To:  Principled Libertarians
From:  Mitch Berg, Uppity “Establishment” Tea Party Peasant
Re:  Bamboozled

My Libertarian Friends,

I likely agree with you all on more than we disagree.  Some of you like to focus on the disagreements, which makes for fun rhetoric, but whatever; I would call myself a constitutional limited government conservative.  The battle to limit the power of government is a long, uphill slog – against the gleefully statist Democrats, and against a GOP establishment that has plenty of constituents that benefit from the Big State, as well as a crucially large Tea Party faction that is quite the opposite. 

Whatever.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Anyway.

Now, one of you folks’s signature lines is that you’d rather be irrelevant at the polls than violate your principles.

And generally – and I say this with all due respect – Libertarians achieve that wish with flying colors.  Their irrelevance at the polls is legendary; most LP candidates are doing well to poll in full single digits – to the left of the decimal point, anyway. 

And the big “Ron Paul” takeover of the Minnesota GOP has had mixed results.  Some districts – like my SD65 – saw excellent efforts by solid candidates that turned out lots of new GOP voters.  Others – the 5th CD – turned out more like frat party gags gone awry, run by people who chuckle amongst themselves about the contempt they feel for the GOP and Republicans. 

As a general rule, Libertarians (with the Big L) are happy to remain magnificently above the scrums of daily life, gazing down on all the silly worker ants and their door-knocking and sign-pounding, focusing on big thoughts and dreaming of the utopia we’ll all share (from our neutral corners) once  you get those damn brainwashed sheeple to see the light. 

All is in its place, right?

So for the Virginia Libertarian Party, it must have seemed like Free Pot and Raw Milk day; someone gave them actual money to run a campaign. 

Of course, that “someone” was an Obama bundler. 

And the Libertarian candidate for Governor came in with a little over six percent of the vote.  And I’m going to hypothesize with little fear of contradiction that in and among the people who wouldn’t have voted anyway there was a preponderance of a couple of Republicans, maybe several, for every Democrat. 

Which was precisely why an Obama bundler rounded up all the money, of course – for the same reason that Liberals With Deep Pockets ® donated to Tom Horner.  To siphon votes. 

Now, many of you believe there’s no difference between the two major parties.  I reject that premise (while stipulating that the GOP has a ton of room for improvement, which is why I’m firmly in the Tea Party wing of the party, and have been since long before there was a Tea Party). 

But whatever it is you believe about the difference (?) between the two major parties, I gotta ask you; what do you think about having your movement and its principles co-opted in all their above-it-all grandeur to help solidify the control of the most gleefully, overtly statist of the parties?

“It’s not my fault” might be true and is still an evasion. 

Only Libertarians and Republicans in the comment section on this one, please; the kids have all sorts of other places on my blog to romp and play; comments re the Democrat point of view will likely be deleted without ceremony. 

I don’t do that often – but I am today.

It’s my blog.  Don’t like it?  Talk to the hand. 

As this is written – 7:45 Central – Cuccinelli is up over Macauliffe by four points with about 2/3 of the vote counted (according to Drudge).  CNN and Fox are saying it’s too close to call.

This was a race that the “intelligentsia” wrote off two months ago.

That feels good.

I’m off to the Cam Winton party in South Minneapolis.  Due to Ranked Choice Voting we won’t have results for a day or ten, but the party goes on.  I’m praying the good guys shock the world.

Again.

UPDATE:  Northern VA suburbs must have held their votes back; as I write this (8:05PM), Mac has closed the gap to about a point with 81% reporting.

Fingers still crossed.

I’m going to get out the door before this drives me nuts.

The “Alliance for a Better Minnesota” – the attack-PR drones financed by Alida Messinger and a group of plutocrats with deep pockets to make toxic, sleazy attacks on their opposition – stepped in it last night, to the point that even the Twin Cities mainstream media had to report it (with emphasis added):

The DFL-supporting Alliance for a Better Minnesota took its mockery of a Republican candidate a step too far, it admitted on Thursday.

In a Halloween-themed blog post, it suggested that Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson should dress as Patrick Bateman, a serial killer in American Psycho, because he is “seemingly nice but actually pretty evil inside.”

Carrie Lucking tried to bury the evidence – but the Internet sees and knows all:

Leaving aside the obvious question – what should Alida Messinger and Carrie Lucking dress as? – it appears as if the smooth-running messaging machine at ABM is trying to break in some new amateurs.

But have no fear.  Lucking explains it all (again, emphasis added):

Carrie Lucking, the group’s executive director, said within 10 minutes being alerted to the post they took the image down, removed the reference to Bateman and changed what it said about Johnson.

Instead of calling Johnson evil, the site says that he is “seemingly nice in public, but actually the policies he supports are pretty evil. It also appended an apology to its post. 

Ah.  Disagreement is “evil”.  That’s much better.

How very Alinsky.

“The original image and text for Jeff Johnson was removed and the costume changed because it was an inappropriate reference to a fictional character. We apologize for this error. It will not happen again,” the web site said.

Yes it will – because every time ABM writes about Republicans, they’re writing about “fictional characters”.  Alinskyite “framing” is all about turning real people and real ideas into characters and catch phrases that have little or nothing to do with reality.  “Tom Emmer is angry”.  “Jeff Johnson is evil”.  “King Banaian is Arab”.  Little bits of mental chaff that ABM is hoping – indeed, paying big bucks to prove – will stick in the minds of people who don’t think that hard about politics come election time.

It’s dishonest.  It’s also how the Democrats do politics.

But I Promised A Brilliant Plan, Didn’t I?:  Watch ABM’s coverage this past couple of days.  Their flailing at Johnson was only the tip of the iceberg; I wrote earlier today about their calling Julianne Ortmann a “Genie”, with video of a blonde, jiggly Barbara Eden helpfully added in case you thought Lucking was referring to the “Djinn” of Arab mythology.

The election is a year away, and the attacks are already…

…unhinged.

And it occurs to me – maybe that’s a good barometer for the GOP races?  Whichever candidate is drawing the most unhinged, scabrous “coverage” from ABM can be presumed to be in the lead?

A look at ABM’s front page this morning shows two weak-gruel attacks on Jeff Johnson.

That’s probably good news for the Johnson campaign.

The challenge for the Thompson campaign is obvious.

The party that stood four-square behind Representative Ryan Winkler for calling Justice Clarence Thomas an “Uncle Tom“…

…has the vapors over two of the most innocuous jokes…

Nov. 16, 2012: “Poor Susan Rice. She’s the first woman in Washington to get in more trouble opening her mouth for a president than Monica Lewinsky.”

Nov. 18, 2012: “I keep hearing about this fantasy football thing. I don’t get it. My idea of fantasy football is where I am the quarterback and Angela Jolie is the center.”

They’re from Craig “Captain Fishsticks” Westover, an advisor to MNGOP gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson.  And the first one is accurate to a journalistic fault.

And, uh, note the dates.

So they – in this case, “Sam Jasenosky”, who would seem to be an undergrad journalism major (what else) – have been reduced to digging through advisors’ twitter feeds for any sign of political incorrectness to be tortured out of context.

I can hardly wait to see the ABM TV ad next year.

Here’s the fun part, though; ABM are the real sexists:  from yesterday’s post about the GOP candidates:

Julianne Ortman: A genie.

And lest the reader mentally compare Ortman – a graduate of U Penn law school and a former adjunct professor George Washington U  – to the “Djinn” of Arab mythology, they helpfully included video of Barbara Eden playing a jiggly, bubbleheaded blond piece of eye candy:

Because when you’re a Democrat, it’s only sexism if you’re one of the bad guys.

And because that’s what female conservatives are to Carrie Lucking’s little troupe of howler monkeys.

If Paul Wellstone really had all the integrity people said he did, he’d puke.

Four of Minnesota’s five House reps voted against funding veterans benefits during the shutdown (Collin Peterson did the right thing).

Now, their explanation will be that the Democrats’ congressional leadership – Reid and Pelosi – want the whole budget passed, not a bunch of piecemeal mini-budgets – because that’s just not the way we do budgets, apparently.

Of course, the Democrats don’t do budgets at all But I digress.

It’s buncombe, of course; the GOP’s strategy, making the Democrats justify their spending piece by piece rather than having it all jammed down in full tantrum mode – might just show the people that there’s an alternative in DC.

That’d make the Democrats in DC very upset.

So the real question is why do DC Democrats hate taxpayers?

(SCENE:  MITCH Berg is leaving the gym.  He runs into Avery LIBRELLE, who is walking into a group Twerking class. MITCH tries to duck behind a shoulder press machine, but LIBRELLE sees him).

LIBRELLE:  ZOMG!   Tom Emmer did an ad for a remodeling company!

MITCH:  Right.  And his manager says it’s a mistake – a testimonial that was never intended for broadcast, that got broadcast!  And if you’ve seen the production value, it sure seems plausible…

LIBRELLE:  It ain’t the crime!  It’s the coverup!

MITCH:   What coverup?

LIBRELLE:  They had to wait for Aaron Rupar at the City Pages to cover it before they’d comment!

MITCH:  Aaron Rupar?

LIBRELLE:   Yes.

MITCH:  Aaron RUPAR?

LIBRELLE:  Yes…well…

MITCH:  Spill it.

LIBRELLE:  OK.  He’s just repeating what Sally Jo Sorenson writes.

MITCH:  And?

LIBRELLE:  Like usual.

MITCH:  We’ve talked about this before.

LIBRELLE:  I know.  Anyway – This probably violates campaign finance laws!

MITCH:   Says who?

LIBRELLE:   Sally Jo Sorenson.

MITCH:   Huh.  Well, on the one hand, pretty much everything you do, and everything you don’t do, violates one campaign finance law or another.  Campaign finance laws are mainly designed to protect incumbents.  They make campaigning a niggling, nonsensical regulatory maze, full of arbitrary restrictions on free speech.

LIBRELLE:  But it keeps money out of politics!

MITCH:  No, it doesn’t!

LIBRELLE:   Yes it does!

MITCH:  How?

LIBRELLE:  It’s the law!

MITCH:  Right.  So the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, which alone outspent the GOP candidate in 2010, doesn’t spend money?

LIBRELLE:  That’s different.  Unions are The People.

MITCH:  Oh, for the love of…

LIBRELLE:  The laws keep big money from influencing campaigns.

MITCH:  Clearly they work wonders.

LIBRELLE:  Of course!

MITCH:  So here’s a question:  who’s paying Sally…

LIBRELLE:  …whoah, look at the time.  Gotta get to class! (LIBRELLE dashes into room).

(And SCENE)

Despite four years of demonization, the public largely doesn’t see the Tea Party as demons:

Considering the multi-year war on the Tea Party by Democrats, many Republicans, and the media, it is astounding that the Tea Party continues to stay more or less even in its support over the past two years.  A 2% drop is hardly meaningful, and could just be variations within the margin of error in the poll, which was +/- 3%.

So what we’re saying is there’s a chance.

As this is written, Ted Cruz is still filibustering. 

A couple of observations. 

On the one hand, a friend of mine – a disaffected Republican and Ron Paul supporter – snarked something like “Hey, Ted Cruz is filibustering Obamacare!  Western Civilization will be saved!  Oh, wait – no, we’re still screwed”. 

So let me get this straight; when some people launch quixotic grandstanding windmill-tilts against big government, taxation, spending and creeping statism, it’s a statement of rock-solid principle, but when others do it for the same reasons, it’s snark-fodder? 

I’ll have to chew on that one for a while.

Grandstanding:  As Michael Medved pointed out yesterday, the filibuster is, tactically, pointless.  The Senate – and its majority of Democrats – will support the President.  Period. 

Politically?  Medved among others also had a point:  Obama wants the government to shut down.  He benefits when he (and a compliant media) can pin pain on smaller government.  And while the sequester was a complete squib for him, a shutdown would provide an endless parade of calumny for the media, his Praetorian Guard, to force-feed the “for the children” voter segment. 

And that’s not the only reason a shutdown benefits Obama.

The Great Diversion:  Think about it.  Obama’s been in office almost five years.  What does he have to show for it?

• An economy that is creating nothing but part-time jobs (unlike all previous recoveries – a sort of economic,ex post facto”Berg’s Seventh Law”).
• Thousands of American guns sent across the border to the narcotraficantes, resulting in the deaths of American cops and Mexican children.
• Four Americans dead in a terrorist attack, who had the misfortune to be attacked in a place that apprently was serving as a hand-off point for a black-bag weapons-smuggling operation sending arms to a movement that is rapidly being taken over by Al Quaeda – leading to a year worth of stonewalling that looks more and more like a coverup.
• The Middle East is in worse shape than it’s been since the 80s, and our stature in the world has shrunk since Dubya left office.
• And a bold trip to where even Nixon never went; the Obama Administration appears to have used the IRS to stifle conservative political dissent.

And even if you get all of those out of the way, what is Obama left with?  Obamacare – a law with some popular provisions that needed to happen via one mechanism or another (portability, dealing with pre-existing conditions) but is, as a package, about as popular as mandatory ice-water enemas. 

What would better serve Obama’s purposes than to divert attention away from everything he and his Administration have done?

A government shutdown, I suspect, strikes this blog’s audience (as it does me) at first blush as a great idea.  But it plays right into Obama’s hands.

So Cruz should stop filibustering and take a nap – right?

But Not So Fast:  As we  noted earlier this morning, Americans are fundamentally conservative.  They don’t identify with the GOP at the moment – at least in part because the mainstream GOP, the Beltway GOP of the consultants, doesn’t reflect the conservative principals that Americans support. 

And they didn’t last year – which was why conservatives stayed home on election day, handing another term to Obama.

The Tea Party wave of 2010 went back underground. 

But it’s still out there.  The Gallup and Rasmussen polls show it. 

And while Ted Cruz’ filibuster isn’t going to defund Obamacare, and it’d probably be a very bad idea to let it shut down the government, it could be – if the GOP is smart enough, and I have doubts about that – a key step toward doing something that all of the GOP consultants in the Beltway can’t do and don’t really want to; mobilize the vast unwashed base of Tea Party conservatives, people who don’t like to identify as Republicans  but see perfectly well that Obama and our idiot Congress have us on the road to Palookaville.

We noted this from a Gallup Poll last winter; voters prefer Republican ideas – until they hear they’re Republican.

A new Rasmussen Poll confirms this; voters trust GOP positions on most issues:

The only issues where Democrats prevail – Environment, Education, Social Security – are the ones most dominated by memes tailored to low-information voters.

John Hinderaker at Power Line – one of my longtime NARN co-hosts – writes:

There are some interesting findings. The Democrats (and some Republican pundits and politicians) are trying to stampede Republicans into a radical change on immigration policy, but Rasmussen finds that voters prefer the GOP on the issue, by seven points. Then there is gun control: after the better part of a year of Democrat and media hysteria on the subject, voters trust Republicans over Democrats by 46%-39%.

Given those numbers, you would think that Republicans will sweep in 2014–increase their hold on the House, and take the Senate. But that isn’t what voters have in mind. Rasmussen also finds that currently, Democrats lead Republicans in the generic Congressional preference poll by 40%-37%. It’s a paradox: voters prefer Republicans on the issues, but still lean toward voting for Democrats.

And like Hinderaker, I think there’s one guess why that’s true…

 I think it is obvious that the press’s ceaseless attacks on Republicans are part of the explanation. That is a longstanding problem, but the numbers suggest that Republicans will do best if they keep pounding away on the issues, especially the ones where voters are predisposed to favor them.

The other note for Republicans:  the issues where conservative Republicans win (according to this poll and the previous Gallup one) are the ones where the Tea Party took the lead four years ago.

Steve Lonegan, the GOP hopeful running for the New Jersey Senate seat against Newark mayor Corey Booker, mentions the civic issues that dare not speak their names:

“They had another murder in the streets of Newark yesterday; a 20-year-old girl shot to death in the streets of Newark. There was another shooting not far from there,” Lonegan told “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

“That puts them at close to 50 deaths this year in the city of Newark. I mean it’s like becoming the murder capital of New Jersey. Violent crime is actually up now since Sharpe James was mayor – up above last year of the James administration.”…Lonegan also ripped into Booker on education and employment, saying that Newark’s high school dropout and unemployment rates were appalling.

Not that Newark has ever been Atlantis, but if crime and dropout rates are both rising since the “third way” mayor and, in some circles, the political Son of The Light Worker took office, that’ll call for drastic measures.

Like the media blacking out all evidence that maybe Booker isn’t the next coming. 

Just like they did for Obama.

They say it can’t happen.

It can.

But miracles are 99% hard work.

 I’ve bagged on Nate Silver in the past.  His methodology ends up calling races accurately – but, I suspect, it’s mostly through the benefit of a point spread that would forgive a lot of errors.  My favorite example – his 2010 prediction that Governor Dayton would win by six points (with an eight point margin of error). 

And so I’m not going to put in a big champagne order just yet.

But he’s smelling Democrat blood in the water next year.  In the Senate:

 A race-by-race analysis of the Senate, in fact, suggests that Republicans might now be close to even-money to win control of the chamber after next year’s elections. Our best guess, after assigning probabilities of the likelihood of a G.O.P. pickup in each state, is that Republicans will end up with somewhere between 50 and 51 Senate seats after 2014, putting them right on the threshold of a majority.

After last year, I’m keeping all pollling at arm’s length, of course.

The DFL ran in 2012 on a series of issues that – you heard in on the blogs first – were entirely buncombe. 

So let’s take stock of the things the DFL Alliance for a Better Minnesota said for which they need to be held accountable over the next 17 months or so:

“Property Taxes Will Drop”:  For the past six years, the DFL has been yapping that cuts in Local Government Aid forced property taxes to rise.  It’s a lie, of course; the “cuts” forced city and county governments to make tough choices about their spending, and made them justify their spending to their own taxpayers, rather than passing the bill off to the rest of the state with few if any questions asked.  And as I showed back in 2010, cities and counties jacked up property taxes by vastly more than the amount cut from LGA.  In the meantime, many cities learned to live without LGA entirely; it is they that are subsidizing everyone else’s spending. 

Prediction: the “extra” money from the state will almost entirely be consumed with extra spending (in fact, every single penny of “new” LGA sent to Minneapolis and Saint Paul will go to new spending).  Cities and counties will almost universally raise their property taxes, or at best hold steady.  Any exceptions?  They’ll prove the rule. 

That Economic Outlook:  The Minnesota left has been jumping up and down and beaming like toddlers that made good pantses about a “study” put out by the Philadelphia Fed a few weeks ago that showed Minnesota was clobbering Wisconsin in economic growth.

The “study” also showed that Minnesota was clobbering North Dakota.   Indeed, the “study” showed North Dakota in the bottom 10%, along with Wisconsin. You’ve heard what a wasteland North Dakota is, right? 

Oh, yeah – along with Minnesota in the “yay” column were fiscal and employment basket cases Illinois and California.  Economic powerhouses like North Dakota, Texas and Florida?  In the “Meh” column. 

Do with that information what you will.

But beyond that?  It was a short term analysis of growth, based on exceedingly transient indicators.  And to the extent that it had any value, remember: Wisconsin is still digging out from under decades of wastrel Democrat regimes.  And except for smokers, Minnesota is in the last couple of weeks of the result of over a decade of policy largely controlled by responsible GOP governors and legislatures.  The GOP never got everything they wanted – the shared the legislature from 2002-2008, had only the governorship in ’09-10, and both sides of the legislature but no governor in ’11 and ’12 – but at worst, Governor Pawlenty ran his veto pen red-hot and staved off the worst DFL-predations; at best, they were able to impose some restraint on things. 

But on August 1 – less than three weeks from now – that all changes.  Warehouse taxes, business taxes, wealth achievement taxes (make no mistake, income taxes don’t tax the “wealthy”, they merely penalize people who work for high incomes, leaving trust fund babies like Mark Dayton and Alida Messinger blissfully alone) and a raft of new regulations go into effect, penalizing businesses and – slowly – making Minnesota a lousy place to do business.

It’s already having an effect; Minnesota has sunk to the lowest ranking for new business creation in the nation.  More will surely follow.  And the raft of new regulations is going to brutalize the already somnolent mining industry; it’s literally cheaper and easier to build a tailing-recycling smelting plant in North Dakota and ship the ore – rock! – there than it is to build it where the actual ore is, here in Minnesota. 

Feeling good about that DFL vote, all you Iron Rangers?  This is your livelihood, being exported to a state that already has more jobs than it can fill. 

So over the next year, people have to ask themselves; outside of state government union jobs, who’s really benefited?

Prediction:  Other than “liberal plutocrats”, the answer will be “nobody”.

The Deficit:  The DFL and its toadies in the mainstream media did their by-the-numbers prancing last week over the news that the state’s economy generated $400M more revenue than expected. 

That, of course, was the last quarter of GOP-driven rules. 

In fact, as House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt noted on Twitter, we raised more money with the budget the Democrats called “the All Cuts budget” than Governor Messinger Dayton did with his All-Tax budget. 

What’ll happen this time next  year?

Place your bets.

“We Did It For The Children”:  After a couple of years of efforts to pay off the “Education Funding Shift” – a DFL-spawned accounting gimmick that the GOP adopted to compromise with rapacious DFL minorities and governors in years past – the GOP had most of the “shift” paid down.  The growth in the economy – not the Democrat tax hikes – paid that “shift” down.  The DFL will want to claim credit – and the media won’t challenge him on it in the least.

Over the next two years, education will get more expensive, and the achievement gap…

…will go unmeasured, since the DFL worked overtime to remove accounability from its biggest, most influential bloc of government-union supporters.

But we’ll know.

Who’s Watching The Kids?: The DFL promised that unionization of daycares would improve childcare. 

Easy prediction: the price of childcare will rise, as its availability drops.  More poor Minnesotans will be squeezed out of the market.  The Democrats will need to add a new subsidy program to try to lower the prices whose hikes were their fault to begin with. 

There’ll be more.

We broke down the GOP race for US Senate here.  We now take a similar look at the Governor’s contest.

—–

To listen to the polling establishment that gave us Govs. Mike Hatch, Skip Humphrey and the ’02 version of Sen. Walter Mondale, Republicans should just give up any notion that Mark Dayton could be defeated in 2014.  Dayton posts a 57% approval rating, up from 43% just this past February.  Of course, Tim Pawlenty was sporting a 54% approval rating around this time in his first-term, in what turned out to a nail-bitter of an election decided by Mike Hatch’s failure to attend his anger management class.  And Dayton’s polling numbers, like most politicians, seem to go up when the legislature is out of session and thus his name is off the front pages.

Unlike with the Senate race, GOP interest in the gubernatorial nomination is high and has attracted among the best Republican office-holders still standing after 2012.  The highest profile Republicans may have passed on running (Pawlenty, Coleman, Kline, Paulsen), but if the current crop of candidates represents the GOP “B Team,” they’re certainly stronger than the 2010 field.  And unlike 2010, they probably are more aware of what advertising deluge awaits the winner from the Alliance for a Better More Expensive Minnesota.

(more…)

Back in March, we broke down the various Republican contenders and pretenders looking to make a statewide bid in 2014.  Since then, there’s been a bevy of candidates and plenty of armchair analysis that’s been backlogged.

We start by breaking down the emerging GOP race for US Senate.  We take a similar look at the Governor’s race here.

—–

On the surface, Minnesota Republicans should have 312 reasons to want a strong challenger to Sen. Al Franken.

But with a party mired in debt and warring factions, and following a nearly one million vote margin of defeat against Sen. Amy Klobuchar, there have been ample reasons why Franken has been off the GOP radar as a potential target.  Running for Senate is an extremely expensive proposition, with a price-tag likely around $10-15 million minimum (Franken raised $22.5 million in 2008) – a tall order for anyone, especially candidates with limited name ID.

Still, Franken remains the candidate who won in a bitterly contested race and whom even Democrats had doubts about, hence the last-minute primary candidacy of Priscilla Lord Faris in 2008.  Franken leads potential rivals right now by margins around 15-16%, a testament in part to the incumbent’s name ID.  Keep in mind, Norm Coleman lead Franken by 15% as late as July of 2008 (an admitted outlier of a poll, to be sure), reminding activists of all stripes of the “tempest in a tea pot” nature of all polling data.

(more…)

Over the weekend, Governor MessingerDayton sent out a fundraising email blast (that didn’t involve asking Sotheby’s to help him hock a Renoir).

The interesting part (emphasis added)?

I ran for Governor because I knew that our state was falling behind. Cuts to education, endless gridlock, and budget gimmicks jeopardized our shared future.

We’re starting to turn Minnesota around by investing in our schools, training our workers, and, critically, recognizing the freedom to marry.

The school and “worker training” “Investments” are the usual double-talk, of course…:

But was gay marriage really “critical?”

I mean, sure – to gays marriage activists it was. And one can even argue it was (or was not) the right thing to.

But to the overall conduct of this state? Especially it’s economy?

If you’re a jobless mine worker? If you just got laid off from your medical device manufacturing job? If your company is moving to Texas? If you’re shopping for new daycare?

How “critical” was gay marriage?

Is gay marriage “critical?”

Kurt Zellers announced his candidacy for Governor yesterday, entering an increasingly crowded field.

And seconds after his announcement, the “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” – Alida Messinger’s union-and-plutocrat-funded attack-PR firm, henceforth “ABM”  – was out with the party line on Twitter:

@ABetterMN: Failed Speaker Kurt Zellers led a historic era of partisan politics. WATCH: http://bit.ly/16ukH99 #wrong4mn #mn2014 #mnleg #stribpol

(I wonder how “forcing daycare providers and personal care attendants into a union against their will so the DFL can get another $2M a year in “donations” will be spun as “non-partisan” by ABM and the media that parrots their chanting points without question?)

ABM, of course, is run by “Executive Director” Carrie Lucking.  She’s a former junior high social studies teacher who now runs Messinger’s little message shop; she ran the epic, toxic sleaze campaign that barely squeedged Mark Dayton over the top against Tom Emmer’s flawed campaign in 2010, and packed the polls with the uninformed in 2012. 

But what about in between?

Dave Thul was the first with the story:

@davethul: The irony of @ABetterMN’s ‘failed candidate’ mantra? Their Exec @CarrieLucking left teaching to become a Failed Campaign Manager. #stribpol

She was a “failed” campaign manager, working for a woman who had a failed marriage to a failed Senator. 

Oh, the video about Zellers that Lucking links to?

You be the judge.  But I’d call it an epic failure.

Carrie Lucking:   Remember – the greatest president of either of our lifetimes, Ronald Reagan, was a “failure” running for president.  Once.

Jeff Johnson is running for Governor.  Here’s his website, Facebook page and Twitter feed.

MPR’s Daily Current – whose Keri Miller is as reliable a PR flak as the DFL has – talked about the upcoming Governor’s race – with a panel of media libs:

After the Friday Roundtable taping wrapped up, Kerri threw one more question to our guests off the air: “Who is emerging as a GOP candidate to challenge Dayton?”

Patricia Lopez: “I don’t even know if that name is out there yet.”

Steve Perry: “The name I keep hearing in sort of an ‘if only’ vein from Republicans is Julie Rosen.”

Lopez: “She has not said ‘no’ and [I heard her give] what sure sounded like a stump speech. She just dropped by the office and I thought, ‘That sure sounded like a stump speech.’”

Brian Bakst: “She would be headed for a primary no matter what, though, because that stadium legislation that she co-sponsored would be a non-sale within the convention.”

Rosen’s generally good, with a few unfortunate traits, most notably her penchant for being among the first to work “across the aisle” – an inevitable last resort when you’re in the minority…

…which she was not, back in 2012, she led a small group of Republicans to ingratiate themselves with Helga Braid Nation without bothering to get any spending concessions from the Governor.

Of course, working with the DFL sans quid pro quo is one of the key criteria on getting the media to accept you…

…temporarily.

I direct you to Berg’s Eleventh Law (“The conservative liberals “respect” for their “conservative principles” will the the one that has the least chance of ever getting elected.”) and its various corollaries, especially the McCain Corollary (“If that respected conservative ever develops a chance of getting elected, that “respect” will turn to blind unreasoning hatred overnight”). You may be certain that if Keri Miller and Patricia Lopez are talking up Julie Rosen, that the Alliance for a Better Minnesota has a campaign in the pocket against her, all ready to go.

Perhaps “Julie Rosen: Stadiums for the 1%”.

Lopez – the editor of that notable bellwether for conservatives, the Strib – notes:

Lopez: “Think about how hard it would be for Dayton to run against a moderate, Republican woman. Yikes.”

I’m not saying Rosen might not be an excellent candidate. I’m willing to be persuaded. Seriously.

But the fact that a round table of de facto DFL apparatchiks – Steve Perry, for Stu’s sake – are mutedly humming her praises can’t be a good thing, right off the bat.

Rumors from some reliable-enough sources indicate 400-term DFL 7th District Representive Collin Peterson may retire by the end of this term.

This would give the GOP an opportunity for a big flip in a part of the state that, like the Dakotas, has sent farm-pork-mongering DFLers to Washington for decades, but otherwise is solidly red.  The 7th – which is, politically, a suburb of North Dakota anyway – would very likely elect a Republican, if a good one shows up and has a functional party behind ’em.

So, 7th CD readers (and, let’s be honest, everyone else); who do you see running for the House in CD7 in 2014?

Bill Glahn notes with appropriate incredulity that Governor Messinger Dayton, who has presided over a government that has jacked up taxes, increased the state’s bureaucracy, and eliminated the sunset commission that was intended to prune the glut of superannuated state commissions that put help put the “big” in “Big Minnesota Government”, is now trying to wrap himself in libertarianism:

The Strib:

Republicans have tried to frame Dayton as a big-government, big-­taxing Democrat. But his government streamlining pitch could appeal to independents, who could become a make-or-break factor in his re-election chances. Dayton’s approval among independents has slipped in recent polls.

Glahn, with emphasis added:

I suppose the Star Tribune could be correct. If independents have not been paying attention at all to state government in the last three years, then yes, a reform message may hold some appeal. Unlike the Star Tribune, I suspect that Dayton’s falling approval rating among independents is evidence that they have been paying attention to state government, and are not liking what they are seeing under one-party rule.

As the head of the executive branch of state government, Dayton could start streamlining any day. If permitting is cumbersome, he can change that. He needn’t wait for another election, or even another session of the legislature.

I agree with Bill – but I think he’s being too pollyannaish.

I think the Strib suspects the same thing – that Messinger Dayton needs his polling among indies buffed up.

And, being as they are part of Messinger Dayton’s Praetorian Guard, they are putting the story out there precisely to do exactly that; to give the DFL a chanting point for the 2014 campaign; “Dayton – the real liberty candidate!”

(SCENE:  MITCH Berg is bowling at the Minnehaha Lanes.  Avery LIBRELLE steps up to the next lane, laces up shoes as MITCH rolls a “6”).

LIBRELLE:  Hah hah, Merg.  You have nobody to run against Al Franken.  He’ll coast to another term.

MITCH:  Well, we’ll see.  The campaign is still very young.

LIBRELLE:  And the Governor’s race!   What, Jeff Johnson?  He ran for attorney General, and lost!  He’s over!

MITCH:  Er, Governor Messinger ran a couple of races and lost before he latched on as Senator and then Governor.  He ran what was at one point the most expensive failed race in state history again, back in the eighties.

LIBRELLE:  (Angrily) It’s Governor Dayton.

MITCH:  Oops.  Not sure how that happened.

LIBRELLE:  Pft.  Anyway, he’s  different!

MITCH:  You’re right.  He had an adoring media painting his toenails and covering up his issues.

LIBRELLE:  (Puts scoresheet on desk, steps up to the lane).  Waaah.

MITCH:  Well, you’ve got a point.  It’s a whole new race.

LIBRELLE:  (Elaborately prepares to roll ball; all sorts of shimmying and twitching) And what else?  You’v got Scott Honour.  He’s Minnesota’s Mitt Romney.

MITCH: (Rolls the second ball – misses the spare by one)  You say that like it’s a bad thing.  Two guys who actually earned their fortunes.

LIBRELLE:  Did you hear me?  He’s Minnesota’s Mitt Romney!  

MITCH:  Right.  I guess that makes Mark Messinger…er, Dayton – our George Soros.

LIBRELLE:  Hah hah hah!  There is no such thing as George Soros.

MITCH:  Hm.  (Mitch steps back to mark last ball)

LIBRELLE:  (Steps down the lane.  Backswings.  Forgets to release.  Hits self in face with ball.  Falls over)

MITCH: (Runs over to render assistance)  Avery?  You OK?  Can you hear me?

LIBRELLE:  (Dazed, incoherent)  I’m happy to pay for a better Minnesota.

MITCH:  I knew it.

(And SCENE)

Businessman Scott Honour threw his hat into the ring for governor yesterday.

“I love Minnesota. But I fear that our state is headed in the wrong direction, and under the wrong leadership. I know that the same people with the same political resumes are not going to solve our problems,” Honour said in a mass email. Honour has not run for any major political office before in Minnesota and several Republicans have said they may be interesting in challenging Dayton as well.

As soon as Honour made the announcement, Carrie Lucking tweeted:

I think Honour might have more yachts than Romney, judging by the pics. Potential slogan: Yachts for MN! ow.ly/i/1XQ6P

— Carrie Lucking (@CarrieLucking) April 24, 2013

and…

I’m surprised Honour doesn’t have a Scrooge McDuck money pool in the back yard.

— Carrie Lucking (@CarrieLucking) April 24, 2013

and…

I imagine Honour is against asking the rich…er, I mean him…to pay their/his fair share.

— Carrie Lucking (@CarrieLucking) April 24, 2013

Lucking, of course, is Executive Assistant Director of “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”, an organization largely bankrolled by a Rockefeller heiress, largely launched to aid the career of a feckless trust-fund baby; the organization is attacking a guy who actually earned his money, unlike any of Lucking’s benefactors.

And so it’s on to another campaign battling for the low-information voter.

Upon further review – the Minnesota Vikings spent a fortune to acquire their new stadium.

The Vaseline Dome has re-entered the media picture in the last few weeks, as new concerns have been raised about the viability of the electronic pull-tab funding mechanism which has fallen $13.2 million short of yearly estimates.  Or more accurately, completely fallen apart since the State had expected the pull-tabs to generate $15 million a year, putting the threat of needing general funds to finance a luxury item back on the table.

Flawed or not, the stadium financing figures aren’t the only numbers that have come to light in recent weeks.  We now know how much Zygi Wilf and company spent in their multi-year lobbying effort to build a stadium in the exact same location as their current home – $4,270,000.

Via MPR’s Capitol View and Paul Tosto

The Vikings were the 6th largest lobbyist group (by dollars spent) in the last six years.  And while the $610,000 spent last year as the stadium was finally approved was a drop in the bucket of the estimated $54 million spent by all lobbyist groups in 2012, the $1.5 million used by the Vikings during 2011-12 would have made them the 3rd largest lobbyist of the cycle. Even lobbying powerhouse Education Minnesota spent slightly less at the Capitol in that period.  Purple pride indeed.

$4.2 million for $975 million is a tremendous value (although the Vikings spent millions more in stadium-related advertising).  But the end product may not look like such a deal if the financing structure collapses in on itself.  Which begs the question – what happens when the State finally admits the pull-tab solution isn’t working?

The state’s $498 million share of the $975 million project is to be paid for through sales of electronic pull-tabs. But the final two pages of the stadium bill provide for two “blink-on” funding provisions as backups. The first is an NFL-themed lottery and the second, if necessary, is a 10 percent tax on luxury suites.

And what of the doomsday scenario, where all three provisions fall short of the money required for the state’s annual payments? At that point, from what I can tell, the state would have to produce money from its general fund — something Gov. Mark Dayton promised not to do when campaigning for the facility.

Would either of these other solutions generate the revenue necessary?  A Vikings-themed lotto doesn’t sound fundamentally different than the pull-tab concept.  The Minnesota Lottery brought in $123 million in profit last year, but that’s among 9 different games.  A 10th lotto isn’t likely to expand the number of people playing, only shrink the total amount left that would otherwise go into the State’s coffers.  Besides, over 70% of the funds generated by the lottery go either to paying winners or towards lottery administration.

The most likely end game for the Vikings stadium financing shell game lies within the 10% luxury suite tax.  Current suite rental prices aren’t terrible by NFL standards, running around $15,000 to $26,000 a game.  Slapping another $1,500 or $2,000 is unlikely to cause any corporation to abandon their suite, but certainly won’t make the Vikings happy as they compute what to charge going forward.

The only real problem with the luxury tax idea is that it was envisioned as a last-gasp measure, meant to fill in a minor funding short-fall – not the State’s entire share.  If the Vikings lotto goes the way of the pull-tab, that’s precisely what the tax will become.  And if that occurs, the political football of using general funds will be kicked right at Mark Dayton’s 2014 prospects.

Rep. Ben Lien (DFL Moorhead) was interviewed about two weeks ago on one of the Fargo TV stations by Fargo talk host Chris Berg (no relation that I know of).

This first question was in re whether Lien would support a business services tax increase (which was at that time on the table, but is putatively off it now):

The answer to the question “would you support these taxes?” from this very red-county Representative would seem to be “I’ll wait until I get my talking points from Alida”.

And asked if he believes Governor Dayton’s attacks on corporations – the idea that they are tax-avoiding sponges that don’t carry their fair share of the state’s tax burden – this one is hilarious:

Citizens of Moorhead – a fairly red place, indeed: what were you thinking?

(View the entire eight minute interview here)