Does anybody really know what time it is? (Minnesota DFL edition)

Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party held its state convention in Rochester over the weekend. They should have checked into the Mayo Clinic for a wellness examination. Instead the lunatics took over the Democratic asylum.

The insanity first manifested with the party’s rejection of popular incumbent Attorney General Lori Swanson for endorsement. The Democrats in convention assembled rejected Swanson in favor of unknown attorney Matt Pelikan (D, Gay Millennial).

The insanity next manifested with the party’s endorsement of state representative Erin Murphy for governor (D, Metro Leftist). Murphy won the endorsement over Minnesota First District Rep. Tim Walz, who is taking his challenge to the primary. Murphy’s first move as the party’s endorsed gubernatorial candidate was to select state representative Maye Quade (D, Metro Leftist) as her running mate. My friend Susan Closmore presciently commented on Twitter.

The probable statewide weakness of the endorsed Democratic candidates has reverberated. Swanson has declared herself a candidate for the gubernatorial endorsement. She has announced retiring Eighth District Rep. Rick Nolan as her running mate.

And that’s not all. The rumor mill has it that Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison will jump into the primary battle for the Attorney General endorsement on the Democratic side. If so, state representative Ilhan Omar (D, Little Mogadishu) would surely announce her candidacy for Ellison’s seat, with other Bernie Bro identity candidates (one Black, one Gay, but not one Black and Gay so far as I know) waiting in the wings to enter the primary contest as well.

It may after all be Time For Ilhan, as the documentary that debuted in Duluth over the weekend has it. Omar embodies the Bernie Bro identity politics that now consumes even the Minnesota DFL. Yet I’m pretty sure Rep. Omar would actually have to contemplate answering a few serious questions about her mysterious husband number 2 in the process.

Nurse Ratched, report to your station!

If all this comes to pass, however, there would be an opening for some sane Democrat to run in a multicandidate primary for the Fifth District DFL congressional endorsement. Such a candidate might only need 35-40 percent of the vote to pull it off. I wonder if my cousin Jonathan Applebaum (D, Minnetonka), for example, stepping down from his seat in a nearby state legislative district, might sense a possible market niche for sanity by the filing deadline of 5:00 pm tomorrow.

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