The other day, my friend and moderate alt-media gadfly Marty Owings left a note in the  comment section of my original post on Steve Smith to dispute my notion that Rep. Steve Smith is a “RINO”.  (Similarly, I got a few emails from Republcans – and yes, conservatives – saying that I was unfair to Connie Doepke – or at least about her political record.  I’ve found few defenders of her apparent potemkin endorsement from Erik Paulsen).

As a former boss of mine used to say, “From Salt Lake City, “Way out East” is Denver”.  People bring different perspectives to the table; it’s a fair point that Smith had a Taxpayers League rating similar to Kurt Zellers’ (and it’s ‘fair to point out that an awful lot of fiscal conservatives’ TPL ratings were lower than you’d think they’d be).

Still, I do go with Buckley’s commandment – vote for the most conservative candidate who can win (or do so if you live in SD33 or HD33B, which I do not).

Is there any question that Cindy Pugh is more conservative than Smith?  There was no doubt before – and there’s less doubt after reading the GOP’s release yesterday about Smith:

St. Paul – Earlier this week, the Republican Party of Minnesota asked what Steve Smith was hiding by not submitting his 15th day pre-primary report to the Campaign Finance Board. Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman Pat Shortridge issued the following statement regarding campaign contributions received by Steve Smith:

“There is serious concern about Steve Smith’s priorities and voting record in St. Paul. Instead of fighting for our conservative principles, Smith’s voting record has gained the backing of union bosses. That’s not surprising given that, according to a new non-partisan study, Smith voted in the interest of taxpayers barely half the time.

“While Smith has ignored the law and refused to file his Campaign Finance Report, which costs him $50 per day in late filing fees and could trigger future civil penalties, GOP voters can gain some understanding of who is funding his campaign by looking at his 24-hour notices.

“He has received $500 from SEIU, $500 from Laborers District Council of Minnesota and North Dakota, and $500 from Minneapolis Municipal Retirement Association, a clear sign that union bosses in St. Paul are trying to buy the Republican primary for their handpicked candidate.

“Smith failed to fight for conservative legislation in St. Paul and thus, failed to secure the Republican endorsement. Now, he is deceiving voters by not releasing his fundraising numbers and allowing the voting public a clear picture of his priorities. He should follow the law, file his report, and let voters evaluate who’s funding his campaign.”

If the GOP’s charges are true – and I do in fact solicit any response from Smith’s campaign or defenders if it’s not – then that answers that “is Pugh more conservative” bit.

And it’s clear if Pugh wins the primary, she’ll win the election.

Governor Romney,

I supported you in the caucuses – as the conservative alternative to John McCain, no less – and I’ll vote for you this November as many times as Mark Ritchie will allow me to.   If I go into the polls smelling like hemp and wearing Birkenstocks, it might be quite a few times.

But I digress.

My friend Hugh Hewitt the other day broke down your VP choices like this:

• If your internal polling shows you comfortably ahead, you’ll go Pawlenty.  He’s safe, he gives you a shot in Minnesota and the upper midwest, and he’s got the technical part of the job down.
• If it shows you ahead but close, go with Rob Portman.  He’ll help you clinch Ohio, and he’s a safe, competent choice.
• If they show you a little behind, you’ll go Ryan.  He’ll cinch up the base and give you some “zing” for the final stretch.
• If you look way behind, you’ll go for the long ball to Chris Christie.

Maybe it’s my Scandinavian roots.  Maybe it’s a lifetime as a Bears and Cubs fan.  But I say always play like you’re behind.  Pick Ryan.

Oh, I know – you’ve got the same people who gave us McCain telling you it’s just too risky.

It’s really not:

Too risky, goes the Beltway chorus. His selection would make Medicare and the House budget the issue, not the economy. The 42-year-old is too young, too wonky, too, you know, serious. Beneath it all you can hear the murmurs of the ultimate Washington insult—that Mr. Ryan is too dangerous because he thinks politics is about things that matter. That dude really believes in something, and we certainly can’t have that.

All of which highly recommend him for the job.

…

The case for Mr. Ryan is that he best exemplifies the nature and stakes of this election. More than any other politician, the House Budget Chairman has defined those stakes well as a generational choice about the role of government and whether America will once again become a growth economy or sink into interest-group dominated decline.

Against the advice of every Beltway bedwetter, he has put entitlement reform at the center of the public agenda—before it becomes a crisis that requires savage cuts.

While jobs and the economy are the killer issues this election (or should be; the media in its role as Obama’s Praetorian Guard is doing its best to avoid that happening), entitlement reform is going to the the issue that decides whether this nation remains viable or not.

And unlike most liberals’ and “moderates'” approach to the issue, Ryan’s all about fixing it the right way; through vigorous growth:

 And he has done so as part of a larger vision that stresses tax reform for faster growth, spending restraint to prevent a Greek-like budget fate, and a Jack Kemp-like belief in opportunity for all. He represents the GOP’s new generation of reformers that includes such Governors as Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal and New Jersey’s Chris Christie.

As important, Mr. Ryan can make his case in a reasonable and unthreatening way. He doesn’t get mad, or at least he doesn’t show it. Like Reagan, he has a basic cheerfulness and Midwestern equanimity.

And the fact is that even if Romney doesn’t pick Ryan, the Dems are going to try to use Ryan as a negative anyway:

As for Medicare, the Democrats would make Mr. Ryan’s budget a target, but then they are already doing it anyway. Mr. Romney has already endorsed a modified version of Mr. Ryan’s premium-support Medicare reform, and who better to defend it than the author himself?

In for a penny, in for a dollar.

Republicans are likely to do worse if they merely play defense on Medicare and other entitlements. The way to win on the issue is go on offense and contrast Mr. Romney’s patient-centered reform with President Obama’s policy of government price controls and rationing medical care via a 15-member panel of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.

That, right there, is huge.  It’s a message that can resonate with both conservatives (who are sick of playing prevent defense) and moderates (who will, I suspect, respect a candidate who actually clarifies and personalizes the vague, too-big-to-process jeremiads they’re hearing about the issues facing this country.

And Romney needs to cement the base behind him.  Ryan would whip up the mass of Tea Party and western-conservatives that have been, to say the least, tepid on Romney so far.

If there’s anything that’d disturb the narrative on this election, it’s people getting “whipped up” by Romney.

Personalities aside, the larger strategic point is that Mr. Romney’s best chance for victory is to make this a big election over big issues. Mr. Obama and the Democrats want to make this a small election over small things—Mitt’s taxes, his wealth, Bain Capital. As the last two months have shown, Mr. Romney will lose that kind of election.

To win, Mr. Romney and the Republicans have to rise above those smaller issues and cast the choice as one about the overall direction and future of the country.

Americans have shown they will come together for the good of the country.  Pearl Harbor, 9/11, hatred of the Dallas Cowboys  – all have brought this fractured nation together.

Our very existence as an economy and a society?  That should count, too.

If we, as a party and a ticket, have the guts to make it an issue.

And if we don’t, then why bother trying to run for President, anyway?

So Gov. Romney – please pick Ryan.

Thanks.  And that is all.

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Republicans are going to get real tough on spending. Real tough. Any day now. Really.

Just not today. Today, we cave . . . again

Joe Doakes

Como Park

I don’t think “the establishment” – there, I said it – gets it yet. a full election cycle after winning entirely on the merits of people other than them.

I don’t live in SD33, but I like going there.  Living in Saint Paul – a one-party city where the miasma of stagnation and failure has been welling up from every storm-sewer grate since Randy Kelly left office – it’s always kind of fun to go to a place where you can smell prudence, frugality and just-plain success in the air.

Last spring it was my pleasure to drive out to Wayzata to give a nominating speech for Dave Osmek, conservative Mound city council budget hawk and long-time friend of the Northern Alliance.  I don’t live in 33, naturally, but support is support.

And it’s good to see I’m not alone: Rep. Erik Paulsen is apparently sure-footed enough in the districts newer, redder nature that he came out and endorsed Osmek.

It’s likely little surprise that Osmek’s primary opponent, Connie Doepke, has been endorsed by fellow Jamestown ND native but so-moderate-he-could-be-mistaken-for-a-sensible-Democrat former representative Jim Ramstad, as well as long-time Carlsonite GOPer Barb Sykora.

A little less intuitively, perhaps?  One of Osmek’s old opponents on the Mound City Council, Peter Meyer, is sounding off:

Many of you might be surprised by this letter. After battling with Dave Osmek for over three years on the Mound City Council, I’m probably the last person you might think would endorse him for state senate. But I’m here to tell you, Dave is exactly the kind of senator we need in Saint Paul.

Our nation and our state need leaders. While Dave and I disagreed over many issues, I have come to respect the work and effort he has made to keep Mound on a solid, fiscally conservative track. He actually has tracked every dollar spent since 2000, in every department, and holds staff accountable each year. And Mound has one of the highest bond ratings, a reflection of the success that saves us money every year.

Mound is one of those cities that, with the help of years of difficult fiscal discipline, have managed to wean themselves off of “Local Government Aid”, and do it fairly gracefully.

Why Dave now? Because we need a state senator that will fight to protect our freedoms, our liberties and our wallets. Dave’s opponent has experience, but isn’t the kind of strong advocate we need to make Minnesota great.

Dave won the SD33 endorsement over Doepke, who is a current Representative from the district.  I’ve had Doepke supporters in the area ask “What do you have against her?”  The answer is “Nothing – and I wish she’d stuck with keeping her endorsement in the House, and waltzing to an easy victory”.   I’m going with William F. Buckley philosophy – I support the most conservative candidate that can win.

And whatever Doepke’s merits as a conservative – and she has some merits as a conservative, and a few demerits, and we can debate the substance of each at another time – the fact is that Osmek has a more-solid conservative track record in the Mound City Council, and is running in an R+20 district that isn’t quite a mirror image of my own district in St. Paul (where the DFL could nominate Jerry Sandusky and win 60-40); Osmek’s more conserative, and he can and will win.  And after this last session, the proof is right in front of you; the Senate needs more honest-to-pete conservatives to backstop the likes of Dave Thompson, Dave Hann and Roger Chamberlain.

So while I have never intended any specific disrespect to Connie Doepke, I am doing what Buckley would do; supporting that most conservative candidate who can bring home the seat in November.

Because when the gavel rings down on the next session, the more of them that are in that chamber, the better.

Disease:  The deference that politicians show the imperial media.

Cure:   New Jersey Governor Christie, who ate and spat out a reporter at a press conference over the weekend:

Reporters were told the governor would only answer questions about a major problem at a water treatment plant, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.

Yet one reporter proceeded to ask an unrelated question involving the state legislature, as seen in video of the press conference from Monmouth County.

Christie, cutting him off, said: “Did I say on topic? Are you stupid? On topic, on topic. Next question.”

I have got to find the video.  And loop it.

As the reported tried to follow up, the Republican governor again interjected and ended the press conference.

“Thank you all very much, and I’m sorry for the idiot over there. Take care,” he said before walking away.

Of course, that’s the hallmark – and tool – of someone who isn’t worried about re-election, one way or the other.

Hugh Hewitt sounded off in the WashEx yesterday on two big myths about Tim Pawlenty:

First, his critics (who include no doubt backers of other horses) say Pawlenty is dull.

Other than Romney, I have interviewed Pawlenty more often than any other elected official over the past 12 years. With great certainty I can say he is easily the funniest, best interview of all the shortlisted candidates I have spoken with.

Hewitt notes something I’ve been saying all along; Pawlenty, in his element, is one of the best stump speakers in politics.  He’s not a thunderous stem-winder in the William Jennings Bryan mold – too many pols try and fail to rewarm that act.  But he’s affable, quick on his feet, and has a natural knack for relating to an audience.  He may be the most underrated orator in American politics today.

Because the hockey-playing, quick-to-smile former chief exec of the Gopher State is at ease with himself, he is similarly at ease in sit-downs with reporters, ready, willing and very able to give as good as he gets, and very disciplined when it comes to message delivery.

This is an enormous advantage in our media-soaked world, especially in these days of 24/7 news cycles and social media ubiquity. The candidates are always “on,” and the would-be veep needs especially to be out in the lists every day, doing talk radio, local television and endless fundraisers at which every cellphone is a potential game-changing link to the mainstream media.

I, myself, have not come close to making my own call for Veep (not that it matters); I have a few on my short list, with Jindahl, Paul Ryan and Pawlenty near the top.

Speaking to Hugh’s point about media presence – while I’m a big Bobby Jindahl fan, I note his one big oratorial asterisk – his one infamously disastrous appearance in 2008 – is something I’ve never seen TPaw do on stage.  Say what you will about him, the guy’s a 100% performer in front of a camera.

The second objection is Pawlenty’s failed presidential campaign, and the appearance of losing to Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich.

The answer here is the peculiar dynamic of the 2012 primary race, a dynamic Romney understands, having been caught in a crossfire in the race in 2008. Pawlenty ran into an early GOP primary electorate not looking to win the fall 2012 race so much as to promote vehicles through which to express anger at the president. That impulse — the demand for white-hot passion — played itself out as more and more Republican voters got serious about winning, but Pawlenty was its first victim.

This has been a huge issue throughout races, nationally and especially in Minnesota (see the MN Senate race, where activist passion slewed the race hard toward Kurt Bills, a candidate that would have been a dark horse under any normal circumstances).

There’s a third issue that dogs Pawlenty, especially among Minnesota conservatives – that Pawlenty is “not conservative enough”.  My response is “conservative enough for what?”   Conservative enough to win a conservative rhetorical beauty contest?  Of course not – he’s had his slips over the years.

Conservative enough when the chips were down to hold the line on taxes and stand by the principles for which he was elected (are you listening, MN Senate GOP caucus), at a time when a lesser governor could have found ample political cover to collapse like a Wal-Mart end table?

Absolutely.

It remains to be seen whether Hewitt’s attention will damage Pawlenty in this race – ask Pete Hegseth about the “Hewitt Curse” – but you should read the whole thing.

“The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.” – Abraham Lincoln.

As a matter of full disclosure, I’m a worker-bee volunteer at the Tony Hernandez for Congress campaign.

When I mention this to people in my relentlessly-DFL neighborhood – and among some of my stalkers on Twitter – I get some fairly predictable responses:

• “Wow.  Sounds like a difficult race“.  Stipulated!
• “You are teh looser! Bettty MacGolum will win teh race, and you shoud not even try two stop her!” More below.
• “Why?”

The “why” is easy; to win.  To send the first Republican to Congress since the 1940s from CD4.  Not to “move the needle”, or to make the DFL spend money to keep Betty in office, although both will be byproducts of a campaign to win the Fourth CD.  But this isn’t about half-measures and consolation prizes; it’s about winning.

Of course it’s a difficult race.  In 2010 – as good a year for the GOP as we’ve seen in recent years – Betty McCollum trounced Teresa Collett by 2:1 which, ironically, is the same margin of IQ that Teresa had and has over the Congresswoman.  Name every candidate in recent memory in the Filthy Fourth – Ed Matthews in 2008., Obi Sium in 2006, Patrice Battaglia in ’04, Linda Runbeck in ’00.  Every one of them would have made a better Congressperson than Betty McCollum who, near as we can tell, serves no purpose other than pom-pom girl for Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.

(No, seriously – read and listen to her.  She talks like a junior high kid trying to get through a civics class presentation.  Look at her website sometime; she seems inordinately proud of having rid America of the scourge of National Guard ads at NASCAR events – which seems to be her signal accomplishment.  Or something).

Nobody doubts that this is going to be a very, very tough race.  Just as the CD8 race in 2010 and the CD6 bout in 2008 were very, very tough races.  Nobody doubts that the DFL considers CD4 “their” turf.  And for the next ten years – until the next round of redistricting, with ten more years of DFL mismanagement driving more and more people out of Saint Paul and its’ more DFL-addled inner ‘burbs – it may well stay that way.  That’s life.

But CD4 isn’t the same district it was in 2010.

The way I see it, there are five paths to victory for Tony Hernandez.  And he is going to need to take all five of them for this to be a victory, or even an especially close race.

It’s Not Your Grampa’s Fourth CD – Redistricting didn’t do Betty any favors this time.  Where the old Fourth was as solidly DFL as could have been designed – Saint Paul and a bunch of DFL-addled inner ‘burbs – the New Fourth includes the entire swath east of Saint Paul all the way to the Saint Croix River, including Woodbury, Lake Elmo, Stillwater, and a slew of other suburbs full of people who, in many cases, fled the blight that the DFL brought to places like Saint Paul., Roseville and Maplewood.  They’ve spent years working hard, building communities run in many cases by good, solid, thrifty, competent conservative GOP city and county governments – working far to hard to see it all dumped in the sewer of incompetent, spendthrift, venal DFL perfidy that seems to have chased them down.  This is especially true of the wave of minorities who’ve moved to places like Woodbury, seeking decent schools and streets safe from that most noxious DFL constituency, petty criminals.

This is especially vital for Asian-American voters – those who moved up and out of Saint Paul to Woodbury because they were tired of a school system that marginalized their young men, and the ones who still live there and whose businesses along University have been sacrificed by the New Mandarins of the Met Council.

And for Latino voters, who came to America to find the kind of opportunity that McCollum seems to think awaits them only by dint of Government favor.

There’s also the little matter of all those Stillwater people sitting in endless traffic jams all summer because of the years McCollum spent opposing a new Stillwater bridge (before shamelessly flip-flopping).

It’s possible they may vote DFL.  We’re going to try to fix that.

Betty Is Long Past Her Shelf Date – McCollum has been in Congress for what?  Ten years?  And the interesting thing is this – election in, election out, her numbers just keep dropping.  Wave year or slow year, fewer and fewer people turn out to vote for her.  Oh, the unions keep funding her, and lavishly so, but when it comes to actual voters, even in landslide Democrat years, people just don’t care about her that much.

And they don’t have to – in a “safe” district where the DFL can traditionally run a set of wind-up chattering teeth and count on 55% of the vote.

But the Fourth isn’t like that any more.  It used to be a 70-30 district, maybe 65-35 in a bad year.  Now it’s probably more like 60-40.  Which is still a tough race – but it’s also about where the 8th CD was two years ago.  And we know how that turned out.

No Coattails:  The DFL can usually count of 40-odd percent of Minnesotans voting for whatever piece of crap the Democrats endorse for President, Govenror or Senate.  It’s a fact of life.

But Americans are much worse off than they were four years ago.  And to the extent Minnesotans are better-off, it’s because of GOP policies held to by Tim Pawlenty against the DFL’s best efforts, and by a GOP majority against Mark Dayton’s obstruction.

Now, the DFL’s paid PR arms – Common Cause and Alliance for a Better Minnesota – will be doing their best to try and obscure and confuse that fact.  It may even work – the 2010 gubernatorial election showed that 43% of Minnesotans are ill-informed, incurious, or just gullible – but they’ve got their work cut out for them, because in this election, Barack Obama is going to have all the coat-tails of a Daisy Duke tube top.

It’s Not Your Grandfather’s GOP:  While the Fourth CD GOP seems to be planning to be irrelevant in the coming election, it’s a different GOP than in previous years.  The Ron Paul surge brought a flood of new, passionate voters, activists and candidates to the fore.  In the past, I’ve challenged them to make sure they express some of that passion down-ticket from Ron Paul and Kurt Bills – and to a gratifying extent, many of them are.  There are more young Republicans running credible campaigns this year than in any year I can remember; unlike previous years when half the GOP legislative candidates were “warm bodies on the ballot” that didn’t fund-raise or door-knock, every single Republican race in CD4 this year is a real effort.

And that’s not all.  Four years ago, when it came to outreach among New Americans and minorities, the GOP had nowhere to go but up; it couldn’t have gotten any worse.  But over the past two years, conservatives – especially Dan Severson and his crew – have been actually doing the long-neglected work of building relationship among all those New Americans.  Will it make a difference in this election?  Perhaps – and the effort is as much about 2020 as about 2012.

So will the combination of newbie fervor, outreach and Obama and Dayton’s underwhelming record make a difference?

We’ll see.

Just Plain Passion:  Tony’s running a hard, aggressive race.  He’s got some good people working on his campaign – one of the fruits of the previous 4th CD GOP “establishment’s” effort to find and train campaign-management talent.  The campaign has nothing to lose, everything to gain, and is doing something the GOP in the 4th has tried before – taking the battle to the enemy – but hasn’t had the resources to pull off.

Will those five paths lead Tony to the Capitol?  Well, if I, a simple volunteer, have anything to say about it, absolutely.

Will it be a brutally tough race?  Absolutely.  But I’ll send you back to the Lincoln quote at the top.

And of course, these races don’t happen without help.  Tony’s campaign needs volunteers – and unlike some previous campaigns in the district, if you volunteer, you will be put to work!

And of course, money.  Betty McCollum can count on her masters, the government unions, to prop her up with close to a million dollars this cycle (because “Money in politics is evil”, as long as it’s not Democrat money).  If Tony’s gonna win – or qualify for any of the big national donors – he’s gotta earn money here at home.  If you can pony up a few bucks, please do.

Jesse Ventura was nothing but a fraternity prank run amok.  If you want to really shock the world – as in, make Chip Cravaack’s victory look like a fart in a tornado – let’s give Tony’s campaign a push.

I posted about this yesterday – but it came out in the afternoon, after most people have read my blog for the day.

So I’ll try this again:  I would like to ask you a favor.  Get out on Twitter and “Follow” Tony Hernandez’ Twitter account.

Tony’s running for Congress in Minnesota’s Fourth CD – my district, the district of Betty McCollum, who has been taking up space in the US House for a long, long time.

Conventional wisdom says the race can’t be won – that the 4th is just tooooo Democrat.

It’s not true, of course; it can be won.  Redistricting shaved down the DFL advantage from 70-30 to maybe 60-40.

And the Dems’ ugly secret – Betty McCollum isn’t even that popular among DFLers.  Her vote totals just keep dropping.  Oh, she raises all sorts of outside money – but her “passion index”, even in 2008., was pretty low.

I live in CD4, and I’m not going to lie – I’m ready for it to take ten years to make the GOP in CD4 a viable party.

But with a little help, we juuuuust might be able to jump-start things a bit.

Whaddya say?

Found Wednesday’s Stillwater Gazette story about candidates filling in the Stillwater and Washington County area; I’ll add some emphasis:

In District 4, U.S. Rep Betty McCollum is challenged in the Democratic primary by Diana Longrie and Brian Stalboerger. The winner of that race faces Republican Ron Seiford and Independence Party hopeful Steve Carlson.

Huh?

Missing someone?

The GOP’s endorsed candidate is Anthony Hernandez, who b eat Seiford 195-5 in the endorsing convention.  Seiford is going to take that seething pot for Ronmentum to the primary this August, not that anyone cares.

Now, I’ve always believed in Hanlon’s Razor – never chalk up to malice what might better be explained by laziness, overwork, under attention or whatever.

I’ve notified the editor.  We’ll see if there’s a correction today.

What this does tell us is that we Republicans in the Fourth CD have to have our own media.  Please “follow” Tony on Twitter.  Check out his website.  If you can donate a few bucks, or volunteer, so much the better.

The Fourth CD is always a long shot.  But via a combination of…:

• Redistricting making the district a lot more competitive
• Betty being a terrible candidate
• Tony being a great candidate
• All of that “Ron Paul” energy boinging around the 4th CD
• All those Stillwater and Washington County people who are wondering what Betty was thinking, voting against the new bridge…

…this is actually doable.  Provided we get a 150% effort from everyone, of course.

Sixty-eight years ago at about this time, American, British and Canadian soldiers, supported by the full weight of America’s industrial might, stormed ashore in Normandy to begin the liberation of Europe.

And for that first day – the near-debacle at Omaha, the fierce knife-range duel between the ships and the German shore guns, the Canadians’ brutal house-by-house advance off Juno Beach – the fact was that for all of America’s vast industrial might, the real arbiter of victory, and of the future of Western civilization, was the GI, the Tommy, the Jock, the Canuck, spurred on only by training and fear and guts and the skirl of Lord Lovat’s bagpiper.  It was they – not the wealth and the industry and the sheer firepower…

…who earned that victory, the first domino on the road to the liberation of the Old World.

———-

Yesterday, for all of the GOP PAC money that was poured into Wisconsin (enabled by the Wisconsin Democrats’ stupid decision to try to negate the elections of 2010, which in turn nullified applicable campaign finance laws), the victory similarly belonged to a few million Republicans – and not a few Democrats who had just plain had enough of childish petulance of the Wisconsin Unions and the party they seem to own.

It’d be specious to compare the courage of someone charging off a Higgins boat with someone going to the polls – which is, indeed, just exactly what the kid on that Higgins boat 68 years ago today was fighting for, so that voting need not be a life or death issue in this country.  (But it’s for sure some dim-bulb leftyblogger will claim that I’m making that comparison.  Mark my words.  That’s why I’m writing this here; I’ll mock them in advance).

But as a hard-fought first step toward this nation correction not just one mistake, Barack Obama’s misguided election, but indeed generations of mistakes that led the world’s wealthiest and most powerful significant nation into being a debtor state?  This is huge.

As Walker said, it‘s time for leaders who will make the tough choices, and fight for them.

Are you listening, Minnesota GOP Legislative caucus?

Are you listening, Mitt Romney?

The Tony Hernandez campaign is holding its Taco Party fundraiser.

It’s $30 per adult for homemade tacos and beer (for those over 21, naturally).

It’s from 5:30-7:30 this evening.  Details are available at the Hernandez Campaign website.

Connie Doepke filed to challenge Dave Osmek in the primary for the SD33 Senate race.

At the SD33 convention two weeks ago Osmek, a conservative with 11 years’ experience on the Mound city council – beat Doepke,  a GOP representative who left an extremely safe House seat to campaign for Gen Olson’s old Senate seat, after voting for the stadium and the New Generation Energy Act, to say nothing of supporting light rail. Osmek won with over 80% of the delegate vote, after Bonn Clayton committed his delegates to Osmek on the fourth ballot (the battle had been between him and Osmek – Doepke never got out of the twenties).

If you live in SD33, and want the GOP majority to be something other than a lapdog for Lori Sturdevant and Zygi Wilf, you need to turn out to help Dave.

For that matter, if you live in the western subs – usually safe territory for the GOP – you need to find the time to help Dave.  IF you live in:

• SD20 (Wright County)
• SD34 (the Maple Grove/Rogers area)
• Carver County/SD47 (assuming Senator Ortmann doesn’t get a challenge in the primary),
• And even SD44 (Plymouth/Minnetonka)

One of the most difficult jobs in politics is running for office as a Republican in Saint Paul.  You’re in a city that might, in a good cycle, be 30% Republican, and where a fair chunk of the city depends on government for a living, one way or another – university faculty, government workers, teachers, and of course many,. many clients.

It’s an uphill road.

And most years, what that means is districts with no GOP campaign – or, almost worse, “campaigns” that are intended to be warm bodies on the ballot to make it look like there’s some kind of contest going on.  The GOP in Saint Paul has no money, gets not much response.   There is currently not a single elected Republican in office anywhere in Ramsey County, and precious few conservative-ish Democrats (and even they are being purged, bit by bit).

Which leads, over the course of a few decades, to a debilitating ennui.  There are Republicans in Saint Paul; 30% of my Senate district voted for Tom Emmer and John McCain.  If every last one of them had turned out to vote in the SD66 Special Election last year, the GOP candidate would have won, and won big.  But Republicans in Saint Paul don’t turn out for local elections.  It’s my theory that they believe that their vote only really counts when it’s for a statewide or national office.  It’d be an easy thing to believe.

Last year, when I was “the establishment”, I figured it’d be a ten year job not only to make the 4th District GOP – which, after redistricting, covers St. Paul, Ramsey County, and the ‘burbs east of St. Paul all the way to the St. Croix – a functional party unit, but to get some sort of tradition of not losing badly all the time established, barring some sort of upheaval.

It’s too early to tell if the Ron Paul surge in Minnesota is that upheaval – but as I noted around convention time, there is at least the raw material to build some hope.

Six GOP candidates in the Fourth CD are getting together to hold a joint press conference at the Capitol today to push for a repeal of the stadium deal:

Meeting on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol on the morning of May 31, 2012, a coalition of six GOP candidates from the Twin Cities area announced their candidacy by setting the “Repeal of the Vikings Stadium Funding” initiative as their key legislative objective. Citing the irresponsible decision to use public funds for a private business and imposing new taxes and fees on the citizens of Minnesota without their consent, the legislative candidates expressed their frustration with the Minnesota legislature. If elected they plan on making their first legislative action the immediate Repeal of the Vikings Stadium Funding.

The press release for the event quoted Andrew Ojeda, the candidate from the Mac/Groveland area:

“Although a full repeal of the stadium bill (HF2958) appears politically infeasible at this moment, the 88-page document represents the fiscal irresponsibility that has engulfed much of the legislature. It is not based on honest T-Charts and balance sheets, but rather on ambitions of the here-and-now.”

And, more pithily, Carlos Conway, from 65B:

“This is nothing more than legislation that keeps the rich, rich and the poor, poor!”

Which puts them (and the other four, and yes, I’ll list ’em in a bit) squarely in the wheelhouse with the freshmen in the Legislature that fought so hard to keep this abomination off our tax rolls, and keep it from gutting what had once been due process in taxation in this state.

Quixotic?  Sure.  But as Lincoln said, “The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.”

A little more – OK, a lot more – follow-through like this and maybe this can be an interesting campaign season.

I’ll stick by everything I wrote last spring – if everyone that bum-rushed the caucuses for Ron Paul turns out to support this wave of candidates who are putting their shoe leather today where there mouths were at caucus and convention time?  And by “support” I mean “donate time for lit-dropping, phone-banking, door-knocking, sign-planting and, of course, money”?  And if the “establishment” buries its grudges for next caucus and convention time and turns out (as, I should add, it largely is)?   This could be a lot of fun.

Will we win?  The odds are very, very long.  In this election, barring a Cravaack-like miracle (which, like most “Miracles”, was built from hard work and organization), success will likely be measured by moving the needle.  And in two years, moving it some more.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

And that’s good in and of itself – because the DFL knows that if the GOP gets above 40% in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, they can never win another statewide election.

There are two sides to that knife, by the way; if the GOP is ever to turn this state red, we need to find new voters.  And we’ve pretty much gotten all the GOP voters we can out of Maple Grove and Isanti and Benton counties; the new GOP voters are going to come from the Iron Range, and the West Side of Saint Paul, and the scrappy little businesses along East Lake Street, if they’re going to come from anywhere.

By the way, as we noted last week, campaigns have until July 30 to meet their fundraising thresholds – $1,500 for House races, $3,000 for Senate, and only the first $50 of any donation counts toward the threshold – to qualify for campaign aid from the state.  Yeah, it’s not very libertarian, but you’ve already paid for it – why not help it go to a better cause?

The six candidates out there on the steps today were:

• Ben Blomgren, HD66B
• Andrew Ojeda, HD64A
• Daniel Lipp, HD 65A
• Carlos Conway, HD65B
• Rick Karschnia, SD 65
• Paul Tuschy, HD 52B

If you’ve got a few – even $10 – to spare, it’d go a long way.

As of today, barring a major electoral cataclysm, Mitt Romney should get enough delegates from the Texas primary to clinch the nomination.

Now, three months ago – back around caucus time – we had a lot of flags planted in a lot of beaches; “I’m for Newt, and if Mitt wins I’ll sit this thing out” and such.

Which was fine, back then, when the goal was to push for your candidates.  You wanted them to win; that’s why you push for them.  And as a secondary goal, you do it to push other candidates in the desired direction (and for most of us, that direction is “right”).

But today it’s all but official.  Romney’s going to be the nominee.

So – has that changed your approach to the campaign?

I don’t do “open thread” posts around here – but feel free to discuss amongst yourselves.

As we noted yesterday, House of Representatives candidates that can raise $1,500 in $50 increments can qualify for a sizable bump in financing from the state.

Each Senate district covers double the area,  so it has to raise double the money  – $3,000 – for double the bump.

Here are the MN Senate candidates in CD4.

SD 38 – Roger Chamberlain – I haven’t actually heard if incumbent Chamberlain has hit the hit the threshold yet – I wouldn’t doubt that he has.  But if you’re a Tea Partier, a Ron Paul supporter or a fiscal hawk of any stripe, Chamberlain is one of the brighter spots in what was a dismal year in the Senate.  It’d be a nice sign if he were not merely to win his race, but to crush his opponent.  He hasn’t updated his page for the new race yet – I’m sure that’s coming – but I suspect his “donate” link works just fine.

SD 39 – Ray Vandeveer Another incumbent, Vandeveer is a hawk that voted against the stadium and has been a solid conservative throughout.

SD 41 – Gina Bauman – Bauman, a New Brighton businesswoman and city councilwoman, is in her second campaign for the Senate.  She’s the kind of person we need more of in the Senate.  And SD41 is winnable – but getting the bump from the state would be a huge help. She’ll be up against Barb Goodwin.  Need I say more?.

SD 42 – April King is running in the new 42; the good news is it’s an open seat; the less-good news is that it’s one of those twisty-turny gerrymandered districts that pairs some good right-leaning districts up north with a few bat spittle crazy ones in Vadnais Heights.  But this is winnable; that extra bump from the state would help a lot. (UPDATE: I had an outdated link up there before; if you haven’t been there, go!  If you went to the old one, go back!)

SD 53 – Ted Lillie – Ted’s another fiscal hawk.  I suspect he’s doing fine – but again, the worse he crushes his DFL opponent, the better.  Any help will be appreciated.

SD 65 – Rick Karschnia‘s got a tough race – but I’l be donating, since it’s my district.

I have no idea why I’m posting this.

Honest.

It just jumped at me out of nowhere.

Really.

Last week, I asked – what role should a Congressional District GOP committee and administration have when it comes to assisting its associated Congressional District’s congressional candidate, as well as its various BPOUs’ legislative races?

Yesterday morning, I went over some of the feedback I’d gotten.  And yesterday at noon, we looked at an email by newly-elected 4th CD GOP chairman John Kysylyczyn which seems to mean that he thinks that, as regards the district’s various races, there really is no role – and that, in Kysylyczyn’s own words, “To be frank, it does not matter if we are up to any particular speed for this fall’s elections…I sat down the first week on the job and read the state and CD constitutions and the bylaws. My analysis is strictly based off of those documents”.

In writing this series, I wrote to Kysylyczyn to ask him what he, the chairman, thought the role of the 4th CD in fact was.  His response:  “I read your blog and with all due respect, it didn’t rise to a journalistic standard where I would feel comfortable participating”.   Further:  “Because I own a print newspaper, maybe my standards are unreasonable high, but they are my standards and I would ask for your understanding”.

Are Kysylyczyn’s standards as a print newspaper owner too high (he owns the Anoka County Recorder, a paper that prints public notices, syndicated copy and press releases)?  Are mine too low?

Maybe he’ll answer questions for the mere peasants who live and work and try to support a party in the 4th CD?

UPDATE:  Yesterday, on the CD4 Facebook page and website, it was announced that the district will have its first full committee meeting, on June 11.

What else do you notice about the CD4 website/blog?

Elections take money.

Especially if you’re a Republican in what is, for GOPers, a pretty hardscrabble place, the Fourth Congressional District, where the GOP is in an extended period of rebuilding, even as it faces the smothering miasma of union money keeping the DFL fat and happy and fat once again.

Minnesota does, however, offer a bit of a leveler; campaigns that meet a certain threshold in donations get a nice chunk of matching money from the state.  (Yes, it’s government funding of elections – but I’m paying for it, so I’m going to do my best to help my party use it).

Here’s the deal:  candidates for the House of Representatives need to raise $1,500 – in denominattions of $50 or less – to qualify for this match.  In other words, 30 $50 donations, or 1,500 $1 donations, or 150 $10 gifts, all work.  15 individual $100 donations, however, only count for $750 – only the first $50 of each donation counts.  A single $1,500 donation would only count for $50 (and is, I suspect, illegal anyway).

Anyway – the GOP candidates in the 4th CD need to top that threshold to get that money, which in turn gives them both a reasonable amount of money to work with as well as giving them proof they are viable races for purposes of bigger, better fundraising later in the race.

So I’m going to ask you to help out by ponying up something – anything – to help out these GOP candidates for the Minnesota House in the 4th CD. The list, by the way, includes challengers for seats; I’m not going to include incumbent Republicans (of whom redistricting has brought several to the 4th CD; also, for now I’m only including candidates with websites), along with notes about their current fundraising status.

HD 42A – Russ Bertsch

HD 42B – Ken Rubenzer

HD 43A – Stacey Stout – Stacey may have actually hit the threshold.  While she’ll be happy to get any help she can, she may be set – for purposes of matching the state threshold.

HD 53A – Pam Cunningham:  Pam’s about 2/3 of the way there; she’s got about $500 to go.  She’s doing well, but could use any help she can get.

HD 64A – Andrew Ojeda is about halfway there and climbing.  He’s in a tough district – but he’s a good candidate.  Help if you can.

HD 64B – Brandon Carmack is fairly new to the race, running against eleventy-teen term union tool and stadium stooge Michael Paymar.   He could use a financial leg up.

HD65A – Dan Lipp is running against Rena Moran in my district.

HD 65B – Carlos Conway is in one of the tougher districts – but one where he should be able to make a dent, a heavily Hispanic district for whom Obama’s tenure has been a disaster.  Let’s make this one a fight, shall we?

HD 66A – Mark Fotsch and HD 66B – Ben Blomgren are running against Alice Hausman and John Lesch, two DFLers that will be kept alive in suspended animation by the unions for centuries if that’s what it takes to keep their reliable votes.  They could both use a hand.

Senate tomorrow.  The Hernandez campaign on  Wednesday.

At last month’s 4th Congressional District GOP convention, John Kysylyczyn was elected Fourth CD chairman after a short, acrimonious campaign.  He unseated Jim Carson, the architect of Senator Roger Chamberlain’s successful Senate race in 2010 – which was, before redistricting, one of the Fourth CD’s very, very few successful elections.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was the Secretary for CD4.  I was “the establishment” – for exactly a year.  And I did purely because someone challenged me, once upon a time, to put up or shut up; as a pundit, I freely criticized party officials who I felt were falling down on the job; they asked me if I thought I could do it myself.  They had a point.

And so I got involved,  And I found that some of it, I actually can do!  Anyway – I have no ambition within the party except to help good (i.e., conservative) people get elected.  Which its he same ambition I have outside the party – on this blog, and on my show.

Long explanation short;  No sour grapes.  To blame this article series of articles on “sour grapes” is to dodge the point.

Which is why I’m elaborating on the point so careully.

———-

Beyond that? I’m not one of the “establishment” Republicans who are especially upset that the Ron Paul crowd took over.  Especially in the Fourth CD, the influx of passionate newbies is more than welcome.  I’m a former big-L Libertarian; I disagree with Ron Paul, but I agree with 80% of what his supporters believe.  Oh, I believe the baby got thrown out with the bathwater – the 4th was making some headway – but as a general thing, I think some good people got elected to BPOU and Executive Committee offices.

Now, Twin Cities Republican activist, attorney and blogger John Gilmore is upset.  John – a Saint Paul GOP activist and one of the bloggers at Minnesota Conservatives, has railed against Ron Paul and his movement since the very beginning.

And some of his railing is pretty acerbic…:

The hideous Ron Paul invasion of the Minnesota Republican Party is not quite over–the denouement known as its state convention in St. Cloud this weekend awaits–but enough evidence is in hand to draw some grim conclusions for those who are not enamored of a Jew hating fringe cult political figure who speaks to alienated, fairly ignorant and frequently unwashed lost souls. There are just enough exceptions to this characterization on an individual basis to prove its general truth.

The Paul zombies™ tried their best last cycle and were rebuffed by the party establishment. To these strange persons this was akin to living in North Korea. Their bleating about tyranny is perhaps the easiest example by which to show how they are simply not serious people in a political sense. They have no idea what tyranny is except the infantilized one fed them by friend of David Duke Ron Paul.

…and some of it was counterproductive, in my humble and inbidden opinion; John’s a friend, but let’s be honest; he’s about as subtle as Jesse Ventura on a coke binge; if you know John, you know I’m right.  Right?

Notwithstanding that, I generally support John, because he’s generally right, or at least right enough.

At any rate, at the last convention, CD4 got a new chair – former Roseville Mayor Kysylyczyn (who, combined with deputy and incumbent vice-chair Mike Boguszewski, gives CD4 the least-spellable executive 1-2 team in Minnesota politics).

And while the leadership at different Congressional Districts has many ideas about what the CD committee should do when it comes to helping races for the Legislature and the district’s affiliated US House seat (as we discussed this morning), Kysylyczyn seems to have a different one altogether, if one is to believe an email he apparently sent to CD4 activists. (Gilmore carries the letter in its entirety; I have a copy of the whole message):

…CD’s have nothing to do with legislative races.  It is clearly stated in the constitution.  We also have little to do with the congressional district race.  We are not the candidate’s committee.  In fact, we are not the committee of any candidate running for office this fall.

The email was apparently in response to concerns that, in the month-and-change since the CD4 convention, the 4th CD has not held a committee meeting.

Kysylyczyn (with emphasis added by me):

To be frank, it does not matter if we are up to any particular speed for this fall’s elections.

If you are a Republican in the Fourth CD, you may be wondering if you read that right.  Did the Chair of the 4th CD GOP, in the middle of a hotly-contested election season, coming off a redistricting that gives CD4 Republicans a welcome boost in numbers, really just say the district doesn’t really need to be “up to any particular speed” come election-time?

We’ll come back to that.

I understand that many may not agree with this or maybe things have been done differently in the past.  As someone new to the position, I sat down the first week on the job and read the state and CD constitutions and the bylaws.  My analysis is strictly based off of those documents.

Now, I can’t speak for Kysylyczyn (and as we’ll discuss in tomorrow’s installment, either will Kysylyczyn). but I’ll try to summarize what the thinking appears to be, here:  the constitution doesn’t say we have to do anything, so we won’t.

Read the Minnesota and CD4 GOP Constitutions – I did. The Consitutions spell out relatively few actual duties; elect officers, hold endorsing conventions where delegates elected by BPOUs endorse candidates for Congress, elect State Central Committee members and State and National convention delegates when needed, and a bunch of other little bits of electoral administrivia.

But the two Constitutions are pretty silent on lots of things that Congressional Districts do as a matter of course; fundraising, Voter ID and database maintenance, organizing volunteers, working with candidates, or allowing committee members to go to the bathroom during meetings, for that matter.

And yet Congressional Districts do – and in the 4th CD, did – all those things.  The 4th CD has a few thousand dollars in the bank.  What does the Constitution say to do with it?

Kysylyczyn:

There seems to be this mistaken belief that the CD is some sort of super campaign committee.  It is not.  There also seems to be this mistaken belief that CD’s win elections.  This is not true.

While it’s entirely possible that there are people who believe those things, it’s not nearly as important as the question “then what is a Congressional District Committee there for?”

Marshaling volunteers?

Helping with fundraising?

Transferring expertise?

Collecting and helping to maintain voter lists?

Candidate committees win elections.  There also seems to be a mistaken belief that CD’s sort of bind together BPOU’s that choose to operate as house districts.  This is not true.

So what is true?

If the 4th CD isn’t there to help provide expertise and data and boots on the ground to the BPOUs, and to help drum up help and fundraising and volunteers for the Congressional candidate…

…then what is it there for?  Why does it exist?  To hold conventions, to elect officers, and to kill time until the next election cycle?

Remember – campaigns come and go with electoral seasons. The party?  It’s the part that’s there between the elections.

We’ll come back to the actual “role during campaigns” bit.  Kysylyczyn responds to questions about the dearth of meetings since the CD4 convention (emphasis added):

We are required to hold four full committee meetings per year.  It is my intention to have 4 full committee meetings a year.  It is my intention to have actual agendas for meetings and a real purpose for having a meeting.  Every time we have one of these meetings, there is potentially 100 of our best volunteers who are not spending an evening on the campaign trail.

The emphasized bit is a red herring.

While the 4th CD held monthly meetings over the past year, those were suspended during the thick of campaign season; Carson made it clear that campaigning came first, and excused committee members readily and without question for campaign activities.

Sum total of volunteers taken off the street during committee meetings in 2011:  0.

In the past, there appears to have been a cattle call mentality concerning the calling of meetings.  Just have one every month.

I’m not aware that John Kysylyczyn attended a meeting at CD4 over the past year.  I certainly did – I was the secretary, and except for three meetings where family health issues intervened, I was there for every one.  None of them were held for “the sake of holding meetings”.

It doesn’t matter if we have any agenda.  Don’t bother sending out agendas.  Whoever shows up does.  Fill the time allotted.  To be clear, I do not operate in this fashion.

To be clear and honest, either did Jim Carson.

But all that is administrivia behind the real question:  if the CD4 leadership doesn’t plan on doing something to help candidates – even something as simple as being a clearinghouse for volunteers, training, and the social engagement that helps bring a district together in pursuit of a common electoral cause – then what is it there for?

A launching pad for delegates to Tampa, with quarterly meetings to look at the slide shows?

The big question is this: If you’re a Republican in the 4th CD, do you think your CD should be sitting on the sidelines during the campaign, as the email seems to indicate Chairman Kysylyczyn says it should?

———-

In the interest of fairness, one might ask “is that really what Kysylyczyn meant to say?”

It’s a good question.  More on this tomorrow morning.

In a post in this space last week, I asked what was the role of the eight various Congressional Districts in the various campaigns within the various districts.

Beyond that, I asked the same question of people from seven of the eight Congressional Districts in the Minnesota GOP.

And notwithstanding that the Minnesota GOP Constitution is more or less silent on the issue – it literally says nothing – I got a lot of answers.

Congressional District committees throughout Minnesota…:

• Help provide Congressional and Legislative campaigns with volunteers for phone banks, lit-dropping and other campaign-time activities.   This is especially important in districts where there is wide disparity in the number of Republicans – like, say, the Fifth, where some districts need a lot of help to carry out a credible campaign.
• Assist legislative races with fund-raising expertise and contacts – very important, especially in a party that relies on so many young candidates who are not professional politicians.
• Help Congressional campaigns put extra feet on the street; while campaigns tend to come and go, the Districts tend to have a certain continuity, including bodies of volunteers that have been working campaigns forever.
• Provide training to new campaign teams at the legislative (and lower) level.  For example, say a candidate in District  68 is going for the Minnesota House, and needs a campaign manager, a communications director and a volunteer manager.  The candidate rounds up three motivated volunteers – who between them have never managed campaigns, directed communications or scheduled, trained and directed volunteers.  The Congressional District is, often as not, able to put those three newbies in touch with people in the District who’ve done the jobs before, and who are happy to help spread the knowledge.  If done properly and consistently, the Congressional District can build a hardy corps of “middle managers”, people who’ve got some background at running the blocking and tackling of campaigns – the “unsung hero” stuff well behind the scenes of a successful campaign.

That’s the feedback I got from people in theFirst District GOP.  And the Second, Third, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth.

But in the Fourth CD, there seems to be a different answer, from at least one quarter.

Nothing.

Zip.  Bupkes.  Nada.  Zilch.

More at noon today.

Join Mitch Berg, Brad Carlson and Ed Morrissey live on the Northern Alliance Radio Network at the Minnesota State GOP Convention in St. Cloud.

We’ll be talking with…:

• Chris Fields, MNGOP candidate against Keith Ellison in CD5
• Marianna Stebbins, architect of the Ron Paul surge that’s had such an impact on the MNGOP lately,
• Michael Warren of the Weekly Standard
• Former State Rep Laura Brod
• Brandon Carnack, candidate for HD64A
• Much much more as the day goes on.

Join us from 1-3PMO on AM1280, or on the webstream!

If you are a MNGOP activist, and you live in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th Congressional Districts, I have  a question for you.

What involvement does your district have with your district’s congressional andn legislative races?    How does your Congressional district assist your various campaigns at all levels?

Just looking for info, here.

Just leave me an answer in the comment section.

Thanks in advance!

UPDATE AND CLARIFICATION:  And while I do love hearing from all my friends here in the comment section, this post is not intended as a clearinghouse for reasons one is not an activist anymore.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been listing a few reasons conservatives should take some limited encouragement from the outcome of the stadium vote.  The “Tea Party” freshman class largely did the job they were sent to Saint Paul to do.

But there’s an (heh heh) elephant in the room.  Every Republican in MInnesota knows it.

While Republicans coming off of epic Tea Party-driven victories elsewhere in the country are fighting the battles that come from being ahead of the bad guys – Walker apparently beating back the recall, Republicans in Indiana,  dispensing with the past-his-shelf-date Dick Lugar and the ones in Utah perhaps on the edge of doing the same with Hatch, thinking about taking the House and the Senate, making some serious headway against the Democrat/Union machine in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania – the sorts of things you can do when you’re focused on expanding on the gains like we got in 2010.

But here in Minnesota?

I remember in the early days of this blog describing Minnesota Republicans as “battered spouses” – people who are used to being dominated, controlled and abused, but think if they just give a little moreˆ, work a little harder to be a better partner, maybe it’ll all be OK.

I, like all Minnesota conservatives, had hoped that that had changed.  But this session was a trip back to the future.

I’m not going to say that the  GOP leadership  in the House and Senate spent tthe session pining for the approval of Lori  Sturdevant, or blithely hoping that iif they just gave enough, the DFL would come along and act like responsiblee adults,, or believing that acting in good faith with the Governor Dayton would cause him to act as anything but an office temp for Alita  Messinnger and Elliot Seid…

…but if I try to answer the question “if they were doing all of that, how would  they have acted any differently?”, I don’t have much of an answer.

The DFL is calling the past session a “Do-nothing” legislature.  And it’s a sad fact that the  best we can say about it is that it really wasn’t; as I noted yesterday, they weren’t.

But they dropped the ball on “Right to Work” and “LIFO” – as if giving in to the unions’ threats would keep the unions from working tirelessly against them?

And they bobbled the tax bill, letting the governor veto it twice while caving in on the stadium, giving the Governor a trifecta of cheap victories almost, it seems to the outside viewer, without having to break a sweat.

I’ve heard a few conservatives – angry business people – say they may not support the GOP this cycle, hoping to “teach the party a lesson”.  I think that’s a huge mistake – this state can not deal with two years of absolute DFL hegemony.   And I think most businesspeople know that.

But I think the takeaways from this past few weeks are::

1. The Tea Party class of freshmen – obstreporous and savvy, with no real desire to win the Lori Sturdevant/Keri Miller “Good Bipartisan Schnook” seal of approval – are what we need more of.  They are genuine conservatives, and provide a genuine alternative to the DFL.  Collegiality with the DFL comes in well behind doing what they were sent to Saint Paul to do.
2. The leadership has to change.  If it doesn’t, there is no reason to give the GOP any credibility as conservatives if they can’t work like they have a majority – which, after this session, we will have to work like hell to  hold.

Just as the MNGOP administrative operation needs to overhaul its financial opperation, the GOP caucus in both chambers needs to change its approach, and act like a majority caucus.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve analyzed the votes of the Legislative GOP caucuses on the stadium votes over the past few weeks, and found that if you’re a conservative voter, you have some reason to take consolation; the legislators we sent to the Legislature in 2010 on a conservative platform largely – not perfectly, but largely – stuck with their principles.

How about the DFL?

Heres’ the interesting part:  Look at the DFLers in the House and Senate who voted “no” on the Stadium deal.  Don’t worry, it won’t take long; not many DFLers could bear the thought of not giving Wilfare to a billionaire:

• Allen
• Carlson (Lyndon)
• Clark
• Davnie
• Dibble
• Dziedzic
• Eaton
• Falk
• Greene
• Greiling
• Hansen (Rick)
• Hausman
• Hayden
• Hornstein
• Kahn
• Laine
• Lenczewski
• Liebling
• Loeffler
• Lourey
• Marty
• McGuire
• Mullery
• Murphy (Erin)
• Pappas
• Paymar
• Scalze
• Torres Ray
• Wagenius

With the exceptions of Rep. Falk and Senator Lourey, every last one of them is from the metro area.  They represent (or, for some of us, “represent”) the people who will actually be stuck with the lion’s share of the tax burden for all of those purple-clad horn-blowing tail-gating Bud-chugging freeloaders’ “family traditions”.

The rest of them?  From 18-term dinosaur Mary Murphy to first-term carpetbagger Carly Melin, from Eastsider Jon Lesch to suburban grandée Nora Slawik, from Iron Range glad-hander Tom Rukavina to smirky suburban snark-bot and Eddie Haskell impersonator Ryan Winkler, they’re the ones who figured billionaire Zygi Wilf deserves your money more than you and your family do.

Here they are:  Anzelc,Atkins, Bakk, Benson (John), Bonoff, Brynaert, Champion, Cohen, Dill, Dittrich, Eken, Fritz, Gauthier, Goodwin , Harrigton, Higgins , Hilstrom, Hilty, Hortmann, Hosch, Huntley, Johnson (Sheldon), Kath, Kelash, Knuth, Koenen, Langseth, Latz, Lesch, Lillie (Leon), Mahoney, Mariani, Marquart, Melin, Metzen, Moran, Morrow, Murphy (Mary), Nelson (Michael), Norton, Pelowski, Persell, Poppe, Reinert, Rest, Rukavina, Saxhaug, Sheran, Sieben, Simon (Steve), Skoe, Slawik, Slocum, Sparks, Stumpf, Thissen, Tillberry, Tomassoni, Ward, Winkler and Wiger.

They’re the ones that practice Cy Thao’s classic if inadvertent dictum of “progressive” politics – “when we win, we take your money; when you win, you get to keep your money”. And Larry Pogemiller’s even better “it’s silly to think that the people can spend their own money better than the government can”.

Does the GOP need to get more conservative?  Do its less conservative members need to shape up or get out?  Absolutely.  And hopefully we’re not done with that process this election season.

But let’s not forget who invented “overtaxation” and “subsidizing the 1%” in this state.

Tomorrow – what the MNGOP needs to do.  Says me.

I’ve heard not a few conservative voters groan in frustration over the stadium vote this past few weeks: “why did we even bother voting for the GOP in 2010?”

And watching the way some “conservative” legislators caved in at the first sign of beer-gutted yahoos and their husbands flouncing about the halls of the capitol with their faces painted purple and the bratwurst-grease stains on their sweatpants concealed by the crocodile tears they were squirting at the thought that the taxpayers would let Zygi Wilf take all their precious family memories to California, it was easy to feel discouraged.

One might feel justified in asking – do any of these people have any cojones at all?

But a look at the numbers from the vote shows there’s a little more than that to be hopeful for.

———-

As I noted this morning, the Legislature voted by a  thin majority to support the stadium.  That majority included a sizable minority of the GOP caucuses.

Most of the GOP caucus did, in fact, vote against the stadium.

But it’s when you break down the caucus by class that you see the real distinction.

Let’s look at the House first.

Of the 71 House GOP caucus members, 33 voted Yes and 38 voted No.   Ten of the votes came from Freshmen Republicans (Fabian, Kiel, Kriesel, LeMieur, Murray (Rich), O’Driscoll, Schomaker, Swedzinski, Vogel and Woodard ) voted “Yes” – all of them but the retiring John Kriesel from outstate.  The other nine certainly owe us some answers.

But 18 of the “No” votes came from first-term Representatives (Anderson (Diane), Banaian, Barrett, Benson (Mike), Bills, Crawford, Daudt, Franson, Gruenhagen, Kieffer, Mazorol, McDonald (Joe), McElfatrick, Myhra, Petersen (Brandon), Quam, Stensrud and Wardlow).   They’re from all over the place; they were a majority of the GOP “No” votes, while the Freshmen were about a third of the “Yes” total.

Put another way?  The “No” voters had served an average of less than 2.5 terms; the “Yes” votes, an average of four terms.

In other words, the average “No”-voting Republican in the House came to office after the debacles of 2006 and 2008, and most of them in 2010; they remember the price of moderate hamsterism, and they rejected it when the chips were down.   The average GOP “Yes” voter has been there a while – in the cases of some of the old-timers, maybe too long.

In the Senate, the pattern holds: of 37 Republicans in the Senate, 15 voted “Yes” and 22 “No”.  That’s 60% of the Senate GOP caucus holding the line (it was 54% in the House).

And if you look at shelf life?

Of the “Yes’ votes in the Senate, only five (Carlson, Magnus, Miller, Nelson and Pederson) were freshmen.

But on the “No” side, of 22 votes, 15 were freshmen (Benson, Brown, Chamberlain, Dahms, Daley, DeKruif, Gazelka, Hall, Hoffman, Howe, Kruse, Lillie (Ted), Newman, Thompson and Wolf).

Put another way, the average “Yes” voter has spent just shy of three terms – almost 12 years, on average – in Saint Paul (and if you leave out the freshmen, it’s closer to four terms on average).

On the other hand, the average “No” voting Republican has been there a little over a term and a half (the seven long-timers voting “No” included indefatigable conservatives like Gerlach, Hann, six-termer Warren Limmer, Nienow, Ortman, Parry and Vandeveer, people who survived the debacles of 2006 and 2008 for good reason).

———-

So what’s the conclusion?

Conservatives can console themselves ever so slightly in the wake the stadium debacle in the fact that legislators elected after conservatives took real control of the GOP did, in fact, vote overwhelmingly conservative during the stadium debacle.

And fortify themselves with the absolute knowledge that we have to get more of the same in Saint Paul.

So what do we do about it?

More tomorrow.