One Crow Wing County caucus participant got a laugh Tuesday night when he mistakenly went to the wrong party caucus.
Jeff McArthur said he received an email before the Feb. 24 caucus telling him the Republican Party event was moved to Riverside Elementary School in Brainerd instead of Forestview Middle School in Baxter.
But that wasn’t true.
But adhering to the newfound information, McArthur showed up to the Democrat caucus donning his “Veterans for Trump” hat. He didn’t initially know he was in the wrong place though.
After walking in, McArthur looked up his precinct and sat down at his assigned table.
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“I sat down at the table and asked the folks where they lived, and they said, well, in my neighborhood, Cinosam (Road) area, and we all started talking about the conditions of the roads out there because of the ice,” he said.
Then the DFL caucusgoers asked about McArthur’s hat.
“And they said, ‘Are you sure you’re in the right place?’” he said.
McArthur told them about the email he received, but then noticed the obvious signs he wasn’t at the Republican caucus.
“I started looking at all the paperwork on the table, and it’s all DFL,” he said. “I said, ‘You know, I think I’m in the wrong place.’”
McArthur eventually made his way to Forestview for his party’s event, but not before he and the others at his DFLers had a good laugh about the situation and shook hands.
“I said, ‘Aren’t we all supposed to be yelling at each other and all that, like on Facebook?’” McArthur recalled. “And they laughed and they said, ‘No, we’re from central Minnesota. We don’t need to do that. We can just talk to each other.’”
After talking with the Brainerd Dispatch Tuesday night, McArthur said he was going to check his email again and see where the message came from.
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THERESA BOURKE may be reached at theresa.bourke@brainerddispatch.com or 218-855-5860. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DispatchTheresa .
