, continuing to raise money past their goal). I explained back in May why I’m fundraising for the Movement Voter PAC and that fundraiser is still active. (Also, I owe some embarrassing readings of my juvenalia to the Internet.)
I also went looking and found two DonorsChoose fundraisers for classrooms at Bethune Community School in North Minneapolis: math manipulatives for pre-K students (this is such a good idea) and a nice book organizer for a first-grade classroom where the shelving is coming apart.
Will Tell Stories For Food 