[Oe List ...] {Disarmed} Bud Philbrook for Governor of Minnesota

[Beret Griffith]

Bud Philbrook is an old Minneapolis ICA colleague from the 70's. Sue and 
Stefan Laxdal and Virginia and Lewie Pierce have been active with Global 
Volunteers for years and are currently working on his campaign. Ron and I 
had a coffee for Bud in Northfield a couple of months ago. Over thirty 
people came, were very excited about his candidacy and three more coffees 
were set up for him. He will be in Northfield on Friday to announce his 
campaign locally. A former Northfield Planning Commission member and woman 
respected in town wrote a great letter to the editor encouraging people to 
attend the event on Friday. Support for Bud is building in this community. 
If what is going on in Northfield replicates across the state I think he 
has a chance of becoming Governor of Minnesota.

When Ron and I moved to Northfield from California in 2001 we were 
astounded to find how politics in the state had moved to the right. Paul 
Wellstone lived in Northfield for several years when he was teaching at 
Carleton and the town itself is progressive.

Anyone else on this list from Minnesota? Have a coffee for Bud.

Beret Griffith

At 07:52 AM 10/6/2005, you wrote:
>
>
>Making a bid for governor, one living room at a time
>
>
>
>Lori Sturdevant
>October 2, 2005 LORI1002
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>Any candidate for governor who declares at his 121st house party that he 
>has only 379 more to go gets a tip of my hat, and some questions:
>In a state that turned out almost 3 million voters last year, can a 
>serious bid for the governor's office be made in one living room at a time?
>Bud Philbrook claims that it can, and it is. He'll confirm as much with 
>the crowd he expects to attract at Battle Creek Regional Park in Maplewood 
>at noon today, when he makes his candidacy official -- at a picnic.
>What year is this again?
>A cynic would paint DFLer Philbrook as a naive neophyte, trying to 
>replicate the simpler politics he knew 31 years ago, when he won a single 
>term in the Minnesota House, representing Roseville.
>He can't compete, the cynic would say, with the name recognition and party 
>connections of Attorney General Mike Hatch, or the legislative network of 
>state Sen. Steve Kelley, or the checkbook of developer Kelly Doran. 
>Statewide races are waged on a wholesale level, not retail.
>But the cynic might be missing some things.
>Consider, for instance, the appeal of an outsider in a year when "time for 
>a change" is shaping up as a potent theme.
>Philbrook may be a former legislator and assistant state DNR commissioner. 
>But his long suit is the founding and operating of Global Volunteers, a 
>21-year-old nonsectarian, nonprofit organization that deploys willing 
>adults on short-duration service projects all over the world -- this year, 
>to 111 sites in 20 countries on six continents.
>You don't like the over-the-top partisanship you've been seeing in St. 
>Paul? Philbrook is a professional peacemaker. Want to find new, 
>cost-effective ways to build the common good? Philbrook is a master at 
>recruiting and mobilizing volunteers -- more than 17,000 of them over 20 
>years. Want a governor who'll improve the rural economy? Philbrook is 
>personally acquainted with leaders in nations that could be new markets 
>for outstate products.
>At age 59 and with 140-year family roots in Minnesota, Philbrook 
>unabashedly tugs the heartstrings of those who think this state has lost 
>its moorings of late. But when Philbrook talks education, it's with an 
>up-to-date emphasis on early childhood. When he talks transportation, it's 
>heavy on transit. His vision for volunteerism looks ahead to the 
>retirement of the baby boomers.
>I've been detecting signs of one other change that, if it's real, could 
>work in Philbrook's favor. Minnesotans seem less willing than they were 
>four years ago to limit their political activity to picking a candidate 
>off of some party's shelf. They seem interested in playing a citizen's 
>rightful role. Citizens aren't just consumers of politics; they are its 
>manufacturers.
>Philbrook's house party schedule is filling fast -- but that's not the 
>only sign of something stirring at the grass roots. Go back to 2004, when 
>precinct caucus turnout, especially on the DFL side, swamped all 
>predictions, and voter turnout in Minnesota brushed close to 80 percent.
>Citizen lobbying was big -- and, arguably, decisive -- at the Legislature 
>this spring. This summer, Citizens League breakfasts about policy nuts and 
>bolts, like taxes and health care, drew large crowds. Public policy 
>classes, lectures and forums we've witnessed lately have played to full 
>houses. The volume of letters to the editor this newspaper receives has 
>swelled considerably since 2003.
>Maybe a war that's going badly, a hurricane the nation couldn't manage and 
>a Legislature that let state government shut down have gotten people's 
>attention. Maybe they sense that things won't change for the better if 
>they only plug into politics every other November.
>When Philbrook asked his standard question at party No. 121 -- "What are 
>you looking for in a governor?" -- the 20 people in the downtown 
>Minneapolis living room had ready answers. They sounded flattered to be 
>asked. Later, when the inevitable fundraising appeal was made, the mood 
>stayed positive.
>Afterward, Philbrook reminded me that one other latter-day Minnesota 
>politician made house parties a staple of a winning statewide campaign. 
>His name was Wellstone.
>Lori Sturdevant is a Star Tribune editorial writer and columnist. She is 
>at <mailto:lsturdevant at startribune.com>lsturdevant at startribune.com.
>
>Dick Kroeger
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>OE at wedgeblade.net
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