How Mark Dayton Bested Scott Walker—and Became the Most Successful Governor in the Country

[think]

The Unnatural: How Mark Dayton Bested Scott Walker—and Became the Most Successful Governor in the Country

Minnesota's chief executive is a terrible campaigner. Here's how he got past that.

—By Patrick Caldwell | Wed Feb. 18, 2015 7:00 AM EST

The day before Halloween, a band of 40 or so middle-aged Democratic activists gathered in the parking lot of a long-closed KFC in Eagan, a southern suburb of the Twin Cities, to listen to a handful of state party leaders speak. The party bigwigs, who were crisscrossing the state on a last-minute campaign tour, crowded a small, elevated stage in front of a bright blue bus bearing a logo proclaiming it was "On the Road to a Better Minnesota." Sen. Al Franken's daughter Thomasin told cute tales of her dad's pride in becoming a grandfather. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman—tall, crisp-suited, with a stern jaw, he could have easily passed as an extra on House of Cards—delivered the same polished anecdotes about paddling northern Minnesota's Boundary Waters with Franken that he told at every stop.

Finally came the headliner: Gov. Mark Dayton. Engulfed in a puffy green jacket, his thinning gray hair combed over just so, Dayton stumbled through a disjointed speech. When the microphone briefly lost power, he cracked a lame joke: "This is actually secretly a DFL fundraiser, err, errr," he said, using the initials for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesota's homegrown Democratic outfit. "They're so broke they can't even afford electricity." He got some pity laughter. Then he embarked on an extended metaphor comparing his governorship to his days as a hockey goalie in college. "A goalie can prevent bad things from happening. But he can't—well, at least I could never score a goal," Dayton said, sheepishness creeping into his voice. "A couple of the pros can shoot at an empty net, but that's another story—yeah, you know, goalies can't win games and they can't make things happen that way."

For a man who has won a competitive US Senate race and secured his second term as governor in November, Mark Dayton is a terrible retail politician. "He's very shy and he's an introvert," Ken Martin, the chair of the state party and a friend of Dayton's, told me unprompted earlier this month. "He's not a typical, backslapping politician," Martin continued. "He's not very articulate; he's kind of jerky," Tom Bakk, the Democratic Senate majority leader, says of his ally's style. When Dayton first ran for his current job, in 2010, The New Republic dubbed him "Eeyore for Governor."

An heir to the Target retail fortune, Dayton, 68, has plowed tens of millions of his own money into his campaigns, but it still hasn't come easy. He swallows his words in a rush, speaking in almost-unintelligible mumbles and frequently losing track of his point as he rambles on unrelated tangents. "He's not a terribly articulate guy," says Larry Jacobs, chair of the University of Minnesota's public policy school. "He's not a smooth talker; he struggles to give a smooth public speech." At public events, Dayton hunches his shoulders, which makes him appear shorter than his 5-foot-10 frame, and often appears to be trying to disappear into the crowd. No one wonders whether he'll seek national office someday. He's not the leader of the free world—he's your dad, struggling to make small talk with you and your friends after you get home from school....

Full article:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/mark-dayton-minnesota-governor-profile-scott-walker

[riversedge]

1. and Walker is back in WI and will undo civil service protections for public servants so

he and his cronies can be in charge.

[Doctor_J]

2. Sanders/Dayton 2016