The 50.7 percent voter turnout on November 2 was higher than usual for a year when there is no mayoral race. In fact it was higher than in the mayoral election two years ago, in which only 43 percent of those registered voted. In an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Erich Mische, a top strategist in the campaign in favor of the tax increase and stadium subsidy, said his committee had been counting on a low voter turnout to win and knew they were in trouble on election day when the turnout remained high.

Campaigners for a yes vote, spearheaded by the mayor's office and the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, spent $300,000 in a slick, high-powered advertising campaign. In the final weeks leading up to election day many city residents, as I can personally testify, received at least one professionally printed flier every day in the mail. Thousands of dollars were spent on phone calls, videos, media ads, and lawn signs. The advocates for a no vote in contrast mustered only $8,000 for their effort.

From the outset, however, the big majority of working people in the city recognized that the stadium scheme was a boondoggle designed to benefit the millionaire owners of the Minnesota Twins, the stadium, construction companies, and downtown businesses. The big bucks promotion of the initiative only served to underline the profit-hungry drive of those interests and their goal of dipping into the public coffers.

In the factory where I work, I heard no one speak in favor of the stadium proposal. Supporters of the Socialist Workers election campaign at other work sites gave similar accounts.

The trade union hierarchy was divided on the proposal. Officials in the construction trades, for example, campaigned for a yes vote. Other unions opposed it but didn't commit resources to it. A staff representative of the St. Paul Trades and Labor Assembly, the umbrella organization of St. Paul unions, explained in a phone interview that the assembly wouldn't discuss the issue nor take a stand because of the differences.

Many union members who opposed the stadium scheme saw a connection between this move and Mayor Norman Coleman's highly touted plan to privatize city services. Dubbed Compete St. Paul, this operation not only aims to turn park maintenance, water works, and other services over to profit-eager companies but also targets the public employees unions. A rally of some 500 unionists and their supporters in late summer protested this scheme in a rally held at City Hall.

The big-business drive to build a new stadium in St. Paul is part of a general development across the country where profiteers in professional sports are attempting to reap the rewards of recycling stadiums and other athletic facilities every few years and to try to get working people to subsidize them through increased taxes and public subsidies.

The moneybags that pushed for these new stadiums not only want the profits that would come from constructing them but from the revenues that could be attracted by selling expensive box seats to corporations and other rich interests.

During my recent race for city council in St. Paul on the Socialist Workers Party ticket, I was asked a lot about the stadium initiative and Compete St. Paul. I strongly opposed both. I explained that not only was I opposed to adding to the tax burden of working people, my party favors axing all sales taxes and all taxes of any kind on working people. And we oppose the use of public funds to help line the pockets of capitalist profiteers. That's why we urged a no vote on the stadium initiative and join in the celebration of its defeat.  
 
 
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