This is what a Democratic Party Walking Caucus looks like. It is a thing we do in Minnesota. It is so arcane and complicated that the press never covers it, so no one has any idea that we are doing this to select our nominees for political office. We have a fake “primary” at the beginning of the process, and that is what the press reports, but the “primary” result has nothing to do with the outcome of the process.

In this particular caucus, in my State Senate District, one of the main issues was selecting delegates for US Congress. In this race, Sharon Sund‘s team more or less wiped the floor with her opponent, Brian Barnes, even though the politics and demographics here would have suggested a more even outcome.

Prior to that event, there was a very interesting race between a member of the infamous Anoka-Hennepin School Board and a local teacher for State Senate. The former was well connected politically and had a well organized campaign, the latter an impassioned argument and a homey family-run campaign. The former wiped the floor with the latter.

And that is more evidence of the press’s failings. Anoka-Hennepin School district politics was interesting enough this year to get a write-up in Rolling Stone, but one of the outcomes, that particular political contest, was inaccessible to the press because, again, the press can’t really handle the complexity of Minnesota DFL party politics. (Nor can most Minnesotans, actually.)