Pat Lindgren and my 1987 Campaign Volunteers
In 1987, Fred Norton, the Speaker of the Minnesota House, resigned the seat he’s held for twenty years to become an appellate judge. Although I’d pretty much kept it to myself – wanting to run for office someday – I was very excited to get a bunch of calls saying I should run, including calls from Pat Lindgren, Gloria Bogen, Sherry Munyon and BJ Metzger, all experienced campaign managers. That foursome met and decided Pat should be the lead campaign manager, Gloria in charge of fundraising, BJ in charge of door-knocking, and Sherry in charge of volunteers. What a lucky guy I was – because Rep. Norton resigned in the middle of his two-year term – there was no other election going on that summer of 1987, and these four savvy campaigners wanted to roll up their sleeves for me.
Pat Lindgren (in photo to the right with my future bride),
I credit you with being the best campaign manager ever. A campaign manager does everything that somebody else can’t be found to do. When things seemed to get out of hand, Pat told me that was the sign of a winning campaign! (“So much going on; some things are going to go wrong.”)
Gloria Bogen 
Sherry Munyon
Pat brought us to victory after starting as an underdog. As an unknown, we couldn’t even get a story in the paper announcing my candidacy. We faced two seemingly insurmountable opponents: Bill Wilson, the President of the City Council, and Judy McLaughlin, Speaker Norton’s Legislative Director and the wife of the Chair of the local DFL Party. (DFL stands for Democratic Farmer Labor Party.)
We got lucky in the DFL endorsement process. The delegates that convened the year before to endorse Fred Norton for re-election had to be reconvened. Because Fred had been unopposed, a high percentage of the delegates were there only to support the Nuclear Freeze movement. As the most progressive candidate in the field, that was a winning issue for me. I called each one and promised I would be the most progressive and hardest working legislator at the State Capitol. That worked. The convention deadlocked and adjourned with Andy 30%, Bill 30%, Judy 30%, and 10% other. There would be no endorsement. (In the inner-city, DFL endorsement is tantamount to winning the election.)
caption: District 65A — 15 precincts, 40,000 people, bounded by Rice St. on the east, Summit Av. on the south, Hamline Av. and Lexington Pkwy., on the west, and Minnehaha Av. on the north
The rest was just hard work, having the savviest campaign, the best campaign lit, and the most door-knockers. A special mention for doorknocker Metric Giles: Metric showed up at my law office many, many days at noon to start my door-knocking day. Metric was better known than me at the time and introduced me to everybody he knew in the African-American community. Thanks Metric! Could not have done it without you.
But we needed one more stroke of luck. Judy’s husband, Mike (known as “Black Mike” for his Chicago-style ability to deliver a winner) figured City Council President Wilson was the likely winner, in part because he was African-American in a district with a large Black population. (Judy being Anglo-American.) With Bill out of the way, he figured Judy would be the shoo-in. Mike went to Bill and said, “Bill, it’s Judy’s turn. Whatever else you want in politics, I’ll get for you, but this time, get out and support Judy.” And when Bill did, we had our opening. Bill didn’t see us coming. He certainly didn’t step out of the way to have me win, and he didn’t know how much support I would have in the Black community – from having been the People’s Lawyer in so many ways and Metric for a friend.
What a sweet night it was at Herges Bar, the victory party! Thanks Pat, Gloria, Sherry and BJ, and all the rest of the 1987 “Dawkins for Our Neighborhoods” campaign team for all you did – and the ongoing work so many of you continued doing behind the scene in politics.
caption: Victory party photo by Brian Lambert, Twin Cities Reader. (I’m on the phone with Sen. Dave Durenberger. His son Charlie was a Bluebird and campaign volunteer.)
One more thing about that campaign – that led to my first bill introduction as a legislator. As I mentioned, a big reason for our victory was how many dedicated volunteers we had. We asked each volunteer to think about what Andy should do as a legislator if we win. A group of volunteers came up with an idea on how to buy and fix-up the dilapidated absentee landlord properties in our neighborhood and turn them into being owner-occupied. This was before Habitat for Humanity was well known.
At the end of the 1989 legislative session, the first year of my first full term, our neighborhood idea had $1 million “buttoned-up” (meaning part of a conference committee final report). But on the second to last day of the session, a more senior legislator (it was Sen. Majority Leader Roger Moe) needed a million for his district and “un-buttoned” my neighborhood’s million. You have to read the next Tribute to find out what happened after that.