Margaret Anderson-Kelliher, Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives is in the Goober race.

The Entenza campaign has tried very hard to develop an air of inevitablity — that he is going to be the DFL candidate for Governor. MAK’s candidacy is a bowling ball off an overpass for the Enetenza 18-wheeler and right now I’d have to speculate that she will be the DFL endorsed candidate for Governor (catch the edit at the end) [in which Broom fudges his prediction a bit].With the entrance of the Speaker and the expected entrances of the mayors in the next few months, the long summer Entenza has had to develop momentum and image will be quickly coming to a close.

It’s game time.

Please, Democrats, I beg of you – nominate her.  Nominate a hard-line tax and spender.  Nominate a woman who put Cy Thao’s classic dictum, “when you guys win, you get to keep your money.  When we win, we take your money” into action with every breath she took on Capitol Hill.

Endorse a woman who couldn’t compromise enough to squeedge a budget past a governor that was outnumbered two houses to none.

Endorse someone whose main qualification for office is “she’s less mind-warpingly camera-hostile than Larry Pogemiller”.

I beg of you.  Endorse her.

That is all.

Minnesota came close to repealing its decade-and-a-half old ban on nuclear power plants in the last session; the Senate approved the repeal, and it failed in the House by about a dozen votes.

A new group, spanning some unlikely bedfellows, has spawned to Ctry to fix the problem:

A coalition of business, labor and environmental leaders has joined a new nonprofit organization to advocate repeal of Minnesota’s ban on new nuclear power plants.

Three veteran Republican operatives organized the group, Sensible Energy Solutions for Minnesota, but on Tuesday they announced formation of a bipartisan board of advisers that represents a wide range of interests.

I’m going to try to book some of these people on the NARN one of these weekends.  Minnesota’s “moratorium” – a culmination of years of paranoia about plants and waste in the nineties – is a vestige from a time of cheap energy and cheaper solutions to vexing issues. 

It’ll be most interesting, as Cap and Trade promised to jack up heating bills enough to make Minnesota too expensive to live in for anyone making less than $60,000 year, to see the defenses the left comes up for this “moratorium”. 

To:  Tarryl Clark, DFL Candidate for MNCD6 nomination

From: Mitch Berg, un-American dissenter.

Re:  Public Image? Limited!

Dear Ms. Clark,

You’re running for Congress in the Sixth Congressional District.  It’s a fairly conservative district with some fairly liberal enclaves.  It’s obviously a district in major contention – but Michele Bachmann, the most unrepentant conservative in Minnesota politics, squeedged out a three point margin against not only Elwin “E-Tink” Tinklenberg, but against a full court press from the mainstream media, the liberal cableocracy, and the nutroots.

Which says to me – though I am, I’ll grant, merely a simple peasant – that the Sixth is probably not a mother lode for nutroots campaigning.

So please, Ms. Clark; please please please keep campaigning away on Daily Kos.  I sincerely beg of you.

One of the biggest whacks upside the head of the local blogging/trivia community this past year was the Met Council’s ruling that bars that’d established “smoking patios” outside their premises had to pay fees on that extra square footage as if it was indoor, year-round revenue-generating space.  This has forced Twin Cities’ bars to shut down the practice of having special patios for smokers, especially cigar buffs.

Of course, it’s been a bigger whack upside the head for the bar owners themselves.  Already on the ropes from the smoking ban, the extra smack to their summer revenue (summer is already a slow time for most bars) has pushed many Twin Cites establishments up to and in some cases over the edge.

And in a rare move for a bureaucracy, the Met Council seems to be considering responding to the pressure from bar owners and their patrons.  There’ll be a hearing this coming Tuesday afternoon to reconsider the fee structure.  I’m not sure if there’s time to salvage the summer (or if the provision will be lifted in time to set up a patio for the MOB party)…

…but I am sure that the region’s anti-smoking gestapo will take a break from whinging about the “orchestration” of town-hall meeting outrage over healthcare to organize plenty of people to come to the meeting to bitch about secondhand smoke.

This is where you come in.

Bureaucrats take phone calls seriously.  They – the smart ones, anyway – know that every phone call represents 100 people who didn’t call them.  One call represents 100 like-minded people; it’s public relations truism.

And so it’d be great if you could take a moment to contact the members of the Met Council.   Here they are.  Please take a moment and leave them polite, reasoned messages asking them to reconsider their policy; it’s killing bars, putting people out of work, and playing into the hands of chain restaurants and establishments.  Phone is better than email, but either is vastly better than letting the other guys have the stage to themselves.

Of course if you are free on Tuesday, here are the details:

Proposed Changes to the Service Availability Charge (SAC)Rules Regarding Outdoor Spaces Public Information Meeting: 1 p.m., Chambers

I might…just…be able to make it.  Fingers crossed.

The DFL, stricken as they are by Bachmann Derangement Syndrome, are throwing one of their more promising lights at Michele Bachmann in the Sixth District.

Sen. Tarryl Clark (DFL-St. Cloud) announced officially last week that she was running for the DFL endorsement to face Rep. Michele Bachmann in the MN-06 race. Yesterday, her path became much simpler; Elwyn Tinklenberg shuttered his campaign leaving her and Maureen Reed vying for the endorsement. This development makes Tarryl the frontrunner for the endorsement.

Of course, Patty Wetterling and E-Tink immolated their political careers against Bachmann. 

But according to Eric “Big” Pusey at Minnesota “Progressive” Project, this time it’s different.  See if you can spot the catch:

DFL activists throughout Minnesota know Tarryl as a rising star in the party. She’s worked with at-risk teens and for the Girl Scouts. She helped start Habitat for Humanity in the St. Cloud area. She attended an accredited law school [Not just a law school, but an “accredited” one?  Yowza.  Does she want a cookie? – Ed], William Mitchell in St. Paul, and worked for Legal Aid for seniors focusing on their healthcare issues.

The legislators I’ve spoken to all speak highly of her, she was appointed Assistant Majority Leader in the Senate and probably most importantly, she claims that she already has a decent volunteer base that’s been growing rapidly since her announcement.

That’s right – DFLers just loooooove Tarryl Clark.  In a district that’s conservative enough to buck two Democrat flood tides and elect the feisty, controversial (because she’s female and conservative) Bachmann, that is a dubious distinction in the best of times.

In 2010?  When the American hinterland is clutching their chest and reaching for the nitro pills for the sticker shock on all of that Hope and Change?  With a record like Tarryl Clark’s – as a tax-and-spender with less grace than Marie Antoinette, albeit arguably more than Cy “When you win, you keep your money; when we win, we take your money” Thao?

Yes, DFL.  Please.  I beg of you.  Nominate Clark in the Sixth. 

In the wake of Minneapolis’ 35W bridge disaster – which occured two years ago tomorrow – Democrats nationwide use the tragedy as yet another reason to call for more taxes, to pay for more “infrastructure” spending.

Minnesota DFLers used the tragedy as an occasion to pillory Governor Pawlenty – in some particularly ghoulish cases, even before the last girder had fallen into the river – for having vetoed a hike in the state gas tax, and for having taken and held to a “no new taxes” pledge five years earlier, during his nomination process.

In response, many of us asked, hypothetically, “if the DFL had had complete control of the state for the past ten  years – if Skip Humphrey had beaten Jesse Ventura and Norm Coleman – do you homestly believe they’d have spent that time and money doing the unglamorous, tedious, exquisitely expensive work of going and inspecting and repairing old infrastructure (or not-so-old infrastructure – the 35W bridge was half the age of the bridges up and downstream from it) rather than more-visible work, like building light rail and more roads?”

We were, of course, absolutely correct:

Tens of thousands of unsafe or decaying bridges carrying 100 million drivers a day must wait for repairs because states are spending stimulus money on spans that are already in good shape or on easier projects like repaving roads, an Associated Press analysis shows.President Barack Obama urged Congress last winter to pass his $787 billion stimulus package so some of the economic recovery money could be used to rebuild what he called America’s “crumbling bridges.” Lawmakers said it was a historic chance to chip away at the $65 billion backlog of deficient structures, often neglected until a catastrophe like the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed two years ago this Saturday.

The lesson?  Raising taxes and assuming that Democrats will use the money to pay for maintenance is like giving a teenager a credit card to buy school supplies.

Yesterday, I noted that all that talk about companies leaving Minnesota for lower-tax states like the Dakotas is not, in fact, wind in sails.

Over on Twitter, someone thought he had me cornered:

Except taxes didn’t go up & they are still expanding in ND

That’s true, but for purposes of business, irrelevant.  Businesspeople – smart ones, anyway, especially in capital-intensive businesses like the one I highlighted yesterday – don’t plan based on the current year.  They plan ahead.

And what does someone who plans ahead see in Minnesota’s not-too-distant future?

1. Tim Pawlenty – the state’s sole bulwark against a DFL whose economic philosophy is “spend other peoples’ money like we’re one of those Sweet Sixteen contestants” – is leaving office at the end of this term.
2. The Ventura “Independence” Party – which, in soaking away center-left votes from the DFL, likely kept Pawlenty in power, added a few points of padding to Paulsen’s winning margin, and arguably helped keep Bachmann there – is going to lose major-party status one of these next go-arounds.
3. The Minnesota GOP hasn’t inspired confidence in the past three cycles; the new regime on Park Street (including my friend Michael Brodkorb) has to earn their spurs by winning some elections.  There is hope – I suspect Obama is going to melt down and take a lot of Dems with him, sooner than later – but if you’re a businessman, hope isn’t a plan.
4. If 1 through 3 are true, then the DFL will very possibly seize un-fettered (or barely-fettered) control of this state in the next few years.  The GOP will likely register gains – but eight years of Republican governors, even good years with an excellent governor, could very easily lead to a “backlash” among the same horde of bovines who thought Jesse Ventura would be a good idea, and whose votes count as much as those of smart people.
5. And if/when that happens (heaven forfend), all hell will break loose in this state.  A DFL-controlled legislature with a DFL government will treat Cy Thao’s classic quip (“when you win, you keep your money; when we win, we take your money!”) as gospel; you will be Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota, or the Minnesota Department of Revenue will do to you what the NYPD did to Abner Louima.

Given that forecast – complete control, over the next 2-4 years, of state government by a party that is less responsible at spending than The Real Housewives of Orange County – where would you put your business?

Pawlenty’s holding of the line on taxes is just the calm before the storm grinds the levees into cat litter.

I spent a weekend doing yard work, doing the show, taking care of kid stuff.  The mundane workadaddy, hugamommy stuff that consumes so much of most of our time.

But I’m considering the possibility of spending next weekend squiring Scarlett Johannsen around New York.

No, seriously; I’m thinking about it.  It’s theoretically possible.  I’m a straight guy and Scarlett’s a straight girl, so it could happen.  I could fly to NYC next weekend, if I cut back on groceries and car insurance.  Don’t rule it out!

“But Blogger Berg!  You are never going to get a date with Scarlett Johannsen!”

Silly critics.  There mere fact that it could happen makes it a story!

In related news, Bob Anderson might run against Michele Bachmann.

“Bob who?”

Bob Anderson.  He’s with the Ventura “Independence” Party.

I’ll forgive you for flipping to the next story right now.

Things are heating up in the race to unseat 6th District Rep. Michele Bachmann: Democrat Maureen Reed raised $230,000 in the two months following her announcement to run

Most of it, I’m told, from big and out-of-district donors.

past Bachmann challenger Elwyn Tinklenberg says he’ll be in the Democratic primary whether he gets the DFL nod or not;

Please, please, please, DFL.  Send E-Tink up against Bachmann again.  If a bureaucratic drone like Tink couldn’t beat Bachmann in 2008, the low-water mark for Republicans, he will get crushed in 2010 in a Sixth District that realizes what a bill of goods the nation has been sold.

and state Sen. Tarryl Clark is expected to announce her candidacy soon.

Ooh, even better; Clark is like a jello-cooking Nancy Pelosi. If nothing else, it’ll shut up all those dolts who think there’s no choice between politicians.g

A new twist: Third-party candidate Bob Anderson — who garnered 10 percent of the vote in the 2008 election — is seriously considering running again.

That ten percent was people saying “I’m a Republican voter in a Repulican district, and I’ll never vote for E-Tink; how will I chastize the GOP without voting for Obama?”

Last time Anderson ran as an unendorsed Independence Party (IP) candidate; Tinklenberg was cross-endorsed by the DFL and the IP. This time, Anderson says he wants just one endorsement — the IP’s. Coinciding with the IP’s executive committee mee…

…blah, blah, blah.

Here’s hoping this is the election where the Ventura-tied fluke of the IP being a “major party” ends.

The best thing about being 46 and Republican?

I don’t have Scarlett Johannsen sticking her tongue down my throat all the time, demanding sex at all hours of the day and night.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking; “That never happens anyway!”

Well, clearly you don’t have a career at the Minnesoros “Independent”: the mere fact that I mention the possibility, at least in reporter Chris Steller’s world, makes it a fact!

Down, Scarlett!

Being out of office has its privileges. One consolation for Norm Coleman after finally conceding defeat to Al Franken: seeing ethics complaints and investigations in his rearview mirror.

In other words,  being out of office – for Coleman as for Sarah Palin – means not being hounded to distraction by spurious “complaints” (“Rentgate”, the most-debunked piece of yellow hackery I’ve ever seen, which Steller reports as if it were still a serious story) – which are inevitably stated as proven facts by their various accusers, and reported with wide-eyed credulity by an in-the-bag media that seems to clam up when reporting that there was no there, there.

By the way, Chris Steller – Scarlett and I would love to meet you at the White Castle on Lexington.  I’ll buy you a slider…

…Whoah!  Steller was offered a bribe!  ETHICS COMPLAINT!

Jim Ramstad is officially out of a gubernatorial race that he never actually announced he was in.

Ramstad’s a good guy.  He’s a fellow Jamestown, ND native, so he has a huge head start.  And his nine terms in the House made him one of Minnesota’s most experienced politicians.

And I’d never have voted for him.

Oh, that’s not true.  If the DFL had nominated a typical “East Is Red” crypto-Maoist and the Ventura “Indy” party had nominated pretty much anyone in their party, I’d have held my nose and voted for the Rammer, after having joined with whatever pressure group was out to drive him to the right a la Brian Sullivan vs. Tim Pawlenty in 2002.  At least with an “R” in front of the name, there’s a fighting chance there’s a working brain trapped in there somewhere.  It doesn’t always work (ipse the Congressional GOP caucuses since 2000), but I am pragmatic enough to know a Jim Ramstad, “moderate” as he is (his ACU rating is a point or two to the left of John McCain) will make a better governor than a Susan Gaertner or a John Marty or whatever other indistinguishably-“progressive” hamster the DFL throws up. 

But in the weeks before Ramstad bowed out, you started to hear the most dreaded sentence anywhere in politics; DFLers saying “I’d vote for Ramstad!”  With some,  you knew they meant it, more or less. 

But I remember when McCain was every Democrat’s favorite Republican, putatively a “maverick” who’d as soon take on the conservative establishment as vote with it.  He was “the Good Republican”…

…until he got through Super Tuesday.  And then, out came the knives.  Overnight, he became Karl Rove’s spawn.  He “ran to the right” and “embraced the theocrats”, supposedly – I keep asking, but nobody can exactly tell me how he did any of this.  But no matter.

Just remember – whenever the left sets up a “good Republican”, it’s for the sole purposes of tearing them down when and if they become a threat. 

Had Ramstad won the nomination, he’d have been labelled as “Pawlenty Lite” overnight (ironic, since Pawlenty is hardly a rock-ribbed movement conservative – although he’s delivered in the clutch on taxes and spending, and gotten the labels from the local left and media to prove it.  Pardon the redundancy). 

Republicans can not win if we don’t present an alternative to the Democrats – in Minnesota or nationwide.

Grace Kelly at Minnesota Tragedy of Spyrochaetal Paresis “Progressive” Project lets us in on a key facet in the liberal psyche:

They really do believe money grows on trees! 

She assails Governor Pawlenty’s unallotment process:

Perhaps here is why many people thought that unallotment was an empty threat! Balancing the budget through unallotment would violate the rules under which federal dollars match state dollars, resulting in loss of federal matching dollars beyond the unallotment. In this case that meant $72 million of lost federal funding beyond the unallotment.

Right.  That means there’s $72 million dollars that taxpayers in Rhode Island, New Mexico and Mississippi won’t have to fork over to be spent here in Minnesota.

The amount of $72 million comes from Commissioner Hanson’s letter. Check out the copy of MN Government letter from Hanson. An short excerpt is highlighted here from Appendix A.

In a dismal budget year, there’s $72 million that America’s hard-working men and women can keep and spend on things that actually help the economy.

All Republican Governor Pawlenty had to do was come to the bargaining table and give up something to reach a better overall outcome to keep that $72 Million in federal matching funds. I guess what was best for Minnesota would not have made a good sound bite in Pawlenty’s 2012 campaign speeches!

This is one of those things that astounds liberals; it never occurs to them that anyone would want or need to behave differently than a liberal.

Grace (and everyone like her)!  Governor Pawlenty was elected because he was an alternative to irresponsible, economy-leaching, blood-sucking tax-and-spenders!

And then re-elected – almost alone among his GOP constitutional officers – on exactly the same platform!

And if he has any Presidential ambitions, it’s not going to be as someone who grabs his ankles when the DFL tells him to (in the interest of “bipartisanship”, after all); it’ll be because he’s a sharp alternative to the Democrats nationwide.

Thank you, Governor Pawlenty.  If we could hitch heat collectors to the collective brain of Minnesota’s DFL to catch the exhaust heat from all that cognitive dissonance, we could all cut our heating bills 25%.

Lefties – many of them, anyway – chalk all dissent from the right up to “hate” or some other form of character flaw.

Naturally, that rarely-to-the-point-of-almost-never the case.  There’s – what’s the word?  Nuance.

Mr. Dilettante writes about that gut feeling some of us get from Stuart:

The problem that most conservatives have with Franken is that when he entered into the political arena, he was an especially vicious guy. I’d even be willing to forgive him that, though: as they say in Chicago, politics ain’t beanbag. My problem with Franken is that he has a history with someone I know personally. That someone is Evan Montvel-Cohen. The story of Franken’s involvement with Montvel-Cohen, and the scam Montvel-Cohen pulled on the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club to get funding that was instrumental to the founding of Air America ,was much downplayed during the election cycle, but it was to my mind the most damning thing about Franken. Montvel-Cohen and I both attended the same college. I know him. He was a shifty character then and most everyone on our campus recognized it. Franken did not, apparently. More importantly, Franken didn’t do much of anything to make the situation right after he became aware of it. To me, the incident speaks to Franken’s character and judgment. And it speaks quite badly.

Read the entire post, if you don’t mind…

To balance the state budget, Governor Pawlenty has “unallotted” – pulled the funding for – hundreds of millions of dollars of state spending…

…including the state program that refunded campaign contributions to people.

Naturally, Lori Sturdevant is painting campaign donors as  victims of unallotment:

The Campaign Finance Institute, based at George Washington University in Washington, issued a statement Wednesday noting that its studies have found that small donors play an unusually large role in Minnesota’s elections for legislative and state constitutional offices. The state leads the nation in the share of campaign funds raised in increments of less than $100 — the maximum contribution amount from a married couple that the refund program would reimburse.

Well, not. If that trend survives this unallotment, then that will be true.

If it does not, then the State of Minnesota will have led the nation in campaign funds raised in small doses.  In other words, all of Minnesota’s taxpayers have been subsidizing Minnesotans’ political habits.

“Eliminating the rebate would remove an important force for democracy in Minnesota government,” said the institute’s executive director Michal Malbin. In most states, campaign donations come in larger amounts from fewer donors, many of whom expect to gain influence with their contributions.

That is right – and whether the donation is small or large, that is the way it should be.  If I give $5 to the NRA, it’s because I want to “gain influence” in Saint Paul or Washington when my contribution forces NRA-endorsed candidates over the top to win elections.

So in what ethical universe is it right for Greta Hellemoen in Fergus Falls to subsidize my political donations?

Common Cause Minnesota is urging the 2010 Legislature to restore the program,

Another good reason to cut it.

and Republican activist Robert Carney of Minneapolis has threatened to initiate a class action lawsuit to stop Pawlenty’s unallotment. His argument is that depriving taxpayers of a promised refund sets an unwelcome precedent for the next time the state faces money woes.

Perhaps, arguably.

Allowing the DFL to spend money like crack whores who’ve rolled their johns is even more “unwelcome”, one might think…

Vote below to select your choice for the MNGOP Gubernatorial nomination for 2010 from the nominations collected on Monday.

Polls will be open for as close to 24 hours as I can keep ’em.

It’s waaay early – which is what makes it fun.

It’s time for the first=ever SITD “Straw Poll In The Dark”, where we attempt put a finger on the pulse of that portion of America – smarter-than-average, better-informed and more generous than most – that reads Shot In The Dark.

So let’s take nominations for our first ever, way too early Minnesota Govenor straw poll.  List your nominations; one nomination per person, please.  We’ll poll mostly for Republicans, but we’ll take nominations (and do the straw poll) for all parties (that get more than one nomination, anyway).

I’ll run the voting Wednesday.

Start the nominations!

Franken “vows to honor Wellstone”

He will sit at desk No. 94 — the one left by his political hero, Paul Wellstone.

Senate leaders have told Al Franken that they have kept the desk open for him. Its significance will not be lost.

OK, not that it was a huge surprise.

But the significance that Democrat leaders believe a seat in the Senate “belongs” to a person or a party, rather than the people?  No.  The significance will not be lost.

Franken shares Wellstone’s politics and passion. It was Wellstone’s death in a plane crash in October 2002 that spurred Franken to run.

“Paul looked at his job as improving people’s lives and that’s what I want to do,” Franken said Tuesday, one day after winning an epic battle against the man who had replaced Wellstone in the Senate, Norm Coleman. “I’m not Paul,” Franken said. “I’m not going to be able to fill his shoes. But I’m going to work as hard as I can to fulfill that goal, which is improving people’s lives.”

Which is a fine goal in a human, and (generally speaking) a terrible one for a politician.  Government that wants to get into peoples’ lives “to help them” “for their own good” is, ultimately, a terrifying thing.

Still, taking after Wellstone might not be the worst thing that could happen (other than that whole “sixty-vote majority” thing); Wellstone was politically insignificant, and marginalized himself and his constituents at every turn.

Wonder why the 2010 elections are going to be important for conservatives to mount a real opposition?

Margaret Anderson Kelliher wants to gut the last protection Minnesota taxpayers have under Minnesota law  (emphasis added):

I am going to say for the record that I believe you and the governor have taken the unallotment statute far too far. And in fact I believe it is going to be necessary for the Legislature to change the law next year to modernize the unallotment law in accordance with what other states do.

Y’know – all those states that are also way over budget…

No one could have imagined before this point that a governor would veto a balanced-budget bill in order to go it unilaterally and go it alone in balancing this budget.

Sadly, it is all too easy to imagine that a DFLer would call the tax-hiking, pork-laden abomination the DFL rammed through with fifteen minutes to go in the session before anyone had had a chance to read it a “balanced budget bill”.

“And so I think it’s very necessary at this point to put on the record that there will be a bill–there have already been two bills introduced, but I believe there will be a bill that legislators bipartisanly can hopefully support, so that this never happens again, whether the governor’s a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent. This has been a move that I believe is out of step and illegal in many aspects.

Watch for the DFL to keep harping on the unallotment being “illegal”.  It’s an ugly word, and sticks in peoples’ minds easily.  It’s straight out of Alinski.  It’s also a lie.

Kelliher, like every DFLer on the budget issue, is lying.

We will maybe never know if it is not challenged in court.

“If”!

But I do think the Legislature must retain the power of the Legislature has to change the law. And I think it is necessary to say that at this point that it is absolutely imperative that the Legislature curb the power of a chief executive in terms of impinging on the legislative powers of this state.”

On the off-chance that Kelliher has an intellectual point, and that unallotment is excessive power for an executive?  That might intellectually be true…

…provided we ever had a more responsible legislature.

That’s not going to happen with a DFL legislature whose intellectual marching orders come from Cy Thao:  “If you win, you get to keep your money.  If we win, we take your money!”

Wonder if Kelliher will show up at the Tea Party on Saturday?

Most everyone thought Norm Coleman’s concession speech was gracious and classy.  There were some risible exceptions (see previous)…

…and Charlie Quimby, who notes:

I heard an MPR reporter say that cameras from The UpTake were excluded from livestreaming Coleman’s announcement. Instead, the news service shot shaky video from a neighbor’s yard and posted it here — a mute commentary on the snub.The UpTake has provided the most in-depth video documentation of the various proceedings associated with the recount, but has been systematically stiffed by Coleman’s staff. If Coleman does decide to run for office again, he’s certainly not paving the way with citizen media.

Now, let’s see if we can get this straight:  Uptake, an avowedly “progressive” “news organization”, gets access to “document” the election process from election authorities led by a “progressive” Secretary of State; they do a decent job of covering the proceedings (at least, the parts where their editorial stances aren’t included), but they are unmistakeably in the bag for Al Franken throughout the entire process.

So how is Coleman wrong for ejecting them?

I have no problem with partisan media; I am partisan media!  I have no problem in particular with the Uptake, who I believe generally tries to do a good job (with a few notable problems endemic to its’ “everyone plays!” participation model). 

But being partisan media has consequences.

I am a conservative blogger and host; I can fairly easily get access to Governor Pawlenty, John Kline, Michele Bachmann, and the one good Senator Minnesota has had since 2000, Norm Coleman, at least in part because my allegiances and the audience are pretty obvious.  They all know that while there might be a tough question or two, there will be no ambushes, no smearing, nothing rebroadcast out of context.

On the other hand, last year I sent invites to appear on the Northern Alliance to Senator Klobuchar, candidate Franken, Representatives Ellson and McCollum, and RT Rybak.   Only Rybak responded (we had a good interview!); the rest didn’t even give the courtesy of a rejection.

“Well, of course!”, the standard response went.  “You’re conservative media!  The Uptake is…”

Um…what is the Uptake?

“They’re journalists!”

Well, sure – and by the same standard, so am I.

“Nooooo, Berg – you’re a fire-breathing talk show host! It’s different!”

Keep your stereotypes to yourself.  I’ll put the interviews that Ed and I (and King, and John and Brian) do up against anything on MPR.  Of course that’s a matter of opinion, but it happens to be correct.

So – why the vapors over the “progressive” Uptake’s snub?  Partisan journalism has its downside!

Yesterday, in conceding that Al Franken is going to be the next (puke a little in my mouth) Senator from Minnesota, the Minnesota GOP sent out a press release:

St. Paul- Republican Party of Minnesota Chairman-elect Tony Sutton today issued the following statement regarding the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling in the U.S. Senate race.

“Today’s ruling wrongly disenfranchised thousands of Minnesotans who deserve to have their votes counted. Alongside Senator Coleman, the Republican Party of Minnesota has fought to make sure every vote counts and all voters are treated fairly and uniformly. As we move forward, our deeply flawed election system must be dramatically improved to ensure our state’s elections are fair, accurate and reliable.” (Republican Party of Minnesota)

This election does bring up a slew of questions:  how did we wind up with a 500 vote swing over the course of eight months?  Why do we have ballots being counted several times (according to at least one SCOM justice) while we’re not entirely sure every ballot was rightfully counted once?  Why does our state have different recount standards in every county?  Why did every single question about the recount process break in Franken’s favor?

And the big one – can more than about 1% even come close to explaining what just happened?   I’ll allow for the fact that 43% of Minnesotans got what they wanted, and many of them wouldn’t care if it came by ballot or by decree, but I’d like to think this state could hope for better.

“Two-Putt Tommy”, a fairly generic anonymous leftyblogger writing at Minnesota Tragedy of Spyrochaetal Paresis “Progressive” Project (a blog that actively recruits liars and distributes 9/11 conspiracy theories), brought what every anonymous leftyblogger brings to the issue: Mthe sort of classy analysis that makes one thing “I’m so glad his vote counts the same as mine”:

Incredible. At the same time Norm Coleman played the “gracious concession” act, the State Republican Party showed their true colors with their official press release:In other words, “Norm wuz robbed.”

Well, actually “Minnesotans who believe Minnesotans should understand and have justified confidence in their election system were robbed”.

That’s the way the state GOP Party was under former Chairman Ron Carey; that’s the way it will remain under new Chairman Tony Sutton.

Catch that?

A guy who spent the last eight years chanting “Bush was selected, not elected!” is yapping about other peoples’ questions about an election that, over the last eight months, might have struck one as “contentious”.

The DFL may achieve a “classless society”, but probably not in the way they intended.

UPDATE:  In a phone conversation on Monday, Mr. Tommy denied having ever said that Bush was “Selected, Not Elected”.  While I was writing more broadly – many of Mr. Tommy’s fellow-travellers and blog-mades certainly did, and do – my sentence as written implies that he has personally made that claim.  Since I have no objective evidence that he did, I regret the ambiguity.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

But unlike way too many lefties the past eight years, I’m not going to disgrace myself by whinging about the results, or chanting “Selected Not Elected!”.  Senator Franken is going to be a terrible joke, and the sooner he gets into office, the sooner the citizens of Minnesota can start realizing their error.  Hopefully.

But here’s the question Minnesotans (or at least Minnesotans who care about Minnesota and its future) need to ask themselves: how many Minnesotans do you think can actually, correctly explain how this election went from a 200+ vote Coleman victory eight months ago to a 300 vote collective humiliation of the whole stateac?

That percentage  – and I’d be amazed if it got into single-digits – should be the percentage of confidence you feel with this state’s recount system.  Because if people don’t have confidence in their electoral system, how does democracy survive.

(And before one of you lefties shrieks “then don’t undercut that confidence by dissenting from Mark Ritchie in any way!”, remember what you spent the past eight years doing).

…is only a matter of time.

BREAKING: Minnesota’s highest court rules for Al Franken

The unanimous opinion ruled that Franken “received the highest number of votes legally cast” and is entitled “to receive the certificate of election as United States senator from the state of Minnesota.”

Minn. rules for Franken in Senate fight

Franken, a former Saturday Night Live star making the leap from life as a left-wing author and radio talker to the Senate, planned a news conference later Tuesday and didn’t immediately comment.

With credentials like that, it’s official:

Wellstone

Dayton

now Franken.

It’s a threepeat of embarrassment.

Sadly, Mr. Franken will provide bloggers plenty of antics to write about; hardly a silver lining.

There is no blogger in MInnesota who has had a greater impact on Minnesota politics than Michael Brodkorb.

Michael’s a friend, a former NARN colleague, and one of the sharpest political minds I know.

And Minnesota Democrats Exposed has been both a juggernaut and a lightning rod for the past five years or so; it’s been a powerful force for transparency in Minnesota govenment; it’s broken more stories about DFL malfeasance than, I think, both the dailies and all the TV stations put together.  Naturally, it’s drawn ten blogs’ fair share of ire from the local left; the smart lefties know Michael’s a sharp, canny opponent; the rest of them just bay at the moon until they soil themselves, and then go put up a post on Minnesota Progressive Project.

Michael has written, by his count, 7,000 posts (it’s amazing how it adds up, isn’t it?) – and he says he only regrets one of them:

There is one post that has never really fit into the focus of my blog, one post that never felt right, one post I wish I hadn’t posted on Minnesota Democrats Exposed. In almost 5 years of blogging, I have never issued an apology – until now.Back on January 4, 2008, I published a post awarding Drew Emmer with the first ever first-ever Minnesota Democrats Exposed Man Not In The Arena Award and Mitch Berg an “honorable mention.” Click here to read the back-story and the post-post commentary.

Drew and Mitch are both my friends and I should have picked up the phone to contact them with my frustrations. I should have sent a private e-mail and both of them would have politely responded and we could have had a respectful and production conversation. But I instead chose to publish a smart-ass post, and in the process wasn’t respectful to either Drew and Mitch. It was a jerky thing to do to my friends. As hard-working, principled conservatives, they both deserved better than to labeled as “do-nothings” and I want to publicly apologize to both Drew and Mitch for this post of January 4, 2008.

Well, I do appreciate it – but it was never necessary.  While I disagreed with Michael’s original point – everyone’s got a right to an opinion, although the opinions of those who do and deliver count for more – I took it as a challenge; less talk, more rock.  And I figure among people who are on the same team, those sorts of things have to – and, honestly, had better – be treated that way.
Anyway – today’s Michael’s last day at MDE.  The intellectual imbalance facing Twin Cities’ leftybloggers will fade from “absurd” to merely “hopeless”.

And best of luck, Michael!

“…the President said in an interview not that long ago ‘We are out of money’ with all due respect Mr. President, if we’re out of money, quit spending it!”

…also, at about nine minutes in, Pawlenty shares what he thinks of the President’s performance six months in and calls out the “Stimulus” Bill and the Federal Government’s encroachment into private industry.

The U of M Board of Regents bans alcohol at all U of M athletic events

In a separate measure, the board voted 10-2 in favor of a ban on alcohol at TCF Bank Stadium, set to open on campus in the fall.

I’m trying to remember the last time anyone told me it was possible to watch GoGo football without being hammered.

The move comes after lawmakers passed a measure requiring the university to sell alcohol throughout the school’s new football stadium, or not sell it at all. The university’s original plan was to sell alcohol to fans in premium suites.

That’s right – it was our DFL legislature who decided that if students didn’t have access to booze, then they’d be damned if the people in the skyboxes would!

Thank you, legislature, for looking out for that key liberty!

Ever since Governor Pawlenty went down the unallotment route, the DFL has been “warning” that property taxes, inevitably and perforce, will rise.

Gary Gross points out the vacuity and dishonesty of that statement:

I’d love asking Mr. Entenza or these mayors whether they eliminated or reduced spending on wants to pay for the needs. I’d love asking whether the cities thought about doing things differently first instead of immediately raising taxes. I’m betting that the majority of them didn’t.If these cities’ property taxes were raised without the mayors and city councils rethinking their spending or without reforming the delivery of essential services, then the mayors and city councils are to blame, not Gov. Pawlenty. That either makes Mr. Entenza a blowhard who’d rather blame others for his ineptitude or he’s the type of candidate that refuses to think outside the box to protect Minnesota’s taxpayers.

Either way, his behavior in this is unacceptable because there’s no suggestion that he’ll deviate from the DFL playbook of raising taxes first. We already have too many tax-first DFL ‘leaders’. We certainly don’t need another in St. Paul.

Here’s a question to ask your city council and mayor, wherever you live (in Minnesota. All you non-Minnesotans can sit this one out.  For now.  Maybe); why, whenever talk of cutting Local Government Aid (aka LGA, Minnesota’s redisstribution of wealth from the parts of the state that pay their way to the cities) is there talk of cutting the city’s only really essential services – police and fire.  Are you saying they are financed through Local Government Aid, a transitory form of funding?  Why not fund the city’s real essential services with the city’s property taxes, and other revenue that’s not dependent on any other political body? Wouldh’t that be the responsible thing to do?

If your city is funding the real essential services with LGA, and paying for Human Rights Departments and Community Councils with property tax revenue, someone needs to ask “why?”