Napoleon, Triage and Wright County Democrats
Part One of Four
Please stay with me for a minute while I explain this. Like all Wright County Democrats, I want our candidates to win. This includes everyone from Amy Klobuchar, Peggy Flanagan, and Doug Chapin, down to Louis McNutt, Colton Kratky, and Emily Dahlgren. But the strategies that we have used out here in the past have not worked. This leads me to conclude that they will not work now.
The future resembles the past, unless something changes. In Philosophy, this is known as the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature. In Physics, this is known as the Law of Inertia.
We will find out for sure on November 3. I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that I am right.
Amy Klobuchar will likely win the statewide governor’s race (even though she got about 33% of the vote out here in 2024). Peggy Flanagan and Doug Chapin are in the fight of their political lives. The outcome for Flanagan is currently unpredictable, but very winnable.
What if there were a way to break the cycle of Democrats losing out here? If there were, there are two reasonable questions:
1. When to do it; and
2. How to do it?
1. When to do it? The answer is now. We need to put in place serious and thoughtful leadership, a messaging system, and a candidate development system so that after the November 3 election, folks don’t just go away and wait for the next election cycle to say, like Charlie Brown, “this time we’re gonna win.”
2. How to do it? This is complicated and difficult. (If it were simple and easy, we would have done it already.)
It requires an honest conversation that goes deeper than shouting cliches and excuses. The first step is for Wright County Democrats to understand their position in the state DFL constellation, and to understand its position in the unique demographics of Wright County.
This is where Napoleon comes into the picture.
Napoleon invented “triage.” He understood that after battles, there were three categories of wounded soldiers: those with non-serious wounds who would survive without immediate medical help, those who would survive only with immediate medical help, and those who were so badly wounded that any medical help would be wasted on them. This is triage, and this is why hospitals have triage departments to diagnose patients. It’s where the name comes from. Napoleon thought of it.
The state DFL practices triage when it decides which local races to fund and to help. Like Napoleon, the state DFL concentrates its money and help mostly on districts that it feels it has a reasonable chance of winning. This includes the three major population areas, which are the Twin Cities and suburbs, Rochester, and Duluth. It also concentrates on districts which it feels are competitive. Wright County is not competitive.
The state DFL thinks of Wright County as being in category three: we are so badly wounded that any significant help would be wasted on us. We are going to die no matter what, because we always have. This is why District 29 gets about 17 delegates to the state DFL convention (the number varies and this includes automatic delegates), while most other districts get significantly more delegates. The MN senate districts all have the same population (roughly 84,000, give or take), so DFL delegate allocation is based on election performance.
Districts like Wright County that underperform are penalized by being awarded fewer delegates. Worse, they receive fewer resources from the state party, less money, less help, and less attention in general.
This is not intended as a criticism of the way the state DFL party is managed. I understand why they do this. What I am saying is that if Democrats in Wright County want to have a voice in the Minnesota DFL party, and if we want to have a voice in the Minnesota legislature, we must fix things ourselves.
Let me repeat: We must fix things ourselves. No one is going to do it for us.
The second step is for us to understand the Wright County electorate. Most voters in Wright County shape their identity around Republicanism. While this is a fact, we cannot let it be an excuse. We can still get enough of them to vote for us if we understand how to get around their identity and discuss three issues that are important to them.
I am going to write three more blog posts on this topic.
1. The demographics of Wright County, 101. (Misunderstand this at your peril.)
2. Understanding Lisa Demuth’s message and borrowing the part that works. (Even though she is a Republican, she is smart and she is a skilled politician. We need to understand how and why.)
3. Understanding How to Eat an Elephant.
If you would like to follow along, I highly recommend that you buy and read the book How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time, by Sarah Longwell. It’s published by St. Martin’s Press in New York, in 2026. I got my copy at Barnes and Noble (I like to support brick and mortar bookstores), but you can get yours online if that’s easier.
If you are serious about restoring local DFL candidates in Wright County to the Minnesota legislature, you need to read this book at least twice. Read it cover to cover. This will be on the final exam. As announced on the syllabus, the final will take place on November 3rd. There is still time to study.
So, stay tuned.