Ilhan Omar and volunteers at the DFL endorsing convention
BY DEBRA KEEFER RAMAGE
CD5 DFL endorsing convention, May 11, South High School
Having not succeeded in becoming a delegate to my Congressional District convention, I attended on a guest pass to “cover” it. I put that in quotes, because it’s not my forte to do straight coverage, nor rabble-rousing opinion pieces (maybe about child slavery, but not about things like DFL shenanigans) nor stiff-upper-lip “political analysis.” No, I “cover” political events like a storyteller, like a wide-eyed novice even when I’m not. Sort of like the color commentary in sports reporting.
I arrived at about 11:30 a.m. I brought a little bit of food, a lot of water, a fully charged Pixel phone with a great camera, and settled in for the ride. I’m not going to give you a blow-by-blow of all the things, boring, interesting, and frankly unfathomable, that happened on the convention floor leading up to the beginning of the endorsement process sometime after 4 p.m. I’ll just say I kept losing water bottles and having to get more, that I spent two or three breaks in the Ilhan Omar hospitality suite, and that in the midst of one of these breaks, I realized I didn’t have my phone. I panicked, but when I finally got back to the seat I had been in, on the edge of the delegate floor but sort of halfway out of it, it was right there on the seat. Kind of briefly restored my faith in humanity.
If you want to get some much better insider knowledge of what happened, I recommend the Substack of Deborah Copperud, who was there as a proper volunteer for the DFL party, instead of skulking around calling herself “press” and just doing what she pleased, as I was doing (tinyurl.com/DKRatSSP-DC-on-CD5-Con). I loved her take on what’s wrong with Don Samuels:
“But I do hear an illustrative example of the difference between Omar—an effective lawmaker—and Samuels—a petty, self-important has-been—when the convention chair reads a question asking how each candidate would address climate change. Omar’s answer sounds perfect to me. She gives examples of legislation she’s voted for; recognizes the urgency of the dire problem; commits to broad, revolutionary, worldwide solutions. And Samuels? He criticizes Omar’s car. Her car? As if buying an electric vehicle qualifies one for federal office. As if individual consumer choice can reverse all of the carbon pollution in the atmosphere.”
