Eric the Blue

I plugged Naomi Kritzer’s blog, here, with the explanation that her coverage of candidates running in local elections is, besides just being enjoyable, briskly informative in a way that might save anyone from making a mistake, especially in a low profile race. Well, the primary election is upon us and, perusing my sample ballot online, I see a school board race and a field populated by only unfamiliar names. This could be dangerous, as it’s the sort of office for which an amibitious crackpot might file, perhaps in hopes of advancing their nutty religious beliefs in school science class, or maybe something even nuttier but less predictable. Naomi to the rescue! For the benefit of my fellow Communists here in the People’s Republic of Minneapolis, I’m just going to sketch in below, in Ms Kritzer’s own words, a summary of her summaries. First, though, this note: there are five candidates for two at-large seats, so you are instructed to vote for two. But, since the top four finishers will move on to the general election, Tuesday’s primary will have the effect of eliminating just one. The five candidates are Michael Baskins, Clifton “CJ” Henderson, Stephanie Johnson, Collin Beachy, and Christin Crabtree. Beachy and Crabtree have been endorsed by the DFL party. Here we go!

Michael Baskins: . . . an engineer who previously ran for City Council in Ward 2. He was funded by We Love Minneapolis but not endorsed by All of Minneapolis, possibly because he spent 20% of his campaign funds on clothing and wound up in court over it. His school board campaign website does not mention his City Council run and he’s not wearing a suit in any of the photos. . . . I wouldn’t vote for him.

CJ Henderson: . . . has no website, no Facebook, and did not reply to my e-mail asking if they had anything about their goals or campaign they wished to share (though possibly my e-mail went to spam). They do have a single Instagram post which . . . says: “I’m running to bring fresh leadership, stronger student support, transparency, and real community engagement to MPS [Minneapolis Public Schools].” The complete lack of other communication with the public about the campaign gives me a lot of skepticism about this person’s commitment to transparency or real community engagement. I would not vote for CJ Henderson.

Stephanie Johnson: . . . came to the school board forum but does not have a website. When I e-mailed her last month she said she was working on getting one up. [This does not appear to have happened.]

[Naomi then quotes what Ms Johnson wrote to her in response to the e-mailed query. It’s sort of long and, in my view, demonstrates actual interest and involvement in education, though at a pretty low level. It’s also full of the kind of pablum one alas expects in these kinds of communications. If you want to read it yourself, here again is Naomi’s post from which I’m excerpting.]

Collin Beachy: . . . is a special education teacher who has served on the school board for four years and is running for another term. Everyone seems to genuinely like him. School Board member is a job that pays poorly, takes up a lot more time than it’s supposed to, involves getting yelled at a bunch, and is in general a factory for burnout, which means people rarely run for re-election and this creates real issues with institutional memory. So I approach Minneapolis school board races with a pro-incumbent bias when someone’s running again, and I definitely think Collin would continue to be an asset to the school board.

Christin Crabtree: . . . was heavily involved in organizing against ICE this winter. She’s the kind of person who years ago I’d say “have you ever thought about running for School Board” and I’m excited that she’s running.

I would vote for Christin and Collin. . . . Christin, Collin, Stephanie, and Michael are all going to make it through the primary because CJ does not seem to actually be campaigning in any way. If you’re unhappy with Christin or Collin I would pick Stephanie over Michael despite her lack of a website. This is one of the years where I think the DFL endorsees are both good choices and the obvious people to vote for, though.

So there you have the view of someone who’s troubled herself to find stuff out. It does not appear that there are any young earthers, fighting fundamentalists, or dopey Whack Jobs from a more obscure phylum in the race. There is, however, one grifter, and someone else whose motivation for paying the candidate filing fee is somewhat mysterious. I plan on taking Naomi’s advice, unless before Tuesday I receive contrary advice from, say, God, though even in that case I’d probably conclude it’s more likely I was hallucinating than that God should speak to me about the Minneapolis School Board election. In Naomi I trust.