Tom Emmer is making the least mysterious mystery announcement of the political season later this morning in Delano.

Republican Tom Emmer is expected to make an announcement about his political future on Wednesday in his hometown of Delano, Minn.

Emmer is likely to announce he will run for the 6th District Congressional seat now held by Republican Michele Bachmann.

His expected announcement comes one week after Bachmann announced she will not seek re-election.

Remember – while Bachmanns squeaked by in 2012, Mitt won the district by 15 points. Alida Messinger is going to have to spend a lot to try to slander him as badly as in 2010.

The 6th is an embarrassment of riches in the GOP candidate department – but Emmer has got to be considered the 900 pound gorilla.

That said, some of the states conservative punditry has come out against an Emmer bid. I think it’s myopic to attack him too hard for losing in 2010; he was outspent 3:1 (money which supported a campaign that was utterly silent on substantive policy but was ling on corrosive personal attacks) and faced an “Independence” party candidate funded by lefties to siphon off GOP votes, at the head of a campaign that got off to a terribly shaky start, and atop a GOP slate that tanked across the board as an initial sign that the MNGOP was in big trouble.

And he lost by a whisker. Had any single one of those factors been different – the money, they campaign rollout, the effect of the slander campaign, the collapse of the MNGOP – he’d have won.

Absent tens of millions of dollars of DFL plutocrat support? At the head of what may be the states most functional GOP organization? In a R+Lots district? This isn’t 2010.

There are other candidates, to be sure. Former House Majority leader Matt Dean is a solid contender. And I think Anoka County commissioner Rhonda Sivarajah, with her campaign win in one of the bluer parts left in CD6, would be an attractive candidate as well…

…among many others.

I don’t live there, of course; I’m stuck battling against Betty McCollum.

Bit lets start the straw poll. Who do you want to see run in CD6?

Of course,

After eight years in office, Michele Bachmann is retiring from Congress:

A few questions for the audience:

Who Is Emanuelle Goldstein?: Extremists like the MNDFL has become need enemies.  The Minnesota Left will need to invent a new bete noir, someone on which to focus all their  insecurity and hatred, to keep them motivated.  Bachmann has served this role for over a decade and a half, between her Congressional, State Senate and educational organizing careers.  Bachmann bedeviled the local left by seeming to thrive on their hatred, turning it back on them with a wink and a smile and a dismissive quip.  So who does the MNDFL’s depraved, insane fringe pick as their new Demon?

Next?:  The Sixth is one of the few districts in the state with a deep bench of solid, polished GOP contenders.  Who should run to replace Michele?

Dead Air?:  With Michele Bachmann out of public life, what will Jack Tomczak talk about?

(I’m a kidder.  I kid.  I love Jack and Ben’s show.  But still…)

Tarry Not:   Does Tarryl Clark already have her U-Haul loaded up, or what?

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

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

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

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

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

LIBRELLE:  (Angrily) It’s Governor Dayton.

MITCH:  Oops.  Not sure how that happened.

LIBRELLE:  Pft.  Anyway, he’s  different!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MITCH:  I knew it.

(And SCENE)

There may be few more frustrating jobs in American politics than being a Republican in the Twin Cities.

Minneapolis is sort of like Berkeley on the Lakes, while Saint Paul is a mini-Chicago on the Mississippi.  Both are one-party liberal gulags.  And Republicans in both cities continuously batter themselves against the unthinking masses of DFL droogs, year after year, with seemingly no result.  Good candidates?  Bad candidates?  It seems to make no difference whatsoever.

Years like 2012 are especially frustrating.  The GOP fielded some excellent candidates, and some hard-working campaigns in CD5 (Minneapolis) and CD4 (Saint Paul).  And all of that hard work and effort and occasional inspiration held up like a stream of pee in a hurricane on November 6, as the GOP efforts ran smack-dab into the anti-marriage-amendment tsunami.

On the face of it – expressed in terms of percentages – it looked as dismal as ever – like the cities in the Twin Cities were the same 70-30, or 75-25, cesspools they’d always been.

But if you dig into the numbers a little, things brighten up nicely.

I’m going to look at a couple of races in traditional DFL country, just to see what I come up with.

———-

Tony Hernandez ran a solid, spirited race against Betty McCollum in CD4 in 2012.  There were flaws in the campaign; fundraising was slow, among other things – but Hernandez worked hard, and he had a group of very hard-working volunteers.

So what happened?

Well, Betty McCollum won.  She won big.  Part of it was the votes siphoned off by a Ventura Party candidate that ran to Hernandez’ right.  Part of it was the fact that it’s CD4.  And a big part was the epic DFL turnout against the Marriage Amendment.

The first illustration shows that it’s nothing new:

The top two rows show the head-to-head vote totals between the GOP and DFL candidates in CD4 for the past seven cycles, back to 2000.  The bottom two present the results as percentages.  Note that some of the results will not match the Secretary of State’s numbers; I presented the numbers as DFL/GOP totals, leaving out third-party candidates.

And the news?  Well, it’s not news.  The 4th CD is a 70-30 district.

Right?

Sure.  But look at that top row – the number of GOP votes.  109,000 people voted for Tony Hernandez in 2012, which was a fair-to-middling Republican year (against a great base-burnout campaign for the Dems nationwide, and a huge “new-voter registration” campaign in Minnesota).

This chart shows two more sets of data:

The top two rows show how many more voters there were for each party in 2012 from the selected year.  In other words, in 2012 there were 10,723 more Republican votes than in 2008 (and 418 more Democrat votes).

Compare presidential years (which always have better turnout for both parties than non-presidential years).  Hernandez drew 10,000 more votes than in 2008 (even without the thousands of conservatives who voted for the uncharacteristically-conservative Independence Party candidate), which was not a great year for Republicans; he was up 4,000 from 2004 (a decent GOP year) and 25,000 from 2000 (a very good GOP year).

The interesting part?  The bottom two rows.  They show a “rematch” of the selected years’ races using Tony Hernandez’ 2012 GOP vote totals.  The 2012 match shows they actually exist (in part due to redistricting, although that wasn’t nearly as favorable to Hernandez as one might have hoped); this time, they  happened to exist against the backdrop of an epic DFL turnout.

But what if those Republicans could be inveigled to turn out against a more prosaic DFL turnout?

Hernandez’ numbers against BettyMac in 2008 (which was also a great DFL year – notice the fact that the epic 2012 turnout only added 400-odd votes to McCollum’s 2008 totals?) makes it a 66-33 race.  Against her 2004 numbers (blah year for Democrats, base-turnout year for Republicans) it was 60-40, which is a whole world apart from 70-30.

And against 2000 – a good GOP year with a functional state party and average DFL turnout – Hernandez’ numbers make it a nine point race.

And against off-year DFL turnout?   If the GOP were to pull off a miracle and generate presidential-year turnout against off-year DFL turnout, it’d be a ten point race.

Which still isn’t victory.

But Hernandez – running an underfunded all-volunteer campaign with no outside funding to speak of, endorsed by an intensely-dysfunctional party Congressional District unit of a state party that sat out the 2012 election completely, against a cash-sodden union juggernaut and a media praetorian guard that seems sworn never to mention the great unspoken secret (that McCollum is one of the dumbest people in Congress), “aided” by a redistricting that seemed designed to be as benign as possible to the incumbent, and attenuated by a conservative third-party candidate – turned out more Republicans than the 4th has seen in decades.  He had the bad fortune to do it into the teeth of a DFL GOTV wildfire.

So if he’d had $500,000 instead of less than a tenth of that?  If he’d had a state party that could help, and a CD committee that could help marshal support?  If he’d had experienced management, and maybe a full-time field staffer?

Just saying – not only are there grounds for optimism, but they may be stronger than we thought.

So that’s Hernandez against history.   How about in the Fifth CD?

We’ll look across the river tomorrow.

(more…)

Former Governor Ventura, if you’re reading this – and I am sure you are – I have to tell you that an apology is in order.

I am sorry.

For four years – including the first year of this blog’s life – I claimed that you were the biggest embarassment in the history of the state of Minnesota.

That crown – or belt, as the case may be – has been passed.  Mark Dayton, when he was a Senator, gave you a run for your money, but it was a transient thing.

But today, there’s no doubt. Keith Ellison is a morbid humiliation to everyone in this state that has the faintest interest in not looking stupid:

Representative Ellison is further proof that Minnesota Liberals never have to learn the art and craft of civil debate; they, like Ellison, come up through school systems where liberalism is taught as the social baseline, and universities where conservatism is treated as an aberration.

Listen to as much as you can. It’s cringeworthy.

I got to talk with the guy one time, on an online talk show. The guy really is more brittle and facile than I thought he was.

So I’m sorry, Jesse. I mean, I was right and all – you were a train wreck. But that was back when train wrecks were just fun rides, back in the cha-cha nineties, when consequences were dim and far-off – not like today, when the future of the Republic seemed as dire as it has in my lifetime.

.Yesterday in this space, we watched Betty McCollum at a town hall in Oakdale  repeatedly declaim that she wanted to see a “dialog” between Real Americans and the gun-grabbers.

I had all sorts of suggestions – but I wondered; what does “dialog” mean to Representative McCollum?

I got a copy of the letter she’s been sending her supporters:

Sadly over the past several years, far too many innocent American children, women and men have been the victims of gun violence. The sobering statistics about gun violence speak volumes. According to the U.S. Census, of the 129,741 murders that were reported between 2000 and 2008, nearly two-thirds of the victims were killed by a firearm. Every year nearly 100,000 people in America are shot or killed with a gun according to the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. Every day, 270 people in America – 47 of them children and teens – are injured or slain due to gun violence.

If this is what she’s bringing to the “dialog”, I’m afraid she’s not trying all that hard to “communicate”:

• Why show eight years of murder stats in one place?  To avoid showing that the gun murder rate is sharply down .
• Where did most of those shootings come from?  A criminal was involved – as the shooter, the target or both – in the vast majority of them.
• The Brady Factory uses stats that cuts off “Children and Teens” at age 19.  Plenty of 18-19 year olds are not only not “children”, they are criminals and gang-bangers, and doing plenty of shooting and getting shot at.

I may not be an elected representative, but where I come from “dialog” is best when it isn’t “one side spewing BS and the other side constantly correcting them”.

Oh, yeah – here’s more “dialog”:

Nonetheless voices like the NRA will do everything to protect guns rather than the lives of our children and law enforcement officers. I have consistently opposed the NRA and their extremist agenda and will continue to do so. As a result of this work I have received an ‘F’ rating from the NRA.

Keep up the “dialog”, Rep. McCollum.  Your seat is safe – for now – so you can do it

But let’s extend the “dialog” to some outstate DFLers.

Tim Walz and Collin Peterson:  do you agree with Rep. McCollum?

How about you, Patti Fritz and David Bly and Zac Dorholt and David Bly and all you other outstate DFLers?  How’s Rep. McCollum’s idea of “dialog” sound to you?  Kinda…extreme?  Is this what you plan on taking to your constituents next year?

To: Rep. Betty McCollum
From: Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  Mission Accomplished!

Rep. McCollum:

You had a “Town Hall” meeting deep in the heart of DFL-addled Oakdale yesterday.   MNCD4 Conservative was there to shoot video.

And even there, even you couldn’t dodge talking about the Second Amendment .

Video below the jump, so that the rest of the page can actually load:

(more…)

Betty McCollum is now on the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

To:  Senator Amy Klobuchar
From: Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  Powers

Sen. Klobuchar,

I have  a couple of questions for you.

1. Do you join President Obama in the belief that the law-abiding, legal gun owner is a public health risk and manifesting a mental illness?  I’ll ask you not to equivocate; yes, or no?
2. Could you please make your reasons for this support as public as you can, if applicable?  You’ve never been shy about using the media that serves as your praetorian guard to get the message out before; please don’t stop now.
3. If you support the President, could you please prevail upon Minnesota’s DFL legislators to publicly declare their support as well?  Very, very publicly?

You’ve spent the past six years in a calculated effort to create a public image of studied innocuity.  But given your massive victory last November, surely you feel secure enough politically to be honest about your stance and motivations.

I mean, you just know you’re bulletproof come election time, don’t you?

That is all.

To:  Senator Al Franken
From: Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  Powers

Sen. Franken,

I have  a couple of questions for you.

1. Do you support President Obama’s executive order saying law-abiding gun ownership is mental illness?  I’ll ask you not to equivocate; yes, or no?
2. If so, please make your support very, very public.
3. Again if so – please do what you can to make MN DFL legislators “come out” publicly on their support, would you please?

I mean, you just know you’re bulletproof come election time, don’t you?

That is all.

To: Rep. Colin Peterson (DFL MN-07)
From: Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  Power, Power, Power!

Rep. Peterson,

If you’d be so kind, I’d love it if you answered the following:

1. Do you support President Obama’s decree, yesterday, saying that law-abiding legal gun ownership is a form of mental illness?  Yes or no, please.
2. As you’ve always claimed to be a pro-Second-Amendment guy, then – if you don’t support Obama, what do you plan to do to fight this usurpation?

Your attention to this matter will be appreciated.

That is all.

To:  Rep. Tim Walz (DFL-MNCD1)
From: Mitch Berg, Peasant
Re:  Powers

Rep. Walz,

I have  a couple of questions for you.

1. Do you support President Obama’s executive orders trying to equate legal, law-abiding gun ownership with mental illness? I’ll ask you not to equivocate; yes, or no?
2. If so, are you urging DFL legislators in the 1st CD to do the same?
3. If not, how do you plan to manifest this dissent politically?  Concrete terms, please.

Please make your stance on this issue as public as you possibly can.  Tell the Strib, if you’d be so kind.  Failing that, at least inform Sally Jo Sorenson; she’s always been a reliable steno.

That is all.

Remember when Obama was a “moderate” on guns? When he spent a couple of years trying to show Americans he wasn’t that kind of Chicago pol?

Yeah, I didn’t either.

In 1994, the backlash against Clinton’s raft of gun laws was a key part of the Republican Revolution that swept the country; the likes of Newt Gingrich wanted us to think it was all “Contract with America”, and that was the marquee event to be sure, but for a whoooole lot of people, it was the Democrats voting for (and some GOPers caving to) the anti-gun panic that drove votes.

Remember Rod Grams’ defeat of Ann Wynia?

Does Al Franken remember it?

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

I’m impressed: 4 for 4, actually doing his job. Give credit where due.

Shooting victims: he offers prayers, which is about all anybody can realistically do without making things worse with ill-considered bans.

Deficit: working on it. I disagree with his proposal, but at least he’s working on it. Good for him.

Farm Bill: stupid policy but it does affect interstate commerce so yes, it is his job. Good for him.

Asian carp: they migrate on federally regulated waters (Mississippi) so yes, it is his job. Good for him.

Congratulations to Senator Franken. He’s doing his job. I disagree with HOW he’s doing it, but he is doing it.

Under the terms of his hiring agreement, he’s doing what he was sent to DC to do.

But I’m still thinking his performance review in 2014 needs to point toward a career change.

Right in the nick of time as even non-political Americans start to get concerned about tax hikes and the “fiscal cliff”, some good news from the Strib!

Yes, Senators Klobuchar and Franken both oppose the Medical Device Tax!

Minnesota’s two senators sought Monday to delay a tax on medical devices that was expected to add $28 billion over the next decade to help pay for health care reform.

Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken pointed to thousands of high-paying jobs that device companies support in Minnesota, headquarters to such giant devicemakers as Medtronic and St. Jude Medical. The industry has painted the tax as a job killer that would hurt innovation.

“The delay would give us the opportunity to repeal or reduce that tax,” said Klobuchar, co-author of a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid seeking the delay.

So that means the Senators will join 3rd CD Congressman Erik Paulsen and support his bill in the House to repeal the tax, right?

Franken is among the letter’s signers who would not support Paulsen’s plan. “I felt the offset in the Paulsen bill would have undermined the architecture of the Affordable Care Act,” Franken said.

Oh, don’t bother us with details!  Franken and Klobuchar – and say, doesn’t she just look stunning in the photo the Strib opted to use? – are coming out strongly in favor of delaying the tax!

So what’s missing from the Strib story, bylined to Jim Spencer?

Look it over.  Carefully.  Carefully…

How about any mention that both Senators voted for the tax initially?  

Both Franken and Klobuchar participated eagerly in jamming Obamacare down the American people’s collective throat; both have timidly objected via friendly media in the least obtusive way possible; never bucking their caucus, never ruffling the Administration’s narrative, never standing up for the thousands of constituents that are already being harmed by the tax in any way that would bring them any risk whatsoever.  Both of our Senators have invested facile lip service to delaying or repealing the tax – but neither of them have ever put a vote, or any substantive political capital, on the line.

Spencer’s loathsome Strib piece is what we call “public relations”.  It’s what the Strib and most of the rest of the Twin Cities media is there for.

The Regime is sending diplomats to….

…Minneapolis:

The State Department has announced that it’s sending the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs to … Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Maybe they thought it was “Myanmar”, too.

This part was actually funny:

“Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs Esther Brimmer will travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota, November 19 where she will be hosted by Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) and participate in a series of discussions with civil society organizations

If the not-remotely-civil Keith Ellison is involved in “civil society organizations”, look for a hidden rocket launcher.

I think this is going to be a humdinger of an election.  Alongside my predictions from this morning – GOP holds both chambers of the Legislature – I think Chip Cravaack will stave off Rick Nolan, setting the stage for what could be an epic realignment in Minnesota politics.

Beyond that?  I think Lee Byberg has laid the groundwork for what could be – let’s be conservative, here – a result that is unexpectedly good, and disconcerting for Collin Peterson.  And I think it would have happened even without his improvident slander of pro-lifers.

And while I think it’ll take a complete economic collapse and mass civil disorder to make Minneapolis anything but a DFL playground, I think Chris Fields is going to surprise people with his results on November 7.  He’s run a masterful campaign; in a just world, there would be no contest; in a district that wasn’t a one-party thug-ocracy, the statesmanly Fields would make short work of the whiny, petulant Ellison.

As to the 4th CD?

Here’s where we need your help.

Redistricting shaved Betty McCollum’s advantage down, but it didn’t gut it.  The 4th Congressional District was as blue as the Oceana Ministry of Truth’s uniforms before redistricting, of course; and it absorbed a lot of purple territory in Stillwater and Woodbury (as well as a few bright-red districts full of Real Americans up in Grant Township).

Which is a huge improvement, don’t get me wrong.

And so Tony Hernandez has been fighting this campaign to win.  And along with that, there’s been a solid effort by a lot  of candidates at the legislative level.  I think we’ve got a solid shot at four or five new seats in the legislature, either flips or open seats, as well as defending the seats we already do have.

And – this is huge – I think Blake Huffman, Dennis Dunnigan and Sue Jeffers have a solid shot at getting on the Ramsey County Commission.  And if that happens, the Ramco Commission will have a conservative majority!

If there’s a habit from the Old Fourth that we need to put to rest, it’s the idea that Saint Paul and Ramsey County Republicans only turn out when they think it matters – competitive Presidential, Gubernatorial and Senate races.  The media has done a painstaking, and fraudulent, job of trying to convince them that the Presidential and Senate races are foregone conclusions; they do it to try to convince Republicans not to show up at the polls.

This is where you come in.

The Hernandez Campaign is organizing a phone bank – along with several other campaigns and BPOUs in the 4th CD – to Get Out The Vote, starting tonight and running up until the election.

And we need people to sign up by clicking here and picking a time

Whether you’re a Paleocon, a Neocon, a Ronulan, a LIbertarian, or even an old-school Eastside Kennedy Democrat who’s had enough of the current regime, this is your chance to help convince people that this election makes a difference, and to help cajole them to the polls.

The fact is, Romney has a chance.  Tony Hernandez has a shot at shocking the world – perhaps by winning, perhaps by showing the state that the Fourth is not a safe sinecure and convincing Betty that a nice cushy six-figure gig with a non-profit is a lot less work in 2014.  And if we stick the landing on all five (or more!) of the legislative opportunities and the Ramco Commission, this will have an immediate and lasting effect on politics at the state level.  .

Remember when Amy Klobuchar, former Henco Attorney, tried to paint herself as “tough on crime”?

Apparently only if the criminal was poor and black:

Perhaps because of the lure of [legendary Ponzi schemer] Petters’ campaign cash or his deep connection to Minnesota Democratic politics, Klobuchar used the power of her office in 1999 to ensure Petters was not charged with financial crimes. And despite significant evidence against him, she cleared the way for Petters to build his multibillion-dollar illegal empire by prosecuting only his early co-conspirators.

One of those co-conspirators, Richard Hettler, told The Daily Caller that Klobuchar was aware of what Petters was doing, yet willingly accepted campaign donations from Petters’ company and its employees.

“She took Ponzi money to get elected,” he insisted.

Read the whole thing.

Because goddess only knows you won’t read it in the Strib until they’re dragged to the story kicking and screaming.

MN 7th District representative Collin Peterson – generally regarded as a bit of a blue dog, representing a socially-conservative but farm-bill-money-hungry district – lost his long-time endorsement from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for LIfe, the state’s main pro-life group over his flip on Obamacare.

And he’s done something that’s suicide for most politicians; he’s actually said what he believes, in a video recorded at Concordia College in Moorhead of a conversation between him and a pro-life student:

In the video, Peterson, speaking to Concordia junior Kate Engstrom after posing for what he believed was a photo with her, says the MCCL is “being a bunch of extremists” and the group’s stance on the Affordable Care Act is “the end of them as an organization.”

“They’re now a completely partisan organization,” he said in the video, in response to Engstrom’s questions about the MCCL’s endorsement decision. “When you get into that position, you’re done.”

Oh, yeah – remember when Jim Oberstar referred to his detractors as a “flat earth society?”

Peterson had a similar moment; he apparently believes his pro-life constituents are teh loosers and dummeys: :

 He also said: “The only place it (the dropped endorsement) got reported is on MPR, and those people don’t listen to MPR.”

Further evidence of the same exact phenemonon that got Jim Oberstar tossed two years ago; he acts one way when he’s out and about in  his districit – but when he thinks he’s among friends, or back in DC (or when he just loses control, as Oberstar did), he turns into Mr. Hyde.

Ms. Engstrom – who I believe I have actually met – would have a bright future as a reporter, if news organizations actually hired reporters rather than DFL stenographers (I’ll add a bit of emphasis):

 Engstrom, 20, made the video with a friend. She said she approached Peterson after the event on campus featuring a handful of Democrats because she wanted to speak to him about the lack of the MCCL endorsement… ”I knew that Collin would probably not respond or tell me his actual thoughts on it if he knew it was on camera,” said Engstrom, a political science student who describes herself as a Republican. “I just thought it was really important that people would know the truth of what Collin Peterson thinks.”

And Engstrom gets the “Mr Hyde” bit too:

 She said she believes Peterson assumed she was a Democrat, “so he felt like he could say whatever he wanted.”

She said she found the remarks insulting.

“It made it sound like we were some sort of weird extremists,” said Engstrom, who opposes abortion. “He always claims that he’s a moderate, and in my eyes he’s not really a moderate.”

If you live in the 7th CD, you know that Collin Peterson has been the unassailable blue-dog giant for a generation, now.

But if there were ever a time to dig deep and give of your time and money to support  Lee Byberg, this is it.

Because you’re not “extremists”, and you deserve to be represented by someone who knows it.

…a Scandinavian-American to the bone, a little innate ethnic pessimism is always struggling with my normally optimistic nature.

Deep in my liver, I do feel as if the Democrats could sweep all eight Congressional districts this fall.  Indeed, given that they have an incumbent President, the Dems should  feel humiliated if they don’t win the Presidency and flip both chambers of Congress next month.

So that part of me always has a hard time reacting to news like this:  when adjusted for a more realistic weighting, the latest KSTP/SUSA poll shows Cravaack ahead of Rick Nolan.

Gary Gross (with the odd bit of emphasis added):

First, this KSTP-SurveyUSA poll oversamples Democrats by a 7-point margin. That can’t be justified, especially considering the fact that the Cook Report listed MN-8 as a D+3 district in 2010. Chip’s won over more Iron Rangers, meaning the Cook Report’s PVI rating is more like D+2 this year.

Second, Chip gets 89% of MN-8 Republicans, 6% of MN-8 DFLers and 53% of MN-8 independents.

Third, the proper weighting of the district is 35% DFL, 34% GOP, 31% independent. That means Chip gets 30.2 votes from Republicans, 2.1 votes from DFL voters and 16.5 votes from independents for every 100 voters. That’s 48.8 votes per hundred for Chip. That’s assuming there isn’t an enthusiasm gap, which there is. That enthusiasm gap favors Chip by a pretty solid margin.

Fourth, Rick Nolan gets 7% of Republican votes, 87% of DFL voters and a pathetic 36% of independents. That means Nolan gets 2.4 votes from the GOP, 30.5 votes from the DFL and 11.2 votes from independents per 100 votes. That’s a total of 44.1 votes per 100 for Nolan.

After factoring the enthusiasm gap that favors Chip, this race isn’t as close as the horserace figures indicate. This race is still competitive. Still, this snapshot must have Chip’s campaign smiling.

This race has been the Holy Grail for MInnesota DFLers.  If they don’t beat Cravaack, Duluth will be the new Arnhem.

Nick  Coleman – the same one that used to sneer down his patrician mainstream-media nose at all of us villein bloggers – is blogging up a storm these days. 

He Who Knows Stuff has some advice for A-Klo:

Amy Klobuchar has been working hard to win the endorsement of Republican car dealers, like the ones featured in her campaign ad at the end of this post. But she hasn’t done so well impressing Minnesota progressives who are wondering why the state’s Senior U.S. Senator hasn’t been an outspoken opponent of the two heavy-handed Republican-forced constitutional amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot.

The car dealer ad is pure AKlo — a “She’s the Senator for All Minnesota!” ad about as sharp as mush in a bowl.

She’s sharp enough to know that her popularity – sky-high though the polls show it to be – is the same kind that Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan used to have in North Dakota.  Klobuchar is smart enough (or advised by people smart enough to know) that Minnesota is a purple state, that Barack Obama’s going to have all the coattails of a string bikini, and that she needs to shut up and make nice with everyone and not stick her neck out for anything.

Especially to oppose one amendment that, win or lose, will pin a negative on her, and another one that’s going to win by 3:2 even if the GOP doesn’t smoke the DFL on turnout.

There’s not much there, there with Amy Klobuchar.  But she’s not that dumb.

Coleman:

 The question is: Do Hugely Popular Politicians Still Have an Obligation to Try to Make a Difference?

Heh.  Coleman apparently thought Klobuchar was Paul Wellstone,  Politicians measure “obligations” as closely as engineers measure bridge gussets (which, if memory serves, Nick’s got some trouble with.  And memory does indeed serve).

Part of me isn’t sure that Coleman meant this next passage exactly as it sounds.  Part of me – the part that reads phrases like “do popular politicians have an obligation to make a difference” – thinks he means it exactly as written.  And the third part of me really really hopes he meant it exactly as it sounds (emphasis added):

 And both, at this point, seem likely to pass, in part because there is confusion among many Democrats as to how they should vote.

Are Democrats really such lemmings, or does Nick Coleman really think that’s all they are?

(Note: Requests to speak to Klobuchar, as well as to officials of her campaign, received no response).

Hey! Just like all us regular bloggers!

As we’ve been noting this week, the DFL candidate in the 3rd CD, Brian Barnes, may be a heck of a guy – but his campaign has been making some odd choices.

Their campaign signs – one of which I finally saw on the street the other day – still  violate FEC law. which is all nit-picky and anal-retentive, but I sure didn’t make up the law.  They still apparently are either conjuring up polls from the ether, or have found a pollster that’ll do polling for free or, more likely, are using internal push polls to try to convince potential donors to pony up for what will likely be a quixotic bid for office.  And one of Barnes’ “political organizers” has been disparaging small town and suburban people, who make up approximately all of Paulsen’s district.

The Barnes campaign (push-polls notwithstanding) are generally considered a long shot by the Democrat establishment.  And like all long-shot campaigns, Barnes’ has to try to find something to try to get some traction.

Some long-shot campaigns overcome that obstacle via ruthless budgeting, solid  organizing and above all, relentless hard work; see Chip Cravaack in 2010.

Others – the ones who can’t manage the budgeting, work and organizing – have to find some Hail Mary or another, something that’ll give ’em a hook to get them some mindshare, some little slice of the public consciousness.  See the Tim Penny and Tim Barkley gubernatorial race in 1998, which used a former pro wrestler as an elaborate marionette to serve as the face for their campaign.

Barnes’ campaign seems to have chosen the old standby, “have your people relentlessly repeat a set of chanting points” (along with the DFL’s usual “bank on fawning media coverage“).

Wait – that’s no old standby.  That’s because it doesn’t actually work.

But no matter.  The Barnes campaign seems to be focusing on having its people relentlessly repeat a couple of chanting points in hopes that one of them catches on.

• “He’s Not Really A Moderate”:  The theory, of course, is that the “Moderate” voters in “purple” districts like Edina, and “blue” districts like Bloomington, will repel from talk that Paulsen “votes like Michele Bachmann”.  On the other hand in an election cycle where the smart people know that we’re headed for a fiscal cliff, I – an obstreporous conservative – see that as a feature, not a bug.   The real point is, people – outside the wonk class – vote for a person and a record and a number of issues.  Not a wonk’s label.  Paulsen’s conservative enough for me – I wish he represented CD4 (note to self – vote for Tony Hernandez as many times as Mark Ritchie allows you to).  Chanting “you’re like teh Bachmann” is not a policy.
• “Where’s the public debate?”:  This is the latest one.  For months, Barnes’ people chanted “where’s the debate?”  Then, two debates – one at KSTP-TV and one with the League of Women Voters – were scheduled.  The chanting point changed to “where’s the public debate – as if a debate that Barnes’ people and the DFL could flood with DFL lemmings and SEIU droogs with photocopied questions would actually get people to the bottom of the issues.  Quick – where’s Betty McCollum’s public debate?  Keith Ellison’s?

In re this last – the Barnes campaign is reportedly mailing around a video of Paulsen “dodging” a question at a town hall back in 2009.  Unstated; it’s a question from former Minnesota leftyblogger and one-man tracking firm Dusty Trice, and it’s a pointed trap question intended to look bad on Trice’s video.

It didn’t work; in fact, Paulsen’s performance at that particular town hall (not a debate, mind you) drew this compliment from conservative talk show host Jack Tomczak:

Ok, I was kidding. I’m a kidder, I kid. It wasn’t Tomczak. It was leftyblogger “Two Putt” Tommy Johnson, the Twin Cities’ foremost leftyblog journalist, who is generally conceded to be the  DFL’s  intellectual standard-bearer.

And if it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.

———-

Someone asked me the other day – “why are you burning up so much time on the Barnes campaign.

As usual, two reasons.

• If you’re a Republican toiling away in SD67, or CD5, just know that there are DFLers that are having just as much fun – and spending a lot more money than your candidate in doing it.
• And if you’re a Republican in the 3rd CD?  Don’t believe the hype.  Oh, turn out to the polls; there are so many things that we need to crush with an epic turnout this November; Obama, Obamacare, the DFL’s drive for majorities in the Legislature, the Strib poll and so very very very much more.   But this is not the speed bump they’re looking for.

And a note to the Barnes campaign; instead of badgering Paulsen about debates, try running a coherent campaign that gives the voter an actual reason to vote for you.

Hope I’m not giving too much away, there…

This week, we’ve been looking at the DFL-endorsee Brian Barnes and his campaign for the MN Third Congressional District seat held by Erik Paulsen.  Yesterday we noted they bobbled a niggling but, er, Federal regulation on their new batch of lawn signs.

Today?  We’ll get serious.

Earlier this week, the Barnes campaign sent a fundraising email to their mailing list; they just spent a ton of money getting a Minneapolis creative agency to produce a TV ad, and those don’t come cheap.

That’s fine.  Everybody does it.

But here’s where it gets interesting.  The third paragraph in the email says (I’ve added the emphasis):

Every dollar at this point goes toward getting our message to persuadable voters. We have been steadily closing the gap on Congressman Paulsen. We started with voters supporting Barnes 24% and Paulsen 39% in May, and we’ve gained 20 points to his 8! In fact, he is beginning to lose voters since we’ve been successfully showing voters he only talks like Jim Ramstad, but he votes more extreme than Michele Bachmann.

Let’s back that up for a moment; amid the awkward phrasing (are they claiming the race is 47-44 or not?), there are some questions.

What polling?

According to sources familiar with the history of the race, Barnes’ former campaign manager, Tom Beckfield, last month said that there had been no polling in this race.  That’s as of August.  And we know that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Dems’ national campaign organization and warchest, had done no polling in the 3rd CD – or at least they’d not released any into the public domain.  So if Barnes has national polls, they’re illegal.

Beyond that?  The campaign included no polling expenditures in their FEC reports through July.

But the fundraising email claims to have tracked results from May through the present.  Via what polling?

The source notes that the Barnes campaign is doing intermal push-polling.  Are these the results that the email is trumpeting?

Since the campaign reports no polling expenses, and the DCCC hasn’t done it, what else could it be?

If you see Brian Barnes, ask him if you could.

(There are times I wonder – what if we had a group – perhaps a whole industry, with printing presses and transmitters and stuff, whose job it could be to check this sort of crap out?)

Tomorrow:  If you live in Waconia or Minnetonka, one of Barnes’ staffers has something to say to you.

The other day, I took a rare drive thorough the western suburbs.  I don’t get out there much, so it’s always fun to drive through a place that’s been good Republican territory – or at the very least, a place with a vigorous two-party government (which most of the “safe Republican” districts in this state are, in stark contrast to the one-party DFL gulags of Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Duluth). 

And I gotta say – I love the smell of a Republican-dominated district in the morning.  It smells like…prosperity.  And competence.  And hope.

It’s campaign season, so I noticed a lot of campaign signs.  There were lots of DFL signs sprinkled with healthy clusters of GOP signs in Bloomington.  The balance shifted decisively the farther north and west I got – Minnetonka, Maple Grove and the like.  Lots of signs for city council, Henco Commission and of course Erik Paulsen.

One that I completely missed?  Third District DFLer Brian Barnes.  40-odd days before the campaign, I saw not a single Barnes sign.

Now, we’re told that’s about to change.  Candidate Barnes tweeted this, last Wednesday:

Lawn signs are in! Get one this Saturday at one of our Day of Action events: facebook.com/events/4455344…#MN3#stribpoltwitter.com/BarnesForMN/st…

— Brian Barnes (@BarnesForMN) September 19, 2012

(Say what you will about Barnes’ politics – whatever they are – but that is one adorable baby).

But let’s not focus on babies.   Look at the sign.

We’ll come back to that.

———-

Now, I don’t know much about Federal Elections Commission law – other than that it’s incredibly intrusive, and that Sheldon from “Big Bang Theory” isn’t anal-retentive enough to follow it.  I’ve seen campaigns for federal-level office – Senate, Congress – have to completely redesign entire literature pieces, signs and other products to fit some picayune codecil or another in FEC law.

But here’s the book – literally – for Congressional Candidates and their committees.  All 180-odd pages of it.  It’s the sort of stuff campaign managers and communications people make the big bucks to know.

And tucked away on page 66 is this little bon mot:

A disclaimer notice must be clearly and conspicuously displayed. A notice is not clearly and conspicuously displayed if the print is difficult to read or if

the placement is easily overlooked. 110.11(c)(1)…In printed communications, the disclaimer must be contained within a printed box set apart from the contents of the communication. The print of the disclaimer must be of sufficient size to be “clearly readable” by the recipient of the communication…

So where’s the “Paid for by…” whomever disclaimer?

In this photo, it’s that little squiggle of white tucked into the lowest of the stripes on the “flag”.

Aesthetically, it works for me – I mean, I didn’t write that FEC crap – but that’s no box,, and “inside the stripe” is the very definition of not “set apart from the contents of the communication”.

The FEC goes on:

…and the print must have a reasonable degree of color contrast between the background and the printed statement. 110.11(c)(2)(ii) and (iii). Black text in 12-point font on a white background is one way to satisfy this requirement for printed material measuring no more than 24 inches by 36 inches

While FEC regulations make me look for fiber supplements, we’re on my turf now.

Thin white type on a red background is a fairly low-contrast combination, especially on a sign that ‘s supposed to be viewed from a distance.  Indeed, for the 10% of men who have some degree of red-green color-blindness and depend on contrast to see reds and greens, it is to some degree or another nearly unreadable at all.

If these are the signs they handed out last Saturday, then they’re going to have a problem.

(And I’ll solicit feedback from my readers in the Third.  Are you seeing these signs out there?)

———-

Now,  this is pretty niggling stuff.  True, it’s the stuff campaigns pay “consultants” the big bucks to know – and Barnes’ campaign has certainly ponied up for consultants.  Like, thousands and thousands of dollars worth.   And it does have the salutary effect of infringing federal campaign regs – so even if I think it’s no big deal, there’s a building full of intensely anal-retentive people in DC who likely do.

It’s just the first – and, let’s be honest, the most understandable and least not-ready-for-prime-time – of a series of flubs the Barnes campaign has put out in recent weeks.

———-

As a complete side issue, I’m going to make the first of my fearless  predictions;  Barnes may do better than Jim Meffert in 2010 – but not much.  I say Paulsen wins in November by 16.

I live in the Fourth CD – St. Paul, Ramsey and an unfortunate tail of Washington counties – and I’ve focused mostly on that Congressional race so far.

But if you’re a conservative, you need to pay attention to the race in CD8, where Chip Cravaack – one of the single greatest Cinderella stories of the 2010 cycle – is fighting a very tough re-election bid.

He’s up against Rick Nolan, an old-school northwoods ultraliberal DFLer who served in Congress back in the statist seventies.  While the MN DFL is an intellectual throwback to a time when neither US industry nor the notion of big government had any real challenges, Nolan is a literal throwback:

• Jobs be damned:  Nolan sided with Twin Cities environmentalists and the EPA to block the PolyMet mine – and the 500 jobs it’d have brought to an area that could really, really use 500 jobs.
• We All Belong To Government: Back when he was in Congress, he repeatedly voted to jack up small business taxes – and has given us no indication he’d be any less a tax-extremist than Barack Obama or Mark Dayton.
• A One-Man Death Panel: Nolan supports Obamacare, which would gut the Medicare that so many of his constituents depend on.

The American Action Network just released an infographic about Nolan:

It’s suitable for framing and sending to any relatives you have up north.

Or just emailing.  Whatever.

The DFL is trying to tell northern Minnesota that they can return to their glory days of the 1960’s and 1970’s by returning to the government of the era.  It’s just not true.