Sheldon Mains is right. The Constitution of the State of Minnesota ‘dictates'
that the governor appoint people to certain elected positions when vacancies
occur, and U.S. Senator is one of those positions; there will be an election
next year with a primary in which both Democrats and Republicans can challenge
Tina Smith, and absolutely will in the case of Republicans. No appointee is a
placeholder, but will be our U.S. Senator when Al Franken steps down.
If enough Democrats feel like Jordan Kushner does about Smith, she will likely
have a DFL challenger in the primary or she may even decide to step aside; she
seems to do her job whatever it might be at any given time, so if she does the
Senate gig well enough for the people of Minnesota in the coming year, perhaps
she will change some minds, maybe even Mr. Kushner’s. What will be, will be,
and we do not know it past our internal odds-making mechanisms.
Of course, there’s always a chance that minor political parties in Minnesota
will nominate candidates to run in the general election ‘against' the two major
parties of Minnesota to the detriment of one or the other and a much smaller
chance that their candidates will win. I feel the major goal of some 3rd
parties over the years has been to draw votes away from the major party
candidates they would least prefer to win, but then of course there are those
with forlorn hopes of winning and lose to guarantee the worst outcome for
whatever their goals are. Given the partisan maneuvering in dealing with the
issues surrounding accusations against Senator Al Franken and, perhaps, the
veracity of some of these accounts, perhaps we might even see a third party
candidate who can capitalize on the frustrations over the paralysis in Congress
in dealing with any issue of real importance to Americans (Minnesota might
become more like Vermont, with people like Jim Jeffords or Bernie Sanders
serving).
Just as an aside, thanks for making me post in Mr. Bearman’s thread (not), Mr.
Byrne. Just as our country and states have constitutions and laws that must be
followed, there are rules and conventions set by organizations that must be
learned and followed for orderly accomplishment of whatever the goals of each
are. The convention that I was referring to in my last two posts to the
“Dayton” thread to which Ken Bearman was responding in starting this thread,
was that forum members typically confine their exchanges on a particular topic
to the thread in which that topic was most recently raised. I’ll explain
further (sorry).
One can search and find a past thread where the topic was discussed in detail,
link it or post in it, and that can be helpful and/or interesting; but starting
a brand new one whether you think the thread title is not great or not, is
contrary to long standing practice in these forums, except among those who
treat them as places to display their particular degree of narcissism or
megalomania. It is almost always better to stick with the current thread if
your argument does not completely depart from it. Folks who, and I don’t
exclude myself from this group as I used to do it, express their positions to a
particular thread topic in the subject line of their e-mailed posts and thereby
spread the exchange on that same topic to another and often yet another thread,
are destroying the continuity of these exchanges for the rest of us. It is not
against the rules, but it is terribly annoying. I stopped long ago and so can
you.
It does not please me to make and post these observations on the forum as this
is what an active forum manager must do, albeit mostly off-list, to uphold the
practices and enforce the rules that make these forums valuable to everyone. It
is not something to be upset over because we’re all here for the exchange of
ideas that brings issues within the scope of each forum to which we post
clearer to all.