Mammen and Williams for School Board

Many people have asked me in the past few weeks how they can support my race for Minneapolis School Board during the August 10th primary. Well I don't have a primary. I'm running in the newly created 5th school board district, which covers the south eastern corner of the city, and I have only one opponent, which means we will not be in tomorrows ballot. Neither will be the candidates from the 1st and 3rd district.

So I tell people if they want to support me tomorrow to vote for Richard Mammen and T Willians for the two at large seats up for election. This year the school board is growing from 7 at large board seats to 8 seats, five of them at large and three from districts on the Eastern side of the city. Two of the 5 at large seats are up for re-election and three of the four incumbents up for re-election decided not to run. In two years three more district seats on the western side of the city will be up for election and one at large seat, when the board grows to 9 seats, six of them district and three at large. Confusing? You betcha. Makes for great conversation during door knocking.

Bottom line is that we will have on January 2011 only one other board member, Lydia Lee, that will have been on the board for more than two years. T Williams would be a second.

MPS has gone through a lot of turmoil in the past few years. But the current board has done much heavy lifting and finally brought some stability to the district. MPS now has a new Superintendent, a strategic plan that is in the middle of implementation, and enrollment seems to be finally stabilizing after steep drops in the past decade.

More than ever MPS needs some continuity. We need T Williams institutional knowledge, his wisdom, his sound intellect and his tireless commitment to provide an adequate education to ALL Minneapolis Kids. He deserves to be re-elected. We need Richard Mammen's extensive experience on youth issues, his strong commitment to equity and his extensive knowledge on how to deal with complex bureaucracies.

Mammen and Williams share my sense of urgency for Minneapolis kids. The three of us understand that the next board needs to be the results board and that we can dramatically improve achievement, improve communication with our stakeholders, bring stability to the district, and improve the relationship between the MPS administration and our front line staff as quickly as possible.

The three of us know that MPS needs results fast. Chanda Smith Baker, Mohamud Noor and Rebecca Gagnon would make excellent school board members. And Hussein Samatar and Jenny Arneson will make great school board members from districts 3 and 1.

But tomorrow I'm voting for Richard Mammen and T Williams for at large seats.

Why voting for MAK so important

Unfortunately not enough people are probably paying attention, but tomorrow's August 10Th primary will signal an important turning point for the future of Minnesota. That's why I'm voting for Margaret Anderson Kelliher for governor.

I strongly believe that MAK has the best chance to beat Tom Emmer. Never thought that Minnesota Republicans could come up with a more anti-immigrant governor than Tim "let's take away citizenship from children born in the US" Pawlenty. But Tom Emmer thinks that the Arizona SB 1070 law is a good start, and that we should turn local police into immigration agents. He also happens to think that somehow gay marriage will somehow threaten everyone elses marriage and that the minimum wage for restaurant servers is too high. I've had it with Pawlenty-Emmer intolerance and their out of touch extremist agenda.

I spent some time interviewing MAK on my radio show and visiting Latino owned businesses on Lake Street with her. I've met a lot of politicians in the past who felt uncomfortable with immigrant issues or awkward in the company of Latinos. Margaret is not one of them. She relates well with Latinos, looks comfortable in our company and when confronted with issues important to Latinos such as immigration, education and jobs, she does not hesitate or look confused.

Margaret as governor will be a leader nationally for comprehensive immigration reform, she will veto Arizona type laws, she will fight to adequately fund public education instead of Pawlenty's policy of using schools as a line of credit. She is the most credible DFL candidate on balancing the budget and creating jobs. And she is the most electable.

Yes I will support Entenza and Dayton if they win. Better than Emmer. And Horner doesn't seem to have a chance. But I've talked to enough immigration lawyers concerned about Daytons immigration positions as a US Senator to hesitate. Also concerned that Dayton didn't seem to think reaching out to Latinos was important during the primary race. Both MAK and Entenza reached out to Latinos in the past few months but Dayton was nowhere to bee seen on Lake Street or the Wes Side of St Paul. And Republicans will have a field day with Daytons controversial past.

Entenza would be good on immigration. He has done an OK job reaching out to Latinos. But his obsession with having the state opt out of No Child left Behind seems irresponsible. It would deny Minnesota of tens if millions of much needed dollars that our schools desperately need. I dislike NCLB as much as he does and would drastically reform it, but opting out? No.

I'll support whoever DFL'ers vote for tomorrow. Even Dayton. Eventually. But would much rather like to vote for MAK on November 2nd.

Anti-Immigrant Anti-American Hysteria

I've been recently saddened by the overwhelming amount of attention that mainstream media is paying to anti-immigrant hysteria coming from a right wing minority. Anti-immigrant hysteria that goes against some of the most fundamental values of inclusion that our nation has always fought for. Most Americans support immigrants, and believe in comprehensive immigration reform. But you wouldn't guess this looking at all the recent mainstream media coverage.

I'm also saddened that the Republican Party has been hijacked by right wing extremists that hate immigrants. Yes. Hate immigrants. Most Americans that oppose comprehensive immigration reform or favor SB 1070 Arizona type laws, are not anti-immigrant or racist. They mostly have national and economic security and public safety concerns. They are misinformed, since comprehensive immigration reform would improve national and economic security and have very little impact, if any, on the public safety of most Americans (it would of course improve the public safety of many undocumented immigrants). But most Americans are not racist or anti-immigrant.

But lets not fool ourselves. English only, Arizona SB 1070 laws are often written and facts to back those laws are often provided by anti-immigrant racist groups. We saw this in Arizona and we also saw this in Lino Lakes, when we discovered who was behind writing and funding SB 1070and Lino Lakes English only laws. We then saw gutless, clueless mostly Republican public officials that are not necessarily racist or anti-immigrant, go against traditional conservative libertarian philosophy and advocate for these laws.

Why do they do this? Because Republicans lost during the Bush Presidency the trust of most Americans after almost bankrupting our country with misguided and very damaging economic, fiscal and foreign policy. They once again feel that the only way they have of re-gaining power is to blame Obama for economic problems caused by an incompetent Bush Presidency and the congress that enabled it, by providing false facts about immigrants to brainwash those in the political middle, and by catering to a small but highly active and motivated anti-immigrant fringe. They will also provide misinformation to scare people in the political middle and the right wing fringe into believing that gay marriage will somehow destroy their families.

Yes this strategy will destroy the future of the Republican party. Generation X and Y, GLBT, Latino and African American voters will reject for decades to come what they see as outdated and immoral political rhetoric. But the Republican Party seems so desperate to win short term elections that they will risk it all. Several younger Republican strategists over the past years have told me repeatedly: "We don't believe in this anti-gay, anti-immigrant rhetoric. It goes against our conservative-libertarian values. But we've got to use it to win".

So once more Latinos, the GLBT community and the 5Th of the US population that is currently either unemployed, underemployed and who's pay or benefits have been cut in this recession will once more be victimized by irresponsible Republican campaigns. Once more Republicans will win some seats in the short term.

More than ever we need voters to punish Republicans catering to short sighted policies. More than ever we must praise conservatives that reject the politics of fear. Democrats are not off the hook. They need to be brave and stand for their convictions. They need to present a clear vision of job creation, hope, inclusiveness and a bright future to counter the rhetoric of fear, negativity, division the worst of our past.

We can no longer stay on the sidelines. We need to act NOW to save our nation by sending a clear message that Anti-Immigrant, Anti-American rhetoric will be soundly defeated.