The financial markets melt down.

The country teeters.

Barack Obama…

…votes “present” and spends the day preaching to the choir.

Really, what is to be afraid of if he wins?

No, not really.

But given the crime wave sweeping the Madia campaign, I wouldn’t be surprised if D.B. Cooper isn’t pulling some of the campaign’s mysterious strings.

UPDATE:  Rumors that Kathleen Soliah says Madia is “da bomb” are completely unfounded.

Regional pundits that remember the seventies constantly bemoan the lack of “bipartisanship” in Minnesota politics.

Of course, the only “bipartisanship” they seem to get around to is the kind were Republicans act like and coalesce around DFL positions.

Never, ever stories like this:

Longtime DFL legislator Doug Johnson said he was ingrained with the political philosophy of Minnesota legendary Senator and Vice President Hubert Humphrey — “The worst Democrat is better than the best Republican.”

But on Nov. 4, the former chairman of the powerful state Senate Tax Commission, will split his vote for the first time ever. His ballot will be marked in a familiar Democratic way for Barack Obama for president, Jim Oberstar for 8th District congressman, Tom Bakk for state senator and David Dill for state representative. But in the U.S. Senate race, Johnson will cast his vote for incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

So when the Override Six betrayed Republican Party principles and stabbed Governor Pawlenty in the back, Lori Sturdevant demanded that the GOP keep a wide, Wide, Wide open mind toward their self-interested treachery, and chided the GOP for trying to squash the traitors.

Wonder how Johnson’s move is going to play in the DFL – and with the likes of Sturdevant?

UPDATE:  Welcome Hot Air readers!

Earlier this month, after a year of relentless publicity, in the heart of one of the most liberal, anti-Republican cities in America, the Labor Day protests at the Republican National convention – which had been expected to draw 50-100,000 people, drew between five and ten thousand. On Labor Day – when most people aren’t working. In Saint Paul. By any rational assessment, the protests – if indeed their intent was to get a message across to the delegates – were an epic failure.

On the other hand, last week, 13,000 people (according to the TSA) showed up to see Mac and Sarah at Blaine Airport. The meeting had had one week’s notice, and was held in the middle of a busy workday in a hanger at an obscure airport in a g-dforsaken north-suburban airport halfway between Minneapolis and Winnipeg. Republicans have jobs; we don’t usually go to rallies or demonstrations at all. And yet 13,000 people showed up at an event where they were expecting less than 2/3 as many.

On Saturday on the NARN show, I spent an entire hour taking calls from people who’d been at the rally. It was the third-busiest day I’ve ever seen on the phones for the Volume II NARN show (rivalled only by the days Terry Schiavo and Pope John Paul II died). To call the callers “enthusiastic” would be hopelessly understated. And to call them all “Traditional movement Republicans” would be inaccurate as well; I got calls from apostate Democrats, from people whose first rally in fifty years the Blaine event had been, from people who’d gone from planning to stay home on election day to volunteering for the McCain Campaign.

That is enthusiasm.

This? Not so much:

Well, John McCain did draw a large crowd to his rally up in Blaine yesterday – something in the neighborhood of 10,000 people. Not bad. But you want to know what is really impressive? The Obama counter-rally at Peavey Plaza, which did not feature either Barack Obama OR Joe Biden (or even a state-wide elected official) drew 3,500 people! (Added by Aaron: …and it was only announced two days in advance!)

In Downtown Minneapolis, if you yell on a loudspeaker “The DFL and the most holy Obama command you to wear aluminum-foil pants”, 5,000 people will be seen clad in Reynolds Wrap the next morning. It won’t matter – most of them will be either unemployed or government workers. Minneapolis DFLers go to rallies like Republicans raise kids and have jobs. Given that Obama’s entire electoral strength is in state capitols and university towns (the Twin Cities is both in spades), 3,500 in the middle of a “work” day is pretty run of the mill.
There’s really no comparison.

But please. Tell yourself it’s significant.

Democrats deliberately dishonor those that protect and provide their right to be…(I’m sorry, can someone please help me here in the comments section with a suitably disparaging descriptor…I’m at a loss for words, hard as that may to believe). 

Even Barack Obama, who opposed the Iraq troop surge, has finally acknowledged its success. But some of his fellow Democrats in Congress apparently remain unconvinced. Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin teamed up to block a vote on a bipartisan resolution “recognizing the strategic success of the troop surge in Iraq” and thanking our men and women in uniform for their efforts.

Even Obama, presumably their new messiah, is better than that, essentially admitting his error in judgement without admitting his error in judgement. How thick can these people be to not at least acknowledge the political ramifications of not resolving to express gratitude for our troops?

By late 2006, Iraq was gripped by sectarian chaos. Insurgents and death squads were killing nearly 3,000 civilians per month, and coalition forces were sustaining more than 1,200 attacks per week.

Under General David Petraeus, who relinquished command of U.S. forces in Iraq on Tuesday, sectarian bloodshed has almost entirely abated, daily attacks have fallen to 25 from a high of 180 in June 2007, and overall violence has declined by more than 70%. In July, U.S. combat deaths were lower than in any month since the beginning of the war. All of the troops sent to Iraq as part of the surge have now returned home and are not being replaced.

And our Congress, now dominated by Democrats can’t muster the fortitude to simply say “Thank you.”

(Insert above descriptor again here please – our friends at KAR are really good at this sort of thing – Assnozzles comes to mind?)

Citing General Petraeus by name, the resolution, which is sponsored by Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Republican Lindsey Graham, “commends and expresses the gratitude to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces for the service, sacrifices, and heroism that made the success of the troop surge in Iraq possible.”

The Senators — allies of John McCain — had hoped to attach the resolution to a defense bill under consideration this week. But Mr. Reid wouldn’t allow it. Democrats have often claimed that while they may oppose the war in Iraq, they wholeheartedly support the troops. That’s a defensible position, and this resolution honoring our soldiers and Marines for a job well done gave them a chance to back up their rhetoric. Yet they still balked.

The reality is that success in Iraq has confounded the political left, which placed a huge political bet on our defeat. Senator Reid famously declared the war lost in April 2007. Joe Biden introduced a resolution opposing the surge. And Hillary Clinton said the reports of progress in Iraq required “a willing suspension of disbelief.” In the Democratic narrative, our troops in Iraq are victims of a lost cause, not heroes. They’re allowed to get maimed and killed, but not to succeed.

Democrats: so don’t acknowledge victory in Iraq. You wouldn’t know it if you saw it any way. Don’t acknowledge George Bush, General Petraeus or John McCain. No one expects you to change your stance on the initiation or management of the war in Iraq.

But for the troops, at least say “Thank You.” you…(again, please help me in the comments).

[/rant]

If you are reading this and are or have ever served our country in the armed forces, please know that my family is profoundly grateful and exceedingly proud of your service and sacrifice.

Is it worse that John McCain isn’t especially concerned with life online?

Or that Nancy Pelosi rocks Travelocity?

According to Juan Cole, phone calls from known terrorist operatives overseas to American phone numbers are sacrosanct.

But if you’re an uppity Republican woman?

By now you have heard that Palin’s email account at yahoo has been hacked by those lovable scamps at 4chan. Two quick things:

1.) This merely reinforces how reckless and careless this woman is, and how reckless and careless this choice is. John McCain chose a woman so stupid she runs government business through yahoo.

It’s all whose privacy is being violated.

Juan Cole has re-passed Cenk Uighur as the most loathsomely useless liberal in the business. Again.

UPDATE:  Oh, wait – he the “loveable scamps” bit was all sarcasm, and he’d never approve of hacking peoples’ email.

Not sure where there was anything about that above the correction, but hey,a correction is a correction.

OK, Cole.  Uighur passed you again.

For now.

First, it was the “classic” bumpersticker

If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention

Yesterday, I saw…:

If you’re not overwhelmed with anger, you’re not paying involved enough.

Not quite sure why we had the rhetorical escalation. But I will commence looking for:

If your constant rage hasn’t made you incontinent and given you a heart attack, stroke or some hyperadrenal disorder, you should kill yourself because you’re a useless piece of garbage.

Keep me posted.

…a “column I didn’t finish” – one I found so atrociously bad I had to bail out in mid-stream (and not in the bad, AIG, taxpayers-funding-stupidity sense, but in the “save a few precious minutes of life” kind of way).

Garrison Keillor in the Strib:

I saw two moose on a bike trail in Anchorage last week and did not kill either one of them, neither the cow nor her calf, though under the Bush Doctrine I certainly had a right to, since the cow could have charged and pinned me to a tree and danced me to death.

The moose would have gotten off on rhetorical self-defense.

Al Franken got around 2/3 of the vote yesterday.

In the DFL Primary, where the usual margin of victory among endorsed DFL candidates compares to those of Robert Mugabe or Leonid Brezhnev – conservatively, 100+%.

Gary Gross:

Frankly, these totals must be giving Franken’s campaign alot of heartburn. If they aren’t, they should be. As Michael said here, this is a “total embarassment” to Team Franken. To say that Franken doesn’t appeal to central Minnesota voters is understatement. Frankly, I don’t see Franken’s appeal to independents or moderates.

The Unhinged Left is his base. It doesn’t extend beyond that, which means that he’s toast this November. Any statewide candidate that can’t appeal to voters beyond their traditional base is history.

Michael Brodkorb:

I thought it was reasonable to ask if Al Franken would get less than 90 percent in the primary election. I thought Franken would get over 90 percent.  But Franken got less than 90 percent and 80 percent…he even got less than 70 percent.  As of 11:49 p.m., Franken has only received 65 percent of the vote in the DFL primary election.

Tonight’s primary results are a total embarrassement for Team Franken.

And Al Franken’s organ-grinder blogpet Aaron Landry:

Analyzing primaries can many times be a fruitless adventure, but hey, why not? Here’s a couple numbers I found interesting:

While Priscilla Lord Faris got 29% of the vote, for some strange reason the amount of people that chose to vote in the DFL column was just shy of double that of the GOP.

Right.  Because it’s a contested vote.  That draws people.  

I think there are some people on the right that wouldn’t believe that DFLers in Minnesota outnumber GOP’ers 2 to 1.

And, silly as we might look, we’re supported by the last couple of election results, in which we finish between two and six points out of the majority.   

Who are all these people voting in the DFL slot?

I dunno, but a third of ’em don’t seem all that thrilled by A-Frank.

One of the great linguistic crimes of the left in recent years is their attempt to hijack the term “tax cut” to refer to what are, in essence, payoffs to specific constituencies.

During the 2000 and 2004 elections, in a spate of almost-honesty trumping marketing, the Gore and Kerry campaigns referred to them as “targeted tax cuts” – allowing the audience to ask “Targeted?  At whom or what?”

The answer, of course:  anyone whose vote the Democrats want to buy.

As a Republican, of course, I favor across-the-board cuts in both taxes and spending.  I also acknowledge that many of the most popular tax cuts that fall short of that goal are “targeted”, in a sense.  The Mortgage Interest Deduction is targeted at homeowners; Capital Gains Tax cuts are aimed at stockholders and others who directly or indirectly buy or sell investment securities, equities or property; the Death Tax is aimed at people who die.  These have one thing in common; they affect the vast majority of the American people, most of whom own houses and participate in the market (directly or via their 401K funds, and all of whom will eventually enter the probate and inheritance system, presuming the Democrats leave them any property to bequeath).  Home owners, direct and indirect investment and probate cross all party, demographic, regional and social lines.

Democrats’ “targeted cuts”, however, try to slice the pie into much finer slices, each of them a constituency they need, essentially to rebate some of the cost of the higher spending back to the groups, classes and other slices they need to keep happy.

Hence Al Franken and his proposal to give a post-secondary tax deduction, which Aaron Landry misleadingly labels a “tax cut”. 

From a Franken press release today:

A college diploma is more than a dream for Minnesota families – it’s practically a requirement for middle-class prosperity. But with George W. Bush in the White House and Norm Coleman in the Senate, that prosperity has slipped out of reach for Minnesota’s middle class. My tuition tax cut will bring college within reach for 10 million students nationwide. And it will take a step towards restoring America’s middle-class promise: that hard work can bring prosperity to your family.

Landry:

The average student loan debt in Minnesota jumped over $6K during the first three years of Coleman and is the 5th in the nation. Coleman’s continually voted against students, such as letting tuition tax deduction expire, opposing $4.9 billion for Pell grants.

Of course, one of the reasons a postsecondary education is so expensive is the immense subsidy from the government.  It’s Economics 101; when more money is made available to pay for something for which there is a limited supply, the price will rise.  The price of postsecondary education has risen much  faster than inflation over the past thirty years; anecdotally, tuition at my very modestly-priced alma mater has nearly tripled since I was in school, while average incomes have not. 

So Franken isn’t proposing a “tax cut”, so much as a “rebate” of a price increase caused by the government’s own subsidies, which are the primary inflationary pressure on tuitions in the first place.

At any rate, getting into college isn’t the biggest problem facing Americans’ entry into the middle class; graduating from high school knowing enough English, math and citizenship is.  And on that front, Franken promises only more of the status quo.

Not even a “tax cut” to help people secede from the system that Franken’s biggest supporters, the Teachers’ unions, broke in the first place.

But I digress.

Let’s just make sure we keep our terms straight, OK?

Joe Biden, taking a page from the onrushing success of the Kucinich campaign, promises show trials!

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Keep it up, Slow Joe.  There’s nothing people like more than endless pointillistic legal nattering.

Oh, yeah – and the McCain Campaign isn’t about the Bush Years anymore.  So any time you spend on this is completely wast…

…oooh.  Biden smacked us bad that time, didn’t he?  Hope he doesn’t keep this up!

Michelle Malkin noticed something that I’ve been pointing out for years and years:

And while Democrat Party chair Howard Dean excoriates the Republican Party as the “white” party, I saw only one-non-white agitator among the pro-abortion gaggle. (This goes for the rest of the Recreate ‘68 populace, too. It’s as pale and colorless as a Colorado snowfall.) Across the street from the Planned Parenthood event, however, were many incensed black- and brown-skinned moms. Incensed, that is, that an abortion mill had been built right across from the park where their children practice football and swing on the playground set.

One of the moms, Priscilla said bluntly: “I don’t want a f**king abortion clinic in my neighborhood!” A Hispanic mother added: “It’s against the Catholic Church.” (Are you listening, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi?) When asked about her views on abortion, another black mother of three I spoke to while sitting in her minivan told me simply: “I don’t believe in it.”

Education, free enterprise and – eventually – social issues like abortion are going to be the ones that drive the Dems up on the rocks, especially with minority and immigrant voters. It won’t scupper them this election; it might take a generation.

But it’ll happen.

If a Republican sitting in a rest-room stall mutters under his breath “I think the GOP’s wrong about the transportation bill” he can be sure that Lori Sturdevant will be there with a reporter notebad in her hand, shortly to write a story about the “wave” of disaffected Republicans rejecting Tim Pawlenty and the Taxpayers League.

But this?

[Texas Democrat Rep. Sheila] Jackson Lee [who is leading efforts to bring Hillary supporters into line behind Obama] hasn’t met Connie Kafka of Wyoming. She is the Democrats’ worst nightmare. She’s not a Hillary Clinton supporter who’ll hold her nose and vote for Obama. She’s a Hillary Clinton supporter who’s going to work and vote for John McCain.

And she has no problem telling you why.

She doesn’t believe Obama loves America.

It’s from Bob Collins, at MPR’s News Cut, and you have to listen to the rest.

Bob Cusack at The Hill notes that the Tic Convention has its problems – and they go way deeper than Obama vs. The Clintons:

Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) triggered headlines when he publicly criticized Democratic congressional leaders for the way they handled calls for more drilling amid high gas prices.

Speaking at a Virginia delegation breakfast in Denver on Tuesday, Webb said, “One of the great mistakes that we made in terms of political strategy before we broke for this latest recess was not taking on the Republican Party when they started talking about offshore drilling.”

He added, “I believe that our leadership made a very bad mistake. I don’t think we should run from that issue.”

It’s almost like Webb is listening to – I dunno – constituents or something.

And I loved this part:

Union leaders this week have complained that some of their members have privately said they won’t vote for Obama because he is black. And a Democratic poll released Tuesday stated that Obama “has yet to close the deal with many white, working-class voters who normally vote Democratic.”

Wow. Conventional “wisdom” has held for 35 years that all the racists joined the Republican party. But I have yet to meet a Republican who even mentioned Obama’s race on their long, detailed lists of reasons they’d never vote for him. Perhaps, for argument’s sake, they ran out of breath before they could get there, after listing all the economic, foreign policy, ethical and experience issues that may well make Obama, on his hypothetical inauguration day, the worst president of my lifetime. I don’t know.

Just saying.

(Via Gary Gross)

So last night Ed and I were hosting the show at the Fair.  Our booth is across from the DFL booth; for the first time, we get a significant number of Democrats standing about. 

Some of them are genuinely nonplussed that not everyone at the fair thinks like them.  The cognitive dissonance is palpable.

It was about 5:225.  Ed’s on stage, I’m out in the seats with the mobile mike working the crowd.

A guy in an Obama shirt starts yelling something at us. 

I walk to him, and ask him to repeat himself. 

Our mobile mike has an effective range, in these chaotic outdoor conditions, of about 30 feet.  The guy’s standing about 35 feet from the stage; as I talk to him, the signal cuts out.  I step back about five feet, and it cuts back in.

“Sir”, I say, “our policy is to let liberals on first – but could I ask you to step over here so our signal can…”

“No!” he yells.  “I’m not stepping over there”.

Wow.  That’ll show all us swiftboating neocons!

I held the mike up higher, and walked over to him.  The signal held.

“So what is it you’re saying?”

“I couldn’t believe you guys are a real station.  I’ve never heard you before.  But everything on here is all lies”. 

Wow.  Amazing conclusion after two minutes’ listening. 

According to Paul Demko, a couple of Obama supporters drove 2,200 miles from Santa Cruz to Denver in a car completely covered in Obama stickers…:

 While picking up my press credentials I came across this Volvo stationwagon parked in front of the Hampton Inn & Suites (doing double duty as the press epicenter for the Democratic Party). Sisters Samantha and Annie Woods drove the vehicle 2,200 miles from Santa Cruz, California. Most impressive: the Obamamobile lacks any air conditioning.

…thereby confirming a number of stereotypes.

1. Democratic women are lousy navigators.  Mapquest shows the route is really more like 1,200 miles.
2. A Volvo wagon.
3. A Volvo wagon gets, what?  15 miles to the gallon?  Way to save energy, Clairol Twins.
4. Obama stickers went for, what, a buck a pop?  Nope – no dissipate patricians here.
5. I repeat:  a Volvo wagon.

Oh, lord, do I wish I were there with a camera.

MPR’s Tom Scheck is in Denver, and he says the trouble started bright and early yesterday:

Several protesters shut down the LRT and bus lines in downtown Denver for about thirty minutes this afternoon. How do I know? Well, I was waiting to get on the LRT and saw several dozen cops marching up the road. So I followed them and found out why my wait at the transit stop was so long.

 Protesters.

The good news?

Dozens of police in full riot gear were ready to roll when the incident started. The police eventually got the protesters, the onlookers and the media to stay on the sidewalks. The only disruption came from this one protester who rode her bike around the police barricades.

Photo of egregiously hideous Code Pinko omitted due to it being breakfast time.

Senator Amy “A-Klo” Klobuchar is all a-twitter about the Biden selection.

Or is she? (emphasi9s added):

What he brings to Barack Obama is the fact that he is not a ‘yes’ man. He’s going to challenge Sen. Obama to be the best president he can be,” the Minnesota Democrat said.

He reminds her of former Vice President Walter Mondale. “Mondale brought candid advice to President Carter. Joe Biden will do the same for Barack Obama,” she said.

So even A-Klo thinks Obama’s the next Carter?

Sweet.

…staring at my cell phone, waiting for The Text from The One, I was thinking “Mitch?  You know that the one area where “Barack”, as his friends call him, is vulnerable is among hard-core establishment liberals from the northeast.  If only “Barack” could shore up his support among white, upper-middle-to-upper-class northeastern liberals, he’d really become a strong “buy”. 

And then The Phone beeped.

It was a special offer from my cell phone provider.  I erased it.

And then The Phone beeped again.  It was The Text from The One, with The Choice!

“Wow“, I thought, “that was weird.  But what a choice!  “Barack” could have chosen Evan Bayh, to appeal to the more-moderate midwestern vote, the Hillaristas, where he’s traditionally a tad weaker.  Or he could have chosen Bill Richardson, and actually brought some common sense to the ticket.”

“But he picked Biden – and by doing so, he not only shored up his Northeastern Urban Institutional Liberal vote, but he also added “foreign policy experience”, because Joe Biden forty-odd years in the Senate where has been utterly wrong on every foreign policy issue from the Cold War on down“. 

I nodded my head, satisfied.

And then I pressed The Button to erase The Message.

This (via Carnivore) just in, off the Democrat party platform. Shameful emphasis added:

We believe that the right to own firearms is subject to reasonable regulation, but we know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact and enforce commonsense laws and improvements – like closing the gun show loophole, improving our background check system, and reinstating the assault weapons ban, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals.

Hm. So many ways to approach this.

What precisely is the difference between Cheyenne and Chicago? Size? But no, there are small cities (Flint) that are criminal cesspools, and big cities (Phoenix, New York) that are relatively quite safe.

Well, there’s the obvious difference; the law-abiding citizen has comprehensive gun rights in Cheyenne, and none whatsoever in Chicago. And it’s working so well. But that can’t be what they’re talking about, since that’s a “commonsense” law that has failed miserably.

What…other…difference could there be?

Oh, and nice touch, there, Democrats; “reinstate the “assault weapon” ban so terrorists don’t get them”. You’d have to be a Tic to be stupid enough to buy that; “assault weapon” is a political term meaning “semi-automatic gun that looks scary”; real terrorists and serious criminals can get the real thing, fully-automatic assault rifles (not “assault weapons”) and submachine guns from any number of sources around the world – and lest you forget, the World Trade Center and Bali and Barcelona and London weren’t gun crimes.

Automatic weapons – “machine guns” and “submachine guns” – have been illegal for most citizens for seventy-odd years [1], and yet every self-respecting drug runner who wants one can get a fully-automatic Uzi or AK.

In a sense, this platform plank is a good thing; it shows the conflict between the sensible, responsible wings of the party who recognize that “gun control” is a third rail on which they whiz at their own peril, and the nutroot urbocrat base whose faith in gun control is like the Raelians’ faith in their passing comet. Compare this with the gun control planks of 20 and 25 years ago; there is a palpable realization that they’re on thin ice with that sliver of America between the Sierra Madre and the Hudson.

They’re trying to put a fuzzy slipper over the jackboot.
(more…)

Bob Collins on the DFL’s potemkin DNC delegation.

It’s very, very “diverse” (in terms of color and orientation, anyway; ideology, not so much, but then it is a convention delegation.  Although it might be mistaken for a small university’s English department).  Much moreso, indeed, than the state it purports to represent:

You get the picture, but is it a picture of Minnesota? “It’s a good picture of the state of Minnesota,” Gilbert-Pederson said.Several speakers noted the Minnesota stereotype; we’re pretty white and the DFL delegation is meant to explode that stereotype.

But the statistics don’t lie. Minnesota as a state is very white. The DFL delegation is not.

Here’s a comparison of the delegation vs. the latest census data for the state.

Demographic	Minnesota	Metro Area	Outstate	DFL delegation
White	89.4%	85.7%	95.1%	66%
African American	5.1%	7.5%	1.4%	23%
Asian	3.8%	5.5%	1.3%	9.1%
American Indian	1.6%	1.1%	2.4%	5.5%
Hispanic	3.8%	4.4%	2.7%	6.4%

Interesting – although it’s their party, they can do what they want to, and at the end of the day it’s only a convention.  They could send a 100% Laotian Lesbian team to Denver to help annoint The One, for all the difference their individual votes make.

And national delegate slots are usually rewards for long-standing service in the party (at least, they are in the GOP, and am I the only one that wants to pants the seventeen-year-old dweeb in the story just on principle?), and the DFL certainly has its workers-of-color.  More power to ’em.
But it does highlight not only the DFL’s picayune obsession with race and gender, but indeed, what a bunch of cretins some of them are about it:

Stafford took a shot at Republicans during his remarks. He said the appearance of the DFL delegation in Denver will “contrast with what you see a week later” at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

“What do you mean by that?” MPR’s Curtis Gilbert asked.

“White,” he said.

Taxpayers.  Family people.  Veterans who’ve served in combat.  People who’ve spent years stuffing envelopes and knocking on doors.  If you’re a Republican, anyway.

A skin tone trotted out for show and/or ridicule, if you’re a Tic.

I’m happy to belong to a party that doesn’t use skin color as a prop for their facile propaganda.

Barack Obama’s campaign is charging for signs:

No, not that one.  This one:

Of course, not everyone is happy about this.  And not everyone can abide Democratic unhappiness on their betters’ decisions; Sean from MNPublius, in this case:

…for everyone who can’t spare the eight bucks necessary to go buy an Obama lawn sign read between the lines. “An occasional exception might be made for an outstanding volunteer,” you can become part of Barack Obama’s campaign (and probably get a lawn sign) by [consecrating your soul to The One].

Also, Obama will flip-flop on this sooner than later.

Seriously, I don’t care if a campaign does or doesn’t charge for its signs.  But the real significance of this story is its boundless cynicism.  Obama sells signs – and bumper stickers, and buttons – and counts each one as an individual contribution.  A flood of tiny “contributions” drives down the average contribution, thereby avoiding the embarassment Paul Wellstone suffered in 2002, when it was revealed his average contribution, puffed up with big Hollywood and Beltway money, was well into three digits while Norm Coleman’s was around $50 (and yet, somehow, their fundraising was fairly close).

The good news?  I’ve heard no talk yet of Pelosi proposing government aid to help supply Obama signs to the underprivileged.

…or was that Jim Belushi?

In any case, I was listening to the radio the other morning and an Al Franken ad came on, telling the listener how hard Al Franken has been working for blue collar workers or some other crapola. How has he been working for anyone? He’s never held public office and looks certain to continue his loser streak.

NY Sun: When Democrats this spring sized up Al Franken’s bid to win a Senate seat in his native Minnesota, they saw plenty of promising signs: an engaging and famously funny candidate familiar to voters, a stockpile of campaign cash, and a vulnerable incumbent Republican.

Less than three months before Election Day, however, the Republican seat held by a former New Yorker, Norm Coleman, looks safer than ever

The Franken campaign has been a comedy of errors from day one. Normally I’d feel bad for the guy…actually that’s a lie. Al Franken is a putz and I couldn’t be happier that his candidacy is looking more and more like a painfully awkward standup comedy act, rehashing material that wasn’t funny in the first place.

Coleman may very well have been vulnerable but the Democrats blundered badly in their endorsement of Al Franken, grossly dismissing his vulgar and easily recalled “work”. Franken’s transparent attempts to disassociate himself with his musings on pornography and rape were ineffective and Minnesotan’s are increasingly dismissing his candidacy.

The Wellstone/Dayton legacy of most embarrassing Minnesota Senators is safe from being superseded for now.

Looking to bounce back, Mr. Franken shook up his campaign staff last month and brought in a group of veteran Washington operatives, including a former aide to Senator Schumer and John Edwards, Eric Schultz, and a top adviser to Senator Clinton, Mandy Grunwald.

But political analysts in Minnesota say the damage may be too great. The race, they say, has become a referendum on Mr. Franken rather than the incumbent — an ominous sign for any challenger.

Franken’s fairly justifiable claims (if you take Coleman’s voting record at face value) that Coleman is a pawn of the Bush administration, has failed miserably to gain traction. Rather, Franken’s now well documented trail of failure, incompetence or fraud, depending on how charitable you are, has taken the wind out of his sails.

Mr. Franken emerged as the star of Air America Radio, hosting a talk show on the liberal start-up network, which struggled to find a foothold.

The Fairness Doctrine wouldn’t have saved it either. And the hits kept not coming…

First came the disclosure that he faced $25,000 in penalties for failing to pay workers’ compensation for the corporation he had set up in his name in New York. Then, following a story broken by a Republican blogger, Mr. Franken in April announced that he was paying $70,000 in back taxes and penalties to 17 states.

All the while, Mr. Franken continued to be dogged by off-color jokes and writings from his career as a satirist. In particular, Republicans pounced on a sexually explicit parody he wrote for Playboy, titled “Porn-O-Rama.” Also unearthed was a 1995 article from New York magazine, which reported that Mr. Franken once proposed a joke for “SNL” about raping the “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl.

News Flash: Failed SNL material apparently doesn’t play well in Minnesota. Yuck it up, Al.

With Mr. Franken’s campaign seemingly sputtering, a little-known St. Paul attorney, Priscilla Lord Faris, announced in July that she would challenge Mr. Franken in the DFL’s September 9 primary. Initially a supporter of Mr. Franken who had contributed to his campaign, Ms. Lord Faris said she concluded he was unelectable.

In an interview, she attributed Mr. Franken’s problems to his long absence from Minnesota. “It’s the total package. We kind of call it the New York City problem,” she said. “The root of it is that he’s been out of touch with Minnesota for so long that he didn’t understand that we don’t talk like that here.”

All may not be lost. Maybe Kathy Griffin is looking for a warm-up act. Don’t let the barn door hitcha on the way out Frankenfreak.

It’s parade season. 

Politicians love parades.

Parades love…well, entrants.  Because entrants have to pay fees to be included in the parade.  Which pays for the parade itself. 

It’s sure be a low blow if people tried to squeedge into parades without paying, wouldn’t it? 

Andy “Triple A” Aplikowski notes:

Oh look, Democrats don’t pay their fair share. Looks like Democrat El ‘Gas Tax’ Tinklenberg didn’t pay his dues to properly be in the Stillwater Parade.

Wow – I witnessed the same kind of ‘cheating’ at the Stillwater Lumberjack Days Parade. I wrote a letter to the editor, but of course NONE of the major papers would print it. Here it is:

I found it very interesting that DFL endorsed El Tinklenberg has already cheated the 6th District of Minnesota, the same district he is running to represent.

On Sunday, July 26th, at 12:45pm, Tinklenberg and about 6 of his followers walked the length of the Lumberjack Days Parade route, proudly showing off their campaign shirts “Tinklenberg for Congress”, while the candidate shook hands and spoke to hundreds of people lined up on sidewalks. The trouble is, the parade started at 1pm! All other candidates (including the person he is running against, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann), paid their $350 registration fee to Lumberjack Days for their exposure time. 

In the meantime, Steve Sarvi (or, as leftybloggers universally call him, “Veteran Steve Sarvi”) running against career Marine veteran John Kline (or, as leftyblogger call him, “Kline”) seems to have  a similar view on economizing, according to Janet at the Scholars:

At yesterday’s parade in Lonsdale, we checked the parade registrant list. Sarvi was not listed as a participant, yet he “doubled up” to walk with a local MN House representative. Is this the first time that Sarvi has ducked the parade registration fees while showing up to walk the parade route with several of his supporters, all wearing campaign T-shirts with his name on it? Probably not.

Stiffing local parade organizers over registration fees indicates irresponsibility on the part of a candidate. It raises the question: How many times this season has Mr. Sarvi just bummed a ride from some other candidate? Do we want to even consider someone who mooches like this to represent us in Congress?

No word yet on whether Ashwin Madia (or, as leftyblogger refer to him but never, ever to John Kline “Marine Veteran Ashwin Madia”) has been paying his parade fees. 

Anyone?