County Commissioner Bob Fenwick (L) with Independence Party lieutenant governor candidate Jim Mulder at Cascade Restaurant on October 18, 2010. Mulder, Tom Horner’s running mate, ate breakfast with a group of community members and told them about various elements of their platform.
A group of businesspeople and public officials ate breakfast at Cascade Restaurant on Monday, October 18, 2010 with Independence Party lieutenant governor candidate Jim Mulder, Tom Horner’s running mate.
County commissioners Bob Fenwick and Fritz Sobanja were there. They knew Mulder quite well since he just retired this spring from 21 years as executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties.
Mulder spoke of how he and Horner would deal with the challenges facing Minnesota. He offered a variety of “practical solutions” that would include increasing the efficiency of government, for example by eliminating redundant forms and reports currently required of social workers. “Thisis not magic bullet stuff,” he said. “It’s hard work.”
Mayor Sue Hakes asked about the state’s intention to redesign how the work of counties is structured. Mulder said that the demographics and geography of an area make a difference in what should be done to increase government efficiency. “The things you can do up here are very different from what you would do in southwest Minnesota,” he said. He would recommend, for example, that Cook County share adoptive services with several other counties but keep senior services locally based.
Mulder and Horner’s platform promotes alternatives that would reduce the cost of senior care, such as daily Internet communication between health care providers and seniors to keep the seniors in their own homes and out of nursing homes and assisted living.
Horner and Mulder propose decreasing Minnesota’s sales tax by 1 percent and expanding it to some items that are now exempt, such as clothing, a move they believe would stimulate spending and support small businesses. “None of this is pretty,” Mulder said. “I don’t want to see Marvin Windows put up another plant in North Dakota.”
The plan includes funding economic research at colleges and universities, early childhood education, older adult services, preventive health care, and support for the homeless and families in crisis.
Regarding K-12 education, Mulder said he believes the state needs to invest in excellent principals because they produce excellent teachers. Studies show that the schools with excellent principals perform the best, he said. He also believes the system needs a way to remove teachers who are really not gifted at teaching.
Mulder advocated eliminating unnecessary middle management at the state level and putting more control back into local hands. “Thecounty commissioners’ jobs are going to be a lot more difficult if we win than if we don’t win,” he said.
Speaking of his competition, Mulder said one candidate says we’re going to have wealth and happiness because we’re going to tax more and the other says we’re going to have wealth and happiness because we’re going to spend less. According to Mulder, he and Horner would do some of both.
According to Mulder, Horner has leadership skills and the ability to bring people together—and he will not owe anybody anything.
Mulder said he and Horner were amused by TV ads broadcast by the two major parties. One claimed, “Tom Horner’s a Republican,” Mulder said, and the other claimed, “Tom Horner’s a Democrat.” Regarding the dynamic of a three-way split in votes on Election Day, Mulder recommended that ambivalent Republicans and Democrats walk into the polls with the opposite party and mutually agree to vote for the Horner/ Mulder ticket. Then your vote won’t be wasted! he said.
Mulder is working on his doctoral dissertation in public administration from Hamline University, but he told the group this is an end goal for both him and Horner. “This is the capstone of our careers,” he said. “This is not a stepping stone.”
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