1srelluc
Diamond Member
Inside the Three-Day Bootcamp that Launched Tim Walz’s Political Career
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www.politico.com
On a frigid weekend in January 2005, in the cavernous carpenters’ union hall on the outskirts of downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, more than 100 aspiring politicians, operatives and activists gathered with the goal of shifting the state’s political landscape in a more progressive direction.
For the next three days, they took part in a kind of bootcamp aimed at developing core political skills: honing stump speeches, raising campaign cash and discussing thorny policy issues with voters.
An extraordinary array of future leaders of the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, as the Democratic party is known in the state, gathered for their training. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, future Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and future St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter were among the trainers at the gathering.
The students included Mark Ritchie, who went on to serve two terms as Minnesota’s secretary of state, and Andy Luger, who’s now in his second stint as the state’s top federal law enforcement official.
Democrat vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz’s political journey is rooted in his involvement with a progressive training camp inspired by the radical vision of Paul Wellstone, a professor-turned-politician with close ties to the Democratic Socialists of America and strong influences from Marxist figures and extreme far-left ideologies.
One might ask, where are the right-wing analogues to Camp Marx?
Well, they don't exist for the most part because the right leaners are all too busy working themselves to death to bother with such things.