‘The strobe lights need to be turned off’: An educational, patience-testing weekend with DFL politicians and party activists

“Wonderful, it moved me, I felt it.”

So said Laura Turman, a delegate at the DFL state convention in Rochester, about the Friday evening performance of Kobey Layne, a 26-year-old who got enough delegate support to give a 15-minute speech on why she, and not Amy Klobuchar, should get the party’s endorsement for governor.

Too green to understand that a politician’s No. 1 priority is to not say anything they may later regret, Layne was all jittery energy and concrete goals. A bonding bill that would integrate Minnesota’s clean energy goals, “capping rent increases across the state to 3%.”

“Politics is about policy, not personalities, not platitudes,” Layne said, bobbing left to right and back on the podium, fingers pointing to her eyes and ears. 

The line got raucous applause. But a later declaration by Klobuchar, who has represented Minnesota in the U.S. Senate for t...