What's the rumpus? Marty Seifert's "Go home" speech at the Republican state convention

Marty Seifert's speech withdrawing from the gubernatorial process has spurred much discussion. In Seifert shakes off shaky weekend, Seifert himself told his local paper that he anticipates "any residual effects from Saturday will be fleeting."

His view is echoed by state Republican activists and bloggers John Gilmore (in Minnesota Republicans Lose Their Minds) and the b-slapped Jeff Kolb (in Rumors of the Death of Marty Seifert’s Political Career Have Been Greatly Exaggerated).

The later post reviews the rough treatment Seifert received, although @MNGOssiP14, the short-lived twitter account originally reporting the spitting--though no photo or video of said act in progress--has mysteriously vanished from the micro-blogging service, although a tweet of a still photo of non-spitting woman has solidly entered the talking points of convention lore.

Bluestem fully anticipates better spitting footage to emerge at a more strategic moment in the campaign, given the closely linked right-left social media BFFs pushing the meme. But we digress.

Kolb writes:

After Seifert released his delegates the Outrage Machine went into overdrive. Delegates screamed at Seifert that he had no integrity. Delegates tore Seifert signs off the wall and ripped them in half. One Jeff Johnson supporter accused him of cheating. Others reportedly shoved and spit at Seifert staffers.

Several activists declared this the end of Seifert’s political career. Others, including a radio host and the convention’s chief teller, promised to make sure that happened.

Color me skeptical. What Marty Seifert did by releasing his delegates to go home was a classic convention strategy. In fact, it’s the same one that was used by Betsy Hodges at a DFL endorsing convention in 2013. She’s now the Mayor of Minneapolis.

Hodges bought her supporters pizza and got them to leave the convention in order to block the convention from endorsing. The two big differences between what Hodges and Seifert did were that there wasn’t any pizza involved, and that Hodges actually pulled it off.

It's unfortunate that Seifert could get any of those pros who ran the Hodges campaign in to help with that, but not every DFL consultant is a switch-hitter, even in these waning days of Babylon.

Listening to the speech, Bluestem was struck most by the way in which Seifert tried to wrap his gubernatorial ambition--enduring since 2009--in the immediate personal needs of delegates at the state convention, rather than a vision for the state or a Seifert administration. It seems a triumph of the passive-aggressive style, which might actually qualify Seifert for office in the state of Minnesota Nice.

As a public service, Bluestem asked The Uptake to pull a clip of Seifert's speech, so that those who missed it could witness the thing itself:

Photo: Marty Seifert, who will challenged endorsed candidate Jeff Johnson in the Republican primary on August 12. Businessman Scott Honour and former Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers skipped the convention to go straight to the primary.

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