{"id":1282,"date":"2023-08-23T01:06:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T01:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1282"},"modified":"2023-08-07T22:52:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T22:52:28","slug":"jane-prince-theresa-charles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/?p=1282","title":{"rendered":"Tribute # 13: Jane Prince & Theresa Charles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jane Prince, Theresa Charles and my 1993 Campaign Volunteers\"IMG_2927\"<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

caption:\u00a0 Jane, Theresa and Rick Cardenas<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Jane Prince <\/strong>and Theresa Charles <\/strong>became my 1993 Mayoral campaign co-managers, one white, one Black, and together they built the most diverse political campaign ever seen in Saint Paul, up to and including the present.\u00a0 Wow You Guys!\u00a0 Thanks for believing in me and all the hours you devoted.\u00a0 To this day I run into people saying they loved being part of that campaign.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long story about why we didn\u2019t win.\u00a0 If you want that story, click <Here<\/a>> and read “First Comes Love . . . Then Comes Marriage,” the 8th<\/sup> Daily Dose of \u201cThird Times the Charm” in the Archives.\u00a0 Suffice for here, that glass ceiling I mentioned, all I did was reinforce it by admitting to being a marijuana smoker (before its time) and having my mother tell me, \u201cI told you so!\u201d<\/p>\n

In several places now I’ve mentioned the “Bluebird Nation – their big Tribute is coming up.\u00a0 Jane<\/strong> Prince<\/strong> has been a Bluebird since 1983.\u00a0 Being a member simply means playing on the Bluebirds softball team or being a fan.\u00a0 Jane took a leave of absence from her job at SPA (Saint Paul Academy) to work on the campaign and got hooked on politics, eventually running for office herself and becoming the 7th Ward City Councilmember- and a good one, respected by all.<\/p>\n

\"Prince<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

caption: Creative ad by Jane with a hint of Bluebirds<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Theresa Charles <\/strong>had been my State Rep campaign manager in 1992 and continued in that role for my ’94 and ’96 campaigns.\u00a0 We weren’t “going-out-for-drinks” friends, but we were tight.\u00a0 Theresa was hard-scrabble Black – no sugar coating it – a lot of things sucked and a lot of things needed changing.\u00a0 With regards to what she saw in me, I believe it was all about authenticity and getting things done, not whether I was white or Black. \u00a0\u00a0Thank you for that, Theresa.\u00a0 Because of you, a lot of people believed in me.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, that adage about \u201cthe hardest thing in politics is choosing between friends\u201d reared its ugly head.\u00a0 \u00a0After the \u201996 campaign I was named the Chair of the Civil Law Committee and, for the first time as a legislator, could hire a staffer to work just for me.\u00a0 I chose Chris Crutchfield instead of Theresa Charles.<\/p>\n

That was tough, and I sure wish I could have hired both.\u00a0 If it was just based on loyalty – a most important hiring factor – it would have been Theresa.\u00a0 But I thought Chris had the best chance of succeeding me in office someday, would be somebody I could mentor, and would do the best job as Committee Administrator.\u00a0 The word on the street was that I thought Theresa was “too Black.”\u00a0 That doesn’t ring true with me, but it is true I thought Chris (who is also Black) would be better at schmoozing legislators.\u00a0 Trying to make up for it, I got Theresa a position working in Paul Wellstone’s office, but to this day she won’t speak to me.\u00a0 Nevertheless Theresa, you have my gratitude.<\/p>\n

photo below:\u00a0 Chris Crutchfield working as my Committee Administrator.\u00a0 Chris did a great job, but alas, Cy Thao succeeded me in office, not Chris.\u00a0 That’s Chris and I working on legislation in the photo.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2928\"<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I can’t just leave the ’93 campaign as one “gone up in smoke.”\u00a0 We had to raise lots of money – and we did – $267,000 mostly from friends asking friends for small donations and having fun fundraisers.\u00a0 We had competition in the left-wing community – Marcia Avner was Wellstone’s candidate.\u00a0 We had competition in the moderate Democrats community – both Bob Long (a City Councilmember) and Ray Faricy (a former legislator).\u00a0 The business community thought I was a “Marxist.”\u00a0 The hometown newspaper was a big fan of Norm Coleman’s.\"IMG_2908\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In photo to the right the Candidates: me, John Mannillo, Ray Faricy, Norm Coleman, Jerry Isaacs and Marlene Johnson<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ll never forgive Pioneer Press Editor Ron Clark for intentionally mischaracterizing my remarks in the interview for the paper’s endorsement.\u00a0 I explained my frugal lifestyle and said, “Every item in the City’s budget will get my scrutiny.”\u00a0 He turned that into “Dawkins will be a big spender for everything needed.”\u00a0 I’ll never forgive Norm Coleman for putting-out a campaign brochure – with a black-looking crack head huddled on a sidewalk smoking a pipe and a white-looking elderly woman walking nearby – saying he’d be tough on crime.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless we persisted.\u00a0 It was a winning campaign until …. until the 36-hour news cycle preceding the voting became “Andy Dawkins is a pot smoker.”\u00a0 Sorry about that you guys, I should have dropped the sign.*<\/p>\n

*Barbara Carlson (known as “Babs”) hosted a Channel 5 live TV debate on the Sunday before Tuesday’s election.\u00a0 To answer her questions, she gave each candidate a placard, red on one side said “No,” green on the other side said “Yes.”\u00a0 Fifth rapid fire question in: “Have you smoked marijuana in the past two years?”\u00a0 I was the only one who answered ‘Yes.”\u00a0 I should have dropped the sign and said, “Dumb question –\u00a0 let’s move on.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jane Prince, Theresa Charles and my 1993 Campaign Volunteers caption:\u00a0 Jane, Theresa and Rick Cardenas Jane Prince and Theresa Charles became my 1993 Mayoral campaign co-managers, one white, one Black, and together they built the most diverse political campaign ever … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1282"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3079,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions\/3079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/andydawkins.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}