Transcripts

GEORGE LATIMER: Let me give you two pieces of history. First of all, city endorsements are not that common. The convention didn't begin until '70. And the fact is that in 1970, the party endorsed Bob North. Bob North was defeated by the unendorsed Democrat by the name of Charlie McCarty. Remember super mayor?

GARY EICHTEN: Oh, sure.

GEORGE LATIMER: Then fade in, fade out. In 1976, I did not get the endorsement.

GARY EICHTEN: Who did?

GEORGE LATIMER: No one got the endorsement.

GARY EICHTEN: Who did?

GEORGE LATIMER: No one. Remember him, no one?

GARY EICHTEN: [LAUGHS] And you beat him?

GEORGE LATIMER: Yeah. No, I failed to get the endorsement by one vote. And I probably would never have been elected but for the fact that I was opposed by Jerry Isaacs and a third candidate. I'm forgetting-- oh, Mike Decourcey, who's now a judge. And Mike and Jerry divided up a lot of the votes who I think would have gone to Jerry had he been running alone. And so I won the primary by about thousand votes is all.

GARY EICHTEN: Why do the candidates put so much emphasis then on trying to get this endorsement?

GEORGE LATIMER: Because it's way better to have it than not to have it. But I would say that with a couple of the labor endorsements already out there for Coleman, and if there is no endorsement at all by the party, it probably-- no endorsement is probably valuable to Coleman, wouldn't you think? But I think that if someone other than Coleman gets the endorsement, I would not assume that the endorsed candidate will win. I think it's going to be a horse race.

GARY EICHTEN: Let me ask you this. How do you keep your supporters enthused? Apparently, all the experts think this is going to be a real marathon session, starting relatively early tomorrow and lasting perhaps into Sunday morning.

GEORGE LATIMER: How do you keep them enthused during the session or--

GARY EICHTEN: Exactly, during the session.

GEORGE LATIMER: Oh, it's not hard. It's self-generating. People get in there, and the ones who came are coming to endorse. And it's not hard to keep people there, in my opinion. By the end of the session, it becomes a life struggle. And someone's fundamental reason for being, at least in that universe of 48 hours, is tested. And therefore, everyone wants to prove his or her worth.

GARY EICHTEN: Do these things tend to be pretty divisive? That is to say, the candidates or the supporters of the candidates who don't win, do they get so mad because they didn't win, that they won't go to work for somebody else?

GEORGE LATIMER: It's not always the case. In the case with Isaacs and me, it was not the case. This is history nobody cares about, but I went to the Isaacs people after I won and, with his help, got a number of his supporters to support me when I ran in the general election. And that would have been-- that was critical to my winning because George Vavoulis was a very strong and respected and popular Republican former mayor. So patching it up is essential, not always possible. But I'd say that there will be hard feelings. There appear to be hard feelings developing now, if you can trust the newspapers at least.

GARY EICHTEN: Talking about the Republicans, there is continued speculation that Bob Fletcher might run as a Republican or as an independent. But other than that, the Republican Party seems to be nonexistent in the city of St. Paul. Why is that?

GEORGE LATIMER: I noticed that they did not endorse a full slate of council people, did they? Well, it's because people get demoralized when they lose all the time. There are plenty of cons-- I guess, Gary, maybe there's more than a simple reason. The simple reason you would give is that there just aren't that many Republicans. I don't think that's the full reason.

I think the full reason is that there are a lot of conservative Democrats who feel reasonably comfortable remaining Democrats in St. Paul. That's an important issue.

GARY EICHTEN: So the party in the city hasn't gotten so far to the left that they feel alienated?

GEORGE LATIMER: Well, the party itself may or may not have. But the Democrats in St. Paul still feel as though they have enough conservative or middle of the road Democrats that they don't feel left out once these people get elected.

GARY EICHTEN: There is a whole army of people trying to become mayor. Why would anybody want to be the mayor of a big city these days?

GEORGE LATIMER: Well, there are big cities and there are big cities. The fact is that with all of our problems, St. Paul is a livable, accessible city. It's a city that's got a human scale and a human face. It's a city that most of us-- many of us who live here love this place. And it's not hard to find people prepared to do work to try to sustain the city or to make it better.

So I guess I-- this is probably not news to you, but I consider my time as mayor as the happiest, most fulfilling years of my life. And I haven't ever been without work. So I've always had good work. But that work was very fulfilling. And the reason it's fulfilling, if you got any brains, is that you know there are a whole lot more good, great people than there are the other kind. And therefore, you work through them, and you don't act like you're the only one in the world who's got any concern for the city. So it's a good place to govern. It's honest, it's clean, it's tough, it's open. It's a good town. Why not be mayor of the city?