Reporters' notebook: Caucus night

Rep. John Ward, DFL-Brainerd, made it clear at the Crow Wing County DFL caucuses that he disagreed with those who would dismiss bonding bill jobs as merely temporary jobs.

"I got news for you - it's a stinking job."

Those were the days

Former Minnesota Senate President Don Samuelson of Brainerd recalled the old days when a DFL gathering was typically high-spirited and sometimes contentious.

In 1968, Samuelson was county chair when two Minnesotans, Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Eugene McCarthy, ran for president. It didn't sit well with Samuelson when an operative from the McCarthy campaign arrived at Franklin Junior High and attempted to tell Samuelson how to run the meeting.

"He was out the door," Samuelson recalled.

In the early 1970s, there was a fierce battle for the position of Crow Wing County chair between Carol Bartels of Ironton and Laureen Borden. Samuelson remembered that he had talked the late Marv Campbell, a Brainerd banker, into chairing the controversial meeting.

"He never forgave me," Samuelson said.

Youths turn out

Don Crust, Brainerd, noted the good turnout at the Republican caucus at Forestview Middle School and the number of small children and young adults in attendance, saying young people are not the typical sight at these caucuses.

Take that, senator

Yvonne Leiser, Senate District 12 chair, wore a button indicating the feelings of some party activists toward former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, who is bypassing the state convention and running in the DFL primary. Her button had Dayton's name crossed off and the words "It's an election not an auction."

Money raiser

The obligatory task of pleading for money from the party faithful fell on Leiser.

"We hope you're voting like a Democrat and donating like a Republican," she said.

Alone at the Beltrami table

Darrell Auginash sat alone at the Beltrami County table at Tuesday's Independence Party caucus in Breezy Point.

A Red Lake Ojibwe member who lives in Bemidji, Auginash is the Independence Party candidate running for the Minnesota State Representative 2B seat.

Auginash said most Indians on the Red Lake Reservation are Democrats and he hopes to persuade them to consider the Independence Party. He said he believes in family values and would like to see more economic development on the reservation.

Auginash told caucus members that his nephew was seriously wounded in the Red Lake school shooting. As a minister, he spoke with his nephew in the hospital, prayed with him and asked him to forgive the person who shot him. Later, Auginash said he went to the shooter's family, as they mourned his death, and told them that his family had forgiven him.

"If you live with anger and bitterness in your heart it will eat at you," said Auginash.

Notes contributed by staff writers Mike O'Rourke, Renee Richardson and Jodie Tweed