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September 30, 2005

Puff Dougie

Survey question: How in the bag is the media for the DFL, especially for the Chris Coleman campaign?

Responses:
a) Totally in the bag.
b) Totally in the bag.
c) On their knees and in the bag.

Read Doug Grow's episode of purported clairvoyance piece of Coleman campaign PR flackery column bit about yesterday's Randy Kelly press conference before you answer.

It's no secret; the DFL can count on Doug Grow to be its adjunct in the "serious" media, essentially a PR flak on McClatchy Media's dime. It's a sweet deal.

It pays off in the editorial.

Note the title "Kelly's plaintive plea: Why can't we all just get along?"

"Plaintive Plea?"

Not request. Not question. Not demand. "Plaintive Plea". Condescension drips from every word.

It doesn't stop there, naturally:

St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly was about to give the most remarkable/ironic/desperate speech of his political career Thursday afternoon.

Before the mayor stepped to the lectern, a couple of his handlers buzzed about making sure the setting was just right for a speech the campaign had said would be "a major address."

The handlers wanted to make sure the right mix of people would be standing behind the mayor when he spoke.

There were several white people, including a couple of stern-looking cops from the Police Federation. There were a couple of black people. There were some old St. Paul pols, including former Council Member Vic Tedesco.

A handler looked at the staging and saw it wasn't quite complete. He wanted television cameras to be able to show that a cross-section of St. Paul supports the mayor.

The handler spotted a Hmong gentleman.

"Would you come up here, please?" he said.

The man obliged.

The stage was set.

A politician, staging his appearance.

You'd think that never happened.

Well, at least you would if you kept reading. Note carefully the condescending cues Grow slathers on Kelly, compared to the conspicuous neutrality of his treatment of his co-worker's brother and the DFL endorsed candidate, Chris Coleman:

The mayor, slathered in pancake makeup [Again, the cue here is condescension; real men don't even wear pancake makeup, much less "slather" themselves with it - right? I mean, Chris Coleman would never be caught dead "slathering", would he? Ed] , stepped to the microphone.
Grow comments on the unusual lead-up to the conference, billed by Kelly's staff as a major announcement about the campaign:
Would Kelly drop out of his race against challenger Chris Coleman? (Coleman drubbed Kelly in the primary.) Would he announce that he's officially becoming a Republican? (Since endorsing President Bush 13 months ago, Kelly's been hanging out with Republicans more often than Democrats.)

It turns out there wasn't anything like that on the mayor's mind.

His speech was about -- drum roll, please -- anger.

Unusual?

Perhaps.

Something Doug Grow can take at face value? Or even put in a context remotely related to the event?

C'mon. It's Doug Grow, writing about someone challenging an endorsed DFLer!

Kelly may be a fine man. He may be an effective pol. ["May be". He beat, against a full-court press from the likes of Grow, the DFL's endorsed candidate and the darling of Saint Paul's moonbat left, Jay Benanav - and has spent the past four years beating down the St. Paul City Council. Yep, Doug - he "may be" effective. - Ed.]

But Kelly coming out against anger is a little like Mike Tice coming out against ticket scalping. Or R.T. Rybak coming out against mismatched socks.

Scores of people can give personal testimony to Kelly's frequent tirades. His bullying. He relishes being the tough guy.

Let's stop right here.

I'm thinking - I'm not going to go back and check it out, but I feel safe in the assumption - that Doug Grow just might have been one of those people who said "Who cares what [fill in a former president] does in his personal life and spare time?"

I suspect he just may be one of those Democrats who chuckle wistfully when talking about, say, Lyndon Johnson, and his backroom temper tantrums.

I have a hunch he was one of those Democrats who wondered why all of us Republicans made such a fuss about Howard Dean's vein-bulging, hate-drenched ranting during the campaign.

I know he's not a reporter who wasted one column inch on future Senator and longtime "tough guy" Al Franken's physical assault on a heckler last year.

No, anger and being a "tough guy" are only negative when you align yourself anywhere to the right of John Marty, in Doug Grow's world.

The other thing is that the anger of St. Paul voters obviously is hurting Kelly very badly, otherwise he wouldn't have delivered this weird speech.

"I've heard your anger, I respect it, I understand it," Kelly said.

But, he said, voters shouldn't take their anger to the polls in November.

"Voting against me won't bring the troops home," he said. "It won't stick it to George Bush."

Badly as he must be hurting, Kelly refused the opportunity to back off from his decision to back a president who received only 25 percent of the St. Paul vote last November.

"I'm not going to backtrack," he said, suggesting everybody should look ahead, not back, though he quickly added there are "a number of areas" in which he differs from the president he embraced.

I have seen, uncounted times, the media connecting Kelly's maverick - and courageous, and, by the way, correct - endorsement of Bush with Bush's 25 percent showing in Saint Paul. I have not once seen a Strib columnist give fair shrift to Kelly's reasons - which are, by the way, great ones.

It might not endanger the Strib's agenda in Saint Paul, a city where 3/4 of the people walk around with DFL Koolaid IVs stuck in their arms.

But it would give a fair shake to the one thing Democrats everywhere, especially in Minnesota, hate more than criminals, terrorists, rapists, even Republicans - an apostate Democrat.

For that, to a fully-marinaded DFLer like Grow (and most of Saint Paul west of Rice Street), that is the great unforgiveable sin.

He also insisted he's still a Democrat.

"An unwavering Democrat," he said.

Then, asked if he'd support a Democrat in the next governor's race, Kelly wavered.

"Well, ummmm, I'd have to see who it is," he said.

Anyone out there have access to Lexis/Nexis?

With exactly how many public officials has Doug Grow ever inserted, verbatim, filler interjections like "Ummmmm"?

Because unless he is consistent in including these, they only appear in a column for one reason - to impute shadiness, not-too-brightness, the notion of holding something out on the people.

Someone check that, will you please?

If he's an unwavering Democrat, why didn't he endorse the late Paul Wellstone or his replacement, Walter Mondale, in the U.S. Senate race against Norm Coleman?

"I did not support Paul Wellstone because he did not support me," Kelly said. "I'm a reciprocal person."

"Blasphemer!"
It was all so strange. The text. The pancake makeup. The fact that the mayor's campaign was having the whole thing filmed by professionals.
Why?

Why was it "Strange?"

Politicans film campaign appearances all the time. And they hire "professionals" to do it. Who would Doug Grow prefer, Saint Paul Cable Access? And when being filmed by professionals, why would one not wear "pancake" makeup? Does Doug Grow do his TV appearances in full Scandinavian pallor?

Chris Coleman appears. Now let the puffing commence.

His opponent was amazed when he heard reports of the mayor's speech.

"This whole idea that people support me because they're angry at him is ridiculous," Coleman said.

No, it's not.

While Coleman and Kelly have their differences (Coleman was "moderate" enough to earn a fair dose of emnity from liberal DFLers, many of whom deserted the party to vote Green in the primary), the Bush endorsement is the only big black line between the two.

And Coleman is running one of the dirtiest, muddiest campaigns ever in Saint Paul. Now, you don't need dirt if you have facts on your side.

Coleman does not. All he has is anger. And he and his "people" are fanning it as artfully as they can.

And Coleman is spinning - and Grow is disingenuously, uncritically passing it on - if he says any differently.

"What he's saying is that you can't possibly have a rational reason for voting against him."

There was a little disgust in Coleman's voice.

But not anger.

Oh, no. Because liberals don't get angry.

Just righteous disgust.

Further proof, were any needed, that the truth doesn't come in print around here.

Posted by Mitch at September 30, 2005 12:22 PM | TrackBack
Comments

If Mitch is right (which he often is) I guess it is too much to hope for that Doug Grow will write a column anytime soon about Chris Coleman's poor attendance record when Chris was on the City Council.

Posted by: Larry at September 30, 2005 01:54 PM

"Someone check that, will you please?"

Done and done: http://stevegigl.com/index.php?id=1776

Posted by: Steve G. at September 30, 2005 01:56 PM

Ummm, er, well, partially done at least. Turns out I should have searched for the 3-m version ("ummm") first instead of "um" and "umm." Don't have time right now to search through 43 more hits, either, no matter how much fun LexisNexis can be.

(Wow, that last sentence will definitely be used against me some day as proof of nerdness...)

Posted by: Steve G. at September 30, 2005 02:07 PM

A fun exercise might be trying to write the story as if the speech had been given by someone of whom Doug approved.

For an engine-starter, compare the coverage of the Roberts dog/pony show with that of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg hearings, back when presidents appointing justices who matched their own political bent was considered acceptable.

Posted by: Brian Jones at September 30, 2005 02:40 PM

"This whole idea that people support me because they're angry at him is ridiculous"

Amazing how he will say this, but in 2000, the Democrats were the first to say that the Republican candidate won because people were angry at the previous Democratic administration.

Posted by: DavidD at September 30, 2005 03:32 PM
hi