I’ve had a lot of cards in the mail from politicians lately. Something must be going on! Here’s one that came from Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s liquid 9th district.
Greetings, Constituents!
It’s a beautiful time to be in Minnesota’s 9th, which includes AND is limited to all the water surface area in the state. I agree that it’s an unusual way to draw the lines that divide congressional districts, and if you looked at a map of the 9th it would appear to be a spray of freckles across the face of a perplexed state. But it does make sense on a number of levels.
1 – It brings together many, many sparsely populated areas. There are quite a few Minnesotans who live on the edges of lakes, but their homes are not in my district. The 9th is water surface only, so I represent a lot of houseboat residents and people who list jet skis, pleasure craft and ice-fishing structures as their primary residences.
2- These are often places of relaxation. Beer is the district’s number one beverage all day long, and its effects are cumulative. This makes the 9th a relatively conservative district early in the day, and wildly liberal the closer you get to sundown. After dark, 9th districters rarely say no to anything. It is truly a “swing” district, and the two sides of our personality tend to create a balance.
3 – The boundaries of my district are clear to the naked eye. You can tell exactly where the 9th begins and ends – something that’s not true with other congressional districts in general, even if there are stark political differences on either side of the line. In a logical world, you would be able to tell where Betty McCollum Territory ends and Michele Bachmann Land begins, but you can’t, just by looking at it.
I’m proud to represent Minnesota’s 9th congressional district, and I encourage all residents to get out and vote on Tuesday, August 10th in the state primary.
As an independent, I’m running unopposed this time. But with so few registered voters, even a loosely organized write-in campaign could unseat me. Everybody says incumbents need to look over their shoulders. I am trying to look over both my shoulders at the same time. If you want to know whether I favor the left one or the right one, let’s talk. I can tilt pretty much whichever way you want. That’s public service!
And if you’re visiting the 9th district for summer recreation, have a wonderful time. You should have voted “absentee” in your home district. If you didn’t, please don’t try to vote in our primary unless you’re voting for me, and you think you can get away with it.
Of course I disavow any knowledge of your actions.
Thanks for your kind attention!
Congressman Loomis Beechly.
Are you planning to vote in tomorrow’s primary?
Trail Baboon 
oh yeah, Dale – we’ll vote in the primary. we have NINE folks on the ballot just for district 4 Carlton Cty. commissioner! we’re newcomers, so we don’t know the folks who are running (much like others, who have known them for years and years) and it’s difficult to figure out their politics. in Blackhoof, it will come down to who has the most friends. we probably have 300 or so voters so every vote DOES count.
but in the governor (and other) races, i’m still confused over having to vote a straight ticket. how did that get started and why?
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The voting a straight ticket came about because of the potential for voters of one party to mess with a race of the other party – if the race is uncontested for party A, large numbers of party A voters could vote for the party B candidate they perceive as weakest. That would tend to keep incumbents in office, since they are usually unchallenged in primaries. Some states require voters to state a party when they register, and cannot vote in any other party’s primary. Minnesota is less restrictive, you only have to stick to one party on the primary election ballot, and can change from one election to the next.
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Barb, I learned something new today- Blackhoof is in Carlton County! I thought it was much farther north. I taught at Carlton High School for six years back in the late 70s- early 80s- lived in Cloquet for two of those years and Carlton for four) and never recall hearing about Blackhoof. 😦 How embarassing.
I’ll probably vote here in Steele County because we have a five-man primary for Sheriff.
Chris in Owatonna
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oh, Chris, don’t worry about not hearing about our little township. i’m happy to hear that you taught in Carlton years ago. they are having a really difficult time right now – budget stuff – like many school districts. they keep bringing up referenda and they are voted down. we don’t have children, but have always voted for the schools; doesn’t make sense not to.
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I agree with you, Barb. I don’t have kids either but have always voted in favor of referenda or any school district improvements. They’re always voted down here and the school (combined district) is really falling apart. It would be so good for the community to have a nice school with community facilities.
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thanks for the ‘splaining – makes sense now and i won’t fuss anymore.
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I probably will, but mostly because the s&h is out-of-town for the week and I have a hard time focussing when that happens.
An event like this has a definite time and place and can’t be put off, so I’ll most likely go.
Barb, I left a post late yesterday about discovering a brewery in Stevens Point called Horny Goat. I picked up a couple of bottles and will be toasted Mr. T.
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have had that brew and can’t remember what i thought of it. hope it doesn’t taste like T smells of late!
stay cool – a brew will help.
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I hadn’t considered that possibility. I shall hope for the best.
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I will surely vote, even though I’m still not sure who I’ll vote for. In general, I’m like a lot of people. Not having an opinion rarely inhibits me from expressing my opinions, and this is one of those special days for that.
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Rise and Shine Babooners:
I have not decided yet if I will vote, but I know who I would like to see win. I usually consider myself an Independent, especially when it comes to voting for governor, but I may vote in the DFL primary this year to express my opinion. I will say though, that getting my head into politics in August is taking a lot of energy and focus–this does not seem right. I resent having to vote in August, the month of checking out of regular life in Minnesota. Loomis might succeed for govenor if the polling place was a raft with a bar in the middle of water surface somewhere.
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Excellent point.
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That raft sounds good, Jacque. A friend who just borrowed my cabin said that for the first time in his memory, Lake Superior is swimmably warm.
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Good morning, all. I rarely get a chance to read or comment anymore. Seems like my job has gotten crazier busy. I hope everyone is here and well!
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we are here when you get time, good to see you moniker again
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Been wondering where you are and how doing.
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So have you been running in this heat? You’re eleanor, right?
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Hi, madislandgirl. Yes, I’m Elinor. I have NOT been running in the heat but have been biking long distances instead. I hope to resume running next week if the heat will abate! How have you been?
Been around Clyde. Just working and taking care of kids. Doing well. How about yourself.
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I’ve been looking for a post from you again, Elinor. I loved your galleries but forgot to bookmark them. Gotcha now!
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Thanks, Steve. I’m going to try to pop in every day.
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beautiful, beautiful photos Elinore! glad to hear from you.
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Thanks, Barb! Seems like you are up bright and early every morning and hitting the blog. 🙂
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Hi Elinor. Add my voice to the welcoming chorus!
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Thanks, Dale. 🙂
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i am in kc and hoping for a win in the finals of the legion baseball tourney. if they beat missouri today they get on a bus and head for spokane and i will get to do a road trip to hope for the win in the legion world series. it is a big deal for the team. the parents are hemming and hawing because the summer was planned out and this is messing it up for some of them. me too but i am fortunate to be able to go. the baseball parents are a lot like the water district. some are very conservative but as the day goes on the hooting and hollaring loosens them up and then the get together in the evening at the team hotel is downright raucous. i would vote if i had access to it and will if we lose today and i am headed home at sundown but otherwise i will be heading out west and will look up to see if my vote would have mattered. i am an official in the senate district where i live and as so i am supposed to vote for the recommended democratic nomonees but i am so frustrated by the democratic machine that nominated anderson kelliher over rt that i am tempted to vote for dayton. he has no butts to kiss in the dfl and can act as he pleases instead of how the instruct him to act. i’m not sure he would be good for the dfl but like i’ve always said i don’t belong to any organized political party, i am a democrat.
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Good luck in the game, Tim. It is hard to imagine a modern family suspending planning vacations until the outcome of a tournament is known.
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Good Morning Potential Voters,
There was a time when I didn’t vote because the process really doesn’t work very well and it should. I haven’t changed my mind about how poorly the system of electing people works, but I always vote. I have the hope that some day we might have a better system and I think it is important to keep the system of voting in place even if currently it usually isn’t working, in my opinion.
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democracy is the worst form of government there is except for all the others
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It has been said that our democracy is close to being a plutocracy, rule by the wealthy, and I think it migh already be run this way instead of as a democracy.
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Well, as I don’t live in Minnesota, I won’t be voting today. Our voting day was last week. I completely forgot about it until I was driving to work and drove past a voting place. I’m new in town, so I have no idea where to go to vote 😦 Maybe I’ll be able to figure it out for November.
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Look for the web site of either your county government or the secretary of state’s office. They should have an online precinct finder.
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I have an absentee ballot, so I’m voting today. I’m working in a downtown polling place tomorrow, instead of my home precinct. I too am a little confused by the move to August. I have a vague anxious feeling that I missed the state fair.
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Good morning all!
There are Emmer signs all over the place around here. So, yes, I’ll vote in the primary. Jobs like mine having been hanging by a tenuous little thread since the Ventura days. I’m sure Tom Emmer would spell the end for me. I’m only a few years from retirement but I haven’t been able to save enough to retire or pay off my house. My pay has not kept pace with inflation (frozen wages, no cost of living increases, etc.) but I have all these (apparently) enviable benefits (retirement, paid leave) that I’m not sure will actually pay off in the end. But I’m doing what I’m supposed to do and hanging in there… If Tom Emmer gets in I’m done. So yes, I’m going to vote as if my life depends on it. I hope you will too….
Stay cool today, Baboons!
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I am definitely voting. I have been volunteering for multiple campaigns (when you live in the 6th district, you do what you can). I felt valued as a volunteer when the campaign staff called not to remind me to vote, but to see if I was doing OK after surgery. They found me a footstool, so I will be back in the office entering data with my knee elevated.
Dale, does the 9th district include bogs, marshes, and sloughs like the 6th district the edges of the 9th are confusing?
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Yes, Beth-Ann, the 9th does get a little confusing around the edges in some places. I believe this gives Mr. Beechly the ambiguity he needs to get re-elected every single time. Plus, escaped convicts sometimes hide in a cattail marsh in order to throw tracking dogs off their scent. And one thing we know about those felons – they vote!
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Morning everyone. I’m officially back at work today (at the college, verses ‘working at the farm’). Sort of. Plasma donation at 12:30 and a few other errands to run. But, if anybody asks, Yes; I am back at work.
There’s a few of us on here that have already commented on being election judges tomorrow so carry on without us. I will be voting.
…It’s always fun to see and talk with the neighbors at elections…
Catch you on the flip flop!
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Yeah, I’ll stop by on the way home. Since I don’t play the lottery, this is my ‘scratch off’ game.
Very hot at Barnfest in Red Wing last Saturday. But to see Brianna Lane, Eric Koskinen, Spider John Koerner, Cliff Eberhardt, Carrie Elkin, Storyhill, Danny Schmidt, Pieta Brown, and Ruth Moody (from The Waylin’ Jennys) all in one afternoon. Wow! What a show!
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Oooh, wish I’d seen that one.
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always vote, even on the little stuff, part of living in a democracy; have to balance out all the crazies who vote for things like breaking away from the union or a govt too small to be effective
i consider it a great privilege
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Today’s vignette: a woman in the lobby outside my office walks by the first open elevator door to push the button between the two elevators. She stares very impatiently at the light for the second elevator showing a lit “3.” A small moral dliemma for me getting my mail out of the mailboxes–do I tell her and embarrass her? Suddenly she burst angrily at me “Tell me do these @#*/@ elelvators work?” I point out the open door. I think the word is “abashed.”
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too funny
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Love it!
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Sometimes, it is just best to stand back and wait for someone to realize they have made a fool of themselves. I’ll be charitable and say it must be the heat.
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Good to “see” you, Elinor.
Jacque – great idea about the voting raft!
I’m not sure who I’m voting either, wish Emmer had competition because I would actually vote as a republican against him… or maybe I could do that with a write-in?
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Nice to see you, too!
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So, Dale, first they’re the swim vote, then the swig vote, and then the swing vote?
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you have the brain working like a well oiled machine today clyde.
hey, i see from afar twins are 1/2 game out. clean living must be paying off.
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With a very patch-work lineup and Ron Mahay still on the team.
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We don’t have primaries in ND. I come from a long line of Minnesota DFLers and would continue the tradition if I lived in Minnesota.
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Vignette #2, seen while bike riding to ge the mail: In the parking ramp which serves the Social Security office, a 35-year-old man is stepping into a car holding a large clump of papers and railing loudly at a friend in another car how the SS was cheating him out of his benefits. On the back of his car are several conservative stickers, one of which proclaims “Socialism is Not the Answer.”
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You are in fine form today, as someone pointed out, Clyde! I trust you and your bride had a good day.
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Yes. We did. But tomorrow night as a part of the celebration I am taking my former children’s librarian to see Ramona and Beezus.
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Sounds like an excellent date! Love those books.
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After hearing the tongue lashing that my brother got the year he didn’t vote in an election (one of the “Reagan years” – Mom was *not pleased* to say the least…both b/c eldest child had not voted, but also due to the outcome), I have always voted in primaries and elections since the first year I was eligible. I try to get to caucuses when I can, too. It was instilled early that voting was my duty as a citizen of this whacky, sometimes messed up, but lovable country. Learn what you can of the candidates and make the best informed choice you can. But choose and vote – it’s an electoral system, so elect (and then write vehement letters as needed to those voted into office). Or fear the wrath of a Norwegian Lutheran mother with a fierce “mom voice.”
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We have many contestants for every city and county election, and like Ms blackhoof of 2011, I am not a local and cannot sort them out. Talked to two who canvassed our association and learned nothing. Used to judge things by who had what signs, usually told me who not to vote for by who had whose signs in their yard. But our association–henceforth to be called by me Efrafa–has banned all yard signs. Out of fear for the water system. A Lawn is the highest epxression of Western Culture.
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I don’t know how common this is. My former wife lives in Belgium. There if you don’t vote, you have to pay a fine! And it isn’t a trifle.
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Another Monday with little to do:
To vote, or not to vote: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the public to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous politics,
Or to take ballot against a sea of idiots,
And by voting end them? To stay home:
And vote no more; and by a sleep to say we ignore
The heart-ache and the thousand unnatural laws
That democracy is heir to. ‘Tis a constipation
Devoutly to be avoided. So to vote, to support;
To contribute: perchance to endorse: ay, there’s the rub;
For after the election what follies may come
When we have struggled on our home soil,
Must give us pause: there’s the result
That makes calamity of our public life.
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we’re not worthy, Clyde – wow.
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Agreed. Wow.
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*Like* 😉
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how…do…you…do…that…?
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wow indeed!
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I just received an email from a friend about an HBO movie Iron Jawed Angels, with some of the really nasty stuff that happened to the women who picketed Wilson’s white house and were brutally jailed… I can’t find the exact web link, but there are some great old photos, and if anyone would like to see them, email me at mmbbhassing@usfmaily.net
and I can forward them to you. Here’s some text from the email I got:
“If you are one who takes your “right to vote” seriously, you will appreciate this
piece of history. If you know of somebody who thinks their vote is worth very little,
pass this along to them.
Subject: ‘Courageous Women-let’s not abuse their sacrifice – Movie called “Iron-Jawed Angels”
——————————————————————————–
Great pictures and captions from 90 years ago, both from a interesting historical perspective and just because
It’s good to be reminded of how hard it was back then for women, just to vote. And it’s really sad to see how many people don’t vote today.”
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Barbara! I just got an e-mail from a friend about Iron Jawed Angels. Just seeing the trailer and reading the summary I vowed never to miss a single primary or general election (which I haven’t for quite some time). Women literally died trying to vote.
I’ve been lurking out here and enjoying the past week of missives. My big news is that I’m changing jobs from MCAD to Macalester (as of Aug. 23) and I’ve been not really been able to think about anything else except this scary but good transition.
Barb in B, I went to your/Steve’s blog yesterday and saw the new Girls! Sweet photos. Loved seeing their exploration around the pasture and barn. Lucky, lucky goats.
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Cynthia – contrats on your upcoming transition. Do I remember correctly that you’ve done some social work in the past? If so, would you be willing to answer a personal question by email?
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Go get em. Bet it will be great place to work.
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Cynthia As someone whose home is walking distance from Macalester, I congratulate you and welcome you to our neighborhood.
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Vignette #3: Can’t resist this although it’s a bit picky.
Watch out for those slide shows, they’re deadly, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press
“St. Paul fire was arson; two buildings on Rice Street were destroyed (with slide show)”
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