Kudos to Keith Ellison

I’m so pleased that Keith Ellison won the 5th congressional district DFL primary yesterday! That’s a district that includes most of Minneapolis, and even though Keith was endorsed by the DFL party, he still faced two challengers (one of whom, Mike Erlandsen, went negative in a very petty way). I’m even more pleased at how gracious and positive he’s remained on the radio today. There’s a lot of national interest, because if he wins the general election in November he’ll be the first Muslim elected to Congress. That same interest has generated a ton of really negative smears — most of which the NPR reporter felt called upon to repeat in his introduction to the story today. ARGH! I hope we can remember the good lessons from this race, among which MNPublius notes: <blockquote>“Grassroots organizing is extremely effective when done right. Candidates don’t have to be Paul Wellstone to win Wellstone-style. Tolerance, unity, truth, and peace are compelling, important, motivating issues for progressives. Build your organization around people who care about the things you care about, run it honestly and openly, and good things will happen. Social networking is the architecture of successful field, finance and GOTV. It’s the people, stupid - learn it, love it, live it.” </blockquote>