Attorney General Lori Swanson has declined the Governor’s request to join the states sueing to stop Obamacare:

She pointed out in her letter to him that Pawlenty can always file his own friend-of-the-court brief to side with the states fighting the law.

That prompted this response from Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung: “Governor Pawlenty intends to participate in this litigation.” He refused to comment on whether the governor would file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting lawsuits filed by other states, hire his own lawyer or participate in some other way. “We are going to consider our options,” McClung said in an e-mail.

Hopefully that option includes finding someone to run for Attorney General to get the statist fossil Swanson out of there.

Yes, I said statist:

In rejecting the call for Minnesota to file a lawsuit, Swanson, in a written opinion, said Congress has wide latitude to pass laws to tax and spend and to regulate interstate commerce.

“Health care — which comprises over one-sixth of our country’s economy — substantially affects interstate commerce,” Swanson said. “The United States government has been involved for years in many aspects of health care, including Medicare and Medicaid.

“Interstate Commerce” has been the trojan horse that’s enabled the socialization and overregulation of far too much of our economies and lives, ever since FDR’s administration essentially repealed the Tenth Amendment seventy years ago.

Now we know what side Lori Swanson is on.

So we got any lawyers out there, MNGOP?

One of the big political “stories” last week was the “threat” letter sent to thirty-odd US state governors, including Governor Pawlenty.

The City Pages’ “Blotter”  caught part of the “story’s” big problem;

[The putative senders’] agenda: “The Restore America Plan is a bold achievable strategy for behind-the-scenes peaceful reconstruction of the de jure institutions of government without controversy, violence or civil war.”

The letter’s message: Resign in three days, or we’re coming to get you.

Big whoop, Pawlenty told the AP.

And as much as I’ve bagged on the sloppy, trite, meaningless nature of most of the post-Steve-Perry City Pages existence, it’s here that they do a bit of due diligence that most of the rest of the Twin Cities media would have done well to emulate; they did some checking – or, to be accurate, they quoted some people who had some some checking:

And maybe with good reason. Mother Jones magazine traced the group’s Web site owner via a readily-available Internet domain search engine:

Turns out goftr.com and guardiansofthefreerepublics.com are registered to one Clive Boustred of Soquel, California–a British-educated former South African soldier with an apparent knack for “anti-terrorist warfare,” computer consulting, and conspiracy theorizing. The sites–and the “group”–appear not to have existed before he registered them, about two months ago.

In other words, “Guardians of the Free Republic” are no more a “movement” than, say, “Citizens for a Supine “Safer” Minnesota”.

So kudos to the City Pages; they didn’t buy the hype.

Which is more than we can say for much of the media.  I tuned into National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” last Friday.  And Saturday.  They carried the story with breathless credulity, noting that an FBI agent had noted that the “real threat” wasn’t so much from GotFR, but from  people who “might” be inspired to copy them, or follow through on the “Threat”. 

In other words, according to a chunk of the media and Barack Obama’s government, the opposition to President Obama is loaded with people who’d just loooove to start tossing governors from office without waiting for elections.

Which is, again, the meme we were talking about last week; the Administration, media and left’s (pardon the rare and difficult triple-redundancy) are trying to portray all dissent from Obama as teetering on the edge of extralegal depravity.

Among the DFL’s “Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota”-chanting clacque, you rarely see much sympathy for tax cuts; suffice to say that once Obamacare kicks in, we won’t see any for a long, long time.

But when it comes time to try to save jobs, suddenly, even the hardest-core DFLers get religion; Governor Pawlenty just signed a series of tax exemptions intended to try to keep the Saint Paul Ford plant open.  The plant is scheduled to close next year; the law would incent Ford to retrofit the very old plant to build vehicles other than the Ranger pickup.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, who’s often been at odds with Gov. Tim Pawlenty over cuts in state aid to cities, applauded the governor for signing the bill later this morning.

Said the mayor:

“This legislation gives Saint Paul the means to do our part in protecting the workers at the Ford Plant. As Ford continues to look at their options, this bill stands as evidence that the City of Saint Paul, and its world class workforce, are ready to work with them in any way we can to keep this plant open.”

That’s right, Mayor Coleman.  Just imagine how many businesses would come to Saint Paul if all our taxes were lower!

Les Lucht, a good friend and Ford employee, writes at Ademocracy to thank everyone involved:

Little background on the plant is over 90 years old, The machines are over 25 to 30 years old.
It would cost about 1 billion to clean up the site. And the City and State will lose more than 90 millions dollars in taxes. Beside other business nearby will close additional taxes loss of one to two millions in loss of taxes. Plus another 750 unemployed employees, loss of more tax dollars.

Southern state have got federal aid to get job there. mainly auto companies. And to keep them.

I’m opposed to state subsidies on principle, and a tax cut that Peter gets but Paul doesn’t is pretty much a selective subsidy.  But Lucht is right; the market for big auto plants is like the market for stadiums; governments at all levels have skewed the market by being in the game so very deeply.

So they’ve done it.  The Obama Administration, speaking for about a third of the American people, jammed a nationalization of the Health Insurance industry down the American throat.

On the one hand, American people, you were warned.  If you voted for Barack Obama and are among the millions getting buyers remorse today as you confront the very real possibility that your health insurance premiums are going to jump like a point guard with a rocket up its butt as your access to service decays into a morass of DMV-like misery, remember – we told you so.  We told you Obama was going to do whatever he and his minions could to nationalize as much of the economy as possible.  And he said, even during the campaign, that it all started with socializing healthcare.  He telegraphed the punch, people!

I got a few phone calls yesterday.  “I’m scared”, they said.  I saw a bunch of similar comments on Facebook and Twitter.

Don’t be.

In the immortal words of Harry Dean Stanton’s “Jeb Eckert”  in that American trash-underground classic Red Dawn, there is a better solution.

Eckert knew everything he needed to about government “services”. 

And he had some simple advice for channeling emotions at times like this.

“Let it turn into something else“.

Now is the time for anger.  Constructive anger, mind you – partly because the left and media (pardon the redundancy) will be looking for every sign of anger, translating every fit of pique into an indictment of all dissent (even if they have to make it up).  But mostly because there is no time to waste.  There are only seven good campaigning months until November.

That anger needs to come out – politely, calmly, coolly as a wolf stalking its prey – at your legislators.  If your legislator voted against Obamacare – Kline, Paulsen, Bachmann and Peterson?  Call to thank them.  They need to know – even Democrats, like Peterson – that you appreciate them doing the right thing.

For the “bulletproof” Ellison and McCollum?  You may not think it does any good, and it may not flip any seats, but if Congress knows that there’s strong dissent even in “safe” districts, then they’ll know that the less “safe” districts are in trouble.

And in those less “safe” districts?  Jim Oberstar needs to know that the political trick he turned – the latest of many in a career built on a generation of pork-mongering – isn’t appreciated.  Especially all you Catholics in the Eighth District; he flipped his vote for thirty pieces of political silver. Find him a tree (rhetorically speaking).

And Tim Walz?  Does this man represent you, First District?  Does his vote to turn the Mayo Clinic into a public hospital make any sense at all?  Walz got his office by an upset win in a horrible year for Republicans; there’s no reason the district can’t redeem itself and the country by being rid of him for good.

Franken and Klobuchar?   They’re as safe a couple of votes for Obama as exist in the Senate.  But if you don’t think an avalanche of “no” calls will flip their votes, remember – Kent Conrad in North Dakota has to run for re-election in 2012.  He’s one of the most powerful men in Washington – right behind Byron Dorgan.  Who saw the train – you and me – coming, and decided to get out of the way.  If Conrad hears that the peasants are revolting in Minnesota, what will he think of his own, conservative, disproportionally Medicare-dependent constituency?

Make your calls.  And when (and, in the case of the gutless ones, if) there’s a town hall meeting?  Cancel your other plans.  Be there.  Be polite, but don’t back down.  They’ll have their goons there, just like The Man had in Birmingham and Selma.  It’s what banana republic tyrants do when they’re scared of those they see as their subjects.

When they have to bring in the goons in the purple shirts, that’s the good news.

So don’t be scared.  What’s in the past is in the past.  What’s important is that America learns its lesson before it’s too late.  We need to not only kick out of office every single person that voted for this abomination; we need to stomp the Democrat party without mercy, until it never gets up again. The urge to socialize America must be not just defeated at the polls; it must be obliterated.  It must be beaten into electoral gunk  that swirls down the drain of American history once and for all.

Politically, naturally.

Am I asking for too much?

Was Ronald Reagan asking for too much when he spoke in the seventies, at the very lowest ebb of America’s fortunes, influence and morale (so far), of ending the USSR ? 

Of course he was.  But doing the impossible begins with the impossible dream.

So don’t be scared.  Be angry.  And let that anger turn into the kind of motivation that wins wars, cures diseases, and sends stupid politicians back to their dingy law offices.

And then be there – at the demonstrations, on the phone, at the town halls.

The Democrats planted the wind yesterday.  We need to make sure they harvest a tornado.

Jim Oberstar:
2365 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-6211
FAX: (202) 225-0699

Collin Peterson
(202) 225-2165

Tim Walz
Washington Office
1722 Longworth House
Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
202-225-2472

Michele Bachmann
107 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2331
Fax: (202) 225-6475

John Kline
1210 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2271
Fax: (202) 225-2595

Keith Ellison
202-225-4755

Betty McCollum
1714 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
phone: (202) 225-6631
fax: (202) 225-1968<
Erik Paulsen
126 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2871
Fax: (202) 225-6351
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In all of the world, there can be no less valuable measure of competence or ability to succeed at ones’ job than a “Teaching Certificate”.

Now, I’m not bagging on teachers.  My dad, my sister, and two of my grandparents are or were teachers.  I taught, myself, for a while.

But what does a “Teaching License” mean?

It means that a teacher has taken a number of prescribed classes in an “Education” program – the kind of thing my father, who was not only the world’s best teacher for almost 40 years, but also taught education courses to would-be teachers full and part-time for many years – derisively called “Theory of the Eraser 352”.  They’ve also spent some time practice-teaching in a classroom.  And that’s about it.

I thought about this a few years back, when a friend and former manager of mine decided to chuck it all, leave the IT business, take his degree in math, and become a high school math teacher.  Now, the guy was a natural teacher; in a just world (or if he’s wanted to teach at a private school), he would have been hired off the street.

But no.  He, with his degree in math from a rigorous program, had to sit through a couple of years of classes on arcane pedagogy methods – “Theory of the Eraser” – and basically repeat two years of college  (in the least rigorous, most hot-air-puffed department on his or any campus).  When we last spoke, he was about to start practice-teaching – and was already sounding a little burned out with the system.

Why could he not just take his degree, and his years of experience and passion for the subject, and start teaching?

For the same reason you can not start a barber shop or a law firm or a nail salon or an electrical repair company without a license; because the people who already have the licenses want to regulate the supply of practicioners, to keep the supply of the service down and the prices up.

A few weeks ago, the Legislature saw a bill that would have allowed for “alternative licensure” of teachers – basically allowing people with significant real-world experience and who wanted to try their hands at teaching to get a fast-track to licensure.

Kevin Dahle – who squiggled into office in a special election two years ago over Ray Cox in SD25 – is part of the DFL push to squash the idea:

This past Tuesday, the Education committee in the Minnesota Senate passed an alternative Teacher licensure bill. I voted against that bill.

At a time when discussions have focused on increased rigor, teacher quality, and closing the achievement gap, fast tracking teacher licensure doesn’t see make sense.

Maybe it doesn’t, maybe it does.  It would help if Senator Dahle would provide some actual evidence either way.

All we get, though, is non-sequitur:

Senate File 2757 would allow person with a BA who has passed reading, writing, and math exams and a 5 week preparation course to be in charge of a classroom.

How can an individual, who has not adequately demonstrated proven success in an actual classroom setting experience, do a better job in closing the achievement gap?

In and of itself?  They probably can’t.

Of course, that would be a problem – if teachers with alternative licenses walked into classrooms and started teaching kids and drawing paychecks sight-unseen.  Now, I’m no school board member, but I’m going to guess that there might be some sort of evaluation process before a district hires a new teacher.

But why is this even an issue?  After all, we’ve all seen the headlines; districts are laying off teachers!  Even Senator Dahle notes it (empasis added):

Hundreds of laid off teachers and recent college graduates from 4 year teacher preparation programs are already looking for work. There are sufficient high quality experienced teachers for most subjects.

“Most subjects”.

It’s true.  There’s a glut of out of work teachers in many areas.

But the state is critically short of teachers in science and math.  We are begging for English as a Second Language teachers.  Heck, they can’t find male teachers to work in elementary schools – between the hostile feminism that runs the education academy and the thanklessness of being a union teacher, the number is plummeting even as our urban social collapse presents a dire need for male role models in our schools, a time that can make or break boys at a critical juncture in their lives.

Alternative licensure is a way to get people who are motivated to teach, especially math and science – people like my former manager – into the classroom, fast.  Because that’s where they’re needed.

The current system allows for flexibility. There are certain organizations such as “Teach for America” that already have programs in place in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Brooklyn Center having been granted waivers by the Board of Teaching. That program could continue.

Which is great – and T4A has been a notably successful program in many ways.  But it focuses on putting new college grads into classrooms.  It can not supply people with years of real-world experience in their fields and a motivation to teach.  That’s what altertnative licensure is for.

And I’d suspect Senator Dahle knows that.

But why would Senator Dahle not mention the bill’s true purpose?  Why would he not note how ungermane it was to refer to the many laid-off teachers who don’t have science of math degrees?

Why do you suppose?

Elected to the Minnesota Senate in January 2008. I have taught Civics, Economics, Political Science, A.P. Government and Social Psychology for 26 years. Served as President of the Northfield Education Association (for 10 years), served on the Council of Local Presidents for Education Minnesota, member of the Northfield Arts Guild, Northfield Historical Society, member of the United Methodist Church, worked with Citizens for Quality Education, active in several campaigns at local, state, and national level.

No big surprise, is it?

The big news among conservative bloggers in Minnesota this past week is that one of our own, my NARN colleague and longtime friend King Banaian, is running for the Minnesota House in District 15B. 

Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring compares Haws’ record with Banaian’s game:

A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of working with King, Rep. Laura Brod and Rep. Matt Dean on what essentially is a vision statement for Minnesota. The central theme to that document was essentially to get government out of the way so that Minnesota’s entrepreneurs would unleash their creativity in creating a more prosperous Minnesota.

That meant lowering taxes, shrinking the regulatory burden Minnesota puts on small businesses and keeping unfunded mandates to a minimum.

I’ve known King long enough to know that he’s a man of gravitas and a great public policymaker. When I look at Rep. Haws’s record, what I see is a man who is a reactionary and a man who votes too often for status quo policies.

Central Minnesota needs a visionary leader. The only man fitting that description is King Banaian. That’s why we must elect King this November to represent the residents of HD-15B in the Minnesota legislature.

This is, obviously, a major initiative among conservative bloggers.  Knocking off an incumbent gravy-monger, even in a year that should have a big conservative tailwind, is never easy.  We have to all pitch in and help out any way we can.

In the interest of helping, I’m going to present King with ten bits of campaign advice that should, with any luck, smooth his path to Saint Paul:

10. Find a winning message, repeat it relentlessly to every voter in Saint Cloud.  That’s the easy part.  Heck, every blogger’s got a winning message for their candidate, right?

9. Easy on the Radiohead.  Seriously.

8. Find a snappier way to explain “The Austrian School” to the layperson.  Perhaps given you’re in Saint Cloud, “The Oktoberfest School” would be a good start.

7. Get a couple of barrels of that Armenian brandy, and apply, er, liberally throughout the district.  Seriously.  Yummy.  That was some good breakfast brandy.

6. Carry the NARN tradition of the Speed Round to candidate debates.  Hilarity will ensue. Hilarity means votes.  Maybe.

5. Don’t even think about using Joy Division to intro your stump speeches.  Dude.

4. Go for the gutter.  Counterintuitive?  Work with me, here.  You know how one classic bit of Radio 101 advice is “smile as you talk – it helps your voice?”  Same deal here.  Most politicians are frighteningly uninformed and inarticulate. You have to drag them into some semblance of sounding literate.  That’s never been KB’s problem.  Quite the opposite; he can actually explain how fed policy works.  And if he doesn’t work to pull his level of discourse toward a more general audience level, he’s going to get 100% turnout among wonks.  Between the economic-wonk base of knowledge and the mental pull toward the ‘Bottom”, everything should even out about right.

3.  Ixnay on the Oxsay.  This is Twins country. Just saying. 

2. Think of a snappy name for your lit drop.  I’m thinking “The Caucusus Caucus”.  You’re welcome.

1. Enlist a couple of liberal whackadoodles to start the “Dump Banaian” blog.  We all know that it was the doop-di-doos that gave Michele Bachmann her margin of victory in 2008.  Every point counts.  You’re an economist with Eastern European ties; perhaps you could pull some surreptitious strings and get George Soros to pony up for it.

There y’go, KB.  Go to it!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t pass on something I flaked on yesterday; my friend and longtime Northern Alliance Radio colleague King Banaian is running for the Minnesota House.

The Twitter account for the campaign will be @kingforhouse — please find it, follow it, and watch for more.  I feel like the Facebook fan page looks too plain tonight so we’ll get to that tomorrow.  And for those who have inquired about online donation, thank you so much.  We will get that up tomorrow as well, along with an address for those preferring the paper variety.

We might need to run a trip from the Cities up to St. Cloud for lit-dropping and campaigning one of these next weekends.

I’ll be passing on news from the Banaian campaign as it’s warranted.  It’d sure be nice to eject Haws from office.

D’ya suppose we can book Banaian on the NARN broadcast at the convention?

Via Polimal, the Teachers Union is going to sit on its hands until it figures out who the winning (DFL) horse is going to be:

Education Minnesota president Tom Dooher said today the statewide education union won’t endorse a candidate for governor before the party conventions. The union’s political action committee isn’t scheduled to meet until May. He said they have no plans to meet before then. The DFL convention is set for April 23-25 and the Republicans will gather April 29 to May 1.

Amazing how that timing worked out, isn’t it?

EdMinn is, of course, a kingmaker in Minnesota politics, not only for their delegate count, but because of their deep, deep pockets.  Expect lots of ads this fall from EdMinn and its related “non-profits” showing children being tossed from schools into the street if Emmer or Seifert are elected.

Why no endorsement? Dooher says Education Minnesota says the candidate pool is deep this year and they are going through a “very exhaustive process” to make sure they endorse a candidate that will be a strong partner in moving education forward in the state.

In plain English:  the DFL convention doesn’t matter, and EdMinn is keeping its powder dry for the only contest that matters – the DFL primary race, which is sure to be a donnybrook, with four of the thirteen DFL candidates pledging to ignore the endorsement.

Al Franken is at -6 on the “passion index”, according to Rasmussen via the Strib:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in Minnesota finds that 50 percent of voters in the state approve of the job Senator Al Franken is doing, including 25 percent who strongly approve. That’s unchanged from surveys in November and January. On the other side of the ledger, 46 percent disapprove, 31 percent strongly.

The reason, of course, is yet more proof of Berg’s Seventh Law; while the Dems routinely tell the world that John Kline, Michele Bachmann and Erik Paulsen went to Washington to promote an “extremist” partisan agenda, Al Franken – “progressive” author and failed “Air America” host – actually did get elected after running a campaign based purely and expressly on being an obstreporous, Kos-friendly extremist.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen found that 67 percent approve of how Senator Amy Klobuchar is performing, with 42 percent who approve strongly. The overall approval rating is a nine-point increase from November. Just 30 percent disapprove of Klobuchar, including 15 percent who strongly disapprove.

A-Klo, on the other hand, realizes the great political truth; that once you’re a Senator, politics is mostly about not losing.  Playing it safe.  Not making the dumb mistakes. Barring the uncontrollable (like Norm Coleman running against a media shooting star in a bad year for Republicans – twice!), being an empty skirt is a recipe for a long career in Washington.

Today on the show, I’ll spend a chunk of the first hour talking about the GOP gubernatorial race.

I’ll be heavily referencing two excellent blog posts from this past week, both of which appeared in True North: “Why I’m Supporting Tom Emmer” by Craig “Captain Fishsticks” Westover, and “A Closer Look At Voting Records” by regular SITD commenter Master of None.

Tune in after 1PM, on the air at AM1280 or online at the Patriot’s web site!

(SCENE:  At the Oceanaire – a tony seafood restaurant in Downtown Minneapolis.   Representative Paul Thissen, Senator Tom “Baby Got” Bakk and Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson-Kelliher are sitting at a table with five empty chairs.  Anderson-Kelliher, bored, drums her fingers on the table.  Thissen checks his watch, and Bakk rock nervously in their seats. )

(Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak enters the room)

THISSEN, BAKK and ANDERSON-KELLIHER, SIMULTANEOUSLY:  Hello, Mayor Rybak.

RYBAK:  Hey, Margaret!

(BAKK and THISSEN, deflated, go back to gnawing on toothpicks)

RYBAK:  Thanks for calling the meeting, Margaret.  What’s up?

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  I’d like to lay out some ground rules and strategy for the campaign.

(SEN. MARK DAYTON walks into restaurant).

RYBAK: That’s a great idea.  (Notices DAYTON).  Hey, Mark!

DAYTON:  Aaaaaaagh!   (DAYTON dives to floor, rapidly low-crawls to the table, furtively sits in chair).

THISSEN:  What’s the matter, Mark?

ANDERSON-KELLIHER – Shut up, er…

THISSEN: Paul…

ANDERSON-KELLIHER: …whatever.  (Turns to DAYTON)  What’s the matter, Mark?

DAYTON:  (Affixing a lobster bib) Er, nothing.  Why?

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Just curious.  (Looks at menu, as former Senator MATT ENTENZA, with wife LOIS QUAM, enter the restaurant.

BAKK: “Hey, Matt…”

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  I said SHUT UP!

BAKK: You told Paul to shut…

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Don’t care! (turns to ENTENZA) How are you today, Matt?

ENTENZA: I’m doing…

QUAM: (A little too effusive) He’s doing just fine, Margaret!  (ENTENZA abruptly stops).

ANDERSON-KELLIHER: Ah, excellent!

(A loud belch issues from outside the entrance.  Rep. TOM RUKAVINA walks in, pounding his chest.  He shakes out another mild belch).

THISSEN:  Hey, Tom…(Trails off as ANDERSON-KELLIHER stares him down; THISSEN looks bash fully at his menu).

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Excellent!  I believe that’s everyone…(counts noses)…except…

(Harps play in the hallway.  A little dry ice fog obscures the floor.  Sen. JOHN MARTY, hands clasped as if in prayer before him, moves across the floor as if floating, and lands like a hummingbird on the remaining chair.  A golden aura briefly suffuses the room, then vanishes).

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Hey, John.

MARTY:  May the blessing of my presence bring you peace.

ANDERSON-KELLIHER: Er, yeah.  I called you all here today because voters are having a hard time telling the difference between us.  For the good of the DFL race, it’d be best if we all come up with some sort of differentiation between us before the convention.

RYBAK:  Primary.

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Convention!

ENTENZA: Yeah, convention!.

QUAM:  Primary!

ENTENZA: Er, yeah.  Primary.

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Convention!

THISSEN:  Convention, just like Margaret says…

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  For the last time, shut the **** up! (ANDERSON-KELLIHER flings a salt-shaker at THISSEN, hitting him in the face.  He falls backward over his chair, and lies on the floor, motionless.  DAYTON dives for the ground).

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Like I said, convention.  So I’d like you all to think of things we can do to distinguish ourselves to the voters…

WAITRESS (Approaches with order pad in hand):  Hello, my name is Wendy, and I’ll be your…

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  For the last ****** time, shut the **** up…

RYBAK: Er, Margaret?  She’s the waitress…

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Oh.  Go ahead, then.

WAITRESS:  Er, OK.  Any drink orders before we order dinner?”

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Boilermaker.

RYBAK: Appletini, please.  Extra tini.

BAKK:  I’ll have whatever Margaret is having.

THISSEN:  (Groans incomprehensibly)

RUKAVINA: Grain Belt Premium!

ENTENZA:  I’ll take your house chablis…

QUAM:  He’ll take the house merlot, and so will I.

ENTENZA:  Er…yeah.

DAYTON:  A diet Pellegrini.

WAITRESS:  Sir, all Pelligrini is “Diet”.  It’s water…

DAYTON:  Two diet pellegrinis.

MARTY:  I shall have a glass of water.  But please bring it in gaseous form.

WAITRESS: Er…wait – you want a cup of steam?

MARTY:  As it is said, so shall it be poured.

WAITRESS:  Er, OK.  And would you all like to start a tab?

(All at table break up into uproarious laughter)

RUKAVINA:  Baby, you ain’t seen nothing.

(WAITRESS LEAVES)

ANDERSON-KELLIHER: OK.  I’d like everyone to say, for the record, what makes you different.  Paul?

THISSEN:  (Groans, puts hand on forehead).

ANDERSON-KELLIHER: OK.  Matt?

ENTENZA:  (Looks at QUAM)

QUAM:  He will raise taxes for a better Minnesota.

(ENTENZA nods enthusiastically).

RYBAK:  Well, I’ll raise taxes for a better Minnsesota, too.

BAKK:   Well, I won’t…

ANDERSON-KELLIHER: Yes, you will.

BAKK:  Yes, I will.

DAYTON:  I will raise taxes.  For a better Minnesota.  (Eyes door furtively).  I will.  I will.  I will.

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  OK.  Not getting what I want here…

RUKAVINA:  I’ll raise taxes more for a better Minnesota!

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Better…

WAITRESS (Carrying tray of drinks):  OK, that’s two house Merlots,  a Grain Belt Premium, two Boilermakers, an Appletini, two “diet Pellegrinis” a cup of steam, and (looks at THISSEN) some smelling salts.

THISSEN:  (grunts painfullly)

WAITRESS:  That’ll be $77.

ANDERSON-KELLIHER: No.

WAITRESS:  Er, maam?  I brought the drinks.  You need to pay up.

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Shut up.

WAITRESS:  Maam?  This isn’t funny.  You wanna leave me on the look for almost $80 worth of drinks?

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  Shut up!

RUKAVINA:  Yeah.  Shut up!

WAITRESS:  I’m gonna call the police.

ANDERSON-KELLIHER:  (Stands at table)  Attention, everyone in the restaurant.  Please pay our drink tab!  It is for a better Minnesota!

(RUKAVINA, BAKK, RYBAK, QUAM, and ENTENZA applaud; DAYTON balances spoon on his finger; THISSEN groans)

MARTY:  As it is written, so shall it be done.  (MARTY disappears in a blinding flash of pure light).

And…scene.

The DFL is heading toward a convention that will bestow its usual “kiss of death” to whomever gets it – usually the candidate that makes the “progressive” activists that control the party the most tingly; this will lead to a summer of hammer-and-tong DFL fratricide leading up to a September primary that will determine the real candidate for governor.

This combined with the fact that the DFL is in a historically disorganized state, and heading into a headwind of disaffection with Barack Obama and a GOP with new leadership at its head and a Tea Party chasing it to relevance, and the DFL and its minions are desperately in need of a sideshow to draw attention away from their own cage match.

Dave Mindeman at mnpAct wants to direct the reader to the sideshow they’re counting on – the neck-and-neck GOP endorsement battle between Marty Seifert and Tom Emmer:

The Emmer vs. Seifert free for all on the GOP side of the governor’s race is heating up. Both sides are capable of some prolific attack dog politics. And it will get nasty.

It is gradually developing into a conservative base vs. party establishment fight. Emmer is increasingly drawing endorsements and support from conservative bloggers, conservative activists, and conservative leadership. Seifert has support from old line party leadership and the more traditional Republican base.

Which is an interesting way for the local leftysphere to put it, given that both Emmer and Seifert are routinely portrayed as “conservative extremists” whenever they’re mentioned in any other context.  But it’s not untrue; Seifert’s got the organizational mojo, Emmer’s a conservative firebrand and the best stump speaker in Minnesota politics today.

The two have developed a recent history. Emmer had challenged Seifert for Minority Leader a few years back and then refused to vote for him for Speaker in 2009. Emmer has been waiting awhile for this opportunity and he is cashing in.

Add to all of this the fact that delegate strength to the convention is nearly evenly divided and you have the makings of an old style, no holds barred, nasty party convention.

Yep.  The GOP convention is going to be a donnybrook, very possibly crazier than the 2002 convo.

It is noteworthy that Seifert has been particularly critical of Emmer’s voting record of late. The in-depth research style has the definite ring of a Brodkorb type tactic. Although the former MDE attack blogger has been careful to be neutral in his capacity as party deputy chair, his fingerprints are almost detectable in the current Seifert strategy.

It’s no big secret; Seifert’s the “insider”.   The party has several years invested in Seifert as minority leader.

But this – and the idea that for every yin there needs to be an opposite yang – leads Mindeman to a fatally flawed assumption or, if you are more cynical, to the gaping whopper the DFL wants you all to believe about the MNGOP in the upcoming election; the sideshow, if you will, to try to distract the voters and encourage the DFL troops as they go through their own cage match this summer.

He starts out OK…:

Looking over the general Republican landscape, let me make a speculation…and mind you this is only an opinion.

The conservatives are putting a vested interest in Emmer. He is emerging as their consensus choice. Emmer has a wind at his back as he makes his case for the convention.

Yep.  The GOP’s conservatives are using the endorsement process as it was intended to be used; as the time to reject compromise, to declare “death or glory”, to come home with their shields or on them; to campaign for the most conservative candidate left in the race.  They don’t want the consolation prize; they want it all.  And correctly so; now is the time to fight like hell for the brass ring.

Seifert’s supporters, by the way, are doing exactly the same thing.  Because now is the time for the fight.

But it’s on May 2 that Mindeman’s theory goes to pot.

If Seifert manages to wrest the nomination away from Emmer in a bloody convention, you will see a party that will go into the fall campaign divided. A conservative backlash might just stop the conservatives from coalescing around Seifert, reducing his turn out and possibly moving toward some other third party or maybe even forming one.

Let me take you back in time to 2002.  Brian Sullivan – who was and is every bit as conservative as Tom Emmer – had the backing of the conservative base.  Tim Pawlenty – who held the same position in the GOP caucus that Seifert does today – and Sullivan were every bit as closely locked together as Seifert and Emmer are today.   And some of the punditry, especially on the left, predicted exactly the same result; that Sullivan’s supporters would stay home, that conservatives would break away, that the GOP would battle itself into irrelevance.

But the convention, as long and brutal as it got, had exactly the opposite effect.  To win the endorsement, Tim Pawlenty had to adopt one of Sullivan’s key driving points – the Taxpayers League’s “No New Taxes” pledge.  And for the imponderably vast majority of Minnesota conservatives, that was more than enough.

Tim Pawlenty took the pledge – and, more importantly, has honored it for eight years, now.  And I, as a fire-breathing conservative talk show host, could care less if he took a trip to the arctic with Will Steger that had absolutely no policy ramifications, as long as he stuck to the point that mattered – stymying the DFL’s plan, “spend like crack whores with stolen gold cards”.

In short, the bruising endorsement process had exactly the effect it was supposed to; a candidate won, but as a result of his fight to get endorsed, he took the keystone of his challenger’s platform to the Governor’s Mansion with him.

Emmer may have a better chance of holding the party together but he is going to carry some baggage as well.

Nope.

Look – I’m not backing any particular candidate, at least not publicly.  Not yet.  But I’ll tell you this; even if you are a stone-cold Tom Emmer zealot, you have to realize that not only would Marty Seifert be a better governor than any of the DFL’s pack of hamsters, but that Marty Seifert’s voting record in the House is more conservative than Tim Pawlenty’s ever was.   Seifert is a conservative.  As conservative as Emmer?  Perhaps not – but plenty good enough.

So campaign like hell for whomver your candidate is – Seifert or Emmer.  Because for once,  conservatives are in a win-win situation.   Whomever gets the nomination will be a better, more conservative governor than any of the alternatives available to us today.  Neither will be perfect – but perfect, as they say, is the enemy of “plenty good enough”.

There will be blood.

No.  There will be coffee, and shouting, and more coffee, and pictures of delegates sleeping at 2AM with drool coming out of the corner of their mouth, and more coffee, and Excedrin, and five or ten or fifty ballots, and concession and acceptance speeches, and handshakes, and meetings, and buried hatchets and smoothed feathers, and looks out the window at the Tea Partiers who are done asking nicely for results.

And on the morning after the final gavel, there will be a campaign that hits the road at the head of a mostly-unified GOP that has a three month headstart building a winning campaign, on its way toward capping off an epic comeback.

There will be coffee, drool and victory.

Three words to live by.

Over at Minnesota “Progressive” Project, a writer named “MNBearBud” plaintively asks “Can Minnesota Elect a Bold Progressive Governor in 2010?”

It’s a mash note for

As I have been helping out at a couple different DFL Conventions in the past couple weeks I have been hearing something that kind of disturbs me. The following quote is a paraphrase of several like it that I have heard.  “Minnesota is not ready for a bold progressive Governor, we need a nice slow moderate progressive.”  

I find this remark to be quite interesting given the present state of affairs with Gov. Tim Pawlenty running what used to be a great Minnesota right into the ground.

[So far “into the ground” that our unemployment rate is better than most of the nation in the midst of the Great Depression “Recession”.  But I digress – Ed.]

Our State Legislator can pass progressive bills, but they get stopped in their tracks by the Governor’s office. This is exactly what happened with GAMC. Yet, as much as people want progressive change, there are those who think that a bold progressive guy like John Marty just cannot be elected Governor. I am going to the State Convention as an alternate delegate for John Marty and I stand by that decision.  

The plea is something I hear from a lot of “progressives”; “why can’t we have another Elmer Anderson or Floyd Olson, and have him now?”

Well, the answer is simple.  No, Minnesota will not have a bold “progressive” governor this go-around.

Here’s why:

• The term is wrong.  “Progressivism” isn’t progress; it’s statism.  It’s glopping the deadening morass of government onto the life of our state.  I know – I’m nitpicking terminology.  I’m doing it for a good reason.  “Progressivism” as practiced by the MNDFL isn’t progress; it’s back to the thirties.
• But language-nerd nit-picking aside, sure – it’s possible a “progressive” might get elected.  The conventional wisdom tells us that a conservative just can not win the governor’s race in Minnesota this year.  Just like the conventional wisdom said that Skip Humphrey and Roger Moe would win the governor’s race, that Erik Paulsen ran too far to the right to win the Third, and that Michele Bachmann’s goose was cooked in 2008.  So it’s possible that a “progressive” might win the gubernatorial race. 
• But if he or she does, he or she will not be “bold”.  He or she will be fighting hard to float an agenda, because the MNGOP is going to either take back a chamber this year, or come very close.  The progressive will likely be a fairly timid one, by necessity.
• And while I said above that it’s “possible” the DFL could win this year, that’s just prudency beating optimism.  The GOP, even in this most miasmically-blue state, has a tailwind this year.  Obama is chasing the independents away from the left, although Twin Cities liberals, stricken with Pauline Kael syndrome, might not see it in their daily lives.   The DFL field – Marty, R.T. Rybak, Mark Dayton, Tom Rukavina, Margaret Anderson-Keliher, Paul Thissen, and Matt Entenza – are the people behind our serial multi-billion-dollar deficits, borne of the DFL’s extended orgy of irresponsible spending.  Their answer – heap more taxes on the peasants to keep the lords in Saint Paul fat and happy – is flying with fewer and fewer Minnesotans.  And both GOP candidates are not only well-placed to ride that wave, but one of them will be on the ground, running at the head of a newly-energized MNGOP and tens of thousands of newly-minted tax hawks in the Tea Party movement, during the first week of May, while the Minnesota  “Nude Thugs In The Shower” party will face three months of duking it out until the primary (because the DFL party endorsement, other than in great Democrat years like ’06 and ’08, is a traditional kiss of death).   Will it be enough to put “the Conventional Wisdom” to the pike yet again?  We’ll see.
• And just look at the Nude Thug lineup:  Marty? Rybak? Dayton?  Rukavina?  Anderson-Kelliher?  Thissen? Tom “Baby Got” Bakk?  Entenza?  I’m sure there’s a genetic engineering project out there that might be working on building a less-interesting, less-inspirational person than any of these, but scientists say results are years away. And the DFL is melting down almost as fast as the national Tic party is; four years of being unable to overcome the leadership of a lone governor has made them ornery and peevish.  And ornery and peevish don’t win elections.  But the DFL message, no matter which DFLer burbles to the top, is going to be “I’ll spend more, I’ll raise taxes more, and I hated Governor Pawlenty more still!”  I don’t think that’s going to be a winner this year.

The DFL’s primary mission in this session, as in the past four or five, is to money to keep the slavering maw of government satiated and without even the most trivial want.

With that in mind, Dave Mindemann at mnpACT notes that Senator Tom “Baby Got” Bakk wants to zip down and let fly on one of Minnesota’s great third rails:

State Senator Tom Bakk will probably get a lot of heat for his tax proposal on clothing. However, he should be commended for being willing to take a leadership position on a real solution to our budget problems.

Well, let’s focus for the moment on giving him the heat he deserves.  Even I, a middle-income guy with two teenagers, look at clothing as one of the most frustrating expenses in my family budget.  No two ways about it; kids burn through clothes like Margaret Anderson Kelliher goes through rationalizations.  And I make decent money, and have only two kids, one of whom earns a bit of her own fun money.  How much worse are things for, say, a family of six with a household income of $45,000?

Indeed – I’m looking forward to Bakk and Mindeman explaining this proposal to that family of six, after getting the news this past week that government workers’ average salaries (nationwide, but it can’t be proportionally much different in Minnesota) are around $75,000, while private sector workers average around $45,000 a year, and that government employment is safe and rising while private-sector jobs are tenuous and still getting whacked by the bushelfull.

Personally, I still think any expansion of the sales tax should be on the service sector [Great, Dave.  Throttle whatever recovery might just happen before it can start – Ed.] but I understand where Bakk is coming from on this proposal as well.

I’m not sure that Mindeman does, but I sure do.  In the DFL’s special little world, it is the peasants’ obligation to keep government satiated first and foremost; looking to their and their families’ rude needs is secondary at best.

And in that world, it is the DFL’s and the Government’s sole prerogative to bestow dispensations and mercy within that rule:

I would be more comfortable if we moved to this type of tax with some restrictions as well. Maybe a rebate for lower income people or only tax clothing on leather or fur, or with a designer label. That is certainly up for debate, but Bakk’s general premise is a realistic position to take.

Provided that the only goal that matters is making sure government wants for nothing, ever – no matter how rough the rest of us have it.

And that is the goal:

The biggest selling point to me is that it has a particular pupose. To pay back the schools. The Governor (and his minions) have not come up with a way to reallot (is that word?), the $1.6 billion cut in education (and it IS a cut) that the Governor foisted on us last year.

Whenever a DFLer says “and it IS a cut”, the rule is always “distrust but verify”; to a liberal, cutting an increase in entitlement funding is a “cut”. 

In addition, the end result in subsequent years is to lower the overall sales tax percentage.

Right. Because the Minnesota state government and its DFL-controlled bureaucracy (to say nothing of the stultifying DFL majorities in the Legislature) have such a great record at rolling back tax hikes.

Excellent plan. A realistic plan. A plan that shows leadership.

Thank you Senator Bakk, for the courage of your convictions.

Dunno, Dave.  I’ll kudo Bakk’s “courage” when he takes that proposal to people outside the Capitol.

Minnesota, following the national trend by its usual 10-20 years, passed a moratorium on nuclear power plants in the state a decade and a half ago.

With energy prices having zoomed upward in the past few years, and likely set to do it again if the economy ever recovers, a good chunk of the USA – especially the part where it gets cold, and electrical and natural gas heating costs have gotten out of control – started demanding our zombie overlords look again at nuclear power; given advances in the technology that address the very, very few safety concerns that ever existed about non-Soviet nuke plants, the time seems right for a fresh look.

The DFL wants to make sure we don’t:

Last year, the state Senate passed a bill that lifted the state’s moratorium on nuclear power plant construction.

The fate of the same proposal this year is now bogged down in a Senate committee.

The Senate Energy committee this afternoon approved a controversial amendment 9-6 that lead the bill’s author to ask to halt the discussion.

The amendment displays either the DFL’s ‘ignorance about business, or its hostility toward business and efficient energy:

The chief sponsor, Sen. Amy Koch, R-Buffalo, said the amendment, which was offered by Sen. John Doll, DFL-Bloomington, “guts” her bill. The bill as amended now bars utilities from charging ratepayers for construction costs before a plant is completed. Doll’s amendment also requires a federal nuclear waste repository be created to store spent nuclear fuel rods.

Has anyone looked into how much money John Doll gets from wind, solar and biomass interests?

Sen. Ray Vandeveer, R-Forest Lake, said the new requirements in the bill would prevent energy companies from building nuclear power plants in Minnesota.

“The Doll amendment puts us in the dark ages and it keeps us there and condemns us there,” Vandeveer said.

Lifting the nuke moratorium might be bad business – for the DFL.  It’d gut the “renewable energy” market, and make fewer people dependent on the state energy-welfare bureaucracy.

The rest of us, on the other hand?

From coast to coast – and, very possibly, in the halls of the Supreme Court – the human right of self-defense is pushing the orcs back into their rancid caves.

Which doesn’t stop them from trying to gnaw away at your human rights – to say nothing of your pocketbooks – like sweaty little rats.

In a year when the Legislature has to try to deal with a 5.8 billion dollar deficit of their own making, Rep. Michael Paymer (Orc, Saint Paul) thinks gun control is the kind of thing the Legislature should be wasting its time on:

From Virginia to Arizona, federal and state gun laws are loosening everywhere from national parks to Amtrak trains.

But in St. Paul, a proposal that would send Minnesota in the opposite direction is headed toward its first hearing Friday — a bill requiring background checks on the purchaser of any firearm sold at a gun show.

The proposal pits its DFL sponsor, St. Paul Rep. Michael Paymar, against the mighty arsenal of gun rights advocates and lobbyists who have managed to turn back nearly every effort to tighten Minnesota’s gun laws in the past.

The article – by the often-excellent Mike Kaszuba – is correct, but only if you cut history off at about 1996.  Up until 1974, for example, Minnesota required no permit, training, certificate, background check or anything else for a law-abiding citizen to carry a concealed handgun.  Starting in that year – a nadir in many, many ways for the state of Minnesota as well as the nation – the gun control movement started picking up steam in Minnesota, peaking in the mid-late eighties.  The usurping of our law-abiding citizen’s human right of self-defense didn’t really start to ebb until groups like the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance and Concealed Carry Reform Now started their organizing efforts – to this day, one of the greatest victories of grass-roots politics in Minnesota history.

How fuzzy-headed is Paymar’s timing?  Even Kaczuba points it out:

In a session dominated by pressing financial issues, it’s unclear how much time and energy lawmakers have for an explosive gun control debate. The GOP already is saying no way. But just the attempt is arousing serious passions as all sides take aim at Friday’s hearing.

Paymar knows when to toss out a boogeyman:

“I’m not backing down,” said Paymar, a veteran lawmaker who chairs the House public safety finance division. “I think there’s an undue fear of the [National Rifle Association] here at the Legislature.”

Of course, the NRA has been a relative bit player (albeit important) in the gun control debate in Minnesota.  GCRA and CCRN-MN have done the heavy lifting, and still have a pretty powerful mailing list; the last time the DFL tried to gnaw away at the law-abiding citizens’ human rights (the late ’90s and early ’00’s votes against Shall-Issue), outstate DFLers got spanked, many of them being tossed from office in defeats largely attributable to the state groups’ organizing.

I’m wondering what some of the outstate DFLers are thinking right now; harried by the Tea Party and their party’s association with the tax-guzzling spending-whores of the metro DFL delegation, they’ve gotta be thinking “thanks for nothing, Paymar; you’ve painted a metaphorical, rhetorical, electoral target on my butt”.

How fuzzy-headed is the timing of Paymar’s bill?  Even Kaszuba points it out (emphasis added):

Whatever the outcome, the nation’s pro and anti-gun lobbies are using Paymar’s proposal to make their points. Gun rights groups say the law makes no sense at a time when gun registrations have gone up in Minnesota, yet crime has gone down.

Serious crime decreased in Minnesota during four of the past five years, while permits by individuals to carry weapons in the state have risen by more than 6,000 in the past seven years.

Kaszuba is correct in spirit, but he’s got the numbers wrong; as of today, 71,182 Minnesotans have carry permits (and hundreds more every month) obtained since 2003.

I’ll be watching this.

(Via AAA)

It’s been made clear to me that I need to get off the fence with the Gubernatorial race.  Now is no time to be silent – and so I will not be silenced.

I endorse John Marty for the DFL nomination for Governor.  He is the only candidate who doesn’t completely profane the notion of the “progressivism” the DFL represents.

So I urge all you DFLers to get out there and support Marty for Governor.

Please.

Or Mark Dayton, if Marty’s dropped out by the time you read this…

Dave Mindemann sounds depressed:

I wonder if Pawlenty even wants to help anybody. He doesn’t care about the poor…we got that loud and clear. He’s playing games with the bonding bill, which means he is in no hurry to help with jobs. He reversed himself on climate change, which means he doesn’t give a rip anymore about the environment.

Let’s see, where to start?  The Minnesota taxpayer already pays for some of the best benefits in the United States, so much so that they attract people to move here.  There is plenty of wiggle room downward.

The bonding bill was larded with pork, and “cared about” mostly government jobs and swag for the construction unions.

And lots of people are reversing themselves on “climate change“; indeed, pretty soon the remaining Warmers will be like those Japanese soldiers who held out in the jungle for thirty years because they refused to believe Hirohito would ever surrender.

So buck up, little camper. Governor Pawlenty cares about all us poor schmuck taxpayers (remmeber us?) who are already getting sucked dry by our wortheless, spendthrift cities and counties.

Glad we could settle that.

Derek “Chief” Brigham, at Freedom Dogs, has been tallying up blogger “leanings for Republican Governor candidate endorsement.”  He has some interesting observations. Definitely worth a look.

Derek puts my own opinion into the (surprisingly) rare “Uncommitted” tally, but he doesn’t seem sure about it. So just to clear things up… Make that a definite uncommitted opinion. I hope whomever wins the endorsement makes a fine candidate in the general, and an even finer governor thereafter. But I’m too cynical to get caught up in all the primary hoopla this time around.

One potential headache for the MNGOP this fall has evaporated.

The possibility that Col. Joe Repya – war hero and longtime grassroots GOP leader – would run for governor as an “Independence” Party spoiler, soaking five or so percent of the votes away from a MNGOP candidate, might have been a problem come November.

No more; Repya is bailing out of the race:

“It has become clear to me that, much like the DFL and the GOP parties in this state, the (Independence Party of Minnesota) fails to stand by its own rules and principles. At issue, the (party’s) decision to essentially nullify the state convention endorsement process,” Repya said. “This action, in my opinion, severely damages the IPM’s chances of truly becoming a viable and strong third party option….Their action will further erode and (tarnish) the IPM brand while relegating it to a permanent position of political “spoiler.””

Well, no.  The “Independence Party”‘s big problem is that it was a “party” based around one celebrity candidate – Jesse Ventura – who got elected governor during a fit of collective silliness in a sillier time.  The rest of the party, afflicted with a grave case of self-importance, has soldiered on ever since, clinging to the faint fringes of relevance and – based on its ability to barely eke out 5% in one of the 2006 constitutional officer races – existence as a major party.

Repya’s candidacy had the chance to be a little more; Repya has a long history not only as a grass roots organizer, but as an organizer whose roots predate, and share a lot of personalities, with Minnesota’s large and successful Tea Party.  He was well-placed – within the context of the IP’s traditional ineptitude – to take advantage of the Tea Party, withy a message that could very well have peeled a few of them away.  And the media knew this, which was why Repya’s IP bid got so much media play; he was a disaffected Republican who left the party in a whirl of publicity last year, prompting media that had always looked at him (and all conservatives) as something just a little less than human to suddenly christen him “the voice of disaffected Republicans?”, someone that the MNGOP rank and file needed to pay strict attention to; they were setting him up, much like a Mike Huckabee, to be a spoiler against the GOP.

Anyway – here’s hoping that this is the year the “Independence” party finally fails to get 5%, and finally gets shuffled off the stage and back to minor party land.  And good riddance.

The biggest scam in Minnesota politics?  The intertwined three-card-monte game the DFL plays with state Local Government Aid (LGA), county and city taxes, and city budgets.

LGA, for those who weren’t paying attention, was instituted in the sixties and seventies to transfer wealth around Minnesota.  Back then, it ensured outstate towns and school districts got enough money from the economically-thriving Twin Cities to support more spending.  Today, it allows the metro governments – Minneapolis and Saint Paul – to launder their spending through the state, and get the parts of the state that are able to pay their own way to subsidize it.

It’s a very handy political tool.  It allows city governments to spend like crack whores with stolen gold cards, of course, and hide the spending under a mountain of state money.  And for the savvy mayor, paying for essential services with LGA while paying for things like Human Rights offices and $50,000 water fountains gives one incredible political leverage; using the money the city actually controls to pay off special-interest constituencies (neighborhood coalitions, toney arts organizations, unions) with the sure thing money, and using the state money – which is out of the mayors’ control to some extent – as a bludgeon to keep the peasants voters in line.

I noted this during the last budget cycle in Saint Paul, when Mayor Coleman’s annual trifecta of announcements  – “taxes are rising”, “we’re laying off firemen” and “damn you, Tim Pawlenty” – have become a tradition as revered as the Winter Carnival.

Walter Scott Hudson – at True North and at his blog, Fightin’ Words – isn’t fooled, either:

Employees of the City of Minneapolis were advised Tuesday of the “extremely damaging” effect Governor Tim Pawlenty’s proposal to solve a $1.2-billion budget deficit could have on “core services.” Pawlenty’s plan would “take another $29 million out of Minneapolis’ 2010 budget,” an e-mail from Mayor R.T. Rybak and City Council President Barbara Johnson stated. On top of $21 million in previous aid cuts, the governor’s proposal would “represent a 56% cut in the Local Government Aid that Minneapolis was supposed to receive from the State in 2010.”

The text of the e-mail seems intent to incite the passions of city employees, and direct those passions toward St. Paul. This came as members of the public employee union AFSCME, a member organization of the AFL-CIO, gathered at the capitol to rally for a budget which “promotes job growth and preserves funds for local governments and state welfare programs.” Pressure is on state legislators to reject the governor’s proposal and keep cities and counties on the dole.

Read the whole thing.

It’s just as conservatives have always said; once our cities get dependent on welfare for more than a generation or two, it’s very hard to get off it.

But with the national economy continuing its Obama swan dive and the state and national moods swinging strongly againt NeoCarterism, I have a hunch the Twin Mayors are in for a rude awakening.  If not this session, then soon.

Here’s where you can go to become an election judge.

I’m willing to go back and forth with people who favor the so-called “high-tax, high service” model of government.

“Mighty big of ya, Berg!”

Well, no – that’s how democracy works; we each go out and plug for our various positions, and at the end of the day some sort of compromise gets reached.  One of the ways we plug for our positions it to nominate, endorse and vote for candidates that reflect our positions; the more of them we get into office, the more amenable the final compromise will be to “we”. 

Now, the pr0-tax, pro-“service” crowd has two conceits that not only drive me nuts, but really make rational debate about taxes, spending and “services” impossible.

• The “Happy to Pay for a Better Minnesota” meme.  It was a sign that started popping up around Minnesota back about the time Governor Pawlenty started cutting Local Government Aid to balance the budget (when the legislature couldn’t do it).  I won’t say “the meme is dumb” – but it is misleading.   It has little to do with paying for a “better Minnesota”; it’s all about making sure government never, never does without.
• The “If you oppose taxes, you support firing cops and letting the streets go unplowed” meme.  It frames the argument so that by opposing any government spending – $50,000 drinking fountains, overlapping “Human Rights” departments, green roofs, yellow bikes, city trash collection – you oppose all government spending.  It’s a fairly childish manipulation.

The issue, by the way – for everyone on the right except perhaps the most anarchic of libertarians – is not “all government or no government”.  It’s “make sure that people come before government when doling out fiscal security”. 

Which bothers the tax and spend crowd, for whom all well-being seems to come through gobvernment. 

Dave Mindemann at mnpACT seems to have gotten his mellow harshed by a GOP flyer questioning some spending proposals:

There is a flyer floating around Eagan this past week. It is prepared and paid for by the Republican Party of Minnesota as an “independent expenditure”. The one I got hold of is directed at Senator Jim Carlson….it says;

DEBT

IT FEELS LIKE A TEN TON

GORILLA ON YOUR BACK

Senator Jim Carlson is wasting your tax dollars on these items in the DEBT BILL?

–$2 million for the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden

–$11 million for the Como Zoo Gorilla & Polar Bear Upgrade

–$15 million for the St. Paul Ordway

–$22 million for the Minneapolis Planetarium

Call Senator Carlson today….It’s time to end Wasteful Government Spending!

 Now, we know that’ll act on Dave Mindemann – who, I think it’s fair to say, favors a “high tax, high spendign, high “Service”” model of goverhment – like a red cape in front of a bull. 

So, this is the Republican definition of waste? We apparently shouldn’t keep up the cultural and affordable family venue part of our economy? If we are not going to maintain the Como Zoo, then scrap it. I want the Republicans to go on the record. They want Como Zoo to be torn up and plowed under. Give the animals away. Sell the land and tell everyone that this free family venue is no longer worth the bother.

Someone get the lad some smelling salts and tell him to get a grip.

I live in Saint Paul. I’ve taken my kids to Como many, many times.  It’s one of Saint Paul’s little hidden treasures – and it’s a freebie!  It’s a freebie because of me, the Saint Paul taxpayer!  The walkways, the veterinarian, the food they throw to the seals – I pay for it!  So I feel not the slightest compunction about taking my kids there; I did my part.  I agree to do my part of it, every time I pay my Saint Paul property tax bill, among many many others (including state and federal taxes). 

But the appropriation in question isnt’ one to run the whole zoo; it’s to remodel the Gorilla and Polar Bear exhibits.  Not “run the zoo or tear it down”. 

To call the issue “remodel the gorilla/polar bear facilities or tear down the zoo” is inflammatory, obtuse and, worse, dishonest.

And at a time when Minnesota and Saint Paul are hurting (largely due to the profligacy of the DFL-controlled legislature), would it kill the polar bears and gorillas to wait a year or two, in their utterly adequate current facilities?

Ditto with the other line items in the flyer.  The Sculpture Garden and the Ordway are all built, paid for, and running just fine with what they have.   They could use some upgrades, sure – what couldn’t?  The Planetarium is a little different – it would replace a perfectly good planetarium torn down when Minneapolis built its boondoggle of a Central Library.  But do they each need millions from the public coffers in mid-recession?

Make the Ordway take care of itself. Let those ticket prices skyrocket out of reach for the average Minnesotan.

One wonders if Mindemann has tried to take a family to the Ordway lately.  Ticket prices are out of reach for a helluvva lot of Minnesotans.

And as for the Minneapolis Planetarium? …Not surprising these days, but as a person very interested in astronomy, it is a shame that Minnesota can’t support an educational opportunity like this.

A “person very interested in astromomy” might also note that the Twin Cities has several other planetaria – from the U of M to Como High School 0-  that should be able to bridge the gap until it’s make economic sense, perhaps, to replace the old Minneapolis one.

And, again, the issue isn’t “appropriate the money now or do without forever“; it’s “maybe these are appropriations that can wait until we’re not in a freaking recession.

Yessir, we need to get that 10 ton gorilla out of the room all right, except it is not at Como. That gorilla is Republican hypocrisy and it resides quite visibly at the Capitol in St. Paul.

 The only primate in the room is the howler monkey that’s shrieking “give us our money or tear everything down!”.

Someone call animal control.

I’ve spent much of the life of this blog – eight years, now – railing against the evils of smearing by association. 

It’s a particularly slimy tactic in the hands of the not-very-bright, on all sides of the putative political aisle.  Being a conservative, I bag on particularly egregiously stupid examples from the left (like this, that, the other thing, this, and of course this), but of course it’s not limited to a party.  Much.

Still, there are those from whom we expect better.  Or like to think we do.

Erik Black at the MinnPost – the dean of Minnesota political reporters (or, I guess, one of a classroom full of deans, once you add in Pat Kessler, Mary LaHammer and Bill Salisbury), makes noises about also rejecting the whole stupid game in this piece about the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which Governor Pawlenty will be attending:

In February, Gov. Tim Pawlenty will take his undeclared campaign for the Republican presidential nomination back to Washington, D.C., for the Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC, as it is always called, is a  major annual gathering of conservatives and an opportunity for Repub candidates and might-be candidates to strut their stuff before various elements of the party base (although CPAC, which is put on by the American Conservative Union, is technically non-partisan).

Among the co-sponsors of the conference one finds a name one hasn’t heard much since the mid-20th century — the John Birch Society. As a refugee from that century, I can tell you that when your mom and I were kids the “Birchers” (I use the term I grew up using and mean no offense by it) were a leading symbol of right-wing extremism.

Of course, “right wing extremism” is a term that’s more or less lost all meaning, largely because of the efforts of the news media of which Eric Black has been a part for his entire working life.  I joke about it; “if a fiscal-conservative socially-libertarian constitutional originalist orders a pizza in the woods and no liberal is there to hear him, is he still an extremist?”, I ask, constantly, when people refer on the left and in the media (pardon, as always, the redundancy) to everyone from Tom Tancredo to (this makes me mildly dizzy) Tim Pawlenty as “extremists”. 

But Black, being all responsible, rejects the whole stupid game.

Or…does he?

So this is an obvious set-up to play the always popular “dissociate yourself” card. Under the rules of that card game, everyone involved in CPAC (including Pawlenty, as a speaker) has to repudiate the Birchers or be tainted by association with the most extreme thing the group ever said or did. It’s fun and easy to play (see Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright) but also stupid and demeaning (ibid). A letter-writer to the Strib played the card early this week, asserting that Pawlenty’s attendance would amount to an endorsement of Bircher views.

Well, so far, so good – although I think it’s fair to observe that the MinnPost is no better than the rest of the left-leaning mainstream media at focusing attention on the right’s fringe players; the nutcase with the racist sign at the Tea Party, the stars-‘n-bars-flying redneck at the Second Amendment rally, the Tenth Amendment’s long-dead associations with slave-owners-rights.

But Black is better than that.  Isn’t he?

I actually did inquire of the spokester for Pawlenty’s undeclared campaign whether the governor might want to comment on whether his willingness to speak at an event co-sponsored by the John Birch Society implied any association between his views and theirs, but the calls and emails (over several days) received no reply.

And why would that be?  Because Black works for an organization that is pretty up-front about working for the “enemy?”  Or merely because the very question is, to quote Black himself in the context of this very issue, “stupid and demeaning?”

Still, I cannot bring myself to play the card.

Am I overly cynical, or do I detect a silent, implied “when did the Governor stop beating his wife?” in Black’s repudiation of the whole “stupid, demeaning” issue?

Because if there is no story there – if there is no evidence throughout Pawlenty’s career of any sympathy, overt or otherwise, for the Birchers – then why write about it at all?

I was surprised and interested to learn that the John Birch Society was still in business. But, as this recent NYTimes where-are-they-now feature indicates, they are still kicking, based in Grand Chute, Wis., (near Appleton, Oshkosh, Green Bay), still believing in what its leaders call a satanic conspiracy to take over the world.

Right.

So what?

Black gives a brief lesson on the history of the Birchers – they’re anti-UN, anti-Communist, and have espoused some pretty wacky things over the decades – and then cuts to what passes for his chase:

So, back to the present. If Tim Pawlenty wants to be president, he certainly must say what he thinks the U.S. relationship to the U.N. should be, but he doesn’t have to start from any particular that he agrees with the long-standing JBS position just because he spoke at a conference co-sponsored by the JBS.

Right.  Especially since “sponsorship” is a come-one, come-all thing, as opposed to an implication that a “sponsor” has any special ideological traction:

Of course, Pawlenty is no more implicated in JBS’s beliefs than any of the many other speakers, which includes other leading undeclared presidential candidates such as Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Mike Huckabee was scheduled but has canceled. Sarah Palin was invited but has declined. The current list of speakers, co-sponsors and exhibitors is available here.

Right.

So – the story is…what?  That no candidate needs to apologize for being at an event sponsored (in tiny measure) by a splinter group that nobody’s taken seriously since the Johnson Administration?

Why, that’d be like saying that one needn’t discount the opinion of Mark Dayton, Margaret Anderson-Kelliher, Steve Kelley, John Marty and Taryll Clark even though none of them have renounced the activities of International ANSWR (who are involved in much left-wing agitation), since none of them have expressly shown sympathy for America’s last Stalinist fringe group.  It’d be another “why did you stop beating your wife” moment.

Pawlenty needs to improve on that showing more than he needs to repudiate the John Birch Society, but he really needs to return my calls anyway.

To answer a question that Black himself considered “stupid and demaning?”

Just curious.