Seeing the Dems’ “YouTube”-fed debate – which reminded me of nothing so much as institutionalizing the “Boxers or Briefs” school of political “debate” – left me feeling bone-weary about the future of this country.

Mike at FND felt the same – but could muster at least a response:

I thought most politicians, after Borat, could tell when they were walking into a trap. Not the Dems. They seemed perfectly comfortable with this sort of contemptible youth. Not a once did I see them even so much as flex their hands into fists. I would have jumped through the monitors and flicked the brats’ ears.

To prevent further damage to our republic, I propose instituting a mandatory draft for all YouTube users. Implementing this policy is the only way I see of reversing the American Idol-addled of this country and turning these brain-dead mockers into responsible civic-minded adults. Only then would I feel comfortable giving them back the vote.

I couldn’t – and wouldn’t – argue.

Via Malkin, yet another onslaught of liberal voter fraud:

Guess which left-wing group is at the center of the worst case of voter-registration fraud in Washington state history? Yep, you guessed it: ACORN. The same ACORN tied to massive voter fraud in Missouri. And Ohio. And 12 other states. Here’s the Washington state scoop via Seattle’s KOMO TV: “King County prosecutors filed felony charges Thursday against seven people in what a top official described as the worst case of voter-registration fraud in state history, while the organization they worked for agreed to keep a better eye on its employees and pay $25,000 to defray costs of the investigation. The seven submitted about 1,800 registration cards last fall on behalf of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which had hired them at $8 an hour to sign people up to vote, according to charging documents filed in Superior Court.”

Prosecutors didn’t sugercoat the fraud: “This was an act of vandalism upon the voter rolls of King County,” said Dan Satterberg, the interim King County prosecutor. But officials tried to give ACORN some benefit of the doubt, noting that the defendants were motivated by financial gain rather than intentions of sabotaging the election.

The leftymedia and the Sorosphere gamboled about like poo-flinging monkeys at the news of the two GOP functionaries in New Hampshire who got caught tampering with elections – but will this story get any coverage outside of the blogosphere and talk radio?

About an acorn’s chance in a squirrel farm.

The Strib collects more DFL flak points, breathlessly reporting that, fifteen months before the election, Senator Coleman’s numbers have dropped from “plenty solid” to “still plenty solid”:

That’s a slip from last month, when the same poll showed a 48 percent job approval rating for Minnesota’s senior senator.

Cullen Sheehan, Coleman’s campaign manager, dismissed the poll, saying that “with 16 months to the election, there will be numerous polls with numerous results. The senator’s priority is to get things done for Minnesota.”

The story does have one relaitvely honest note: 

Coleman recently has been subjected to a drumbeat of attacks for his continued support of the Iraq war in the face of mounting public disapproval. National Democrats and antiwar activists have started two separate TV ad campaigns criticizing Coleman for his opposition to troop pullouts.

Background: in the Twin Cities, the major media and the DFL are practically indistinguishable; the number of reporters, not merely editors and publishers, who’ve gone on to jobs with the party and with various candidates, office-holders and “progressive” rent-a-blogs is staggering.  Lori Sturdevant is the smug, disingenuous tip of the figurative iceberg.  It is truly sad and amazing that the Minnesota Public Radio newsroom (as opposed to their programming) is probably the most fair and balanced in the region.

So the Strib, which is part of the DFL/media bloc that is broadcasting the attack ads, is now reporting the attack ads as news to help further their effect. 

Sure, a 5-6 point poll drop is news (also meaningless at this point in the campaign).  But look for much, much more of this as the we  move into the final year of this campaign.  The Twin Cities’ media is an organ of the DFL, and it will act as such.

Barack Obama hands Protest Warrior yet another early Christmas present:

– Barack Obama’s offer to meet without precondition with leaders of renegade nations such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran touched off a war of words, with rival Hillary Rodham Clinton calling him naive and Obama linking her to President Bush’s diplomacy.

Up next:  Obama calls Joe Biden “America’s greatest speechwriter”.

Older politicians in both parties questioned the wisdom of such a course, while Obama’s supporters characterized it as a repudiation of Bush policies of refusing to engage with certain adversaries.

It triggered a round of competing memos and statements Tuesday between the chief Democratic presidential rivals. Obama’s team portrayed it as a bold stroke; Clinton supporters saw it as a gaffe that underscored the freshman senator’s lack of foreign policy experience.

“I thought that was irresponsible and frankly naive,” Clinton was quoted in an interview with the Quad-City Times that was posted on the Iowa newspaper’s Web site on Tuesday.

In response, Obama told the newspaper that her stand puts her in line with the Bush administration.

Both parties were weighing the potential political fallout, especially in Florida, an early primary state, a pivotal general election state — and where Cuban President Fidel Castro remains particularly unpopular.

Hm. Wonder if anyone’s going to make sure that Floridians hear this?

Well, Mora from Babalu Blog will give it a shot:

If either of these idiots were elected president, Chavez and castro would roll their asses in the streets of Matamoros, to quote Tom Wolfe, and fry them up for dinner before they knew the fork was in them.

Both fools show no understanding of dictatorship, no understanding of the perpetual war against America that castro and Chavez must conduct in order to energize their own communist party bases. If there were no America for castro and his minime to scream about, the two of them would rapidly become lightning rods for all that is wrong in Cuba and Venezuela and would finally have to face the music of their own crimes. That is why the two of them desperately need an America to rail against, and why it’s sustained them for decades. A simple understanding of the warlike nature of dictatorship ought to have informed these two, but this response just goes to show how stupid and venal and despicable these men really are.

And how missing in understanding they are of the Cuban experience in Florida, where memories of the bloodsoaked castroite communist scum shooting children against a wall isn’t something that ought to ever been forgotten. Nevermind that, though, watch them come pandering for the Cuban-American votes anyway.

Anyone out there wanna photoshop some T-shirts of Obama in a Che Guevara beret, a la the iconic lefty photo?

You can thank me later.

I’ve beat around the bush for years.

I finally have to ask.

Read Sunday’s piece by Lori Sturdevant, and tell me – does she get her checks directly from the DFL?

Her column has never served as anything but free DFL propaganda. 

Shouldn’t her columns be labelled “advertising?”

Words fail me.

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Thursday the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.

Words?

Yep.  They still fail me. 

Via Brodkorb, the Holocaust Museum condemns Rep. Ellison’s “Reichstag Fire” gaffe:

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum also issued a statement Tuesday, saying: “Nazi Germany committed unprecedented crimes against Europe’s Jews and others. Invoking the Holocaust to make a point about the United States is unfounded, minimizes the evil of Nazism, and is an offense to its victims.”

But what would they know about Nazis, right?

Abe Foxman piles on:

“Whatever his views may be on the administration’s response to 9/11 and the conduct of the war on terrorism, likening it to Hitler’s rise to power and Nazism is odious and demeans the victims of 9/11 and the brave American men and women engaged in the war on terror,” Foxman said. “Furthermore, it demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about the horrors that Hitler and his Nazi regime perpetrated.”

I’d say “make sure plenty of signs with this gaffe are printed and distributed in ’08”, but frankly I think Ellison could advocate another Holocaust and he’d still get re-elected in the 5th CD.

I’d actually like to interview Rep. Ellison about this.

I wonder what the odds are?

 I’ve been talking with a lot of regional conservatives – as opposed to Republicans, lately, although most conservatives do vote Republican, with one degree of nose-holding or another. 

A lot of them.

And one of the common themes of our discussions is the sense that too many candidates and influential staffers in the GOP – nationally as well as Minnesota – are trying to sneak away from conservatism, back toward the mushy-middle hell that the party endured when many of us center-right bloggers were just becoming aware of politics in the first place.

Of course, with all politics there’s the eternal battle between pragmatism and idealism.  Being on the extremes is easy: the Libertarians, Socialist Workers, Constitution Party and (in most places except Minneapolis) Greens defend their ideals fiercely, unpolluted by the need to actually govern, with its attendant compromises; pragmatists like Jesse Ventura and Arne Carlson, more concerned with getting elected or tinkering with the knobs and buttons of power (respectively), use ideals like election brochures, to be stored away in boxes until the next campaign while they get down to wheeling and dealing.

Most of us pick a place on the continuum between “ideals” and “reality” for a variety of reasons.  Some hover closer to the edges; Paul Wellstone’s idealism was intense enough to marginalize him as an on-the-ground legislator; Ronald Reagan’s was also intense, but communicated better; Phil Krinkie’s made him “Doctor No” on Saint Paul’s Capitol Hill.  Others play the room; Dick Day and Chuck Hegel blow with the most profitable wind.  Tim Pawlenty jumps between both with fluency that, after five years, still astounds me.

And any pol’s position on that continuum is going to influence voters, who themselves have their own point staked out, leading to amazing conclusions; I still roll my eyes at the guy I interviewed at the Patriot Picnic last year who was giving up on Mark Kennedy over ethanol subsidies, as if putting Amy Klobuchar in office would change anything…

And then there’s Norm Coleman. 

Norm’s never pretended to be an orthodox conservative.  It would have been political suicide; he’d have never been elected mayor of Saint Paul had he not first been a DFLer, and then governed as a relatively conservative, pragmatic East Side, Randy Kelly-style Democrat before changing parties.  Since going to DC, he’s been fairly solidly conservative on most issues.  Up until this past year, the big blemish was the ANWR Drilling issue, and while he didn’t vote the way I’d have preferred, it wasn’t the sort of thing I’d drop support over.  He’s been on the side of the angels on taxes, immigration, and especially the UN, where he’s led the charge to uncover the rot in the world’s unofficial, self-appointed government.

And yet…there’s the war.

Hugh is rolling up the towel, perhaps for a vicious snap before throwing it in:  according to Hugh, Coleman is only barely on the “worth fighting for” list.   

Gary Miller disagrees.  Sort of.

We’re not there.  Yet.  The Senator is a champion on taxes, judges and the U.N.  He is a disaster on Climatism and the GWOT.  The former are “nice to haves”.  Getting it wrong on the latter have the very real prospect of plunging the world into a new Dark Ages.

It’s hard out there for a pragmatist. 

And we, the center-right, need to make it harder.  Write the Senator.  Tell him where you’re at on this issue. 

Brodkorb on the story that should be leading the news every friggin’ evening; four out of every five of Al Franken’s contribs are from out of state!

Would you expect anything less from a man who said his “life” was in New York and who responded to the question “[i]f Paul Wellstone had not died would you have moved back to Minnesota?” with the answer “I am not sure”.

It reminds me of the statistic from the ’02 Senate race, when records showed that the average donation to the Wellstone! campaign was in the very patrician three digits, while Coleman’s campaign’s average contribution was somewhere under $50 – and yet Coleman’s fundraising kept pace with Wellstone.

Signs it’s a slow news day:  the Strib covers a inter-city feud trumped up by comedian Mo Rocca for an upcoming “Tonight Show” bit:

According to “Meet Minneapolis,” the plan is for Rybak to take Rocca on a bike ride and Coleman to play bagpipes in his office.

Rybak, who often rides his bike to work, was delighted. But Coleman hasn’t played the bagpipes in a while and wasn’t sure he could pull it off, noting that both the instrument and the player need tuning.

Sign it’s an even slower news day:  the Twin Cities’ media’s Expert on Everything, Larry Jacobs, is quoted again:

That the first major national TV news feature on the convention comes from the “Tonight Show” is no surprise to Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey Institute.

Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” started the trend, Jacobs said. “In the old days, journalists chose the news. Today it’s the comedians setting the agenda.” He said eventually the mainstream news media will catch up, and the Twin Cities will be inundated with thousands of journalists.

Parents; for keen insight like that, send your kids to the Humphrey Institute.  Prepare them for a career as DFL lobbyists. 

John Edwards is right.  There are two Americas. 

One America goes to Great Clips.  And the other America pays more for a haircut than I paid for a car until I was 34 years old. 

 At first, [Edwards’] haircuts were free. But because [high-end stylist Joseph] Torrenueva often had to fly somewhere on the campaign trail to meet his client, he began charging $300 to $500 for each cut, plus the cost of airfare and hotels when he had to travel outside California.

Torrenueva said one haircut during the 2004 presidential race cost $1,250 because he traveled to Atlanta and lost two days of work.

Via Echo Zoe.

Not quite “Dewey Beats Truman”, but…:

Obama strategist David Plouffe released a memo last week arguing that Hillary Clinton’s advantages were essentially those of incumbency, that her support was thin, and that Obama should actually be considered the front-runner.

Mark Penn, Clinton’s chief strategist, responded today with a memo that seemed designed to bludgeon all opposition into senselessness through the sheer power of numbers (links to 40 polls showing Hillary in the lead!)

Penn strongly implies another i-word is the best description of Hillary — not “incumbent,” but “inevitable.”

…I have a hunch someone will regret that someday.

Jon Bruning is mounting a primary challenge to Chuck “The Suckup” Hagel in Nebraska.

Scott Johnson has a campaign slogan that all of us Philospophy 352 grads can get behind:

Those familiar with the Dialectic may understand that this particular Hagel requires an antithesis so that the Republican Party can achieve synthesis. In this case, Jon Bruning is the necessary antithesis. Support Jon Bruning!

Nebraska Republicans will need wider cars for the bumper stickers, of course.

I got an email the other day.  It’s from a group claiming to be anarchists, claiming to be planning to disrupt the Republican National Convention next year. 

“Highlights”:

!!BEAT THE REPUBLICANS TO THE PUNCH!!

In case you haven’t heard, the stage is already being set for the republicans visit in 2008. August 31st through September 3rd of 2007  (that’s Labor day weekend for all of you making big BBQ plans) will be the twin-cities pReNC. We want you to come, have fun, learn, plan, and share with us. You can get to know our cities, see all the great stuff we  have going on, and take part in planning for the main event in 2008.

Don’t wait for the pReNC, however. Start thinking about what you want to see NOW and come with ideas to work with. We are putting up ride and housing boards soon. They will be linked off our website with a lot of other good stuff at www.nornc.org.

It’d almost be interesting to sign up to house some of these people.  Lotta good info there.

Below is an agenda. We have a weekend of events planned, but we still want you to teach a workshop or organize an event. We have some ideas of the
sort of things we want, but if you have something special please let us know and we will do what we can to make it happen. Some of our ideas include: Un-arresting/ Street tactics, Gas masks, Medic training, Self defense training, Protest 101, Know your rights, DIY riot gear, Squatting basics, Urban gardens, etc. We will also set aside space for guerrilla workshops during the weekend.

!!THIS TIME THE REVOLUTION’S GETTING AN EARLY START!!

And y’all know how I love it when Muffy and Joshua start talking “revolution”. 

Seriously; the Saint Paul City Council – dominated as it is by far-left DFLers who romanticize the Sixties and its so-called protest culture – passed a resolution welcoming protesters to the RNC.  Now, of course they’re referring to the legal ones.  But while the police departments from both cities have made noises about dealing with the loonies who are likely to accompany the legitimate protesters, neither City Council has resolved to explicitly condemn and “un-welcome” those planning to disrupt either the convention or the rest of the city’s daily life.

Which isn’t to say that at least some of their hearts aren’t in the right place; at least one St. Paul City Council member has voiced disdain for the “anarchists” in a non-official capacity. 

So why not make it official?  Why not stand on the side of an orderly practice of the democratic process? 

Here is some of what we have planned so far:

FRIDAY AUGUST 31ST

12:00am to 5:00pm at the Jack pine Community Center
Pick up a “welcoming guide” with the weekends plans. There will be snacks
and nice people. Stop by when you get into town so we can get an idea
of numbers and you can have updated information. We will also be giving
radical bike tours throughout the afternoon.

I might just take that afternoon off.  A “radical bike tour” sounds like fun. 

4:30
at Loring Park
A pre-Critical Mass discussion on de-arresting. We don’t want anyone in jail
for this super fun weekend so let’s figure out how to look out for each other.

This, I want to attend.

As well as this:

9:00pm and on
EVERYWHERE
Night games!

Hm.

And finally:

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 3RD

10:00am starting location TBA

Intelligence/info gathering march through St. Paul. NO CHANTS ALLOWED.
March through St. Paul and gather information, take measurements, check
drain covers etc.

Drain covers?

Someone wanna ‘splain me that one? 

RNC Welcoming Committee

Come visit in September 2008!

http://www.rncwelcomingcommittee.org

http://www.nornc.org

The Strib got the email too.

It might just be time to start organizing the counterprotests.

To:  Senator Inhofe

From: Mitch Berg

Re: Deaths of a thousand cuts.

Senator Inhofe,

Not that it matters, but when you say…:

Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma says he doesn’t need an eye exam or a hearing aid and that he clearly remembers hearing Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Hillary Clinton of New York talk about the need for a “legislative fix” to curb conservative talk radio.

…I believe you without reservation.  It’s totally in character for both of them – Senator Boxer, who since Mark Dayton left office is the dumbest person in the Senate and needs to have all opposition silence by government fiat, and Senator Clinton, at whose thought the body of Niccolo Macchiavelli cringes in horror. 

But little things like this…:

But Inhofe now says the conversation he overheard took place three years ago, not “the other day,” as he told KFI talk radio host John Ziegler on Thursday night.

…will kill you. Because while any reasonable person can understand that for most people “the other day” is a midwestern synonym for “past tense”, you’re dealing with liberals, lawyers and the media, here. 

And so to them, now, it’s not about whether you heard the Senators plotting to muzzle talk radio.  No…:

Boxer early Friday said the Oklahoma senator “needs new glasses or he needs to have his hearing checked” if he thinks he heard her and Clinton having a conversation about talk radio.

After Inhofe clarified his remarks, Boxer’s spokeswoman, Natalie Ravitz, added:

“Perhaps he should have his memory checked too. I don’t know anyone who thinks three years ago was ‘the other day.'”

…now, the only issue the media will care about, to the extent that they care at all (given that talk radio is the competition) will be your “flub”.  Never mind that both Boxer and Clinton are actively working to tie the First Amendment to a pool table and sodomize it…:

“I’ve been telling this story for three years and told this story 100 times,” the Oklahoma Republican told FOXNews.com. “I have it memorized … I tell it the same way every time because it gets a very good reaction.”

…because to them, and the peabrains who listen to them, the exact timing of the story will be the story. 

Remember; it’s like arguing with a moderately bright but spoiled nine-year-old; “Yesterday you said we’d have ice cream someday soon, and the other day you said “soon means like a day”, so you have to get ice cream now”.

Don’t let this happen again.

That is all.

As I’ve noted in many other places at many other times, I have the absolute highest regard for Michael Brodkorb. 

Now, the other day, I took mild exception to the fact that Michael posted former Senator and possible future Ventura “Independence” Party candidate Dean Barkley’s Match.com ad.  My philosophy; keep others’ personal lives out of things.  Partly because it’s the right thing to do.  Partly because as one sows, one tends to reap. 

Andy Aplikowski and Jeff Kouba agreed.  Jeff’s TvM blogmate Gary Miller doesn’t.

And when Gary disagrees, it’s worth a look:

Like Justice Scalia writing for the minority, let me inject some reality to the situation.

Politics is a full-contact sport.  The other team plays to win.  Would the Left exercise similar restraint if the roles were reversed?  You already know the answer [Gary writes, linking to the “Dump Bachmann” blog, which has lowered local political yellow journalism to a level even Jeff Fecke can look down upon with both relief and disdain].  To not use your opponent’s words against them is the political equivalent of unilateral disarmament.

There are two Mitches who”ll respond to this, of course; High Road Mitch, and Pragmatic Path Mitch. 

High Road Mitch:  I’d like to think that I – we – are better than the type of moral and ethical fruit flies that put out goo like the Dumb Bachmann blog. I certainly aspire to aim higher in life, morally and practically, than Ken “Look!  Bachmann in a Nazi Uniform” Avidor (as low a set of expectations as that sets).  Ones’ moral code is best set to one’s ideals, not one’s detractors’ level.

Pragmatic Path Mitch: Sure, politics is hardball. And as more and more people and pundits keep peeling away more and more layers of whatever “privacy” people used to have, it drives away more and more good people from ever even thinking about getting involved in politics.

I’m certainly one of them.  I think I’d be a perfectly fine elected representative at some level or another, if I were to move to a more GOP-friendly part of the Metro.  But there’s not a chance in hell that I’d do it, because…

…well, we’ll get back to that.

Minnesota’s 6th is as culturally conservative a district as you will find in these here parts. 

Pragmatic Path Mitch responds:  But that majority – who put Michele Bachmann, the  most conservative candidate in the state in a year where Republicans dropped like Air America programs – has never been in the faintest danger of electing Barkley, a guy who’s never won a a significant office in his life (if you leave out his proxy win via Ventura, his Potemkin candidate) to anything, much less the Bachmann seat. 

Folks can discern a great deal about a person’s worldview predicated on how they act when no one is looking. 

High Road Mitch responds: Discern…what?  That someone’s a divorced guy who’d like to meet someone who (as he writes in a forum that he can’t imagine someone is going to make into a public spectacle) likes some of the same things he does in private?  

A professed affinity (in a public forum) for “skinny dipping” and “erotica” is a disqualifier for many people who govern their lives by a different set of values — a majority of whom comprise the electorate in the 6th.

Pragmatic Path Mitch responds:  I doubt that anyone who signs up for Match.com actually knows it’s a public forum. 

 And even so – what’s this? “No, um, “S  E  X”, please, we’re from the northern ‘burbs“.  Criminy, if the guy likes skinnydipping with his signifcant other and reading the occasional Maxim Magazine, as long as he’s not inviting anyone’s kids along to watch or read along, what difference does it make?

Which is a better reason to eschew a Dean Barkley candidacy: “he likes to snog around in the local lagoon with his sig.other and watch a little Cinemax”, or “He’s a tax whore.  Worse, he’s a stealth tax whore”. 

For that matter, what if someone with impeccable conservative credentials came along, who happened to like a little, er, zing and zip in his or her private life? 

Where do these people think tomorrow’s conservative voters come from, anyway?

I will confess, however, to feeling dirty finding out that a fmr. U.S. Senator and trained lawyer can only muster 75-100K/year.  Now there’s your disqualifier.

Weirdest part of the whole thing?  He used his Senate head shot for his Match profile. 

Al Franken – Minnesota Politics illiterate?

Brodkorb:

“Franken has always had an interest in politics.

He lists his political heroes as Hubert Humphrey, Eugene McCarthy, Walter Mondale and Wellstone. But he could name only one House member from Minnesota: Democrat Martin Sabo.” Source: Sacramento Bee, June 3, 2004

Which, for a guy that had already been running in effect for Senate for over a year, is pretty funny stuff.

Michael Brodkorb is one of the best bloggers in Minnesota today.  He’s at the leading edge of a revolution in journalism.  There is more solid, worthwhile content in a days’ worth of posting in Minnesota Democrats exposed than there is in six months on Minnesota Monitor. 

He’s also a valued colleague of mine on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, someone who’s grown into the (amateur) radio business with great panache. 

But I gotta confess – I don’t care what’s on Dean Barkley’s Match.com profile.

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t much care for the “Independence” Party’s former Senate candidate (and, for a brief stretch, appointed senator after the death of Paul Wellstone and before the swearing-in of Norm Coleman) and likely future sacrificial lamb candidate in the Sixth CD against Michele Bachmann, who also served as a sort of shadow governor during the Ventura Administration.  He’s a big part of the reason the “libertarian populist” that the media fancied Ventura governed as a mushy-center-left DFL Lite goober.

But as a fellow single guy, I gotta say – let’s leave Barkley’s personal life out of the public discussion.  A person’s family, and/or his primary relationship (and especially any kids involved) – no matter what their party, platform or for that matter preferences – should be their refuge from all the BS of public life.  His search – even on a personals website – should be his own business. 

I’ve condemned leftybloggers in the past for their habit of publishing peoples’ work and home numbers and bringing hordes of drooling droogs after the families of those who disagree with them.  This isn’t quite the same – it’s a personal profile, not a home address – and ergo in no way as base and loathsome. 

But it’s high time there was a gentleman’s (and ladies’) agreement; leave peoples’ personal lives out of the public conversation, unless that life affects their ability to do the job. 

(And if Barkley’s “likes” from his ad are commentary on his fitness for office, then I guess I’m going to stick with radio).

Brodkorb’s one of the best bloggers in town.  But Mike, while I gotcher back as a rule, I’m gonna sit this one out.

Flash at Centrisity got one of his patented five-minute interviews with one of the less-objectionable Democrat candidates, Bill Richardson.

So read it.

A few months back, while covering a John Kline town hall meeting, reporter Jeff Fecke noted that Congressman Kline…:

• didn’t actively kiss the butts of the TV news crews covering the event (although the crews were there and able to cover the event freely and without interference), and
• didn’t arrange for wireless internet to enable bloggers to liveblog the meeting.

His conclusion, over on his own blog?:

The Kline camp went into this meeting terrified of…something.  I’m not sure what.  And I think it was a huge strategic blunder.  But they were scared to death of something happening that would make John Kline look bad, and they took pains to ensure that the meeting would be as tightly controlled as possible.

Bear in mind, the tapes rolled and the bloggers typed (or took  notes) unimpeded, while Kline (gasp) stayed on message.   

So I’m wondering if the local leftyblog peanut gallery has any comment about Al Franken, who barred cameras from his speech in Rochester?

Anyone?

(I won’t hold my breath).

What is Stuart Smalley terrified of?

Colonel Joe Repya is planning on running against Norm Coleman in the primary.

Allow me to say:  Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

Colonel Repya:  Don’t.  Run for State House; if I’m not mistaken, a DFLer grabbed your home district (stop me if I’m wrong), which will set you up nicely for a run for higher office.  Or you could move to the Fourth, and run against the loathsome Betty McCollum.

But against Coleman?  He’s far from the perfect conservative, but he’s WAY better than average. 

Sorry, Joe.  I can and will back you on a lot of crusades. But I gotta sit this one out.

Word has it that one of my favorite downtown Saint Paul buildings – the Endicott/Pioneer building – has been bought by someone who intends to empty it, and lease the space to groups and organizations involved with next year’s national GOP convention.

Local DFLers are, predictably, snivelling like spoiled toddlers.

Gosh – downtown Saint Paul has a huge vacancy rate, and someone wants to come in and fill that space with paying customers, displacing whatever current customers are there to move to other office space…

…yeah.  The horror.

Note to the new owners; install water cannon.

Speaking of Lieberman…

Salina Zito writing in the Pittsburg Trib on the battle for the “Reagan Democrats”:

In 2005, Howard Dean was the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee and saddled with a party weakened after years of national losses. Determined to turn the tide, he commissioned a massive poll with Cornell Belcher aimed directly at values voters.

After poring over the polling data, Dean recognized a couple of things:

 

• First, Democrats did not speak about their faith — but they should. 
• Second, when Democrats talked about abortion, they didn’t emphasize that it should be a last resort. While Democrats needed to protect the rights of women, they also needed to talk about taking care of every child brought into the world — an aspect on which Republicans are perceived to fall short.

Dean took his poll to the party’s leadership and to labor leaders. He pointed out that while swing voters do share Democrats’ values, the party was not speaking to them in the right way.

Which is, by the way, true of both parties.  But I digress:

Dean’s mission became to link things in a way that makes it more difficult for cultural conservatives to walk away from Democrats.

The challenge for both parties is similar: dealing with the control of the primaries by the parties’ extremes. For Democrats, it is their bloggers who want out of Iraq tomorrow; for Republicans, it is the extreme pro-lifers.

One wonders what Ms. Zito means by “extreme pro-lifers”, exactly, but there’s a point there.  Some of my worst political memories involve walking into district caucus meetings where half of the crowd were there purely to introduce and pass infinite varieties of the same pro-life resolutions – not that I disagreed – and who were completely illiterate about any other issues. 

If Republicans want to win, they should remember that Reagan, as president, never let the abortion issue define what it meant to be a Republican. He was against it but he never took steps to make it harder to obtain.

That’s a tough pill for many erstwhile Reagan Conservatives to swallow; Reagan was no dogmatist on abortion or, for that matter, Second Amendment issues; he believed the right things in both cases; he just didn’t push either. 

The more each party must run to its corners and defend what mainstream America considers extreme positions, the harder it becomes to win over Reagan Democrats.

Which is the conundrum for Republicans; getting both “Reagan Democrats” and Evangelicals – both of the “must-turnouts” and “must wins” for the GOP – to play nice together.

A new book about Hillary! Clinton by a former aide shows that she was ready to dump Bill over his serial affairs at one point, while he was still governor of Arkansas.

Hrmph.  Sorry to hear that.  I’m not going to jump up and down and giggle over it, and it’s not like it’s exactly big news.  He’s They’re not president anymore. 

But I thought this quote was interesting:

In the 640-page book, Bob Boorstin, who worked for Mrs Clinton when she was trying to restructure the nation’s healthcare system, blamed her for the collapse of her own plans.

“I find her to be among the most self-righteous people I’ve ever known,” he told Mr Bernstein. “It’s her great flaw.”

Mark Fabiani, who defended the Clintons as White House counsel, said Hillary was “so tortured by the way she’s been treated that she would do anything to get out of the situation.

“If that involved not being fully forthcoming, Mr Fabiani said she would say: ‘I have a reason for not being forthcoming.'”

Submitted without comment.

Lori Sturdevant apparently hopes that none of her readers really paid attention in high school civics class in her Sunday column in the Strib.

Six months ago, who’da thunk that Gov. Tim Pawlenty was headed for his most influential legislative session since 2003? “We were the only ones who remembered that he only got 47 percent of the vote,” sighed DFL Sen. Ann Rest the day after the 2007 Legislature went home.

Well, for this state’s good, let’s hope Ann Rest and the rest of the DFL horde keeps obsessing over that meaningless figure.   

 Far from being cowed into conciliation by the big DFL majorities in the House and Senate, the Republican governor’s near-defeat experience apparently left him rarin’ to veto any little (or big) bill he didn’t like.

Whenever the Democrats are on the ropes – as, unaccountably with their crushing majorities in both houses of the Legislature, they are at the end of the just-finished session – they turn to talk of “compromise”.

Tell us, Lori Sturdevant – when, during all their years in power (or, with the likes of Arne Carlson in office, de facto power) did the DFL “compromise” with the GOP conservatives? 

Sturdevant unleashes her wish list:

Indulge a Capitol basement-dweller in some reverse speculation. (Doesn’t that sound gentler than “second-guessing”?) Might the session have had a different outcome — or at least left a different aftertaste — if this had been the DFL strategy?

• Reduce expectations.

House DFLers had six bullet points on the “Back to Basics” to-do list that served them well during the 2006 campaign. But Pawlenty’s reelection, and the November revenue forecast of pred’near no new money after paying for inflation, should have whacked that list down to size.

Let’s call a shovel a shovel; the DFL got drunk with power before they even got the cork out of the bottle. 

It should have been clear that even if the DFLers could sneak a tax increase past the governor, it wouldn’t be big enough for a spending surge in both education and property tax relief. Further, to most Minnesotans and the governor, gas taxes are taxes too, even if they don’t flow into the general fund.

What?  The average Joe on the Minnesota Street isn’t a wonk?  The hell you say!

Rein in ambitions and pick one big, focused fight for more spending on one good cause, and DFLers then could:

• Sharpen the message, and spin it forward.

Read:  find a way to tell Minnesotans that a duck is a dog.

Pawlenty had a crisp message about growth in the coming two-year budget: “Isn’t 10 percent enough?” DFLers needed a compelling comeback. They needed to make the case that Minnesotans’ lives, or their children’s lives, would be better if the state spent more on their top priority.

And to do that, there needs to be such a case.

• Maximize common cause with the governor.

…That would let DFLers look like reasonable folks intent on breaking the gridlock that Minnesotans had grown sick of seeing. It also would have made it more difficult for Republicans to paint DFLers as radical tax-and-spenders, when the endgame came.

The mere presence of Phyllis Kahn in the House and Larry Pogemiller, Ellen Anderson, and (fill in just about any metro Senate DFLer) in the Senate makes it easy for us to paint DFLers and radical tax-and-spenders.

• Court moderate Republicans.

Despite their depleted numbers, GOP moderates held the keys to achieving the top DFL goals.

They also realize something that Lori Sturdevant apparently doesn’t: 

DFL legislators had voters with them in November.

Nope.  The GOP had voters against them.  That’s why you had spasmodic reactions like Phil Krinkie losing by 50-odd votes.   

These options are humbly offered with no promise that they would have brought the session to a more satisfying conclusion.

I wonder if Lori Sturdevant’s Memorial Day barbecue will involve shovelling bags of ten dollar bills into the fire for a “satisfying conclusion”.