Chapter 36
Former Rep on Political Mission of his Life
Dateline: Daphne, Alabama, Saturday, November 20, 2022
For the past ten weeks, former State Representative Skip Dewar and his merry band of followers have been on the political fringe doing street theatre traveling around the country, with the motto “Harnessing the Spirit of Imagination.” They’ve been to 15 states since leaving Minnesota September 13th, this past week encamped in tiny Daphne, Alabama, on Mobile Bay. But in a virtual reality setting, they’re appearing all over America live-streaming their political antics from a blog site <rumpkins.com>.
Traveling in a rainbow-colored RV they call “The Land Yacht,” heavily decorated with political slogans, conjures up – for those of us who came of age in the ‘60s – visions of Ken Kesey’s 1964 tour of America in a psychedelically painted bus named “Furthur.” Kesey’s “Merry Pranksters” touted dropping acid in hopes of building a counter-culture. “The Rumpkins,” the name Dewar’s followers go by, have a more serious mission in mind.
The Rumpkins lofty goal is to unite former Trump supporters -whom they call “Trumpeters,” with the growing number of independent voters – whom they call “Indies,” together with disaffected Democrats and Republicans, and align in a third-party movement under the banner of Andrew Yang’s Forward Party. “We’re the next major party,” former Rep. Dewar told me, “because we’re not proselytizing on any particular issue or issues, but rather talking about why we keep electing people who don’t represent the majority view, who are too far left or too far right. Let’s move forward, not right or left.”
The Rumpkins playbook is to have fun with politics on the internet pretending to be a “Rump Legislature” – not actually elected, but acting as if elected. The session I watched last night mostly focused on uniting the country around the need for electoral reform, having open primaries, moving to “majority rules voting” (aka Ranked Choice Voting), having 16-year-old voter registration, having independent re-districting committees, among other things.
Back when he was a state legislator, Dewar, although elected as a Democrat, made a name for himself as a champion of third-parties, including taking Minnesota’s anti-fusion law all the way to the United States Supreme Court – and losing. (“Fusion” is a way to let third parties be on the ballot without having to be spoilers.)
One of the participants, Eloise Johnson, a recently elected school board member who won her election as a Forward Party candidate in Boulder, Montana, made a strong pitch for individual freedoms as a unifying issue. “We don’t need a government telling us whom we can love or what books our kids should read or not read,” she blogged, which got a lot of “thumbs up” amongst the participants.
The session started with a participant who said his name was “Pirate Jack” explaining the blog was designed to maintain an up-to-the-minute current count of participants, and a quick voting method clicking on either the “thumbs up” or the “thumbs down” icon to register one’s sentiment or move the agenda. The highest count while I was watching was 207.
Another issue garnering wide-spread support, almost all “thumbs up,” was uniting behind fighting terrorism, but how to do that wasn’t much discussed, nor voted on.
Another participant, Curt Driscoll, the Chair of Minnesota’s Libertarian Party, whom I watched the session with, told me afterwards he agreed that electoral reform was key to getting back to majority rule in this country, and having a third-party movement focused on just that single issue was a good strategy. “I’ve been friends with Skip Dewar a long time. He’s always been good at making things happen, making things fun, creating excitement. A good organizer. Sounds like a fun trip – stirring up imaginations – and, hey, anytime you can get over 200 people to participate in anything, you’re doing great. I’m sure Skip understands, though, you can’t have a legislative body when participation is unlimited and nobody knows whom the participants are.”
-End of Story-
After reading the story a second time, Skip told us encamped on Mobile Bay, “That’s great. You guys sure did it, not me. Maybe you’ve hit upon the 2024 Pig for President way to organize. Maybe we should all start wearing raincoats like Bud Clark. Lots of things I never imagined leaving Minnesota.”
“Good Grief,” we all thought, “Sarcasm? Doesn’t sound like Skip at all.” But, of course, none of us except Rocky knew how all consumed Skip was by the specter of a terrorist attack to which he was now an accessory after the fact for 26 days now.