Brad Carlson and I were on the air until 11 last night. And I’m happy to see the MNGOP has finally learned to do elections for radio; the final call on the gubernatorial race came 5-10 minutes before we went off the air. Couldn’t have timed it better myself.
Hot on the heels of yesterdays’ legislative report card from the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance comes today’s list of endorsements from the Minnesota Gun Owners’ Political Action Committee.
The 78 additional endorsements join four endorsements for state representative previously announced by the MN Gun Owners PAC. A full list of endorsed candidates is below.
“This year, there are many races where there is a clearly defined choice between a candidate that does not respect the civil rights of gun owners, and those who do, ” said Bryan Strawser, Executive Director. “We will be mobilizing our grassroots supporters to get gun owners to the plls in August and November on behalf of our endorsed candidates.”
The full list of MNGOPAC House endorsements is below the jump:
Since we’re talking endorsements, the Minnesota Gun Owners Political Action Committee has issued its endorsements for this round of elections:
• Tony Cornish – House District 23B, Republican Party of Minnesota
• David Dill – House District 3A, Democrat-Farmer-Labor Party
• Steve Drazkowski – House District 21B, Republican Party of Minnesota
“Each of these three representatives has a long track record of strong and vocal leadership in support of the constitutional rights of Minnesota’s gun owners,“ said Mark Okern, Chairman, Minnesota Gun Owners PAC. “Tony, David, and Steve are power brokers, “ Okern said. “When they talk gun rights, their caucuses listen.”
“We are confident that Representatives Cornish, Dill, and Drazkowski will easily win re- election and continue to be steadfast supporters of the civil rights of gun owners in Saint Paul during the next legislative session, “ said Bryan Strawser, Executive Director.
More, I’m told, to come.
The Minnesota Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance has released its biennial Candidate Ratings list.
I don’t vote entirely based on this list – there are other issues – but suffice to say nobody with an “F” is going to get my vote, or any meaningful support, ever, no matter what.
The biggest surprise – Ron Erhard’s petulant outburst to a GOCRA volunteer.
Other than that? It’s amazing what pro-Second-Amendment the outstate DFL is making. The list is, by the way, rigorously non-partisan; there are not a few DFLers that out-score Republicans.
Read the whole list, and vote accordingly.
Over the weekend, theStribissued its endorsements for the GOP primaries.
And they were mostly utterly predictable – if you keep Berg’s Law in mind. In this case, “Berg’s 11th Law of Inverse Viability” (“The conservative liberals “respect” for their “conservative principles” will the the one that has the least chance of ever getting elected”), and especially the Huckabee Corollary to Berg’s 11th Law (“The Republican that the media covers most intensively before the nomination for any office will be the one that the liberals know they have the best chance of beating after the nomination, and/or will most cripple the GOP if nominated”).
It’s largely the Strib’s history of endorsements – endorsing the most moderate Republican for “reaching across the aisle”, but supporting the most extreme liberals for their “rock solid principles” – that ledShot in the Darkto the law in the first place.
Race To The Middle: The Strib endorsed Jim Abeler for Senate.
Now, I’ve got nothing against Abeler, a longtime House rep from Anoka. I’ve interviewed him more than any of the other Senate candidates. He’s a sharp guy. Too moderate for my tastes, of course – he was a member of the Override Six, among other things – but he states a good case for much of what he does. I disagree with him, but I respect him.
But he came in around the bottom in the endorsement race at the convention. The GOP left the moderate wing of the party (not that anyone’s told the moderates, like Dave Durenberger). The Strib is doing its best to buff of the “moderate” wing of the party. But only the GOP, naturally.
Coming from the Strib – which will surely endorse extreme liberal Al Franken for the race in November – how can this be seen as anything but trying to split their opposition?
Sivarajah: I like Rhonda Sivarajah. She’d make a spectacular Congresswoman. Had Tom Emmer, and his name recognition and money, not entered the race, I think she’d have been a walkover to replace Michele Bachmann, and I’d have been happy to throw whatever I could offer behind her campaign (although that’s minimal, as is my impact on the race, as I live in the Fourth CD).
A lot of Republicans are like that.
And what other reason could there be for the Strib to endorse her? I mean, reading the part of the endorsement where they note Sivarajah helped build a conservative majority on the Anoka County Board, you can practically imagine the writer throwing up in their mouth. But there is division to be sown, and the Strib will sow it, trying divide the GOP, and give the DFL candidate (whose name eludes me as, I suspect, it does all the voters in the 6th CD) a fighting shot.
As always – Berg’s Law explains everything. At least when it comes to politics.
The Invisible Primary heads for it’s exciting dramatic interesting necessary conclusion.
There have been no polling updates. No shocking endorsements. No conflicts. A candidate ended up in the hospital…due to an ulcer.
The slouch towards the Minnesota GOP choosing a candidate to go up against Gov. Mark Dayton will end in the next two weeks, and perhaps finally usher in some interest in what has proven to be a deadly dull campaign cycle thus far. So how can the four major contenders to be the GOP nominee win on August 12th?
Businessman Scott Honour
Why He’ll Win: In the words of Jimmy Buffett, Honour has spending money – money to burn. Having raised more money than any other candidate running for governor, including Mark Dayton, Honour has the highest cash on hand of the GOP field in the primary’s closing weeks. While those figures are highly inflated by his self-contributions totaling over $900,000, Honour has demonstrated the ability and willingness to spend freely – a desirable quality when third party interest groups have raised $11 million (most of it for Democrats) for the cycle…
Why He’ll Lose: …but have you seen how he’s spending it?
Zzz…huh? Oh, it’s over?
Honour may be playing on his “outsider” credentials, but he’s running the most “insider” looking campaign of the four major Republicans in the race. His advertising hasn’t been unique, either in terms of style or substance, nor particularly plentiful for a man whose raised $1.7 million. Even a sympathetic profile of his candidacy suggest he “hasn’t run a highly visible campaign.” That’s not surprising given Honour’s massive payments to consultants. Long-time GOP consultants Pat Shortridge and Shanna Woodbury have combined to cost Honour’s campaign almost $270,000. Considering the last polls on the race showed him in 4th place, Honour may wonder what exactly he paid them for.
Former Speaker Kurt Zellers
Why He’ll Win: Give the former Minnesota House Speaker credit – he’s taken what should be a huge vulnerability (his uneven performance as Speaker) and leveraged it about as well as he could into a narrative of his opposition to Mark Dayton. Granted, Zellers’ narrative ends in 2011, when the legislature forced Dayton to end the government shutdown on their terms, and leaves out the messy details such as the controversial constitutional amendments or the Vikings’ stadium debate debacle.
Much like his TV ad, Zellers is doing nothing wrong, even if he’s not excelling at doing anything right. His branding isn’t unique, but it’s on message. His no new tax pledge may be an albatross in the general election, but he’s running to win the primary. He doesn’t have the greatest amount of cash on hand or legislative endorsements, but he’s second in both those categories. Plus, he’s been either in the lead or tied for it in most polling (what little has been done).
Why He’ll Lose: A low turnout election, which this race is shaping up to be, isn’t great news for a man whose reasonably high name ID comes from a poor performance as Speaker. Zellers has never been adored by the GOP rank and file, and his advertising isn’t abundant enough to necessarily undo memories of 2012 and a lost House majority. The real question may be if Zellers has invested his limited resources into a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) organization or not – a likely better use of money than TV or radio advertising. Zellers may win in a divided field where just enough Republicans vaguely remember his name without his political baggage, but that’s not a great winning strategy.
Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson
Why He’ll Win: The nearly 20 Minnesota GOP Victory Centers. Neither Johnson nor the State GOP may have bountiful resources to contribute to the primary, but the endorsement process still has some value in the form of thousands of dutiful volunteers making GOTV phone calls. And while that sort of internal support hasn’t been as consistent as it once would have been for an endorsed candidate (see the 8th Congressional District’s pushback, for example), it’s been more the exception than the rule thus far.
Despite being the endorsed candidate, Johnson’s advertising (what little there is of it) has leaned more on quirk than his endorsement (Scott Honour could have learned something here). Given the state’s penchant for electing candidates with memorable advertising (Paul Wellstone/Jesse Ventura), the tactic is likely a wise one. And with an independent expenditure group also running TV ads on his behalf, Johnson looks less likely to get buried in a last minute blizzard of ad revenue.
Why He’ll Lose: Johnson’s week off the campaign trail to deal with surgery for an ulcer is the least of his concerns; especially as his campaign took kudos for their handling of the situation. The problem is that Johnson’s health was the most campaign coverage he’s received since the endorsement battle.
Nor has Johnson exactly leveraged his endorsement well. Only 44 current and former legislators have endorsed his candidacy. Rep. Erik Paulsen throw his support behind Johnson, but there’s little sense that the GOP powers-that-be are overly willing to spend political capital to ensure Johnson wins in August. Even Johnson himself acknowledged a “wait and see” approach from at least the donor class. If that attitude exists with the average activist, Johnson could certainly lose.
Former Rep. Marty Seifert
Why He’ll Win: He’s a “maverick.” He’s courting voters in the rural regions of the State. He’s completely unapologetic about his parliamentary maneuver at the State GOP Convention…wait, I’m writing about why he’ll win.
The former House Minority Leader certainly has some name ID with GOP activists, having won both the 2010 and 2014 caucus straw polls. And despite all the attention being paid to the endorsement tiff, relatively few primary voters will have really heard about it, and even fewer will understand what the angst is about. What voters in outstate Minnesota will hear is a consistent message targeted to rural issues, as Seifert has furiously toured the non-metro sections of the state. The result should likely be Seifert dominating in districts like the 1st, 7th and 8th Congressional…
Why He’ll Lose: …but those districts don’t comprise nearly enough voters to win, especially if Seifert under-performs in the Metro. Despite being the first GOP candidate to air a TV ad, the buy was small and not really focused on the Metro.
Nor does he have the resources to likely compete. Seifert has raised the least amount of money of the four major candidates and has the smallest amount of cash still on hand – $71,000. His totals aren’t massively different than Jeff Johnson’s, but Johnson has the party apparatus and an independent expenditure group to provide support. Seifert’s ground game is totally up to him to fund.
While the resentment from Seifert’s endorsement exit may be hard for non-politicos to fully understand (or care about), it doesn’t help that in a race that’s been defined by the lack of conflict, Seifert’s candidacy is the only one having any significant anger directed towards it. Under the old, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” rule, some primary voters – even those who may not understand the anger – may simply steer clear of Seifert based on the reaction his candidacy causes among others. If Seifert had a well-funded ad campaign, it’s highly doubtful such anger among a small, but vocal, minority would impact the race. In the absence of a strong counter-message (in particular in the media-heavy metro), Seifert’s candidacy looks like an outlier with segments of the base.
About ten years ago, a sitting (at the time) GOP representative and long-time friend of this blog told me “you do realize, Mitch, that between the blog and your show, you can never, ever run for political office, don’t you?”
The fact that my written body of work is, no doubt, some oppo researcher’s dream has certainly served to keep me from getting too enthusiastic about pursuing a life in politics.
And that’s largely a good thing.
Of course, opposition research on both sides – but especially the Democrats – is dedicated to making running for office as personally gruelling as possible for anyone who’d want to try.
Which is why the leftymedia’s on-cue jumping up and down like a bunch of poo-flinging monkey’s over Sheila Kihne’s old, excellent but long-dormant blog is so unsurprising.
Of course, since it’s a primary battle, some Republicans are pitching in to defend incumbent Jennifer Loon against Kihne’s challenge.
I suppose that’s one good thing about the blog; it’s cut down on any temptation.
The electorate hits the snooze button on the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary.
It’s been 20 years since the Minnesota GOP had a competitive primary for, well, anything. And with just over a month to go before voters chose Gov. Mark Dayton’s general election opponent, that rust is showing.
Whether it’s the airwaves, newspapers, or even political blogs, interest/coverage in the GOP primary has been as invigorating as an Ambien with a warm milk chaser. What little polling on the race has been done bares out that fact, with 22% having no opinion of the four main candidates running, and 33% either undecided or choosing none of the above.
The result isn’t surprising. Of the four major candidates, only businessman Scott Honour is running any sort of campaign advertising – a modest radio ad buy hitting Dayton on his handling of MnSure. But having blown through the better part of $1 million on infrastructure and staff, Honour has been reduced to recycling his material. The nearly exact same ad ran in May.
The rest of the field isn’t exactly making news, either. Kurt Zellers’ campaign seems to exist solely by press release, with few direct campaign actions. Marty Seifert’s endorsement by former Governor Al Quie is the campaign’s biggest story to date, as Seifert seems intent on winning the primary by eschewing the state’s major media markets to focus on outstate voters. Jeff Johnson’s endorsement by Rep. Erik Paulsen carries some weight, but largely seems to reinforce that most of the state’s Republican endorsers are staying out of the fight.
If you can call this primary a ‘fight.’ Despite the ill-will following the Republican Convention in May, the interactions between the campaigns have been downright Marquess of Queensbury:
Last Friday, TPT’s Almanac hosted the first debate between the Republican candidates for governor since the Republican Party of Minnesota’s state convention in Rochester…I watched it three times this week, looking for some spark of energy, some sign of life in the Republican race for governor. I found none, as it was a non-event.
I reviewed Twitter, expecting to see a flury of public jockeying by the campaigns or their supporters. Nothing.
No press releases were sent out by the campaigns after the debate, boasting about the performance of their candidate. Nobody claimed victory, nobody really said anything. There were no debate parties, where supporters of a candidate gather to watch the event.It is almost like the debate didn’t happen.
Avoiding the traditional circular firing squad may be the prudent choice, but against the backdrop of such a vanilla campaign, one has to wonder how any of the four candidates expect to even reach November.
Most assuredly, August 2014 will not resemble the August of 2010 as Mark Dayton and Matt Entenza spent wildly, with Margaret Anderson Kelliher doing her best to keep up via her organization. Indeed, the question of 2014 may be what candidate (if any) can create the organization necessary to match the GOP’s GOTV efforts on behalf of Jeff Johnson. The endorsement may no longer carry the same monetary value, but the organizational value of numerous BPOUs making phone calls definitely has a price-tag for those seeking to replicate the effort. In a low-intensity, likely low-turnout field, the GOP’s GOTV efforts will likely prevail.
The GOP’s greater challenge may be to have a nominee that’s prepared to contend after August. A GOP candidate having won by a minimal amount, and armed with a poor campaign account – as would likely be the case for three out of the four candidates – isn’t in the best position to challenge Mark Dayton.
ADDENDUM: Marty Seifert may slightly regret getting former Gov. Al Quie’s backing, given Quie’s decision to now also support US Senate long-shot Jim Abeler. Nor does it likely help that the Star Tribune is reminding readers that Quie also backed Tom Horner four years ago.
A recent Quinnipiac poll shows that 33 percent of Americans pick Obama as the worst President since World War 2. Dubya comes in second at 28 percent.
So let’s try it this way: Let’s rank the presidents since WW2.
In the comments, respond with your rankings of the presidents since WW2, in order from worst to best.
Here’s the complete list: Re-order them and leave them in the comments.
My vote is below the fold.
A friend of mine from South Minneapolis emails. The bad news? :
Oh great, my favorite local bar and burger place where I have taken many of you is now world famous. The POTUS just had a “Jucy Lucy” at Matt’s. Crap. We’ve been going to this place for decades and now…the place will be known in every corner of the earth. Best kept secret burger joint now will be even more busy. Dang.
The good news? At least he didn’t go to The Nook. You thought it was hard to get into Matt’s even before the POTUS’ visit?
They say that dissatisfaction with the status-quo – everything from trite “anti-incumbency” to a genuine disgust with the power-mad “House Of Cards”-like ways of Washington (which Obama certainly didn’t invent, but which he’s moved front and center as the defining feature of his reign) will be the driving force in this fall’s election, and possibly 2016 as well.
To ensure that it is, I submit to you a few exhibits that show with crystalline clarity the contempt Obama’s Washington establishement feels for the electorate, whom they seem to believe couldn’t wipe and wash without their help:
The Master Of The Universe: bit here, about yet another vapid, vacuous Obama staffer “slipping up and telling the truth” about his, and the Administration’s, view of the unwashed masses; it’s Tommy Vietor, one of the Administration’s spokes-drones:
“Iraq is just a ploy to distract you from Bergdahl which distracted you from the VA scandal which distracted you from BENGHAZI. Idiots,”
Seething contempt for the bitter, gun-clinging Jeebus freaks who’d dare question their betters? The little prick is soaking in it!
Look at his picture at the link above; you can tell the little fop went to Georgetown, hasn’t had a job outside politics in his life, and doesn’t even look out the window when he’s flying to the west coast.
He’s not the poster-child for tearing down the establishment – but only because there are so many other options.
The Brahmins: Juan Williams indulged in another of the left’s parlour games, “Let’s Compare Degrees!”, on “America’s Newsroom” last week; I’ll add emphasis:
WILLIAMS: It comes in a week in which she said they were dead broke when they left the White House, and that set off conservative blogs, and now this one coming from Rush Limbaugh. I don’t know if he wants to test his Mensa score versus Hillary. I mean, you know, she’s a big-time college grad. But I think what he’s trying to do is he’s trying to deflate a balloon here in that what he said later in that monologue was that Hillary Clinton is supposed to be the brightest woman ever, the most competent woman, and therefore she can be president, and he wants to take down that whole structure right now.
Did you see what Hillary! accomplished during her term at State?
No?
Neither did anyone else.
Williams indulges the liberal conceit that believes the name on ones diploma confers, by itself, excellence. But most Americans know that the best thing, indeed the only good thing, that an “elite” education says about a person is that between the ages of 14 and 18 they lived a life that was perfectly calculated to win the attention of an admissions committee, knowing that four years of playing the paper chase would give them the one thing of value that attending an “elite” institution really confers; access to the alumni directory. And that’s the best thing it says about a person; in most cases – Hillary!’s among them – it means they were born into “Legacy” status (and if you read that and think “informal aristocracy”, you’re only wrong about the “informal” part).
For this good of this country, anyone with with an “elite” degree – or for that matter, anyone who’s been out of school more than three years who still talks about where they went to school – should be disqualified from public service. As should anyone who refers to “Mensa” score unironically.
Pay no attention to the utter lack of accomplishment, peasants.
Rand Paul, speaking in Iowa, nailed a few key points the GOP needs to remember, nationally and here in Minnesota:
“There are people who say we need to be more moderate,” he said. “I couldn’t disagree more.”
“I think the core of our message: we can be even more bold,” he added. “When Ronald Reagan won a landslide, he ran unabashedly … that’s what we need … It isn’t about being tepid.”
It’s “moderation” – and its idiot cousin, compromise with Big Left – that have left the nation in the mess it’s in.
The American people – the ones that can be reached, anyway – know this, whether they can state it in as many words or not.
Go conservative/libertarian, or go home.
To: Democrats, and the K Street GOP Establishment
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Cantor
All,
Keep repeating to yourself – “The Tea Party’s dead. The Tea Party’s dead….”
That is all.
People have asked me what I thought about last week’s GOP convention.
First things first: I’m happy that Jeff Johnson won the endorsement. I never, ever “endorse” candidates myself – it’s really arrogant, it’s hell on bookings, and who cares what I think? – but I was honestly torn between Jeff and Dave Thompson, and will be happy to support either of them, or Seifert, Honour, Farnsworth or Zellers for that matter, if they wind up on the ballot after the primary. Dayton
“But what about the Seifert flap?” My friend Ben Kruse, broadcasting at the lesser talk station, made waves by lighting up Seifert earlier this week. I’m less certain; I think it was a tactical play that didn’t work, but may not necessarily have backfired. It’s a long way to the primary.
“How about McFadden?” I get the impression that the Norm Colemans and Vin Webers and other K Street eminimentoes who are behind the McFadden campaign are presuming that keeping a candidate enigmatic until the last final push to the election is a good tactic, starving the media beast of opposition research opportunities. Part of me wonders if the tactic isn’t to keep him quiet now (when 1% of the electorate cares) until Labor Day (when maybe 10% cares), but sometime before the week or two before the election (when the vast majority start to pay attention). It’s an interesting experiment, if that’s the case.
I would urge McFadden to get straight with Minnesota’s gun owners. They’re a big, organized, conservative bloc – and you do not want them staying home, or squandering their votes on some bobbleheaded Libertarian, come election day.
More on the show tomorrow.
SCENE: The office of the Governor of Minnesota. Gathered around a table are:
LUCKING: In the name of Alita the Mother Almighty, I call this meeting to order!
HUME, FLINT-SMITH and UNDERLING: All hail!
LUCKING: So what have you discovered?
HUME: Well, honey… (LUCKING fixes HUME with a withering glare) …er, sir, the Republicans are facing an unruly split in the Libertarian wing of the party.
FLINT-SMITH: We believe they can be wedged.
LUCKING: In the name of Mighty Alita (a speaker blares a thunder sound effect in the background, and UNDERLING flickers the light switch of and on a few times) make it so.
HUME: We’ll pass the governor off as a Libertarian!
FLINT-SMITH: I’ll put Baird Helgeson on it, over at the Strib. Hannah?
UNDERLING: Yes, ma’am?
FLINT-SMITH: Issue an order to the Strib. The Governor is now a libertarian.
UNDERLING: By your leave.
LUCKING: What else?
HUME: We have reason to believe that the GOP is going to make a move for Somali immigrants. They even have a candidate, running against Phyllis Kahn.
LUCKING: We shall make the Governor Muslim. His middle name is Faruq. (Thunder effect, as UNDERLING flickers the lights).
FLINT-SMITH (gets up and walks to and opens the closet door). Mark?
GOVERNOR MARK DAYTON (muffled, from inside closet): Huh?
FLINT-SMITH: You’re Muslim now.
DAYTON: (thinly) OK.
(FLINT-SMITH closes the door)
LUCKING: Next?
HUME: The GOP had their convention. They endorsed several candidates, but several are going to the primary.
FLINT-SMITH: AKA “The DFL Way” .
LUCKING: Who are these people?
HUME (pulling out clipboard): The first is the governor candidate, Jeff Johnson.
LUCKING (thinking deeply): We shall issue a press release saying he is Wrong For Minnesota.
FLINT-SMITH: Hannah? Get on it. (UNDERLING takes a note)
HUME: The next one is the Senate candidate, Mike McFadden.
LUCKING (thinking even deeper): We shall issue a press release saying McFadden is…Wrong For Minnesota.
(UNDERLING takes a note)
HUME: Dan Severson is running for Secretary of State.
LUCKING (deep in thought): I think that we need to tell Minnesotans that Severson is…
(silence. HUME and FLINT-SMITH wait with bated breath, as UNDERLING scribbles on her notepad and PRETTNER-SOLON snores lightly)
LUCKING: Severson is Wrong For Minnesota. (nods her head as the others jot notes).
UNDERLING: How about Arne Carlson?
LUCKING: Arne Carlson is…Wrong for Minnesota as well.
UNDERLING: He’s not actually on the ballot.
LUCKING (looks confused for a moment. Then focuses on UNDERLING): You are Wrong for Minnesota.
HUME: I brought brownies.
FLINT-SMITH (taking a brownie, takes a bite. Grimaces): Um…did you use salt, or sugar?
HUME: Dammit. Not again…
LUCKING: The brownies are Wrong For Minnesota.
HUME: Oh, by the way, Carrie? I couldn’t get reservations at Crave tonight.
LUCKING: That’s Wrong for Minnesota!
(And SCENE)
You would not be the first.
A few weeks back, the Ventura Independence Party, which has throughout its history been a center-left party of people who just loooooove to tinker with the buttons and levers of government – which is the opposite of “libertarian” – endorsed a political newcomer who’s never held elective office, never run for election (that we’re aware of), but who came (along with her husband) from the Ron Paul clique.
Then, the Libertarian party candidate for governor – a party whose existence the regional media barely acknowledges – gets “arrested” while on his petition drive in a DFL-controlled city.
OK, that last might be a bit of a stretch.
But this? Governor Messinger Dayton battling his “libertarian” streak? Not so much:
Now as he sets off on his battle for re-election, Dayton says he finds himself increasingly frustrated at the layers of bureaucratic machinery that too can often smother good intentions.
“I vacillate every day from being a liberal to a libertarian,” the governor said in an interview before his overwhelming DFL endorsement for a second term. “Depending on what is happening, I sometimes go back and forth more than once a day.”
Read the whole thing (and to his credit, reporter Baird Helgeson does carry some of the dumbfounded reactions to the preposterous premise).
The DFL is trying to wedge “libertarians” away from the GOP.
Fearless predictions: the campaign finance reports will show donations from liberals with deep pockets to Hannah Nicollet and to the Libertarian Party candidate.
Why were the DFL’s array of sock-puppets out in such force writing about the GOP convention?
To draw attention away from their own, up in Duluth.
First came reports that the DFL were denying media credentials to reporters from newspapers that had criticized Dayton.
Which is one way of silencing dissent.
Another way to silence dissent? Agree not to talk about the inconvenient truth – that the DFL is intensely split on mining.
That’s what the DFL did at their convention in Duluth over the weekend; looked at the upcoming bloodletting between their ultra-liberal, metro-area base – which is as dogmatic a pack of environmentalists as you will find in Democrat politics – and the Iron Range.
The Range, of course, is Minnesota’s red-headed economic stepchild; an area of the state whose economy has been draggy since the demise of the US steel industry forty years ago.
Of course, there is an immense wealth of minerals under the ground in Northern Minnesota, putting thousands of underemployed miners back to work, and creating jobs for many, many thousands more in the many areas that support mining – everything from mine equipment maintenance to truck driving to convenience stores catering to people going to and from work.
But currently – thanks to DFL-authored environmental rules and business regulations – it is literally better business to load ore-rich rock into trains and ship it to North Dakota than to build a processing plant in Minnesota.
So while the DFL had only one significant endorsement battle – to pick a Secretary of State candidate – the battle lines were in fact forming to duke out the battle between blue-collar Rangers and the businesses what want to hire them on the one side, and plutocrat Metro-area environmentalists (including Alita Messinger, who bankrolls Minnesota’s environmentalist messaging as completely as she controls the DFL’s).
And the DFL responded the same way Brave Sir Robin did:
In the end, activists on both sides came to the microphones to urge hundreds of feisty delegates to delay the vote indefinitely, a remarkable showing for a party that has seen conventions erupt into damaging fights with political scars that can last decades.
“I think people on both sides understand that we can have respectful differences, but we need to make sure we don’t do anything that is going to take away from our candidates’ ability to win this fall,” said Ken Martin, DFL Party chairman. “So there was a lot of discipline here. People understand the ramifications of the issue.”
Well, we certainly hope they do.
Because those ramifications were:
In other words, “Just two more years, Rangers, and we’ll think about it. Or four. Or eight. We’ll get back to you…”
And hopefully it’ll get tougher for the DFL. Stewart Mills has a genuine shot at sending Rick Nolan packing over this very issue. More than that?
Think about it, Iron Range. This isn’t your grandfather’s DFL. The DFL is controlled by Metro-area poshes who haven’t dug for anything but grad-school grants in their lives. They hate your guns and hunting and outdoor life. They hate your largely pro-life beliefs. And above all, they hate what you and the generations before you try to do for a living. You, Ranger, are to the Metro DFL what the black or Latino family, or women, are; reliable votes in exchange for cheap lip service.
Money – jobs, in this case – talks.
Iron Rangers should know what walks.
The Democrats are unveiling a new slogan, we’re told.
If they’re going for something zippy but that is still compliant with “truth in advertising” laws, I’d suggest:
Stay The Curse!
But I’m open to other suggestions.
We may have a poll on this later….
NOTE: Nominations close at 5PM. Going to the primary is not an option.
NOTE 2: Nominations are closed (because PollHost has a maximum of 20 entries…)!
SCENE: As America decides its political course for the next few years, an omniscient narrator asks an illustrative, rhetorical question.
THE OMNISCIENT NARRATOR: So, American electorate: if you have a choice between being beaten to death, or living a normal life, which do you pick?
THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE: Those are the choices?
THE OMNISCIENT NARRATOR: Yep. Beaten to death, or normal life.
THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE: And when you say “beaten to death”, you mean…
THE OMNISCIENT NARRATOR: …pummeled with baseball bats until you bleed to death from multiple blunt force injuries.
THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE: Huh. Life, or getting beaten to death. Let me think.
THE OMNISCIENT NARRATOR: Take your time.
THE AMERICAN ELECTORATE: Can we settle on just getting pummeled until we get badly injured?
(And SCENE)
First things first. I’ve got nothing against Hannah Nicollet. If you go by what little she’s said in public about her political beliefs – she supported Ron Paul in 2012 – I probably agree with her 90-odd percent of the time. Indeed, now that she’s been endorsed to run for Governor, my biggest dream is that she selects a Lieutenant Governor candidate named Lyndale, Hennepin, Franklin or Lake.
So no – nothing against Hannah Nicollet.
IndyParty Gubernatorial candidate Hannah Nicollet
But I do have something against the Independence Party.
The party – which started as the Minnesota unit of Ross Perot’s “Reform Party”, and gained major party status with Minnesota’s great collective self-prank, the election of Jesse Ventura, and has held onto it by the skin of its teeth ever since – has been the traditional refuge of people who like their government big, but “good”. Moderate Democrats like Tim Penny, liberal Republicans like Tom Horner, and lots of well-meaning moderates who like thinking big thoughts and playing responsibly with the gears and levers of government have flocked to the IP, if only briefly.
It’s always been the party of the moderate wonk class.
I – like most actual libertarians – have very little in common with the moderate wonk class.
And since 2002, the party has been accused of existing primarily as a spoiler. In the 2002 governor’s race, there’s a legitimate case to be made that the presence of former moderate Democrat Tim Penny siphoned center-left votes away from Roger Moe. There’s an even better case to be made that left-of-center-left education policy wonk Peter Hutchinson may have cinched Tim Pawlenty’s razor-thin re-election over Mike Hatch in 2006.
Of course, the strongest case of all is that Tom Horner slurped up the traditional “Indepedent Republican” voter, all nostalgic for Arne Carlson and Dave Durenberger and pre-conversion Judi Dutcher, just enough to tip the scales for Governor Messinger Dayton.
And now, in 2014, when the headlines are jiggling with tales of fractiousness between the Ron Paul faction (not to mention the Tea Party) and the “establishment” of the GOP, into the midst of a race against a vulnerable DFL governor, comes Hannah Nicollet – who makes libertarian-sounding noises, and is being marketed directly at the “Ron Paul” libertarian faction in the GOP.
Do I believe there’s some Democrat monkey-wrenching money from the likes of the unions or Alita Messinger involved? Absolutely. I can’t prove it, but I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if it comes out at some point. There’s a precedent for it. It worked.
But that’s not really the point of this post. Not yet.
No – I’d actually like to ask (or have someone ask) Ms. Nicollet what she, personally and as a candidate being marketed to Libertarian Republicans, thinks of these bits and pieces of the “Independence Party of Minnesota” platform.
From the “Elections” section, the IP platform says…:
We support Instant Runoff Voting or another runoff process that allows us to vote our conscience and ensure that winners are supported by a majority.
So does Ms. Nicollet support a voting process that leaves ballots uncounted and, worse still for a “Ron Paul supporter”, makes the vote-counting process utterly opaque to regular voters?
Or this:
We support partial public funding of elections to reduce candidate dependence on fundraising, thereby making politicians more independent and responsible to voters.
So the “Ron Paul supporter” would force taxpayers to pay for elections with the implicit threat of violence?
We support the establishment of an independent nonpartisan commission to implement legislative redistricting.
Hiding more of government in more committee rooms promotes “liberty” exactly how?
And here’s the big kahuna:
Resolved that the IP support an amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution stipulating that candidates for public office can only receive financial donations from eligible voters who reside within the jurisdiction of the office they seek.
This violates the First Amendment in so many ways it’s hard to count them all. Minneapolis gun owners and Benton county pro-marijuana activists would be cut off from campaigning with support from groups from out of district? (While any government or trade union can filter money anywhere they want via any variety of subterfuges)?
Not only does this not support liberty, it is actively hostile to it.
In the “Prosperity and Quality of Life” section, the IP says…:
We are dedicated to fiscal responsibility and insist that our tax dollars be spent with restraint and care, but our goal is also for a bright future, and so we are committed to: supporting economic growth, excellence in education, access for all to quality and affordable health care, investing in an efficient transportation infrastructure, protecting the environment, and providing efficient energy resources.
The IP, in other words, sees a vital role for government in economic intervention, education, healthcare, transit, environmentalism and green energy.
Which was a big part of of the “don’t”s section on any Libertarian policy checklist.
Along the same vein, under the “Supporting Economic Growth” section:
An important role of government should be to support commerce and invite corporate investment in the state by assuring reasonable taxes, a well-educated and productive workforce, good transportation infrastructure, and an excellent health care system.
OK, that one is open to interpretation; hypothetically, that could be interpreted as “by getting out of the free market’s way”.
Anyone wanna place bets on that?
Or this one here:
We believe that many rural economies are challenged by a lack of access to the highest quality telecommunications, technology and transportation. We support policies that will allow rural businesses to compete effectively in the global economy and we also support government initiatives to assure that affordable and state-of-the-art internet connections are readily available to all citizens.
Government intervention in the telecom industry is, at the very least, a matter of picking winners and losers (anathema to the liberty-minded), and a big boondoggle waiting to happen.
Not to mention the nanny-statish subsidies inherent in this…
We believe in funding the research, development, and promotion of new value-added products and processes using Minnesota farm products.
Next, we move to “Education”:
We support government funding, standards and incentives that also reward advanced achievement, improving the education of our “average” students, and realizing the full potential of all students..
So not only is the IP – the banner under which “Libertarian” Hannah Nicollet is campaigning – a full supporter of the current, one-size-fits-all, nanny-state factory education model, but it supports starting the indoctrination bright and early:
We believe early childhood programs will generate excellent returns on investment by reducing future, more expensive educational needs and developing better-educated and more productive citizens.
Even the GOP “Establishment” is smarter than that.
Onward to “Transportation”:
We support further development of a fully integrated, multimodal transportation system that could include automobiles, light and high speed rail, personal rapid transit (PRT), and High Occupancy Vehicle, high-speed bus lanes.
Even given the context of a state that has not only embraced but french-kissed Big Government for the past seventy years, Transportation policy may be the issue where Minnesota has gone to third base with complete nannystatism. The Met Council has near-dictatorial authority over local jurisdictions, and is, and has been, run by a bipartisan assortment of people utterly friendly to the idea of using transportation to take “urban planning” out of the hands of the market and give it to the bureaucrat.
And the IP – Hannah Nicollet’s party – enshrines this noxious statist ideal in its platform.
In the “Environment” section, the platform is vague enough…
We support strong enforcement of environmental protection laws.
…to mean anything to anyone; it covers everything from preventing oil spills to stifling mining in perpetuity.
What would “Doctor Paul” think?
And finally – the “Liberty, Justice and Security” section of the IndyParty platform says…
…well, stuff about legalizing pot (whatever), separation of church and state (natch) and…
…nothing.
Silence on government’s recent attacks on the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Tenth Amendments.
Why?
Because while constitutional Libertarians live and breathe these issues, they’re issues on which the IndyParty as a vested interest in strategic silence.
So the question is, Ms. Hannah Nicollet (or anyone who deighns to answer for her, the endorsed candidate of a major Minnesota political party), how does she square her endorsing party’s positions on these platform issues with her erstwhile Libertarian beliefs, and with the fact that she is being marketed to Libertarians?
And to you Libertarian-leaning GOP (and Libertarian) voters at whom Ms. Nicollet is currently targeted; you folks gotta admit, you’re long on talk about “principles”. So do your “principles” tell you that having a “libertarian” candidate marketed to you by a rankly statist party might be ever-so-slightly…
…cynical? Unprincipled?
Calculated?
More to come.
The Democrat “War on Women” rhetoric was entirely calibrated to try to win the votes of white women (Obama already controlled non-white womens’ votes).
But for all the palaver? It didn’t work.
Michael Medved in the NYTimes last week (with emphasis added):
A closer look at the numbers reveals that Mr. Obama’s success with the ladies actually stemmed from his well-known appeal to minority voters. In 2012, 72% of all women voters identified themselves as “white.” This subset preferred Mitt Romney by a crushing 14-point advantage, 56% to 42%. Though Democrats ratcheted up the women’s rhetoric in the run-up to Election Day, the party did poorly among the white women it sought to influence: The Republican advantage in this crucial segment of the electorate doubled to 14 points in 2012 from seven points in 2008. In the race against Mr. Romney, Obama carried the overall female vote—and with it the election—based solely on his success with the 28% of women voters who identified as nonwhite. He carried 76% of Latina women and a startling 96% of black women.
So for all of the left’s argling about racism being the only reason not to vote for Obama, it would seem that race is the only reason to vote for him, since Black and Latina women have fared among the worst of all during the Obameconomy.
As with every election since 2000, marriage matters:
The same discrepancy exists when considering marital status. In 2012, nearly 60% of female voters were married, and they preferred Mr. Romney by six points, 53% to 46%. Black and Latina women, on the other hand, are disproportionately represented among unmarried female voters, and they favored Mr. Obama by more than 2-to-1, 67% to 31%.
Read the whole thing.
And check a few of your assumptions about Democrat rhetoric.
Al Franken supported a program that uses taxpayer money to give foreign companies a leg up in the market over US companies…
…until someone whispered “Hey, Al – this directly harms Minnesota business, and uses Minnesotans’ tax dollars to do it…”.
But in politics, policy must become parochial for a politician before they see the error of their ways. In July of 2013, the Bank’s activities became a threat to Minnesotans and for Franken, who voted to reauthorize the Bank just months earlier.
Half a billion worth of business (provided you’re a crony of Franken and his clique). Good, right?
Apparently Franken needed reminding that Minnesotans are his constituents; he reversed his vote when someone apparently reminded him of this factoid:
But when the citizens of Minnesota were in danger of being directly and substantially harmed, Mr. Franken suddenly became “concerned.”…
U.S. iron ore production is concentrated in Michigan and Minnesota…
Australia is in the midst of an economic boom right now, due in significant part to the expansion of its mining industry.
And how’s the Iron Range doing these days?
Now – let’s place some odds on whether MPR, the Strib or the MinnPost ever cover this story.
Question: will the media force Elizabeth Warren – putatively the Democrat second choice after Hillary! – to meet with Cherokee women who’d like to talk with her about her phony claim to being a member of their tribe?
And profiting from it?
(Answer: Sure they will. When they get done holding Ryan Winkler accountable for turning a SCOTUS justice into Stepin Fetchit).
Only 40% of Minnesotans think Al Franken is good enough or smart enough, according to this poll.
Insulting Iowa farmers…
…is probably not a great idea if you’re running to represent them in the Senate.
That’s Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley. He’s running against Chuck Grassley (who is, partly in the interest of disclosure but mostly as a matter of fun trivia, either a very distant relative or at least someone whose ancestors come from the same village in Norway as my paternal grandmother’s family) – but most importantly, he apparenly is banking on “people who went to law school” putting him over the top against “people who didn’t”.