Former Governor Tim Pawlenty, who’s running for a third term, says it’s time to get rid of state party conventions. He says they’re essentially going away now, pointing to last weekend’s outcomes in Rochester and Duluth. He says that was “sort of the wake-up call to that whole thing. Most other states just have primaries. And again, in the modern society where people don’t have time to sit through endless meetings, let’s just go vote.”
Pawlenty contends party conventions are “too closed” and don’t represent the public broadly enough. “We want to have grassroots involvement and activism, not just by 800 people who were the peak of the votes at the Republican [state] convention, but by hundreds of thousands of people in a primary,” he says.
Pawlenty was sharply criticized by some for skipping this year’s G-O-P state convention and not seeking his party’s endorsement. Endorsed candidate Jeff Johnson says “Minnesotans are not interested in a business-as-usual establishment politician.”