Rebecca’s positions are different and stand out as such. First, with respect to global warming and the energy transition, she has a fully formed and well articulated plan that no one else has, and that I expect to be borrowed widely. Her plan is also backed up by her own personal commitment, living in a house with solar and wind energy, heat pumps, and passive heating/cooling, and driving an electric car. That latter information is not necessarily he most important … not everyone has had the opportunity to do such things. But it does demonstrate an important commitment.

Rebecca Otto stands out on copper in an important way that I think most people don’t understand. The legal permitting process that all the other candidates say will make everything OK always, always, always leads to construction of large well funded projects like this. In theory, this process can determine if a project can be built or not, but in practice, that almost never happens. There are generally two paths a project can take under environmental protection law. 1) Don’t built it (there are almost no example of that) or 2) Built it but mitigate against the likely effects of the project.

Rebecca is the only candidate that recognized, years ago, that the usual path to mitigation is almost never sufficient with large mining projects, and she is demanding more. Some of the other candidates are edging toward this but to be frank, I’m pretty sure half of them don’t actually understand the process.

All the other DFL candidates are OK on environment because they give lip service. Otto is heads and shoulders above all the others because she much more fully understands the policy and is significantly more forceful, and has has her fantastic energy plan.

Looking at this endorsement it is absolutely and embarrassingly absurd to suggest that anyone in this race but Otto should get this endorsement. If anyone else had gotten it, I’d be looking for shenanigans.

I will assure you once again, as a member of the caucus, that there were no shenanigans.

But from a person outside of the caucus, it doesn’t pass the smell test.

Shawn Otto should have resigned from the executive committee before the endorsement took place. I have friends in the leadership of the caucus, and they know my concerns of having family of the candidate in leadership pre-endorsement.

Hugh, your comment is obnoxious and completely out of line and I’m considering deleting it, and banning you from this blog for it.

Shawn Otto had nothing whatsoever to do with this endorsement. The committee did exactly what it said it did in its announcement, and it was a clean process. Your suggestion otherwise requires an apology from you.

I’ll leave these comments up here for a day or so so that you can see them, and without an apology you are history here.