Ok, time to do my Minneapolis mayoral post. The “too long, didn’t read” ranking is:

1. Dewayne Davis

2. Jazz Hampton

3. Omar Fateh

The longer version … with federal cutbacks rolling downhill, Republicans possibly taking Minnesota next year, and a President poised to invade, our best hope is to come together as much as we can. I believe the first two men on this list are our best shot at a united front. Our current mayor’s worst trait is zero-sum governance that consigns a growing percentage of Minneapolis to an enemies list. It’s been a winning formula for election but not for governance.

Dewayne Davis was head minister at Plymouth Church, a very active congregation in the Stevens Square neighborhood south of downtown. They serve people without homes & Davis ministers to them personally. His Christianity is not militant nor exclusionary (believe me, as a Jew, I can tell) but is instead based on generosity. You know how Zohran Mamdani refers to people without homes? “New Yorkers.” That’s Dewayne Davis’s morality too.

He’s also an experienced public servant, having served as a Congressional aide to moderate members and had enough community standing to more recently co-chair Frey’s Public Safety Work Group in the immediate aftermath of the 2021 election.

A quick story about this: the workgroup was actually a hopeful sign that Frey would unite the city. He appointed Davis and former mayoral rival Nekima Levy-Armstrong as co-chairs, and well as 2021 foe Sheila Nezhad. The committee was announced in December 2021, but in February 2022 Minneapolis Police killed Amir Locke in a noknock warrant Frey had told everyone he banned during the campaign. Frey has never apologized for this, instead uttering the weaselly “Language became more casual, including my own, which did not reflect the necessary precision or nuance.”

The part the public DOESN’T know is that in the firestorm after Locke’s killing, Frey called Davis, then on vacation in Mexico. Davis — fully expecting Frey to discuss how to better control MPD — instead found the mayor pleading with him to fly home & stand with Frey at a news conference.

That’s right — Jacob Frey wanted a “black friend” to run cover for him. Davis refused; the mayor acted like Davis owed him something for appointing him to the committee, in a cynically transactional calculation that twisted Davis’s volunteer public service into political fealty.

After his refusal, Davis watched Frey slow-walk or outright not institute the committee’s reforms. Frey contests this & touts the work group, but it’s significant that Levy-Armstrong has endorsed Davis for mayor.

Davis, like me, is not a member of the DSA. LIke me, he is not willing to engage in the red-baiting of them, either. He’s for tougher rent regulations and limits but not the strictest rent control, for example. I think of us both as Social Democrats, the Elizabeth Warren wing of the DFL.

An aside: too many DFLers are engaged in the sort of anti-DSA hysteria Rick Kupchella stoked in “A Precarious State.” One of the tropes is that 4 DSA members of a 13-member City Council control everything bwahaha. But what these “Kupchellacrats,” as I now call them, miss entirely is that the governing coalition on the council has expanded while Frey’s circle gets smaller and smaller. The majority includes non-DSA folks like Emily Koski and Katie Cashman and Jamal Osman, who are only commies in the minds of the most paranoid. Much like the DFL was a fusion of socialist & non-socialist factions, so is today’s party. DSA volunteers have fueled DFL turnout for the last several elections, for the entire ticket. Ejecting them is the most short-sighted move one could make.

Meanwhile, it’s telling that Frey has no Hennepin County Commissioner endorsements and no legislative endorsements. Keith Ellison has previously endorsed Frey; not now. They know he is not an effective collaborator, and will blame-shift at the slightest threat.

Jazz Hampton is not as left as I am, but I admire him nonetheless. His positions aren’t much different than Frey, but his character is. During the campaign he has met with every council member — something Frey wouldn’t do during the budget process even though this is one power left to them in the strong-mayor system.

Despite his background as a lawyer, entrepreneur, and political centrist, Jazz is a guy who was *on* the 35w bridge protesting George Floyd’s murder when that truck came barreling at them. He was *at* the ICE protest effectively de-escalating tension between demonstrators and federal forces. I’m sure I would oppose him on some matters - but I’m also sure I wouldn’t be demonized for doing so.

I strongly admire Omar Fateh but also have reservations. No one has accomplished more in office than him: he spearheaded statewide free college for families making under $80,000, the single biggest thing expanding Minnesota’s enrollment after years of falls. And without his willingness to push to the limit the rights of Uber/Lyft drivers, they would have continued to be bigger victims of a corporate scheme to avoid workplace rules & benefits that undergird stste & federal worker protections.

He has the endorsement of some of his most moderate Senate colleagues, including John Hoffman, who was shot along with MelIssa Hortman this summer. You simply don’t get that support - as well as from Hennepin Commissioner Angela Conley, state house reps, and DSA & non-DSA Council members - if you are a fatally loose cannon.

For many of you, the toughest vote will be whether to put Fateh or Frey on your ballot. If you’re like me, a center-left person, leaving Fateh off will help Frey win. Just be honest with yourself about that.

I do understand the conundrum. I didn’t vote for Fateh in the last Senate election because I had concerns about campaign finance issues that had come up earlier. Those were resolved with minor penalties, even by a Senate panel comprised of 50% Republicans who did not find Fateh responsible. There have been enough other minor examples — things not disclosed — that I’ve moved him down my rankings.

It’s perhaps too ignoble but I contrast Fateh’s accomplishments and demerits with Frey’s. Frey is a guy who prefers to use the police to bust up encampments while refusing to implement 100 housing vouchers for single adults that the Council funded this year, Hennepin County & Mpls Public Housing signed off on. In plain terms, Frey “unalloted” the program, Trump-style, because opponents pushed it. While he argued that he’ll defund the program next year so implementing it for 1 year doesn’t make sense, that’s 100 people without a roof over their heads right now.

After Frey got headlines for fencing off the Lake & Nicollet transit station after a shooting, the folks who hung out there migrated back up to street level where they now hang out closer to businesses and housing. That doesn’t get headlines, but imagine how many might have a place to go if those housing vouchers weren’t the victims of political retribution.

And while Frey arguably won 2017 after Justine Damond was mistakenly killed by Minneapolis police, Davis Moturi was shot by a neighbor in Southwest Minneapolis even after MPD was contacted repeatedly and effectively stood aside. Had this been Betsy Hodges, or a DSA mayor, it would end careers. But the rules are different for a candidate supported by wealth.

Frey also loudly touts his “straight talk“ in telling folks what they don’t want to hear, but when a homophobic minister from North Minneapolis called a gay council member a “girl,” and literally threatened violence, Frey did not and still has not condemned the remarks nor called the minister — a political ally — out. This from a guy who launched his political career with the Big Gay Race! As I said, character matters.