Every election year, it astounds me how seemingly soon political candidates get their routines started, how soon the wheels of the system start to groan as they spin into action.

Saturday, February 16, 2002

Every election year, it astounds me how seemingly soon political candidates get their routines started, how soon the wheels of the system start to groan as they spin into action.

It doesn’t seem like long ago that Mark Dayton was fending off Rod Grams’ unintentionally hilarious attack ads (&uot;Mark Dayton? Uff-da! Vote for Rod&uot;). It seems like only yesterday that George W. Bush’s constant blnking was distracting me as he stared into the camera during one of his bland debates with Al Gore. Or when the Mary Rieder radio commericals intentionally misprounounced Rep. Gil Gutknecht’s name (&uot;GUT-knekt&uot;).

Of course, all that was in 2000, and now it’s time to prepare for another political season. Minnesota is shaping up to be a real hotbed of political activity. The race between Sen. Paul Wellstone and challenger Norm Coleman is going to draw a ton of national attention, what with the Democrats holding a one-seat edge in the Senate. Look for a tide of nationally sponsored ads that will rival anything we’ve ever seen here.

Coleman is already acting like the hardest-working man in politics; he was in Albert Lea once last week, and he’s going to be back two more times I know of already.

The sweepstakes over who gets to challenge – or succeed – Gov. Jesse Ventura (depending on whether he runs again) is another biggie. Republican hopefuls Tim Pawlenty and Brian Sullivan were in town last week for a forum where they tried their hardest to distinguish themselves from one another. On the DFL side, state auditor Judi Dutcher just announced her candidacy and swung through Austin last week; state Sen. Becky Lourey also has announced and visited Albert Lea once so far.

Last week during the Sullivan-Pawlenty forum, there were probably 20 people in the audience, but the candidates tried their darnedest to sway each and every one of them to their side.

Why does it matter what those 20 people think? Well, the fact is that those were probably 20 of the people in this county who are most involved with Republican politics, and at this early stage, what those people think has a lot of clout.

The party caucuses are coming up already. They are planned for Tuesday evening, March 5. At these meetings, party people get together and decide on what issue stances and candidates to endorse for this election season. It’s the first step in the party endorsements of political candidates.

The problem is that we’re already getting on the road toward selecting who will be on the ballot this year, and the vast majority of Minnesotans will have absolutely zero say in it. They’ll show up on the first Tuesday in November for election day – if they bother to show up – and choose from candidates who were picked by a relative handful of people while most voters were not even paying attention yet.

That’s why it’s important for people to attend those caucuses if they are affiliated with one of the parties. That is the time to exercise what influence you can over the process.

If you’re not affiliated with a party, that’s when it’s a problem; this party-based system of ours doesn’t have much room for somebody who isn’t willing to choose sides.

Most of those people aren’t too interested anyway; they have realized by now that they don’t fit into this system. Ironically, these are the people who will decide most elections – the undecideds that both parties will spend the next nine months trying to persuade.

Dylan Belden is the Tribune’s managing editor.