RT Rybak at the 2012 DFL State Convention
Tony Petrangelo
by Tony Petrangelo
Dec 7, 2012, 2:00 PM

The Weekly Wrap 12-7

♣ The Big News today is the release, by the esteemed David Brauer, of the Minnesota Media Twitter Top 100.

For those keeping score at home, yours truly, @TonyAngelo, is #71 and the twitter handle of the website you’re reading right now, @LeftMN, is #63.

You’ll have to go beyond the Top 100 to find @aaronklemz. And @stevetimmer, well, let’s just say he keeps himself in exclusive company.

♣ The Great Mentioner is mentioning yet more names as possible Republicans to run against Al Franken for US Senate. Blois cites “GOPers” as mentioning the names of:

Baltimore Ravens center and MN native Matt Birk and business guy Scott Honour

There have already been many names swirling around the 2014 Governor and Senate races, so I’ve created a page track keep track of them all.

♣ Before the 2014 elections though, Minneapolis is holding elections in 2013. At this point it’s seems likely that Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak will get appointed to a job in DC, leading to an open seat race for Mayor of Minneapolis.

Betsy Hodges has already filed paperwork for a run and there is talk swirling around at least two other members of the city council; Cam Gordon and Gary Schiff. Jim Graves also lives in Minneapolis, so some have suggested that he might be a candidate, but that doesn’t seem very likely to me.

Also:

If Rybak does not seek re-election, this race will be the first open seat Mayorial election that will take place under the Instant Run-off voting system. We will be discussing IRV in great detail here at LeftMN in the coming months, in anticipation of the Minneapolis elections, and the likelihood of it getting hearing at the state capitol as well.

♣ The race for Mayor isn’t the only one that looks to be competitive  there’s also the race for the Ward 10 seat held by Meg Tuthill. If you are unfamiliar with Councilwomen Tuthill’s antics, well, she has been the topic of an item in a past Weekly Wrap™.

If you’re a regular Wrap reader, you will know about how often I link to items concerning the Minneapolis City Council. If you’re not a regular Wrap reader the answer is not very often at all. The item was included because it is a microcosm of how the councilwomen operates. And that is as if Uptown is but her fiefdom.

If you didn’t hear it the first time here it is again, the Meg Tuthill voice-mail message:

That’s just a sample of what a classy lady the aforementioned Meg Tuthill can be. This Op-Ed goes into considerably more detail:

In short, with the exception of her ill-conceived position on the Vikings stadium, Councilmember Tuthill has failed to live up to her campaign promises. Instead of devoting her time to improving the quality of life and broadening the economic opportunities for the people of Ward 10 and our city, Councilmember Tuthill has instead become a voice of big developers, the NFL, and people who want to diminish one of the great assets of our ward: a vibrant, youthful and dynamic Uptown. Councilmember Tuthill’s priorities are wrong for Uptown, wrong for the people of Ward 10 and wrong for Minneapolis as a whole.

So far three candidates have announced they are running against Tuthill, they are Kendal Killian, Ken Bradley and Lisa Bender.

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