Endorsement from Lydia McAninch, Winona County Associate Chair

Fellow DFLers:

My name is Lydia McAninch. I am currently the Associate Chair of the Winona County DFL and a former executive committee member of the Mower County DFL. I have spent most of my life in Southeastern Minnesota and a lot of that time has been spent volunteering and working for what I like to call “the Greater Minnesota DFL Caucus.” During the 2010 election cycle I got to know Jacob Grippen as leader in Southeastern Minnesota as Chair of the Houston County DFL.

Early in 2010 I attended the Houston County DFL convention and I was extremely impressed at Jacob's attention to detail and his respect of the DFL Constitution and Rules of Order. He was the clear leader of the meeting, but he gave everyone in the room a chance to speak their mind on resolutions and Gubernatorial Candidate preferences, on which there was plenty of debate and differing opinions. Jacob uses most of his free time to work hard for all of our candidates.

I was the Southeastern Minnesota organizer for the Coordinated Campaign last year and Jacob’s support was essential. He made hundreds of phone calls alongside me in the office and encouraged me throughout the year with his selfless commitment to the DFL. He also provided me with accurate and detailed notes he had kept from 2008 (when he was the CC organizer) that he shared with me; which I found to be a great help organizing events, recruiting volunteers, and finding staging locations. 

Jacob is extremely detail oriented and accurate when it comes to recording meetings and he can be counted on to follow up with people in a respectful and timely manner. Jacob controls the Houston County email list with great diligence and he is more than technologically competent to keep up with social networking to strengthen our communication and outreach. His knowledge about the DFL Constitution, bylaws, and Robert’s Rules of Order constantly astounds me and he is my first call whenever I have a question about organizing with the Winona DFL and keeping our local party “up to code”.

Beyond Jacob’s exceptional qualifications, as a DFLer in Southern Minnesota, I would like to see more representation from this area in our State Party’s official boards. I know that within the party there is some disagreement about whether or not geographic balance is relevant, but I am convinced that if we are to strengthen our party units in the small cities and towns around the state, we do need to have a geographically diverse group of State Party Officers. I write this as someone who lived in Minneapolis for 6 years and spent the 2006 election cycle volunteering 20+ hours a week for the Coordinated Campaign in Saint Paul. Back in 2004, I spent a good deal of time volunteering in Austin, MN for the DFL House candidate (my mother), Representative Jeanne Poppe. My campaign experiences showed me just how much campaigning in the Metro is substantially different than campaigning in Southern Minnesota.

I firmly believe there is a dearth of representation from Rural Minnesota and these are the places we will need to win to take back the Legislature. In my experience in Austin and Winona, I have found one of the most frequent complaints from DFL board members and leaders is that our state party keeps their focus on progressive Metro issues. I strongly support progressive politics and I understand how much of our democratic base vote exists in the greater Metro area. However, voters here are fervently “independent” when asked if they belong to a political party and these are the folks we need support from to put us over the top on Election Day.

For these reasons and more, I strongly support Jacob Grippen for Secretary of the Minnesota DFL and I urge others to do the same.

Lydia McAninch
Associate Chair, Winona County DFL