Minneapolis, over the years, has gone from a politically diverse city to a hardline Democrat stronghold. Part of the reason is its large, and growing, Somalian population which now wields major power in the city and its politics.
This culminated in the Minneapolis’ Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) dumping incumbent left wing Mayor Jacob Frey and, instead, endorsing avowed Somali-born Democrat Socialist Omar Fateh instead.
Or did it?
Last Sunday night, Fateh held a rally attended almost exclusively by Somali people. Almost no english was spoken, and no American flags were visible.
Not surprisingly, this did not sit well with a lot of his potential constituents in Minneapolis. And that was not good news for the DFL.
So, on Thursday, the party magically found a way to dump Fateh.
How did they do it? Here’s your answer, via the following excerpt from Kyle Brown’s article for Minnesota’s ABC affiliate, KSTP:
The Minnesota DFL vacated its endorsement of State Sen. Omar Fateh for Minneapolis mayor after a review panel found glaring flaws in the voting process.
A flurry of challenges were submitted to the state DFL in the wake of last month’s Minneapolis DFL Convention, pointing out issues with the electronic voting system and questioning whether a quorum was present for the final ballot that clinched Fateh’s endorsement over incumbent Jacob Frey.
The Minneapolis DFL also admitted it erroneously eliminated DeWayne Davis after the first round of voting due to an undercount of 176 votes.
“After a thoughtful and transparent review of the challenges, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee found substantial failures in the Minneapolis Convention’s voting process on July 19th, including an acknowledgement that a mayoral candidate was errantly eliminated from contention,” DFL Party Chairman Richard Carlbom said in a statement. “As a result, the Constitution, Bylaws & Rules Committee has vacated the mayoral endorsement.”
Oops. Bye-bye Omar Fateh
And how does the Fateh campaign feel about this?
The article continues:
Now, Fateh’s campaign claims “establishment Democrats, including many Frey supporters,” coordinated an effort to throw out his endorsement.
“Our campaign sees this for what it is: disenfranchisement of thousands of Minneapolis caucus-goers and the delegates who represented all of us on convention day,” said Graham Faulkner, Fateh’s co-campaign manager. “The establishment is threatened by our message. They are scared of a politics that really stands up to corporate interests and with our working class neighbors.”
Now: what are Fateh and his supporters going to do about it? And how will this affect the upcoming mayoral race in Minneapolis?
I suggest you sit back and get plenty of popcorn. This may get ugly, but it definitely will be entertaining.
