My response to some comments…

Alan L. Maki

I will try to improve my grammar. Let me know if you find this grammar any better.

In view of your response which I appreciate, I would ask you a question: Is the MN DFL losing votes because of third party candidates; or, is this loss of votes because people feel they aren't being adequately represented by the DFL so people aren't bothering to vote at all?

I would say this, also; it is very difficult to vote for DFL candidates who boast to the media that they are more conservative than their Republican opponents. Collin Peterson, Dave Olin and Bernie Lieder did just this.
Why would I want to vote for any candidate who boasts of being conservative? If I wanted to vote for a conservative I would vote Republican.

Collin Peterson was supported by the Tea Party. Representative Dave Olin boasted in huge newspaper advertisements that he was endorsed by the National Rifle Association. I certainly would not walk across the street to vote for either Peterson or Olin. And I would never ever vote Republican unless Abe Lincoln were to rise from the grave but I doubt Lincoln would run on the Republican Party ticket.

Chances are good, and I realize it is always tricky trying to speak for the dead, but I seriously would doubt Lincoln would run on the Republican or Democratic Party ticket. Chances are pretty good Lincoln would help organize an anti-corporate, pro labor party.

I am wiling to vote DFL--- no problem; I voted for Mark Dayton. But, I am not going to move myself further to the right of Mark Dayton to do so simply because there is nothing to be gained by working people in doing this. Quite frankly, I possibly wasted my time voting for Dayton if he intends to begin "compromising" with Republicans rather than fighting them.

For working people politics is not some kind of game where the game is won and lost based upon keeping score of how many Democrats get elected versus how many Republicans get elected. For working people politics is part of the struggle to defend gains already won and win improvements in their lives and working conditions.

Working people in Minnesota have not received one single benefit since Rudy Perpich was governor. Since Perpich, the Democrats have rolled over and let the Republicans walk all over them.

My suggestion to Dayton is that he reach out to his supporters and mobilize them in a way that he gets his liberal agenda pushed through by using the brute force a united working class is capable of delivering, and that he use this time fighting the Republicans to recruit candidates with the moral and political courage to ride his liberal coat-tails to victory in 2012 rather than candidates who run away from being called liberal, progressive or left.

I don't think it is too much to ask of the Democrats that in return for our votes they deliver something of real substance for working people... like the "jobs, jobs, jobs" they are always so fond of talking about during campaigns.

I notice no Democrat has the courage to talk about the 41,000 jobs they created for Minnesotans in the Indian Gaming Industry where these workers, because of "Compacts" the Democrats devised specifically for the creation of this industry we now have 41,000 Minnesotans working in loud, noisy, smoke-filled casinos at poverty wages without any rights protected under state or federal labor laws. In casinos that are now the centers for drug dealing, prostitution, fencing of stolen merchandise and a sundry of illegal gambling on everything from betting on the ponies to professional and even college and high school sports. Not only is all of this terribly destructive to the lives of casino workers and their families but all this crime and corruption is tearing apart the local communities where these casinos are located.

Minnesota's workers have lost over 90,000 jobs in the taconite, forestry, auto and airline industries with the only large-scale creation of jobs being the 41,000 in the Indian Gaming Industry. Would you call this an accomplishment of the MN DFL? Like I said, usually the creation of 41,000 jobs would be something to brag and boast about. For some strange reason no DFL politicians campaign on the basis of having created these 41,000 jobs.

The MN DFL should be ashamed of itself that not one single Native American Indian is sitting in the Minnesota State Legislature and among our Congressional delegation. Redistricting is getting underway and the leadership of the Minnesota DFL has not even brought forward a proposal that would give Native American Indians a fair shot being elected in House District 4-A or Senate District 4; or Congressional Districts 7 or 8.

Even when the DFL had majorities in the House and Senate, not one single DFL'er had the moral or political courage to call for the repeal of "at-will hiring; at-will firing" which is the primary impediment to union organizing in Minnesota. By the way, the DFL has allowed Stanley Crooks of the huge Mystic Lake Casino/Hotel empire to get away for years in forcing employees to sign a statement as a condition of their employment declaring that they understand they will be terminated (fired) if they engage in union organizing.

Not one single DFL elected official has had the moral or political courage to step forward and explain to Minnesotans how the disgraceful poverty plaguing the Indian Nations is by intent so that the Indian Gaming Industry has a steady supply of cheap labor. Poverty wage jobs means poverty. Unemployment means poverty.
I hope my grammar is understandable in this post.