A View from the DFL Convention in Rochester, Minnesota

by Leigh Pomeroy

Vox Verax has featured few original posts of late. As Tom Maertens has put it, why inject our words into the fray when others can express the issues just as well or better? I would add to that: and get paid for it.

Of course, so much of the discourse on the internet is done without financial remuneration... or very little at best. The internet has become the great equalizer in terms of offering virtually free opportunity for anyone to express their views. While this has hurt traditional media — no more guaranteed profits, no longer a stranglehold over information distribution channels — it has opened up a world of information to anyone with access to a computer, modem and ISP.

Not that we always use those resources. What has dominated Minnesota political news lately has been traditional media's focus on Al Franken's old writings as a humorist and satirist, some of which were in dubious taste. This cloud, however, impede Franken's nomination for U.S. Senate on the first ballot at the DFL state convention, despite an impressive show by Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer's campaign and his enthusiastic supporters that led many delegates to think that the process would go through numerous ballots before it was resolved.

Several people asked me if I were surprised by Franken's easy victory, and I had to say candidly and honestly that I was not. After remaining staunchly uncommitted during the lead-up to the convention despite numerous phone calls and visits from Nelson-Pallmeyer supporters and calls and emails from three-quarters of the Franken family, I ultimately voted for Al, as did, I'm sure, the vast majority of the other previously uncommitted delegates.

Why?

Because ultimately this campaign and who will emerge victorious from November's election, be it Franken or incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman, should and will have nothing to do with trifles of the past. Franken's writings were done as much as anything to make fun of the genre in which he was writing. And while obscene to some, their obscenity pales, for example, before George W. Bush's heinous crime of taking this country to war on false pretenses and the ramifications thereof.

In short, what's more obscene? A dirty joke or murder and destruction, for the latter is what Mr. Bush is guilty of.

After Franken's victory and the close of business for the day, Nelson-Pallmeyer was standing in front of Rochester's historic Kahler hotel talking to passersby. The air was warm and muggy as one of the numerous area rains had just passed through, though not unpleasant. His daughters were patiently standing next to him. There were no tears, no signs of unhappiness.

I asked Nelson-Pallmeyer what he was going to do next. Go back to teaching, he said, concentrate on that for a year. And then afterwards, he'll see.

It's too bad, he lamented, that so much of our attention is bogged down by trivial issues. He was referring to the convention and all the hoopla that goes along with it, as well as to the focus of the party in general, but I took his comment to mean our American society as a whole. I mentioned Lester Brown's book, Plan B 3.0, and from his response gleaned it is as much a bible for him as it is for me.

It was an honest lament, and yet I know, as I'm sure does he, that despite the Democratic Party's failings, it is only a vehicle to get to where we must go. As Al Franken said in his acceptance speech: There are many reasons why he is a Democrat, but one of the primary is that it is the only party that would include a Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer.

I thought back to the sugar- and fat-laden doughnuts served at the convention breakfast receptions and to the unhealthy lunch offerings at the convention center. And the Democratic Party is supposed to be the promoter of small family farms, sustainability and healthy lifestyles? I knew what Nelson-Pallmeyer was saying: We don't always practice what we preach.