CRZ is Christopher Robin Zimmerman

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16.10.13 11:05

Listened to Duck Sauce - Essential Mix 2013-10-12

16.10.13 11:00

U.S. Post Office (Minneapolis, MN)

16.10.13 03:42

31 down, 3 to go! http://facebook.com/CRZforMayor #MPLSmayor #MPLS13

16.10.13 02:55

Sandman P.M.

16.10.13 02:50

MAYORAL CANDIDATE #32: ALICIA K. BENNETT (DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR)

Bennett (34, Near-North) signed up for Twitter, but has never tweeted. She DID fill out her bio, so we could paste that in here, I guess:

"Teacher. Truth-Seeker.

Candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis.

Try me ... You'll like me."

Hmmmm...I could have used that!

She is on LinkedIn - let's steal THAT bio: "Teacher. Truth-Seeker. Rebel. Revolutionary. | Working to Help Marginalized Communities & People Realize Their Power."

I found her on Facebook, but there's not much there that's public. Instead of a photo of her, it's a picture of Huey Freeman from "The Boondocks" which kida fits in with her most of her other bios.

Although she didn't list a website on her filing, it turns out she DOES have a website...it's a whopping 7 page Bluehost.com "stock" WordPress site. Her bio over THERE mentions a partner and two dogs. Every issue in this campaign traces back to poverty, she says. Also, her "blog" section has one entry: a "hello world" piece from 8/18 which says in full: "I will be posting to my campaign blog soon." Another lying politician...why I oughta - on the other hand, that "AB" logo is very nicely designed.

Her Star Tribune questionnaire almost avoids poverty, instead talking about how awful Ranked Choice Voting is and how she'd advocate to eliminate it. She could probably do that without being elected mayor. You know, since Minneapolis held the vote to go ahead with RCV, this is ONLY the second election to have it. It seems a little premature to write it off just yet - even with only three rankings. (If anything, we should be working on getting more rankings instead of scrapping it altogether. I'm sure I've said this before, though.)

Aside from the answer with all of the RCV bashing, a lot of her other answers don't totally appear to match up with the questions asked....or are so vague they could apply to practically any concept, but in a real "literary" way - I urge you to go check 'em out and expand your mind while seeking truth.

I honestly can't tell you if I'd be a better mayor than this lady or not, but I feel like I would! Am I right or wrong? It's YOUR vote!

NEXT: I feel close to back on schedule! We're finally up to the final day of the filing period with only three candidates to go! Up next - my neighbour!

16.10.13 02:11

MAYORAL CANDIDATE #31: JOSHUA REA (END HOMELESSNESS NOW)

Rea is homeless, but listed an address in Central on his filing form, making him the third candidate in a row to list a Powderhorn address and the third candidate in a row to have a homeless/Occupy theme, and of course all this is because the three of them all went to Elections together to file, and I believe Mr. Sparrow paid all three filing fees with cash. (I also paid cash!) Actually, it now appears that Rea is helping Occupy Jaymie Kelly's home at the moment, according to a report from Mr. Carney, so everybody's friends here.

I'm pretty sure Rea misspelled Gmail ("Gmial") on his filing.

Rea has no website listed and was one of the five candidates to not submit a Star Tribune questionaire. He may not have Internet access. He has a Facebook profile (I think?) but it looks as dormant as Sparrow's. Assuming I got the right Facebook profile, his claimed graduation from high school (in San Diego) of 1996 would make him around 35.

He DID make it down to one of Mr. Carney's meetings, from where I got my first "they showed up" photo - he's on the far right if you want to scroll all the way down to look at it again. I believe we've identified everybody in that photo now. (By the way, Sparrow DID go back and edit his original blog post to identify everybody, but I never edited my own post. I could do that now...but nobody cares at this point, right? Or you've already figured it out on your own? Great! Let's move on.)

He's also talked to the Daily and is featured in their "5 of 35" this week (edition coming out later this morning), so at least we have a good standalone photo to (ahem) borrow....the beard's coming along nicely! Unfortunately, the only good quote from him seems to be another variation of the "the city should use eminent domain to convert bank-owned property into affordable community housing" argument I've now read three times in a row.

And...unfortunatly, that's really all I could find on him. Again, it looks like this was an effort to get another "party or principle" on the ballot for everybody to see, but there isn't really an active campaign behind this candidate.

I honestly can't tell you if I'd be a better mayor than this guy or not, but I feel pretty certain that I would. Am I right or wrong? It's YOUR vote!

NEXT: The tenth and final of the ten candidates to file on the penultimate day of the filing period

16.10.13 01:15

20 DAYS UNTIL ELECTION DAY - MAYORAL CANDIDATE #30: CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW (COUNT ALL RANKINGS)

Sparrow is the former Charles David Viebahn - he decided on the name change last year, a day after being charged with trespassing coming out of some Occupy activity - he pled down to a misdemeanor and is currently on probation. (Fortunately, no felonies - so he's qualified to run for mayor!) He grabbed all the early oxygen from the filing period by virtue of his name and outfit and the fact that the AP reporter was extremely lazy that day.

Although listing an address in Bancroft on his filing, Sparrow (a young looking 62) is a squatter at the moment - yet he was able to pay his AND Ms. Kelly's filing fees when they simultaneously went to Elections on 8/12 to file at the behest of Mr. Carney, who was along to document. (Both fees were paid in cash.) Due to recent requests from Occupy, he may not even be squatting in the same house anymore, as they were concerned with both his run for Mayor and that he may be "too rich" to occupy an Occupy house. All this sounds really silly. Sparrow has also blogged about his time in the Young Socialist Alliance, how he recognised the Socialist Workers' Party as a cult, and how he sees some of that cult-ness in Occupy.

It does appear that for their part, Occupy split with Sparrow, essentially disowned him and asked him to never come near 'em again.

Thus, Sparrow's "party or principle" belies his previous heavy involvement with Occupy and the movement to end homelessness - and it didn't hurt that Mr. Carney claims significant input in suggesting Sparrow's three words as well. "Count All Rankings" is a suggestion that only allowing three rankings in our RCV is disenfranchising to way too many voters; it's a notion with which I tend to sympathize. In our technological age, the fact that we can't see to come up with a system that allows us to rank more than three candidates is a little suspect.

I found a blog entry written by Kristin Rafferty detailing some seriously scandalous (if true) behaviour from the former "Chuck from Occupy" - the words "massage" and "pimp" appear a few times - so as much fun as the AP can have calling out the guy with the funny name, perhaps it should be reiterated that it can be terribly dangerous to cast that #1 vote for someone when you know so little about the candidate beyond their name...whether that name be Captain Jack Sparrow or Christopher Robin Zimmerman. (For what it's worth, Rafferty offered up Mr. Wilson as someone deserving another look when preparing your rankings. I would respectfully disagree with her on this point.)

In his Star Tribune profile, he mentions using eminent domain to get foreclosed/bank-owned houses occupied by the homeless, decriminalizing drugs and prostitution (or massages?) and getting a vote on the stadium in accordance with the City Charter. I'm actually down with most of that. The only thing I'm not sure about is the eminent domain thing, but after reading more about Jaymie Kelly it's starting to sound like ...not the worst idea? (Having said all that...not sure how much of that the mayor can actually get done, but as always, the mayor can definitely get the conversations started.)

I honestly can't tell you if I'd be a better mayor than this guy or not, but I feel fairly certain that I would. Am I right or wrong? It's YOUR vote!

NEXT: One more homeless guy, who may or may not have also been bankrolled by Mr. Sparrow

15.10.13 23:55

MAYORAL CANDIDATE #29: JAYMIE KELLY (STOP FORECLOSURES NOW)

A postal clerk for four decades, Kelly is now retired, 63 and lives in Powderhorn Park...which apparently is a problem for JP Morgan Chase and Freddie Mac, who have her home in foreclosure and have tried to get the sheriff to evict her - and probably would have gotten away with it if not for 150 protestors from Occupy Homes Minneapolis. (They're planning on retrying her eviction soon.) Her story is just awful - death of her husband, predatory lenders, signig papers she shouldn't have, ballooning interest payments and somehow she's paid over five times the value of her home over the course of 28 years but owes $255,000 on a $81,000 house...and even though she's currently engaged in negotiations with the banks to try to resolve this situation and keep her home, the lawyers thought that going ahead with an eviction process was really the best way to go. Occupy has put together a short YouTube video which explains it all - I could do without the music.

None of this has much to do with running for mayor, but Mr. Carney wanted to see Kelly put her name on the ballot, along with a specially-selected "political party or principle" to add to our rapidly-expanding ballot, so he recruited her for a run, helping her select her three words. (He may have put up her twenty bucks as well?) [EDIT: She actually borrowed the twenty from Captain Jack Sparrow - more on him coming right up]

When not fearing a knock on the door from the sheriff - and I'm not sure that that can EVER happen right now, and it's awful and I should just cut this paragraph off and not even make any jokes, but....look, she admits to liking "50 Shades of Grey" in her Facebook profile. THAT should disqualify ANYONE from running for office. (I just checked my own profile for hypocrisy - fortunately, it appears I have only ever liked one book...and I haven't even read it, but the author is a friend of mine. More on books and me later this week when The Loft's mayoral survey is released - stay tuned!)

Finally, she doesn't actually want to be mayor. She was recently quoted after being asked if she thought she should be mayor, â€œHeck no...Iâ€™m the 35th choice for myself.â€

I honestly can't tell you if I'd be a better mayor than this lady or not, but I am almost certain that I would. Am I right or wrong? It's YOUR vote!

NEXT: Mr. Carney's cavalcade of characters continues!

15.10.13 23:08

THREE WEEKS UNTIL ELECTION DAY - MAYORAL CANDIDATE #28: BETSY HODGES (DEMOCRATIC-FARMER-LABOR PARTY)

Councilmember Hodges (44, Linden Hills, filed 8/12 [6th]) made her intent to run almost a year ago...even as Mayor Rybak hadn't completely decided against running for a fourth term. (She SAID she wouldn't run if he did.) Notice her sure-to-be-corrected-by-Elections-without-several-phone-calls-requesting-an-amended-filing party listed up there, which is one word too many - if Mark Andrew were smart, he'd have contested her filing two months ago. (I suppose he still could - maybe someone could put a bug in his ear...)

She was responsible for perhaps the best political theatre of the early going, throwing a pizza party to ensure the lack of a quorum at the DFL endorsing convention and thus the lack of an endorsement chosen between herself and Mr. Andrew. That they were the last two standing is probably the basis of a lot of folks (who should know better but don't) feeling that they are the top two choices in this race. Keep in mind that that convention was back in June, a good two months before the short filing period ended.

She's wrapping up a second term on the City Council, and as Chair of the Ways and Means/Budget committee, were she to be elected mayor it may be - say it with me - a step back for her as far as wielding power in the city. So once again, we're left wondering just why run for mayor...unless, of course, being mayor is considered a fine stepping stone to other, perhaps "larger" offices?

(I don't mean to be all speculation and conspiracies with the "big" candidates, but it does seem to be turning out that way. I guess...with these candidates you can easily read about any day in the local rag, I readily admit I'm a little faster and looser as far as providing biographical details and policy statements. But I'm hoping that's part of why you're here!)

She's got about 3400 Likes and about 2000 followers, putting her near the top in both categories - although that just may mean she's got a decent budget to buy Likes and followers. Her website looks like it cost a lot, but that colour palette - ew!

Not only has she secured the CRUCIAL Josh Hartnett endorsement - which somehow did NOT make it onto her website's "endorsements" page! - she conned supposedly-libertarian-leaning Chris Kluwe into endorsing her (or providing a quote to put in a big purple box on her website - despite Kluwe not only no longer being a Viking but ALSO not being a resident of Minneapolis...OR Minnesota, for that matter; he resides in Southern California). Kluwe's endorsement ALSO doesn't appear on the "endorsements" page.

On the plus side, she's largely credited with helping end the pension mess which could have become our biggest, most pain in the assiest budget trouble - some would add "and all she had to do was help broker a shifting of the burden away from Minneapolis and onto Minnesota" but I really gotta stop sharing such cynical thoughts!

With any luck, Minneapolis has moved past the "lesser of two evils" mindset, but if they haven't - or if enough of them haven't - she'd probably win, were the election to be held today. I add that caveat because Mr. Andrew and a newly-registered PAC ("Coalition for a Better Minneapolis") are poised to unleash a whole lot of spending of other people's money - actually, NOW I see that Hodges ALSO has a PAC on her side ("Committee for a Greater Minneapolis") - ugh, what creative names. Let's hope these two cancel each other out...which should happen probably right around the time you've seen their television commercials for the fourth or fifth time. Ah, I can see it now: "Man, they BOTH suck! I wonder if there's another alternative? Perhaps the Internet could help me find a candidate I could vote FOR, so I can vote AGAINST all these monied, self-interested, probably completely corrupt candidates..."

But I honestly can't tell you if I'd be a better mayor than this lady or not. I do believe that I would! Am I right or wrong? It's YOUR vote!

NEXT: Probably the exact opposite of the frontrunners...and a sad story on top

15.10.13 20:41

Can of Diet Dr Pepper

15.10.13 20:17

CRZ falls for another Web 2.0 gimmicky gimmick turned 5 today! So much wasted time...

15.10.13 18:34

@janashortal :) If it makes you feel better (and proves I have no life), I sent Perk the same tweet over 2 years ago: http://twitter.com/CRZ/status/106146344493785088

15.10.13 18:23

@janashortal Rick ADD-el-man (but everything else was perfect)

15.10.13 17:21

U.S. Post Office (Minneapolis, MN)

15.10.13 16:58

I approve this message (also, THREE WEEKS AWAY) RT @LargeMargeMpls: @amberlenhoff Just vote for @CRZ!