I attended the GOP caucuses in 66B last night.

Attendance was down from two years ago, which answers the question “will the Paulbots keep their energy and influence?”   But it was way, way up from two years before that , which is a good thing; non-presidential-year caucuses are frequently painfully slow.

In my precinct, the Seifert machine was in full effect; Marty won my precinct pretty handily.

Statewide?  Emmer closed the polling gap he had at the Central Committee straw poll; he’s just a tad over 10 points behind Seifert.  Hann got about five points, so he could well be in a position to be a kingmaker at the state convention in May.

So it’s off to the BPOU (in Saint Paul, that’d be State House District) conventions on March 2!

It’s precinct caucus night.

“But where’s do I go, Mitch?”

The MNGOP has it all right here.

You can also follow, and post on, your caucus on Twitter using the #MNGOPCaucus hashtag.  You can also add an MNGOP Caucus Twitter Ribbon to your avatar (I refuse to call it a “Twibbon”, I’m sorry) at this link, if you’re so inclined.

It’s pretty simple; if you’re there, you come in, you vote for precinct officers (someone can feel free to don my mantel as precinct chair!), you vote for delegates, you vote for resolutions, and at the end you get to vote in the “preference poll”, the straw poll for Governor among other races.  (Note; while the DFL lets you vote the preference polls and just leave, in the GOP the preference polls are the last event of the evening).

It’s going to be a fun year; the Tea Party crowd will hopefully turn up and continue the work the Paulbots started two year ago, reinvigorating and pushing the party to do better.

(And if you’re looking for a DFL “Assimilation Brings Joy” meeting, go here)

Tomorrow is caucus night in Minnesota.

Republicans will gather at hundreds of community centers, schools, city halls, auditoriums and libraries around the state to vote for resolutions, local party leadership, and – most importantly – delegates to go to their House District (called “BPOU”, in curious MNGOP parlance) conventions, there to begin a process of delegate selections and candidate endorsements that will end at the State Convention from April 29 through May 1; each round of conventions will, in turn, endorse state legislators and representatives, Congressional candidates, and candidates for Governor as well as the other constitutional offices, and any local races in play.

And if you have a vision for the Minnesota Republican Party, now’s the time to speak up.

I’ll be going, of course; I’m the convener for my precinct in the Midway.  I’m hoping we continue the fantastic turnout from the 2008 cycle; that year, the hordes of energetic Ron Paul supporters stormed the gates, and in so doing energized the party, motivating it to actions that had eluded it for many years.

This year, the Tea Party movement – a cousin of the Paul campaign, but broader and not focused on any personalities or, indeed, any parties – will no doubt dominate the discussion at the conventions.  While the Tea Party movements are, in fact, non-partisan, there is just no room for that sort of populist-libertarian philosophy in the DFL, and the Independence Party is a joke that will likely lose major-party status this election.  (And yes, I have friends in the IP, so I know this’ll lead to an argument or two – but it’s the truth; the “Independence” Party, AKA “DFL Lite”, without Jesse Ventura, is just another self-marginalizing third party, existing only as a spoiler; even Minnesotans, as flighty as they are, are getting tired of the joke.  Any party that can consider Dean Barkley a serious candidate deserves to fade, and quickly).

Who’s doing to be the winner?

We won’t know for sure until we get to each level of endorsing convention, of course.  But the big ‘tater is obviously the Minnesota Governor race, along with the various Constitutional Office races (Secretary of State, State Auditor and Attorney General).

For governor, it’s a tough call this year.  There are three great conservatives running for the nomination this year; Dave Hann, Tom Emmer and Marty Seifert.  Each of them has a fairly impeccable conservative record (tempered by, yes, a few of the compromises that politicians always wind up making in a deliberative body like the legislature; the only people who can manage pure and uncompromising in their political records are those who have no political record at all).

The real question for me?  Which is the conservative who will do the best job of going to “independents”, and convince them to move to “the right?”

That’s the thing I’ve gotta figure out by tomorrow night.

What’s everyone’s sense this time around?  Leave a comment, and vote in the poll…

I’ll be taking votes through Tuesday. Who’s the frontrunner?

…you need to get out and support Doug Wardlow.

Over at his new gig at Politics in Minnesota, former City Pages and Minnesota Independent reporter Paul Demko – who is as a rule one of the smarter bloggers in the regional Sorosphere, and I promise you I don’t mean that in the “Jessica Simpson is smarter than Anna Nicole Smith” sense of the phrase, so don’t go there – has what he believes is bad news for Governor Pawlenty:

Fewer than 5 percent of likely Republican voters want Gov. Tim Pawlenty to be the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, according to a new Zogby poll.

Zogby? 

You mean, the same Zogby that said Martha Coakley was still winning  the Massachusetts special election the day before the vote was held?

The same Zogby that might be the only poller in the business with a worse record, and a better record at telling Demcrats what they want to hear, than the Star/Tribune’s “Minnesota Poll”?

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was the most popular choice, with support from just over 22 percent of those surveyed. Tracking closely behind was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was the top pick of nearly 20 percent of likely Republican voters.

Pawlenty is just shy of five points, says Zogby, who is presumably out golfing with with Senator Coakley, helping OJ find the real killer.

A seemingly grim sign for Pawlenty’s presidential prospects: He received less support than Massachusetts Sen.-elect Scott Brown (5.2 percent). On the plus side, he topped former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (3.9 percent). Of course, those difference are statistically meaningless.

Of course, the polls a year before the 2008 election showed Barack Obama a 27 point dog to Hillary Clinton, too. 

W’e’ve got almost three years ’til the election.  And while I’m far from throwing my gear on the Pawlenty bandwagon, crowing about Pawlenty’s showing at this point smacks more of sour grapes over Minnesota’s current legislative situation than detached analysis.

Brown’s numbers will drop down to where a junior senator’s should be (unless he gets himself deified by the media, like a certain former junior Senator);  Romney and Palin have the same two years of campaigning to do that Pawlenty does. 

Anything can happen.  And this is going to be one hella exciting couple of years.

Another reminder; Tuesday is Caucus night in Minnesota.

“But Mitch – I’ve never been to a precinct caucus!”

Well, it’s interesting, and you should try it. You go to wherever you’re supposed to be – usually a school, library or other community center – and you find your precinct and grab a seat with your neighbors.  There’s some precinct business to take care of, and then you get down to the stuff we all really come for:

• Endorsing candidates, although this doesn’t usually happen at precinct caucuses.
• Electing delegates to the BPOU (Legislative District) conventions.  This is important; these are the people who will endorse the candidates for the Legislature, and vote for delegates for later conventions.
• Voting in any straw polls that might be held (might be one for governor, but I’m not sure about this year)
• Resolutions.  You can suggest resolutions to be included in the state party platform, campaign for ’em, and get ’em adopted to get sent to the BPOU conventions.  If your resolution gets enough traction, it can become part of the platform…

The important thing is, caucuses matter.  And when I say “matter”, I add “party politics is about persistence more than passion”.   The last round of major caucuses, two years ago, saw a huge outpouring of support for Ron Paul, which indirectly changed a lot of things about the way the party works, and led the party into a good position as re the whole Tea Party movement – but changing any party is a matter of showing up, year in and year out, and convincing people that change needs to happen.  So every time you go to the caucuses, you affect the way the party works – perhaps not as much as you want it to, but every bit matters eventually.

Anyway – hope to see you there on Tuesday!

Fearless – and, as it happens, inevitable – prediction:  now that Joe Repya has not only left the MN GOP, but is running for the Independence Party nod for Governor, he will become the Twin Cities’ media’s leading voice for conservative Republicans who are, let us never forget, inevitably disaffected by the rise of “extreme” (read: all) conservatism.

Now, I’m n0t going to bag on Joe Repya; a retired Army colonel who served in three wars, including one as an infantry platoon leader, which is just about the most dangerous job there is, he’s also been a leading voice among grassroots conservatives in Minnesota for the past seven or eight years.   He left the MNGOP last year because of differences with the new regime on Park Street, Tony Sutton and Micheal Brodkorb.  I’m not sure what the differences were – although I inadvertently caught some shrapnel from the firefight last year – but they’re the kind of thing vex a lot of us who care deeply about politics and government, but not so much about parties except as a means to affect, well, politics and goverment.

So I’m not writing to bag on Repya.

But if the media wants to convince Minnesotans that ideas like this…

Joe Repya, a longtime Republican now running for governor as an Independent, says he has an answer for the long-running battle over whether the Vikes should get a new stadium funded by taxpayer dollars: Yes, as long as the the state gets a controlling stake in the organization.

On his homepage, he writes:

As your next governor, I would agree to public financing of a new Viking stadium only if Ziggy Wilf and the NFL agree to sell a 51% equity of the Vikings to the State of Minnesota with a never to relocate iron clad clause. Ziggy could run the team as long as he wishes and without state interference. We will increase state revenues by allowing Minnesotans to purchase one share of non-voting, non transferable interests (like the Green Bay Packers “stock” program”) in the Minnesota Vikings. If Green Bay can own the Packers, Minnesota can own the Vikings.

…are the kinds of things that sends disaffected conservatvives to protest at the Capitol, they’ve got a rude surprise coming. State-owned football teams make no more sense than state-owned light rail lines or factories.

The holes in the idea aren’t only ideological, of course; and they’re obvious enough that even the City Pages gets it:

Two small points of order:

First, Green Bay doesn’t actually own the Packers; fans and investors own the Packers. The team has been publicly owned since 1923, when it was registered as a Wisconsin nonprofit corporation.

And when even the City Pages points out that forking over for a football team makes no sense in a year when the state budget is looking ghastlier than Tara Reid’s resume, you know there’s a problem.

So sorry, Twin Cities media.  I’ll give a shout to Repya for all he’s done for this country and for conservatism in Minnesota.

But nobody’s elected him “the voice of the disaffected” just yet.  There’s a whole lot of us out there who haven’t picked a leader yet, but it’s for sure we’re not going to let you do it.

I hear you, conservatives.  After years and years of giving time and money to the Minnesota and national GOP, you felt that in some respects the party left you.  I’ve heard the criticisms, and I agree with many of them (Bush did spend too much; the GOP became the party of slightly less bigger government; the GOP supported the likes of Ron Erhard for years) and disagree with a few (d’ya think Norm Coleman’s ANWR or ethanol subsidy votes were more important than Obama having a supermajority?)

And so many of you sat things out in 2006 and 2008.  For some of you, it was a practical thing; you’d been volunteering in every election since 1998, or earlier; your families, jobs, and personal lives had paid the price.  For others, it was that feeling of rejection.

But a week from tonight is the day you can start taking your party back.  It’s Caucus night in Minnesota on Tuesday, February 2 – a week from tonight.

And there, your votes matter, both for straw poll results and, most importantly, by electing delegates to go to your “BPOU” convention (usually equivalent to your House district or county); these, in turn, endorse State House and State Candidates, and elect delegates to your congressional district convention; there, you endorse candidates for the US House, and send delegates to the State Convention.  Where you endorse candidates for the big races; Senate (but not this year), Governor, and so on.

The kicker is this; while all politics is a matter of patience and persistence, groups of activists can make a huge difference the caucuses.  Two years ago, the Ron Paul campaign’s legions of highly-motivated activists made a huge dent in the Minnesota GOP; hopefully some of them will stay involved – and serve as an example to the rest of you.  Here, your vote matters to your party.

I hope you can join us there!

“But where’s do I go, Mitch?”

The MNGOP has it all right here.

You can also follow, and post on, your caucus on Twitter using the #MNGOPCaucus hashtag.  You can also add an MNGOP Caucus Twitter Ribbon to your avatar (I refuse to call it a “Twibbon”, I’m sorry) at this link, if you’re so inclined.

At any rate – if you don’t show up at a caucus on February 2, I don’t wanna year you complaining about the MN GOP’s course.

Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown’s campaign may have caused a small surge in truck sales.

“I’m Scott Brown, I’m from Wrentham, and I drive a truck”

Al Cerrone, owner of a local GMC dealership, claims, “We’ve gotten eight to 12 phone calls from people asking, ‘Do you sell trucks like that?”’

Why Yes! And we sell Brown trucks and they come in an assortment of colors!

Earlier this week, I wrote about Dave Mindeman’s take (on his MnpACT blog) on the gubernatorial election. His basic assumption; without Norm Coleman in the race, the DFL will take the governor’s office.

I noted that that conclusion would indeed reflect the “conventional wisdom” in Minnesota, normally; that Minnesota likes center-left DFLers and “moderate” Republicans.

Of course, there are all sorts of larger reasons the “conventional wisdom” could come up lacking this year; Obama’s plunging popularity will sap votes in the DFL’s traditional powerhouses, the Twin Cities and their first-ring suburbs; the “tea party” movement and its populist offshoots are going to bring an energy back to the GOP’s powerhouses – the third tier of ‘burbs on out, the south east and southwest parts of the state, the Red River Valley – that they lacked during the dismal dismal years of Bush’s second term, when you could palpably feel the exhaustion on the part of an awful lot of the volunteers that are the backbone of the MNGOP.

But there’s one other thing that I think the DFL/media (as always, pardon the redundancy) miss in their assessments. 

Not to indulge in name-calling – that’s not my intent, here – but there’s an intellectual laziness behind the overuse of the term “extreme”.  It seems everybody to the right of Arne Carlson gets labeled “Extreme” by the left and their allies on the editorial boards.

It is, of course, a crude but effective way to frame the debate for the left; labelling everyone and every thought of the opposition as “extreme” at every possible mention.  If you’re a conservative, you’re not just pro-life, you’re a “pro-life extremist”; you’re not just for limited government, you’re an “extreme Tenther”; you don’t just favor constraining spending and cutting taxes, you’re an “extremist”; any Second Amendment activists…well, we’re used to being called that and much worse. 

Marty Seifert

A big part of me would like to think that this bit of framing is showing signs of backfiring – as with the term “teabagging”, which the left turned from a junior-high snark into a fairly universal slur to, through relentless overuse, a two-edged sword that says more about them than the actual protesters. 

“Extreme” is different.  While there’s a certain amount of self-caricature in the left’s overuse and devaluing of the term, I think the left has fallen into an even more pernicious trap; after calling everyone to the right of Arlen Lindner an “extremist” for a generation now, they’ve come to believe it.

The left has been working overtime to label Tom Emmer (and, comically, Marty Seifert) as “extreme” conservatives, smug in the belief that as long as they apply the label (and the media dutifully uses it at every opportunity), then it’ll stick with the people, while the “reasonable”‘, non-“extreme” left will mop up the votes, because (so say the left and media) that’s where Minnesota really is.

But they haven’t heard Tom Emmer speak to a mixed crowd.

Tom Emmer

Here’s the thing people like Mindeman miss about Seifert and – especially – Emmer; they state the conservative case to the middle and the undecided better than any recent conservative figures in Minnesota politics.  While some previous conservative leaders in Minnsota have been seen (rightly or, more usually, because of media connivance) as exclusionary dogmatists, the two GOP frontronners can actually get out in front of an undecided crowd and make an appealing, articulate, solid case for why those in the middle should be over with us on the right. 

And while it’s entirely possible that someone among the left’s pack of hamsters – Rukavina or Kelley spring to mind – can do the same, I’ve seen little to no evidence that they can preach to anyone that’s not fundamentally disposed to be in the choir.  And given how fast Obama, Pelosi, Reid and (let’s be honest) Kelliher have been piddling on independents this past year, I think it’s fair to say that Emmer and Seifert will have a more sympathetic audience than they might have a year or two ago.

So I’m a lot less convinced that having the left/media merely chanting “extreme!  extreme!” over and over again – as well as it’s served them in previous elections – is going to do the job for them this time.

Ross Douthat, writing in the NYTimes a week before the Massachusetts special election, managed to get past his internal Pauline Kael to read the signs…:

Brown’s race might actually end in triumph, rather than a close defeat.

…but he tripped onto two excellent points; the press’ brief fantasy that the left controlled the online world is over, and online political involvement is a very two-edged sword.

The Brown victory showed that the left’s bought-and-paid-for surge online from 2006-2008 has peaked:

But win or lose, he’s demonstrated there’s no necessary connection between online organizing and liberal politics. The Web is just like every pre-Internet political arena: ideology matters less than the level of anger at the incumbent party, and the level of enthusiasm an insurgent candidate can generate.

The left invested millions and millions buying an online presence after 2004; the right wing involvement in the blogosphere and in social media remains a pretty organic phenomenon.  And as we saw in Virginia, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York, organic phenomena and passion mix pretty well.

But that’s not really new turf.  Douthat next went into perceptions:

It’s like other arenas, too, in its capacity to disappoint idealists. Indeed, it may be crueler to dreamers, because it offers an artificial sense of intimacy with politicians, without delivering any practical results. You can be Sarah Palin’s pal on Facebook, or have Barack Obama’s running-mate selection text-messaged to your cellphone. But Washington is still Washington, the legislative process is still the legislative process, and the power of an online community matters less than the power of the powerful.

Well, duh.

This is the bitter lesson many net-roots types have drawn from Obama’s first year in office. The promises of transparency have given way to the reality of backroom deal-cutting. The attempts to turn the campaign’s online community, weakly re-dubbed Organizing for America, into a permanent political force have flopped. In a recent post on the Web site Personal Democracy Forum, Micah Sifry captured the free-floating sense of anger with Obama’s governance: “The people who voted for him weren’t organized in any kind of new or powerful way, and the special interests … sat first at the table and wrote the menu. Myth met reality, and came up wanting.”

I’d say “duh”, but then I did just above, and one must not repeat oneself.

Still, we tried to warn the Obamabots about this last year; all that talk of reinventing government is the kind of thing that attracts utopians, the kind of people who think you can change human nature through sheer passion (or legislation).

But next, Douthat steers into the weeds:

If liberals are feeling disillusioned, though, their right-wing imitators [Er, no, Ross – the conservatives were here first, and we’re still better – Ed.] may be ripe for an even greater letdown. The Obama administration has at least gone some distance toward enacting an agenda that the net-roots left supports. The “right roots” activists are rallying around politicians who are promising to shrink government without offering any plausible sketch of how to do it. When Scott Brown pledges an across-the-board tax cut and sweeping deficit reduction all at once, he’s setting the conservative grass roots up for a major disappointment.

Douthat betrays his coastal media center-left myopia; just as Obama had a model for his agenda (FDR), we’ve got Reagan, who did it all; not “at once”, but it did sorta show the way.

But more importantly, Douthat’s wrong; conservatives don’t – or shouldn’t – get involved in politics to give meaning to their own lives.  And that a thin film of them might do that doesn’t change the fact that that sort of naive idealism is absolutely anathema to conservatism.  Government – even good government – is at best an enemy with whom you have a truce; at worst, it’s something to be strangled in self-defense.

If you do meet a conservative that invests themselves in politics the way Obama’s legions of naive hamsters did, please – set ’em straight.

If you haven’t found a babysitter for two weeks from tonight, get on it!  Tuesday, February 2 is caucus night!

Any hope this nation has for change starts at your precinct that night!  It’s where Republicans pick candidates and vote in their platforms and, most importantly, sign you up to get involved.

“But where’s do I go, Mitch?”

The MNGOP has it all right here.

You can also follow, and post on, your caucus on Twitter using the #MNGOPCaucus hashtag.  You can also add an MNGOP Caucus Twitter Ribbon to your avatar (I refuse to call it a “Twibbon”, I’m sorry) at this link, if you’re so inclined.

At any rate – if you don’t show up at a caucus on February 2, I don’t wanna year you complaining about the MN GOP’s course.

The GOP gubernatorial field has been an embarassment of riches so far, for a good conservative.  Tom Emmer, Dave Hann and Pat Anderson are all good orthodox conservatives; Marty Seifert is more of a pragmatist but certainly acceptable. 

But with the 800-pound gorilla rumors that Norm Coleman is pretty likely to enter the race, some of the air got sucked out of the room. 

And Pat Anderson, who served as State Auditor from 2002 to 2006 (and a very, very good one at that) has decided to run for her old office.

Good for her, I say.

Coleman – so says at least one thread of conventional wisdom – is going to get into the race, likely lose the endorsement but go to the primaries, and have an excellent chance of winning the governor’s office against the pack of gabbling hamsters the DFL will field. 

Coleman is not the perfect conservative, but if the choice is between an imperfect conservatve (who’s voted to the right of John McCain and Jim Ramstad, for crying out loud) and Steve Kelley, Mark Dayton or Margaret Anderson Kelliher (especially since the MNGOP is unlikely to flip the House and/or the Senate this fall, not that that’s not going to stop me from trying like hell), the choice should be obvious, if that’s what it comes down to; I am hoping that the presence of strong conservatives Emmer and Hann will drive him to the right, one way or the other.  That’s presuming we all believe the conventional wisdom.

But this is about Pat Anderson.  She’s young.  She articulates a conservative vision in a way that reaches out to people in the middle who might be sticker-shocked by the DFL’s coke-binge-like spending spree.  She’s very sharp.  She’s also been out of the public eye since the drearily unaccomplished Rebecca Otto upset her for Auditor during the 2006 election.  I think four years in the public eye will set Anderson up nicely for whatever comes next.

I first predicted in 2002 that Pat Anderson would be Minnesota’s first female governor or Senator. 

I’ll amend it; she’s got a great shot at being Minnesota’s first female governor or good female Senator.

Here’s the dirty little secret of elections:  if you wait until November, all the really important decisions have already been made.  The party’s selection of candidates, its platform, its high-level policy -all of that gets set…

…at the precinct caucuses.

Which are on Tuesday, February 2 – just three weeks from tonight!

If you’re a Republican – or, more importantly, are an “indepdendent” who is reeling from sticker shock at all the “hope and change” out there, and want to join a lot of like-minded Americans in saving things while we can – then I hope you see you on February 2 at your GOP precinct caucuses.  It’s there that you vote for delegates that will go to the State House District Conventions to support your candidates – and hopefully win, and go on to the Congressional District conventions, and finally the State Convention, where we will hopefully select the next Governor of Minnesota.

And it all starts at your precinct!

“But where’s that, Mitch?”

The MNGOP has it all right here.

You can also follow, and post on, your caucus on Twitter using the #MNGOPCaucus hashtag.  You can also add an MNGOP Caucus Twitter Ribbon to your avatar (I refuse to call it a “Twibbon”, I’m sorry) at this link, if you’re so inclined.

At any rate – if you don’t show up at a caucus on February 2, I don’t wanna year you complaining about the MN GOP’s course.

It looks like it’ll be official: North Dakota governor John Hoeven is going to announce his candidacy to replace Byron Dorgan in about an hour.

Listen to the press conference at 6PM Central time here.

Ed and I interviewed Rob Port, who is the foremost political blogger in North Dakota, who correctly noted a nuance that escapes a lot of outside observers; while North Dakota is famously Republican, the state also has a mixed traditi0n in terms of spending; it has the nation’s only successful state bank and state mill; there’s a long prairie populist tradition, as well as some of the Scandinavian communitarian traditions that the state shares with Minnesota, that means the state government is a little more activist than many other Western states.  As such, Hoeven is a more “Moderate” Republican on spending than some of his GOP counterparts.  It’d be a mistake to call him a RINO; he’s probably slightly to the right of Norm Coleman and John McCain, and if elected he’ll be a big improvement over Dorgan, and vastly better than either of Minnesota’s senators.

Tune in!

We’ve always known that those “Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota” signs and slogans were buncombe – but it was more of a gut feeling.

But now we have empirical, clinical proof it’s all bull-effluvia.  The unhappiest states are the ones with the highest taxes; the happiest ones, pretty much, have the lowest taxes (with occasional emphasis added by me):

Does living in a blue state make people blue? It seems so, according to a new study in Science magazine that ranks states according to their happiness. The study finds that New Yorkers are the unhappiest people in America and their neighbors in Connecticut come in a close second, followed by Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, California, and Illinois. And the happiest states? Drum roll, please…Louisiana, Hawaii, Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona.

Eight of the ten happiest states lean right while eight of the ten unhappiest tilt left. While the study by no means proves that being liberal makes people unhappy, it does reflect some of the unfortunate implications of living in a blue state.

As I noted above, this is “Science” magazine, not “Librels Are Teh Suck” blog. 

But first a note on the study. Using data from the 2005-2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and a 2003 economics paper examining quality-of-life indicators, economists regressed the subjective measure of well-being (how people rate their satisfaction) against the objective measure (states’ quality-of-life rankings based on compensating differentials). A compensating differential in labor economics refers to the additional amount of income an employer must pay a worker to compensate for the undesirability of a job or the location’s lack of amenities (e.g. local and state tax levels, climate, environmental conditions, quality of schools, and crime rates).

For example, employers in New York would have to pay higher wages to compensate for New York’s high taxes, traffic congestion, cold weather, and poor schools. Due to these “disamenities,” New York ranked lowest on the quality-of-life index.

And yes, the numbers show a pretty strong correlation:

What’s noteworthy about the study is that states’ quality-of-life rankings (measured by their compensating differentials) correlated exceedingly well with residents’ satisfaction ratings. The correlation between quality of life and satisfaction is statistically significant (P=0.0001; r=0.6; r2=0.36). The coefficient of determination r2 shows how well the regression line fits the data points. While an r2 of 0.36 may not seem large—and in some studies may not be statistically significant—it is unusually high by the standards of behavioral science. To give an idea of the magnitude of this correlation, the r2 of people’s satisfaction ratings taken two weeks apart is also 0.36.

Why?

The study suggests that quality of life heavily influences happiness. This may seem obvious, but until this study, social scientists have struggled to develop a model that supports this hypothesis. Now we know that people who say they’re satisfied with their lives aren’t just delusional or overly optimistic, and people who say they’re unsatisfied aren’t just pessimists. People have legitimate reasons to be happy or unhappy.

And well, high taxes seem to be a big reason—ostensibly an even bigger reason than weather given that California is one of the unhappiest states and inclement Louisiana is the happiest. Further, considering how much New York’s crime rate has dropped and schools have improved in the last decade, taxes seem to overwhelm even these two critical factors in the happiness equation. According to the Tax Foundation 2008 analysis, three of the top five unhappiest states—New York, Connecticut and New Jersey—have the highest state-local tax burdens. On the other hand, four of the top five happiest states—Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona—are among the states with the lowest state-local tax burdens. True, correlation doesn’t prove causation, and high taxes alone don’t always make people miserable, but there’s something going on here.

Read the whole thing. 

While we’ve long known that conservatives are more charitable, are better in bed, and are just plain happier across the board than liberals, this is the first time we’ve shown a statistical correlation between taxation and misery.

I, for one, am happy to vote for a wealthier, happier, less-burdened Minnesota.

Mark McKinnon at The Daily Beast indulges in the wonk’s favorite weekend pastime – putting together lists.

This one – the top ten GOP contenders.

He’s got Mitt at the top of the list, followed by Palin and Pawlenty.  Not a bad start.

Moving down the list, though, you get the impression he’s trying to gin up some discussion (and apparently it worked, since I’m linking him…).

4. John Thune

If he would run, John Thune could be the Bob McDonnell of the 2012 GOP field.

In a field as deep with center-right conservatives, John Thune is impressive – but in a field where “center-right” includes Romney, Pawlenty, I see Thune – a freshman Senator, let’s not forget – being far down the crowd.  

5. Mike Huckabee

Put a fork in him. While I agree with McKinnon – the clemency decision on Clemmons, who got a life-plus-life sentence for crimes committed when he wasn’t even of legal age; statistically, it wasnt’ a bad bet, although that’s no comfort for the families of the four cops he allegedly killed.

Much worse, in a just world?  He’s no more fiscally conservative than George W. Bush was.

6. Joe Scarborough

Make it stop.

Next – evidence that McKinnon spends too much time among wonks:

7. Haley Barbour

Don’t laugh. Haley’s as wily a fox as anyone out there prowling the political countryside these days. He’s smart, strategic and has been around the rodeo a very long time. Sure he’s a caricature of the classic Southern politician: old, large, white, honey-lipped, and a former lobbyist to boot. But if voters are really tired of Obama, they’ll be looking for the mirror opposite of the man occupying the Oval Office. And that would clearly be Haley.

Barbour is a highly-qualified candidate; he’s an opposite of Obama in more than just the cosmetics that seem to enthrall McKinnon.  He’s a blazingly capable executive; he’s accomplished things – his record as governor of Mississippi stands next to Romney’s and Pawlenty’s in their states.

But is he the opposite of Obama?  Not in the way voters, especially voters who’ve genuinely soured on Obama or Republicans who want to right the ship, will care about.

8. Newt Gingrich

It will never happen.  Please stop talking about it.

9. Mitch Daniels

Daniels has been an extraordinarily successful and effective governor in Indiana, a state that has been recently more blue than red. A no-nonsense, tell-it-like-is conservative, Daniels cruised to re-election by 18 points last year when Obama was winning the state.

I’d not thought about Daniels much – and I think his name recognition is, if anything, lower than Pawlenty’s (and Governor Pawlenty’s been working hard on raising his, in a way Daniels has not, at least at this point in the campaign, for what that’s worth, which isn’t much).

But here, I think McKinnon’s onto something:

10. Rick Perry

The only real question about Texas Governor Rick Perry is why he hasn’t been on any lists until now. He’s already the longest-serving governor in Texas history and may be headed for his third term next fall. Veteran Texas political observer Paul Burka makes a compelling case for why he should be considered:

1. Unlike Huckabee, Romney, and Palin, he is still in office.
2. He is the longest-serving governor in Texas history.
3. He is governor of the biggest red state that sends the most delegates to the Republican convention.
4. He has the best conservative record of any contender.
5. He has assiduously courted key figures in the Republican establishment.
6. The Murdoch news empire loves him. He is the beneficiary of puff pieces in The Wall Street Journal and softball questions on Fox News.
7. He has an extensive fundraising apparatus in Texas that is capable of raking in enough cash to make the race, and he is now in charge of finance for the Republican Governors Association, giving him access to the GOP’s big national donors.
8. He has not one but two strong messages. The first: Washington is corrupt to the core and out of touch with Main Street. The second: the Texas economic miracle.
9. He was quick to understand the significance of the tea party movement and attended many of the early gatherings.
10. With rare exceptions (such as the HPV vaccine controversy), he almost never deviates from the conservative line.

We can go on from there: he’s got huge cred among the Tea-party (aka “Real American”) crowd, and he’s got two-plus successful terms as governor of a huge state.  He’s a “Tenther”, who exudes just the right tinge of “don’t tread on me” that a big chunk of this country wants (and gets from Sarah Palin), combined providing an undeniable conservative alternative that, with a little work, can convince the center to move right (rather than vice versa – which is what people like Huckabee and Scarborough are all about).

Perry’s moved onto my personal long list over this past month or two.

Beyond that?

Watch List:

• Ron Paul: Where are you? The environment is ripe for a libertarian like Paul to stir the tea party pot in 2012.

When you can have a Rick Perry – who brings most of the “libertarian”, and none of the “loose cannon”, why even mess with Paul?

• Jeb Bush: The first son of George H.W. Bush was supposed to be the 43rd President. He is widely respected by conservatives and it’s unlikely, but not impossible, that he could be the 45th, or 46th. And there’s always his telegenic Hispanic son, George P., who could keep the job in the family as 47.

Let’s give this generation a rest, and maybe give P at shot at it someday.

Some leftybloggers famously dubbed themselves the “reality-based community” – a clumsy, junior-high shot at neo-conservative “faith based” ideal.

Apparently the lefties got the idea at a seance from Egyptian political philosopher and lobbyist Ram-Gar:

“Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics,” the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so.

And remembering how the nation’s lesser party roasted Nancy Reagan, I thought this next bit was a hoot:

And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.

It’s explain a lot about Represenative McCollum.

But I think there’s some omission bias at play here:

Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do.

No question about whether a day at the range is a spiritual experience?

I don’t go to the WaPo’s Chris Cilizza for keen-eyed observations on conservatives or Republicans. 

But his piece in “The Fix” on the Minnesota goober race provides some junk food for thought:

Norm Coleman (R) isn’t expected to make a decision on the 2010 governor’s race until next year but a new Rasmussen poll suggests the former senator has plenty of time to make his decision. Coleman led the Republican field with 50 percent while state Rep. Marty Seifert at 11 percent was the only other potential candidate to break double digits. Coleman’s lead is almost entirely attributable to name identification gained from his time as mayor of St. Paul and his six years in the Senate but it does suggest that if he decides to run, he will be a clear favorite. On the Democratic side, former Sen. Mark Dayton and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak each received 30 percent of the vote while none of the other candidates scored in double digits. Coleman would give Republicans a chance to hold this seat, which is being vacated by Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) after two terms. But, if Coleman takes a pass this race looks extremely difficult for any other GOP candidate given Minnesota’s Democratic tilt.

Before we get to Cilizza’s actual piece, let’s take a moment to remember how well the “cult of the inevitable” serves the Democrats.  While it’s entirely possible that the second coming of Ronald Reagan would have had trouble in the 2008 election, it’s also a fact that the “inevitability” of John McCain – cultivated through many careful years by the media, who spent the better part of a decade building up John McCain as the “Good Republican”, so they could spend six months tearing him right back down – didn’t serve the GOP especially well in the past election.  McCain was built up to serve as a beacon for “Moderate” Republicans, and “moderates” discredited themselves utterly and completely between 2002 and 2008.   Don’t believe for a moment that Big Media doesn’t desperately want to do the same again; look for a wave of approving stories about what an “acceptable”, work-across-the-aisle kinda guy Republican Mike Huckabee is, sooner than later.

But for the moment, let’s do two things; leave media perfidy out of it (or just accept it as a given and move on), and accept Rasmussen’s numbers at face value, and assume that Norm Coleman’s name ID gives him a prohibitive advantage in the GOP field (and, at first glance – again, let’s accept the numbers at face value – an edge over the Rybak and the ludicrous Mark Dayton), what does it mean?

I’ve disagreed strenuouosly with plenty of my conservative friends on Coleman, based on one key principle – a principle that guides so very much in life.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.

Coleman, like Tim Pawlenty, is no conservative’s icon.  But like Pawlenty, he is conservative enough, at least on the issues that matter.

Coleman, like Pawlenty, has angered conservatives with a number of his stances over the past 16 years.  But, like Pawlenty, he has been a thoroughgoing conservative on the things should matter; taxes, spending, growth and security.

As Mayor of Saint Paul, he presided over eight years (and keynoted four more) of holding the line on taxes, on living within the city’s means, and on job and business growth – things that are nearly forgotten four years after Coleman’s successor Randy Kelly left office.  Like Pawlenty, his conservatism may fray a bit around the edges, but at its core it’s just fine.

So who do I support for Governor?

I think the race boils down to one thing, if you’re a Republican; not moving the party to the center, but communicating what the right really stands for to give “the center” a reason to move right.

Do I think a thoroughgoing conservative like Tom Emmer, Dave Hann or Pat Anderson has what it takes to communicate the benefits of a real conservative vision to a middle that’s shell-shocked by Obama’s incompetence and excess?  Yes, I do  – and so does the Twin Cities’ media, which is why you never see Tom Emmer or Pat Anderson’s name in print without some variation on “extreme” or “hardline” conservative in front of their names.    I’ve seen Emmer, Hann and Anderson talk with mixed crowds; I’ve even heard Emmer on a liberal-leaning internet talk show – he did a spectacular job of articulating the conservative vision to a non-conservative audience, and I have no doubt Anderson and Hann can do the same  (which is why the Strib and the rest of the Twin Cities media will make sure that they don’t give any of them the opportunity to do it to a larger audience).

But at the moment, I support one thing; fighting like hell – as I put it a few years ago, grabbing one side of the rope or another in our inter-party tug of war and pulling like mad.  Getting out the caucuses early next year and fighting like there’s no tomorrow for your candidate.  Because for Minnesota conservatives, it’s a win-win situation.  Either we get a genuine movement conservative, an Emmer or Anderson or Hann or Seifert, someone who can genuinely articulate conservatism to the undecideds, running for (and winning) the race…

…or we get Norm Coleman, after having to survive a tough, spirited nomination battle against three superb candidates to his right.  Which will make him tack right, while still remaining Norm.  Norm is no slouch at articulating the key tenets of conservatism to a crowd either; and as a “worst case” that isn’t all that bad, having to overcome Emmer, Anderson and Hann will force him to walk the conservative walk in a way he has not had to before.

Which is not a bad thing.

Perfect is the enemy of good enough.  Would I prefer that Emmer, Anderson, Seifert or Hann won with a forty p0int margin?  Absolutely – and I plan on pulling like hell for one of the three of them.

And whomever gets through the convention – Tom, Pat, Dave, Marty or Norm?  I’ll pull like hell even harder for any of them.

Because any of them will make a better governor in these times than Rybak or Dayton.

I just got back from MCing the MN Fourth District GOP Fundraising dinner tonight.  In addition to the traditional silent auction, we had a very appropriate motivational speaker – he spoke about “resilience”, which is something Fourth CD Republicans get a lot of practice with.   If you get a chance to see Roger Revak speak, do it.  Just saying.

We also met some great people; Gubernatorial candidates Senator Dave Hann, Representative Tom Emmer and former State Auditor Pat Anderson came by, as well as a slew of local and district candidates.

It was a lot of fun, which the Fourth is always good at.  Things are tough in the Fourth – but I have  a hunch better days are coming.  The DFL is doing a bad enough job that everntually even the voters’ll figure it out.

(more…)

Speaking of Instant Runoff Voting…

Who is it who actually “ranks” their choices, anyway?  Maybe my point of view is skewed because I am a guy who has – and my social circle is a lot of politically-aware people who also have – strong opinions who know who they’re voting for and why, but I can’t remember a single election where I had a second choice for any office.

I went back through the last several key, contested elections, and entered “ranked choices” for each race.

Saint Paul Mayoral Election, 2009
First Choice: Eva Ng
Second Choice: My dog, Clu.
Third Choice:  A jab in the eye with a sharp stick.

Minnesota US Senate Race, 2008
First Choice: Norm Coleman
Second Choice: My cat, Nosemarie.
Third Choice: Getting ripped apart by mice.

Minnesota Fourth District Congressional Race, 2008
First Choice: Ed Matthews
Second Choice: Being forced to sit in booth at Denny’s listening to Ken Weiner, Bill Pendergast and Eva Young frothing about Michele Bachmann for all eternity..
Third Choice: A “Spongebob Squarepants” marathon.

Minnesota Gubernatorial Race, 2006
First Choice: Tim Pawlenty
Second Choice: My other cat, Candy.
Third Choice: Gouging out my own eyes with a spork.  (This was almost a tie for third, by the way; Candy has this habit of biting my nose at 4AM that has her on my schvitz list today).

Minnesota Fourth District Congressional Race, 2006
First Choice: Obi Sium
Second Choice: Drinking a fifth of my own fermented sweat .
Third Choice: Going to “Drinking Liberally” and drinking heavily.
Fourth Choice: Gargling with Drano
Fifth Choice:  Going to “Drinking Liberally” and not being allowed to drink at all.
Sixth Choice:  Any cast member from “The Hills”.
Seventh Choice: Betty McCollum.

US Presidential Race, 2004
First Choice: George W. Bush
Second Choice: Brussels Sprouts
Third Choice: Any random western European leader...

US Senate Race, 2002
First Choice: Norm Coleman
Second Choice: One of those gas-station burritos, after it’s been sitting on my car seat on a hot day.
Third Choice: Rick Kahn’s speech, on eternal loop, forever.

US Presidential Race, 2000
First Choice: Steve Forbes
Second Choice: Jack Kemp.
Third Choice: Steve Forbes.

Now, like most people, I do believe most people are like me.  Or, rather, that most people who should be allowed to vote are like me.

Oh, that sounded so intolerant; what I mean is that I suspect most people who actually care enough about politics to care about their voting system at all, really don’t go into the polling place with any sort of “second choice” in mind.  We go into the polls wanting victory for the candidate who represents our beliefs the closest, and not a lot more.

Who actually has some notion of “ranking” choices in elections?  I’m curious.

So Eva Ng lost the Mayor’s race on Tuesday.  And she lost it by a big margin.

I wrote my initial takeaways the other night; I think it’s huge that we actually got a Republican on the ballot at all; Eva is the first we’ve had in the 22 years I’ve lived in this city.

But I’ve had people asking me – what do you think Eva Ng should do next?

Well, the obvious response is “Ask Eva!”  I mean, it’s totally her call – and she did a job well above and beyond the call of duty.  She charged into the maw of the St. Paul DFL machine (motto:  “Like Chicago, only more passive-aggressive”), and did a great job of articulating an opposition case.  She didn’t win, but not for lack of merit.

Still, I’m going to offer this as a set of suggestions to Ms. Ng:

1. Stay in public life.  For the next two years, set yourself up as a critic, as a part-time pundit. 
2. Do in Saint Paul what Sarah Palin is doing nationally; use your position as Saint Paul’s leading dissenting voice to keep the heat on the Mayor – to keep the issues on which you ran (and the new ones that’ll no doubt emerge in the next 1-4 years) on the front burner.
3. Start a blog.  And when you do, remember who your friends are; you have name-recognition, and a built-in place of honor among the Twin Cities’ conservative blogosphere, the most active political blog scene in the country.
4. Use your soapbox – your position, your blog if you start one, and any appearance you make in a political sense, and the attention it will get you – to help keep the pressure on Chris Coleman and his administration. 
5. Coleman wants to be mayor so bad?  He got his wish!  Now – when he raises taxes, be there showing the people a coherent alternative!  When the percent of vacant downtown space climbs above the Saint Paul Schools’ graduation rate, be there with another plan!  When hope values in the North End and Dayton’s Bluff drop down so low that Dominos offers a “Three Mediums For Your Deed” deal on Fridays, be there saying “I Told You So, And Here’s What We’d Be Doing About It If You’d Elected Some Grownups”.  When the budget jumps from crazy to lala-whoopdiedoo-out-of-our-freaking-mind deranged, be there with a better plan!    You had to cram a whole campaign against the entire DFL machine, and build name recognition, and build a platform, inside three months.  Now, you have four years.  
6. Keep shaking hands, meeting people, and listening.  Learn what it is that people in Saint Paul really want and need.  A friendly hint; it’s not knowing that their mayor isn’t going to run for governor.  It’s their home prices; it’s their jobs leaving Saint Paul; it’s the booming taxes and failing schools.  Circulate, circulate, circulate.
7. Because in 2013, the DFL will likely not field an incumbent.  It’ll be a level(er) playing field.  And the gray, lumpen masses who voted for incumbent Chris Coleman with no more thought than they expend on ordering a Number Three at McDonald’s might pull back the mental drapes and let some light in. 
8. And if you’re out there, meeting people and keeping people excited about the idea of changing Saint Paul for the better, people will know who you are; you could very well have better, more positive name recognition than whatever vapid hamster the DFL nominates next time around.
9. And having you out there building on what you started will put you in the best possible place to be a threat to win in four years; it’ll also give the Saint Paul GOP (and the Fourth District GOP, for that matter) something it’s needed for a long time; hope, a mission, a goal.

Take the rest of the year off.  You earned it.  But please think about it.

Think hard – but not too long.  This next year is going to be a great year to hit the ground running as a conservative, even in a place like Saint Paul.

This next four years is going to leave this city a cold Flint; I think the 2013 election is going to be a whole ‘nother party than this last one.

I’m a white, Christian, straight male.  According to current left-wing victomology theory, that means that’s all I’ll vote for.

In response, I’ve said for years that if a white, Chrsitian, straight liberal male were to face off in an election against a conservative black Taoist lesbian or a pro-growth, limited-government Uzbek Moslem, I’d vote for either conservative in a heartbeat; I’m electing a politician to represent my political beliefs, not a human security blanket for my social identity.

If I lived in Queens, I’d have been able to test that theory on Tuesday:

Republican Dan Halloran won the race New York City Council in Queens yesterday, despite a bunch of last minute articles focused on the fact that he practices Theodism, which involves Norse gods like Odin and Freyr. Says Halloran:

It is our hope to reconstruct the pre-Christian religion of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European peoples, within a cultural framework and community environment.

Score one for tolerance. Sure, it’s just the city council. And sure, it’s New York. But this guy is a full-on Pagan, for Odin’s sake, and he just got elected to a pretty important public office. As a Republican.

That’s because when push come sot shove, Republicans in general are more tolerant.

I’m waiting for the first Saint Paul DFLer to chuckle and say “Hah!  We pwn this town!”

I’m ready.  I’ll respond (with a nod to School Board candidate Chris Conner), “Yep.  You own 42% tax increases, sclerotic services, the biggest public school achievement gap in the country, graduation rates south of 50-50, 4,200 vacant houses, rising crime and 30% vacancies downtown.”

“Congratufrigginlations!  The bad news is, you have to try to fix your own mess for the next four years.”

Some people see a 30+ point loss for Eva Ng last night.  I see something different.

In 2001, the Saint Paul GOP had to grit its teeth, say “Randy Kelly is a DFLer, but he’s as close as we’re gonna get to something who believes what we do”; compared to Jay Benanav, the longtime Eastside DFLer was the second coming of Reagan.  (Four years later, we had to do the same; the flood of anti-Bush derangement scuppered the campaign; Ng did better than Kelly did four years ago).

The Saint Paul City GOP could have probably fit on the dance floor at Fabulous Fern’s back then.

In 1997, we had a Republican – Norm Coleman.  He won – but the Republican Party in Saint Paul had as much to do with that as the “Reform Party” had to do with Jesse Ventura winning the governor’s office the next year; the DFL kicked Coleman out, and the incumbent came to, and pretty much was, the GOP in Saint Paul.

And four years before that, in 1993?  Norm Coleman was a DFLer.  Compared to Bob Long, he wasn’t nuts – quite the conservative, in fact.  But no GOP candidate got within a mile of the final election.

1989?  1985?  1981?  1977?  GOP?  What GOP?

We didn’t win.  But we got an actual Republican on the ballot for the first time that I can remember (other than Coleman, who got on through the back door, and thank God for it).  It’s the best this party’s done in the run for mayor.

And we didn’t capture any school board positions – but we got three guys on the ballot.  It’s a start.

From small things big things one day come!

What a great night!

In Virginia, the GOP didn’t just beat the Tics; we didn’t just beat them down; we didn’t just humilate them; we made them say “we’re not just your beeyotch, we are your bee-friggin-YATCH”.  The Obama Revolution in Virginia had a half-life shorter than Milli Vanilli’s chart career.  The Virginia election – in a state the Dems owned barely a year ago – made an eight-on-one prison shower-room beatdown look like a Japanese tea ceremony.

And in New Jersey?  NEW JERSEY?  I knew we were onto something when a third of the polls were in, Corzine trailed by seven, and Minnesota Public Radio’s utterly Republican-free “panel” spent a couple of minutes obsessing over “exit polls”.  Which was at least better than CNN, which was running the “exit polls show New Jersey neck and neck” slide up until, I kid you not, the moment they called it for Christie.

Governor Christie.

Note to Dems; when even fat jokes fail you, you know you’re screwed.

Note to Hugh Hewitt:  You were oh, so close to right on this one; if it’s not close, they can’t cheat (enough).

NY23 – well, there’s a lesson for the GOP:  “Moderates” are death.  Running to the middle to win moderates is the road to palookaville; Liberals want us to run moderates.  Making the middle want to move to you is the way forward.  The GOP flipped the Nassau County Commission, and the conservatives taught a lesson to the 23rd District’s GOP “elite”.  While we lost the special election (cue Ms. Scozzafavva; ride into the sunset by any means necessary), we’re well-placed to beat Owens next year; the party might be over before they know what hit them.

Remember last year, when the left was tittering like a bunch of latte-addled grad students about the GOP and conservatism being dead?

Hah.  We’re here, we’re conservative, and we’re not going away (Janet Napolitano’s enemy’s lists notwithstanding).

Bring on next year.