Shot In The Dark - Politics and Current Events in Minnesota and Beyond

Friday, July 04, 2003

What's So Great About America - Dinesh D'Souza knows. And while his book (of the same title as this post) is finally out in paperback (and I'll be getting it from the library shortly), he's summarized the top ten points of his book, the top ten reasons we and the world need to appreciate out country, in time for the Fourth of July.

Read it when you get a moment.

Now, I'm really done 'til Monday. Go out and have a great weekend.

And may God continue to bless America.

Mike Hatch, American Bankers and the Media - There have been a few small developments since I published the last installment of my story on Mike Hatch, the American Bankers controversy and the local media. We'll talk about it on Monday. If you've been linked to my blog from elsewhere to read the story - go for it! I eagerly solicit your comments.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/4/2003 10:25:05 AM

The Recovery - I was talking with a friend of mine last night. He spent about five months out of work last year - ending right about the time my own out-of-work stretch started. The current economy is a big topic for both of us.

He wondered out loud when we were going to start seeing a serious, strong recovery - the kind that creates new jobs and gets things moving again.

I started digging for parallels. The only two downturns I really remember are the huge recession after the Oil Embargo, which mired the nation in years of stagflation, and the one in the early nineties (which actually began earlier in the Twin Cities, with the big post-cold-war cuts in defense spending).

By the time Ronald Reagan pulled off his big tax cuts in the early eighties, the nation seemed to have nowhere to go but up. But Reagan had a mandate - a huge victory at the polls - to buttress his radical prescription for the economy. By the time the economy bounced back, fueled by the tax cuts, I think (as I recall it) that there was so much pent-up desire to get back working, there'd have been no way to hold it back.

I remember more about the '91 recession. I was a working adult with two kids by that point, and very underemployed. The economy did quickly and clearly bounce back, and indeed launch into the big Bubble, fairly quickly. But the economy had one huge advantage back then - the "Peace Dividend." The US was drawing down its military even before the Berlin Wall fell, but by the time Boris Yeltsin rubbed out the Moscow Coup of '91, the world knew the Cold War was over - and the economy showed it.

The situation today is nearly the opposite of '91. We aren't ending a war, we're just beginning one, one that started as our economy was starting to slide into recession. The economy is digesting that and the fallout from the Clinton Bubble, simultaneously, without the benefit of either a Peace Dividend or a Reagan-like mandate to take drastic economic measures to fix things.

What could happen? Worst case; The economy dips again, and we get bad news in the War on Terrorism (or, more likely, the media spins all news to look bad). Bush loses - or perhaps ekes out a thin victory over a divisive Democrat candidate. Either way - at the hands of any of the Nine Dwarves (except perhaps Joe Lieberman, whose political stock seems to be in the doldrums at the moment) or a George W. Bush weakened by a rough election and with no mandate, and forced to continue his pseudo-liberal triangulation for four more years - the doldrums continue. Continued efforts to fix the economy through interest rates raise the spectre of deflation. The Democrats respond by trying to tax and spend our way to prosperity. We flirt with Depression by the end of the decade.

Best case: Good news somehow eludes the New York Times Good War News Destruction Patrol, and the economy generates enough new jobs in the next 18 months to make enough people happy enough to preserve some of the President's approval rating. The Democrats nominate Howard Dean after a corrosive primary battle, playing to their base, and losing much of Middle America. In a rerun of 1972, Dean is crushed in a huge landslide, carrying California and New York and not much else. Even Minnesota votes Bush. The Senate becomes more strongly Republican, and the House picks up a few Red votes.

Bush is able to act like the conservative that he's had to repress for the last two years, given the divided Congress and his edgy initial election. He reinforces his tax cuts, and leverages the benefits of his aggressive action in the Middle East (which is slowly calming down by this time). Buoyed by a clear election and a slowly-but-perceptively stabilizing world situation, the economy perks up, and by the middle of the decade the economy is again bubbling along at mid-nineties growth levels.

Comments?
posted by Mitch Berg 7/4/2003 09:19:08 AM

Awada - OK, I lied. It's the Fourth, and I'm posting.

I've been saying since the elections that Pat Awada had the potential to do huge things in Minnesota politics. This article in Rake Magazine reiterates many of the reasons. It's a longish piece, but worth a read.
Pat Awada is 36 years old. She is the mother of four children. During the last four years she has become the most controversial woman in Minnesota political history (with the possible exception of Coya “Come Home” Knutson). Her epic battles with the Metropolitan Council over the development of low-income high-density housing in the suburbs earned her the everlasting enmity of suburb-hating urban liberals. Her activist approach to the state auditor’s office has positively unnerved Minnesota’s local government establishment. The Star Tribune’s editorial board has yet to find an Awada position with which it agrees, and when they are not busy attacking the policies themselves, they provide an astonishing amount of space to anti-Awada letters to the editor, many of which verge on the personal.
Of course they do.

Although Awada is actually quite moderate in many ways - she refused to sign the "no new taxes" pledge - she's aroused the emnity of the local left like few recent candidates.

It was inevitable; she's a woman. Women are supposed to be Democrats!

In another forum, a poster raved "She was the meanest mayor in Minnesota and she's taking irresponsibly potshots at public employees from her Auditor's position rather than the people who actually control the purse
strings in local governments. Talk about climbing the political pole on the backs of the powerless." This is fairly typical of what the left says about Awada, who is keenly aware of the reasons for the bad karma:
Ironically, Awada is most closely identified not with an ideology or methodology, but with a suburban lifestyle that rankles many urban liberals. Right or wrong, it’s a reputation earned back in 2000, when she stood up to the Metropolitan Council, a state-chartered planning agency for the seven-county metro area. The Council demanded that Eagan build more high-density, low-income housing, and threatened to hold hostage such Met Council programs as Park and Ride and light rail if it didn’t. Awada won the showdown by correctly pointing out that the Met Council lacks the authority to force municipalities to build specific housing types. She also won enemies: Opponents openly suggested that her opposition to the housing mandate was proof that she was an elitist, a classist, and even a racist. Awada rejects all of the characterizations as emblematic of a left obsessed with labeling opponents. “The liberals’ thing is usually just to cry discrimination or bigotry or, ‘She hates poor people’ or something,” she says with exasperation. For Awada, the argument against mandated housing types was straight logic about the limits of power. “I would never go into Minneapolis and say, ‘Your lots are too small. You can no longer develop like this,’” she huffs over a lunch of White Castles in her office. “I mean, that’s how ridiculous it is to suburbanites.”
Naturally, the media focuses on the side of Awada that's easiest to spin - her "Awada the Hun" image, the "bitch factor" she refers to in the article.

Don't expect to see much play on this side of Awada
At Capitol Direct, Awada set up a playroom and brought her kids to work. But she wasn’t thinking only of herself. She also created a workplace that was particularly friendly to working mothers, and, according to former and current employees, an environment that was especially forgiving of the challenges faced by single mothers. “There’s a very gentle side of Patty, but it really isn’t her public image,” explains close family friend Lisa Holmquist. “My youngest child has Down syndrome and she’s one of the only people outside of my family that I’ve trusted to watch after him.” Holmquist expresses frustration that Awada’s gentler side doesn’t get mentioned by a media that seems enamored of her tough public image. “I’ve known a lot of public and political figures,” she explains. “And I always hate to see someone I know being pilloried in the press. A lot of times it has nothing to do with them.”
Best of all, unlike a lot of female politicians, she doesn't beat us over the head with her gender:
A week later, she reflects on the balance she tries to maintain between her professional and personal life. Awada explains, “Politics is my job. It’s not my whole being. There’s a division between who I am professionally and how I act personally.” She begins to smile devilishly. “Just because I’m a mom doesn’t mean my primary issues are families and children. Mommy issues,” she says with sneering contempt before pulling back with her customary chuckle. “Does my husband have to have daddy issues?” In many ways, this willful compartmentalization is a significant departure from the politics practiced by so many female leaders—from Geraldine Ferraro to Hillary Clinton—who have staked reputations and careers on “feminist” or “feminizing” issues. Pat Awada is a fiscal conservative first. “Mom” is something she leaves at home.
I've been saying since November, and maybe before, that Pat Awada had the potential to replace Mark Dayton. The more I learn, the more I believe it.

Earlier this week, I asked who you all thought would be the best Republican to run against Mark "The Empty Suit" Dayton in '06. There were many good suggestions - Representative Kline, Brian Sullivan, and of course Mark Kennedy.

There's a lot of time between now and '06; we have no idea what's going to happen in the various House districts. If the election were held today, I'd admit that Kline or Kennedy's time in DC would be an important factor. But I'd also ask this: Do you think Kline or Kennedy's districts are solidly-enough GOP to allow the party to give up the advantages of incumbancy in holding those seats?

For now, put me down as an Awada supporter. I have two years to think about it.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/4/2003 08:40:58 AM

Thursday, July 03, 2003

Status, Weekend - I had what I felt was a very good second interview on Tuesday, for a job that I'd really, really like to have. There were over 100 applicants, of which 12 got phone interviews and 5-6 were brought in for seconds.

There'll be a third interview with the "final three" sometime in the next week or two.

Posting will be light to nonexistent over the long weekend. I put in a long two weeks on the American Bankers story, and I could use a break from this mouseless computer...

Have a great weekend, even as you hopefully remember what the holiday is all about.

See you Monday.

(or maybe earlier. You never know).
posted by Mitch Berg 7/3/2003 10:46:28 AM

Victory? - This one was on Powerline today.

While the pundits will argue, and the negotiators will negotiate, perhaps you can start to gauge acceptance of US policy...

...this year's fashions.
ARIS, July 2 — A remarkable reversal of sentiment and symbolism has occurred in the five months since designers here and in Milan and London, the site of fervent antiwar rallies, displayed peace flags and, in one instance, staged a love-in that featured a couple in a bed. At that time, European opposition to President Bush's position on Iraq ran so high that Tom Ford, the creative director of Gucci and a fellow Texan, told reporters after his women's show in February, "I'm embarrassed to be an American."

But last week in Milan, on the same runway where he had criticized the president, Mr. Ford struck an image that symbolized the virile Texas cowboy in boots and broad hat. Other tried-and-true symbols of American strength and power appeared at Prada, as correct displays of 1950's country-club attire; at Jean Paul Gaultier, as waistcoats inspired by James West, the 1960's television cowboy version of James Bond; at Junya Watanabe, as battle jackets and cartridge belts fashioned from banker's broadcloth; and at Louis Vuitton, as well-scrubbed young men in tennis whites and navy blazers.
Of course (the article also reminds us) that models strutting on a runway do not approval make. But it's an interesting reversal.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/3/2003 10:39:50 AM

Bottoms Up in St. Paul - Saint Paul is granting bars permission to stay open until 2AM, after the legislature pushed the statewide closing time back an hour during the last session.

The law is, by the way, only of theoretical impact to me; I can't remember the last time I closed down a bar. It's been years.

Bars will have to pay a three-figure fee to the DPS to stay open late, with the money (so says the DPS) being used to hire more cops.

Inevitably in Saint Paul, "Neighborhood Activists" came out to oppose the change:
Pleas from several homeowners to forbid neighborhood bars from staying open later went unheeded during the council debate. Council Member Kathy Lantry said problems with bars in residential areas should not keep law-abiding establishments from staying open later.

"This issue isn't about what time a bar closes," she said. "If we have a problem at 1 o'clock, we have a problem at 2 o'clock. So we should address the problems, regardless of what time they're happening."

Now that council members have approved later hours citywide, they must make good on their promises to combat nuisance bars, said Ramsey Hill homeowner Chris Yerkes.

"There needs to be an effective way for neighbors to get effective action from the city against bars," said Yerkes, who was among those urging the council to restrict the 2 a.m. closing to downtown and other commercial areas.
I used to work in bars - I was a nightclub DJ for three wretched years. And the biggest problem with bars is that they surge a mass of drunken people out into the parking lot (and their cars) at 1AM (or 2AM, or whenever). The following 45 minutes are an orgy of swerving cars, late-night fights, drunken people wandering neighborhoods piddling on shrubs, and cops racking up fines. if I were the dictator of Minnesota, I'd abolish the mandatory closing time. I'd let bars stay open all night, even 24/7 if they wanted. But they'd have to stop serving liquor at some point.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/3/2003 10:10:09 AM

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

Disappearance of Impropriety - In March, when the American Bankers story looked like a case of influence-peddling, the St. Paul Pioneer Press was all over the story. By May, when the Legislative Audit was uncovering all sorts of alleged shenanigans on Mike Hatch's part, the story was suddenly a cold, dead issue.

Part Five of my series on the American Bankers story runs today - but, with any luck, there will be more.

Click on the story index to read the whole series.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/2/2003 05:10:41 PM

Light Day - I spent about five hours writing the last installment of my American Bankers story this morning, and I'm fairly well fried.

More regular blogging tomorrow.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/2/2003 05:10:09 PM

Spin - The left - and the media - is spinning the scattered attacks in Iraq like "Son of Tet".

Victor Davis Hanson, as usual, shines the light on the endlessly-evolving line of the left on this story:
In the first postbellum 100 days, the Americans lost about 60 additional lives in trying to pacify a Muslim and Arab country of some 26 million, wracked by factions, foreign agents, and plagued by thousands of former Baathist fascists who had transmogrified into drive-by shooters and assassins — all in a post 9/11 world where it has been often difficult to distinguish "moderates" in the Middle East from complacent onlookers who were not especially sad to see two towers full of 3,000 Americans disintegrate.

In such a climate, Marines and army units literally were asked to evolve from combatants to peacekeepers to reconstructionists in a matter of hours — as enemy soldiers who ran from battle, now on occasion shot at them for American felonies like directing traffic, seeking to restore electricity, and other unmentionables like treating the sick and organizing local councils. The protocol was for American soldiers in Kevlar and body armor to help 99 percent of the Iraqi population achieve a stable society while less than one percent sought to kill them — to more or less indifference from the beneficiaries who demanded the help (but not to the degree that they would quite yet thank or help protect the helper). "Smile while you shoot back" was perhaps the unspoken mandate for 20-year-olds from New Mexico or New Jersey.
Read it all, natch.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/2/2003 05:09:15 PM

Tuesday, July 01, 2003

Hatch, American Bankers and the Local Media - We'll be wrapping up the series tomorrow with a look at how the local media has covered this story.

Read the whole story - or at least the first four parts.

On My Way Now - All right - I'm off 'til this evening, getting ready for an interview for a job that I'd like to get even if I hadn't been on the beach for the better part of six months.

Your email and comment best wishes are appreciated!
posted by Mitch Berg 7/1/2003 07:52:30 AM

Dayton in Iraq - Powerline takes Senator Dayton's vacuous presence in Iraq to task.

I've had some interesting comments and emails about my question two days ago - who should the GOP run against Dayton in '06? We'll write more about that next week.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/1/2003 07:50:42 AM

No Mouse - Pro and Con - Con: Doing serious editing is very difficult using keyboard shortcuts. In fact, pulling quotes from web pages is impossible (as far as I can tell so far).

Pro: Using all the keyboard shortcuts is great finger-dexterity training for bagpipes.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/1/2003 07:45:23 AM

History of the MPPA - Concealed Carry Reform Now has just compiled a bullet-point history of concealed carry reform in Minnesota, including the seven-year legislative ride that led to the passage of the MPPA.

Look this over, and the next time you're tempted to say "the MPPA was rammed through the Legislature", think about it.

I'm at a loss to think of a more successful genuinely grassroots movement in recent Minnesota history. It's the sort of story that should make a Green turn...well, green with envy.
posted by Mitch Berg 7/1/2003 07:24:34 AM

Monday, June 30, 2003

Tuesday - Posting will be light until evening. I have the biggest job interview of my life Tuesday afternoon, and all the errands that lead up to it in the morning.

Prayers, wishes, karmic effusions and any other sort of well-wish are eagerly solicited!
posted by Mitch Berg 6/30/2003 10:33:09 PM

RIP Hepburn - Katherine Hepburn, you've no doubt heard, is dead at 96, after years of failing health.

Her memory is being heaped with accolades today, and justly so; but one is conspicuous in its absence: Hepburn one of Ronald Reagan's key allies in the fight against Stalinist infiltration of Hollywood after World War II. Don't expect to hear much about that.

My personal favorite was her Oscar-winning turn in A Lion In Winter, which I saw immediately after playing Henry II in a stage version. It was a dazzling role, and she was wonderful in it.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/30/2003 02:42:46 PM

Hatch, American Bankers and the Twin Cities Media - Part 4 - Today, Part 4 covers the audits and followup to the Pioneer Press story that broke this scandal.

We examine the Legislative Auditor's Report, and much more.

Look here for the story index, introduction, and parts1, 2 and 3.

The series will conclude on Wednesday.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/30/2003 10:38:32 AM

Whew - At least Lileks is back. Things seem to be working out.

And if you're one of those who tried to give money to donate to James on his Amazon link but got locked out, and you still want to support a struggling blogger, feel free to hit my Amazon link! It'll help out as I slog toward my six-month un/underemployment anniversary...

Although hopefully we'll start fixing that tomorrow. More later. I'm getting back to work on the story.
posted by Mitch Berg 6/30/2003 06:28:59 AM

Grrrrr - My computer seems to have lost its mouse driver - it went and did some kind of hardware discovery process yesterday when I booted. I'm re-discovering a lot of the keyboard shortcuts I used to know when I had a laptop for which I could never find mouse drivers, way back when.

Part 4 of the American Bankers story will be coming out shortly. It's hard to do without a mouse... :-(
posted by Mitch Berg 6/30/2003 06:26:05 AM

Berg's Law of Liberal Iraq Commentary:

In attacking the reasons for war, no liberal commentator is capable of addressing more than one of the justifications at a time; to do so would introduce a context in which their argument can not survive