It hasn’t been a good campaign for DFL Secretary of State candidate Steve Simon.
For starters, he barely got over 40% in the primary – against a perennial candidate and a nobody. Which might not have been a showstopper for the DFL machine to overcome, except that they were up against Dan Severson, who has statewide name recognition from a 2010 SOS run and a Senate bid (that came up short in the convention in 2012).
Then, last week, the polls showed that Severson was ahead of Simon; he was the only GOP statewide candidate to lead in the polls at that time.
At the very least – given the polling that, we are told, shows Mark Dayton supposedly cruising to victory – it’s a sign that the DFL/Big Money Democrat onslaught has a chink in the armor.
At the most? It shows that the DFL’s “We’re Inevitable!” vibe may not be entirely factual.
Severson’s press conference last week – in which he showed smoking guns tying the SOS office to a policy of tossing veterans’ votes, and Rep. Simon’s signature on legislation that exempted the military from absentee voter reforms – went badly for Simon, and worse for the DFL’s Ken Martin, who tried and failed to take a chunk out of Severson in a comical morning of duelling press conferences.
Simon is apparently desperate; he’s now telling his base that Severson proposes “forcing rape victims to pay for rape kits”.
It’s BS, of course. Not just the usual, comical, inept BS the DFL tosses around at this point in campaigns, all juvenile photoshopped heads and racist japes.
No. This is a sleazy, toxic, intentional, cowardly lie. Severson responds (and I’ll add emphasis):
I moved it forward with the understanding that the bill would propose sharing the cost of all expenses associated with sexual assault between the counties of the victim and the perpetrator.
I specifically killed the bill before it EVER got a hearing because of the language specific to victims having to pay for anything.
In a just world, whatever DFL messaging genius that came up with this attack would get some sense groin-kicked into him.
As it stands? Since a lie will make it around the world before the truth has finished checking Facebook in the morning, it’s back to the long, slow slog of telling people the one central truth of Minnesota politics.
If a DFLer says it, it’s a lie.
If a DFLer who’s losing says it, it’s probably defamation.