I sent this to Councilman Thune and his assistant:

Councilman Thune,

Mitch Berg here.

I just got off the phone with Ms. Lindgren, who said she’d leave a message for you. It occurred to me that she never asked me for any contact information – an oversight, I’m sure. In any case, I’m writing to follow up.

I’d like to extend an open-ended invitation to join Ed Morrissey and I this weekend on the Northern Alliance broadcast, any time between 1PM and 3PM, at your convenience. We’d love to discuss to your statements, in public and on the Saint Paul Information Forum, about the 28-40% of your constituents who vote Republican, and are (or so you seem to believe) drunken, puking, drug-dealing warmongers.

Now, I know that every time I’ve requested an interview in the past, you’ve pled “busy”. And I know you’re a busy guy, and respect that fact.

So in the interest of reaching “across the aisle” to make sure you’re able to communicate with Saint Paul’s Republicans, and the other Republicans nationwide who’ll be travelling to *our* city, I’d like to stress that this invitation is good for ANY SATURDAY between now and the end of human existence on this or any planet (or your retirement or ejection from politics, whichever comes first). You can come into the studio, or appear via phone – whatever’s most convenient!

If you are not available on a Saturday, I will be happy to *tape* an interview with you, in studio or via phone, at ANY TIME convenient to you, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I will also be happy to meet you with a tape recorder, any place, any time, at your leisure (provided I’m not incapacitated by fits of drunken vomiting and delirium tremens). You, as an elected official, DESERVE the opportunity to reach across the aisle and speak with the 28-40% of your constituents who likely voted against the DFL and you, but whom you nevertheless still represent as president of the city council of one of America’s great cities.

Finally, in the unlikely event that you can’t free up fifteen minutes between now and the end of time for a radio interview, I’d like to submit some questions – under separate cover, obviously – for you to answer at your leisure via email. Pardon my presumption, but this seems reasonable, given that I am a Saint Paul taxpayer.

I will hope you will do me the estimable honor of responding to this invitation (which I’m making public via my various blogs and, this weekend, the show), rather than having to lead a contingent of “drunk, puking, warmongering, drug-dealing, family-values-flouting” Saint Paul Republicans to deliver it in person at an upcoming City Council meeting.

Sincerely,

Mitch Berg
Sober, peace-loving Republican and 21-year Saint Paul Taxpayer

Northern Alliance Radio Network
AM1280thepatriot.com

Shot In The Dark
www.shotinthedark.info

I’ll keep y’all posted.

Last week, the Saint Paul City Council rejected the idea of allowing bars in Saint Paul to stay open an extra two hours during the week of the convention.

Fair enough. No biggie.

Except that the rationale of Councilman Dave Thune was that he didn’t want thousands of Republican lobbyists “puking” on his lawn.

Now, Dave’s a jocular guy. And I know as well as anyone that people will josh around, especially when the subject is partisan politics.

Still – in a purple state, and in a city where between 30-40% of the city does generally vote Republican – the remark was considered inflammatory enough that Senator Sandy Pappas – who represents the same general area at the Capitol that Thune does in City Hall – felt obliged to apologize for Councilman Thune at the podium in the Senate last week.

So what does Dave Thune really think?

Over at the Saint Paul Information Forum – an email discussion group that purports to be open to all, but is basically a DFL hive and news-release outlet – Thune elaborated over the weekend. Read the whole thing at the link, because he slips in some modestly sensible stuff before the really defamatory howler), but to save space I’m going to excerpt it a bit.

It’s a long email – and it makes a few good points. I’m hacking out most of it, but to be fair, he notes…:

Its hard work to be a good owner/neighbor, refereeing domestic disputes and picking up litter and hosing down sidewalks the next morning. I like bars (believe it or not) and I like bars to be on our commercial streets and in our neighborhoods, but I am no fool and I know that:

1. The adjacent homeowners and neighbors will hate the 4 AM close time.
2. There is no way to rule that only a few “select” bars can be open til 4.
You either let them all, or none. The law protects them all equally.
3. Limiting 4AM closing to downtown still puts them beside residences who pay as much taxes as you do and did not purchase a condo on Bourbon Street – they chose Wabasha, Minnesota or Wall Streets.
4. Limiting to downtown is in reality unworkable because you would be
leaving out the popular Mancinis, O’Gara’s and Dixie’s bars.
5. We’ve been told that the cost of law enforcement due to extended hours is upwards to half a million bucks – payable via your property taxes.
6. The test of a great city is not how long you can drink alchohol. To hear
a legislator say that we just don’t want to be a big city is insulting and
obviously the words of a moron.

OK. So far so good. A few minor logical howlers, but nothing we can’t expect from a DFL poobah.

Fasten your seatbelts. The rest of this post is a bumpy ride.

I also know that ocassionally I speak frankly and with a bit of passion.
But I am angry that this is being suggested, to cater to a “special” group
of conventioneers who will be judging us predominately by our bar hours. I am more than a little irritated that cities are being played off against
each other (“we can’t be at a competitive disadvantage”).

It’s called the “Free Market”, Mr. Thune, and cities do compete with each other – ferociously – for conventions.

Now, let’s move to the last bit. And in doing so, remember who’s actually coming to Saint Paul for the convention. Lobbyists? Sure! They go wherever government business is transacted; you can expect there’ll be plenty of ’em here. Media, too – by the tens of thousands. GOP staffers and politicians? Yep. Demonstrators, of course – and Dave Thune has already gone far out of his way to make them feel welcome.

And – most of all, the people around whom the whole event is actually centered; delegates. Thousands of ’em. And their families. And who are these people? Regular folks; working stiffs who’ve plugged away working for the GOP long enough to be recognized; in many cases, being a national delegate is a reward for years, even decades, of phone-banking and fund-raising and walking door-to-door handing out literature and counting ballots at precinct caucuses. Work-a-daddy, hug-a-mommy schlemiels who, through the grace of their state conventions, get to spend a week in Saint Paul participating in a political ritual at once ridiculous and vital to our functioning democracy.
People like you and I and, as it happens, Dave Thune.

People that, at first glance, seem unlikely to puke on Dave Thune’s lawn, at least to you and I…

…but not, apparently, to Dave Thune.

I add emphasis below:

Finally, I may have unfairly sullied the reputation of lobbyists. My friend
[redacted, a lobbyist] pointed out that lobbyists don’t puke, they’re professionals who have experience holding their liquor. Its the amateurs who spew.

He may be right, but the particular lobbyists we’ll have in town that week
are the ones who have initiated this whole discussion.

And of course these are the lobbyists who brought us an illegal and tragic war, a recession, polluted water, expensive drugs, and even the moralists who preach family values but play “outside the box” themselves. They are enough to make me queasy without a snootful…

Sorry Sandy, I don’t apologize.

dave thune
ward 2

Wow.

So a city crammed (for a week) full of responsible, hard-working Americans whose only real “crime” is disagreeing with Dave Thune on politics provoke that much hatred?

This guy is the president of the city council in one of America’s great cities?

If you’re one of the 30-40% of Saint Paul’s voters who vote Republican, this is your government talking (and talking informally among friends; remember, the “Saint Paul Information Forum” is a DFL club in all but name), what does this say to you? Maybe that while the city loves your money (you plutocratic, cigar-smoking Republican, you!), they hate you to the point of venting noxious bilge like this – in private, among friends, anyway?

If you’re one of the Republicans who’s coming to Saint Paul, and planning on spending money (at premium rates, no less) and stuffing the coffers of these two ideological gulags, Saint Paul and Minneapolis, what do you think? Did you start any wars, wreck any economies, pollute any water, import any drugs or cheat on your spouses?

Ask Councilman Thune. Here’s the City of Saint Paul City Council website.

And I’ll be inviting him onto the NARN to elaborate on these statements.

I’ll keep you posted.

UPDATE:  Welcome, Powerline readers.  I follow up this story here, here, here and here.

And we’re not done yet.

My congressional “representative” here in the Fourth CD is Betty McCollum.

She is – I’ll be charitable, given the respect due her as an elected member of Congress – not the brightest light on the creator’s Christmas Tree.

Mark Heuring at True North has her pretty well dialled in:

If Betty were running for Congress in many of the other districts in the state, she’d have been hooted off the stage long ago. Betty managed to best a primary opponent in 2000 after Vento died and has held the seat without a serious challenge ever since. Since that time, about the only thing she’s managed to do is regularly issue especially shrill denunciations of the president. Her list of legislative accomplishments is slight.

Mark is right – although we had high hopes for Obi Sium in ’06, it was a lousy time to run anything as a Republican.

But oh, lord, does something need to be done about this woman:

An example of Betty’s legislative prowess and judgment came a few years back, while Arden Hills was negotiating with the federal government to gain control of the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant (TCAAP). Arden Hills had a number of ideas ready to go and the feds were working with local officials to get things done, in the usual painful bureaucratic way. Enter Betty. Betty had a brainstorm — why not use the land, which when developed has enormous potential, to build a giant post office processing facility for the Twin Cities?

There were a few problems with this idea — it would have scuttled any plans that Arden Hills had; it would have inundated an already truck-clogged area with many more massive trucks; and, most importantly, the postal service didn’t want to build in a location that is across town from the airport, preferring instead to expand their existing facilities in Eagan. In other words, Betty’s plan had zero support from anyone who had an interest in the future of the TCAAP site. Eventually Sen. Coleman quietly got invovled and stopped McCollum from pursuing her ridiculous idea any further. Those of us who live in the area haven’t heard much from Betty since, except for the shrill denunciations of Bush she sends periodically by franked mail. I guess we can count that as a benefit.

Other than signing on to absurd anti-war resolutions and yapping like an lemur on Red Bull about education funding, she is really as close to worthless as a Congressperson can be.  Indeed, she is everything that the Twin Cities’ deranged-left imagines Michele Bachmann to be; imperious, disconnected, not very bright.  It’s wishful thinking with Rep. Bachmann; with Betty McCollum – who is too gutless even to respond to media requests from people who might dissent from her point of view – you’re talking the real thing.

Heuring:

The upshot of all this is pretty simple — if the Republican Party could field a qualified, intelligent candidate, he might have a shot at beating ol’ Betty. And this time, the Republican Party has found just such a candidate. Ed Matthews is his name. Ed is a practicing attorney and has an extensive financial background as well. He’s young, smart and understands the issues very well. I suspect that Betty will do everything possible to avoid sharing a stage with Mr. Matthews, because she would suffer greatly from any direct comparison. I met Ed briefly at the 50B BPOU and was very impressed. My guess is that you will be, too.

I also met Ed, at the 66B meeting.  He’s sharp, works a room well, and – unlike McCollum – doesn’t give you the impression that there are wires connected to his limbs and jaw controlled by the Minnesota Federation of Teachers, controlling his every move.

Count on hearing much from Mr. Matthews in coming months.  It’s always an uphill fight for Republicans in the Fourth (AKA “The Venezuela of the North”), but so was Iwo Jima.

Last week, a little bird told me that several of the groups that are planning anarchist anarkid actions planned to hold a meeting over the weekend.

Most of the meeting was to be held (naturally) in Minneapolis, at the “Jack Pine Community Center”, which seems to serve the same purpose as the “Walker Church” and the “Backroom Anarchist Center” used to serve back in the eighties for the local fringe left, as gathering places and flophouses.

But, the email (taken from one of the anarkid websites) also said that there was going to be an expedition during mid-afternoon to Saint Paul, presumably to size up the city (or, given how many anarkids are from Minneapolis and the more posh suburbs, show them how to find Saint Paul.  “Dude.  It’s like totally waaaay east of Lyndale, dude.  Like, dude”) from 1:30 until three-ish. 

And I figured that’d have to be fun.

I was among a couple of center-right bloggers that went downtown to view the hilarity.

Or try to, anyway.

It was a dreary day; it would have been perfect for bagpiping, actually, with a steely overcast and a steady chilly drizzle.  At 1:30, I was at the Capitol. 

There were ten people up at the top of the steps – all of them waiting to get inside for capitol tours.  There were two twenty-somethings down by the Duelling Socialists statues (below the driveway, above the Mall) – one with a professional photography rig and a camera on a tripod, another in a wheelchair holding a crudely-scrawled sign that he kept pointing lapward except when the photographer was shooting.  I kept walking.

As I went down Wabasha, of course, I saw some likely prospects – but in that neighborhood, you always do.  There are one or two high-rise apartments that are wholly filled with the mentally/emotionally handicapped; some of them looked dishevelled enough to be anarkids, but they were too old, and they didn’t have the carefully-cultivated air of misfortune that anarkids affect.

Likewise, as I got close to the Xcel Center, I saw some scraggly types – but most of them were on their way to or from the Dorothy Day Center, the big homeless shelter kitty-corner from the X.  Also, unlike every “anarchist” I’ve ever met, some weren’t white.

I did see two people with the impeccably-ripped and grafitti’d clothing and precisely-scraggly hair of the full-time anarkid, climbing out of a Toyota SUV in a parking lot at Fifth and Wabasha.  I saw them wandering around for a bit as I walked toward the X. 

Other than them, and one guy on a bike who was either an anarkid or a victim of heroin-chic fashion? 

Bupkes.

If it rains during the Republican Convention, the streets will be devoid of anything but Republicans.

On Wednesday, I related a rumor that the Coleman administration planned to institute a supplemental sales tax during the week of the GOP Convention.

My City Council representative in the Fourth Ward is Russ Stark. I agree with him, as I did with his predecessor Jay Benanav, about .003% of the time on actual issues – but I’ll give credit where it’s due; I emailed him yesterday morning about the rumor of the Spite Tax, and I got a reply from his staffer within two hours, and from Stark himself an hour or two later. Whatever my disagreements with Stark on policy, I’ll give him points for constituent service so far (as, to be fair – to me – I did in turn with Benanav, whose staff was unfailingly courteous, even knowing as they did that I was a pretty harsh critic of their boss).

As I haven’t heard any specifics of such a proposal, only rumors, I’m
going to inquire further about this. I can’t see how you could
temporarily raise the tax rate for these items even if you wanted to.

While the idea of a Spite Tax against Republican conventiongoers doesn’t seem entirely out of character for an administration and council that is dominated by ultra-liberals that actually passed a resolution welcoming demonstrators, the rumor doesn’t entirely pass the stink test, either.

I’ll keep you posted.

Saint Paul – unable to balance its budget without getting an eternal subsidy from the parts of the state that aren’t saddled with bills from decades of Tic management – is a perennial financial mess.

The Republican National Convention, coming to town in September, should be a financial windfall for an awful lot of regional – not just Saint Paul – merchants, restauranteurs and hoteliers.  Saint Paul’s city government certainly doesn’t mind the extra traffic coming to town, although we know where the Gang of Five’s hearts really are.

But I digress.  With the “Gang of Five” in office, the RNC would also seem to be a big ripe suck for a city administration that never saw a tax it didn’t like.

St. Paulicy, as usual, has the story:

The plan is apparently to increase the food and/or drink tax during the time of the RNC convention.  While Mayor Coleman’s heart will be in Denver – he realizes there will be a lot of fat cats and big wallets right here in the Capitol City when the RNC rolls into town.

As the city looks at a tight budget, SPicy can imagine how this idea emerged.

“We really don’t like the RNC – but there are plenty of rich Republicans.  Like us Democrats, they like to drink too.  They like to eat, albeit better than we do.  And since there is not a lot in the way of an expanded tax base in Saint Paul – the city really needs to find some more money.”

Bingo

St. Paul raises the drink and food tax just for the week of the convention.  When the evil Republicans leave – things go back to normal.  What’s left behind is free money.  It’s clean and easy.  No one gets hurt – and the GOP won’t miss the extra ½ percent.

On the one hand, but for a few demonstrably Republican-friendly restauranteurs and bar owners in Saint Paul, I’d be tempted to try to find a way to direct delegates and their money elsewhere in the metro for their dining and lodging needs (and, ironically and hilariously, leave the city’s overtaxed hotels and food to the media and the protesters).

On the other, it’s a great warning about what awaits this nation should the Tics win in November.  Everyone who’s not a ward of the state is a target of the state!

Well, that changes everything!

The Republican Convention is going to draw scads of protesters.  Bully for them.

It’s also going to draw scads of arrested (figuratively) adolescents who intend on creating mayhem.  Some of them have been saying in public that their intention is to “shut down Saint Paul” and “stop the convention” and harass delegates outside the convention and generally cause mayhem.  And while I’m willing to write 90% of it off to vainglorious adolescent posturing, rumor has it that it’d be naive to assume that it all is. Very, very naive.

Fortunately, Grace Kelly rides to the rescue.  Kelly – a Saint Paul area 9/11 Truther and DFL spear-carrier – writes for MNBlue, a blog that lost last year’s “Unintentionally Funniest Leftyblog Contest” only because I didn’t allow myself to vote 200 times a day – submits a pledge for your approval:

I propose that everyone involved in the peace parades and peace protests at Republican National Convention (RNC) use the same pledge as the School of the Americas vigil in Georgia.

We will gather together in a manner that reflects the world we choose to create. We will promote an alternative to domination systems by acting with love, respect, mutuality, compassion and acceptance for the interdependence of all life.

We will struggle for a world free from violence, and we will use
actions, words and symbols consistent with this struggle.

We will not use or instigate violence against any person.

We will act with respect for the people and property of the local community.

We will promote the safety of ourselves and others through our
actions and interactions.

We commit to recognize and to work to dismantle all forms of
oppression in our personal relationships, local neighborhoods, globally and with Earth itself.

We will return to our communities with renewed energy to create the peace.(Retyped from a physical copy)

One minor change is in pledge to ensure relevance , the phrase “to close the SOA/WHINSEC” is changed to the more generic “to create peace”.

An alternative is the Pledge to Nonviolence. that all marchers in Birmingham had to sign, before participating in the marches:

Oh, have no fear; since the various Tic factions resemble the Peoples Front of Judea sketch, Kelly actually submits about forty different options for pledges, delving into the semiotics of each in a way that sjdaksd kl,ml;ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
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Oh, crap.  I’m sorry.  I nodded off.  Where was I?

Pledges.  While Kelly (have I mentioned she’s a 9/11 Truther?) does give a small pile of options for pledges to give out, she neglects to tell us how she’s going to get the Black Bloc, the “Youth Against War”, and the other groups that have reported dedicated themselves to mayhem and violence to take, and follow, them.

Note to all you lefties; we know most of you aren’t going to cause any problems, pledge or no.  It’s all those “people” who travel with you that we’re watching.

One of the things that makes being a Republican in the city so interesting is that the entire place is such a tabula rasa; everywhere you go, there are people and institutions whose entire notion of who and what a Republican, and a conservative is is entirely formed by slanders they’ve gotten from the Tic media, their unions, their tic parents, or whatever.  It makes every victory you win (and those are measured by individual people in Saint Paul, not by offices or races or percetages of representation) all the sweeter.  And there are victories.

One of the things that makes being a Republican in a place like Saint Paul so enervating is that too many Republicans – as opposed to conservatives – are like the guys in Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA; like dogs who’ve been beaten too much, who spend half their lives just covering up. 

A little bird has told me a very disturbing story that, if true and in context, would indicate that way too many of my fellow inner-city Republicans are the latter; if true, the battle for the cities is going to get a lot harder before it gets easier.

More later.

I love Prairie Home Companion. It’s usually a lot of fun, and, at its best, it tells a side of upper-midwestern scandihoovian life that doesn’t get well-described elsewhere. Garrison Keillor has an amazing ear for the local argot, and some wonderful insights into the stoic, dysfunctional, warm heart of the region.

But good lord, he can (allegedly) be a real jagoff.

Keillor and his wife, Jenny Lind Nilsson, are suing their next-door neighbor, Lori Anderson, to stop her from building a two-story addition to her home that would include a three-stall garage and studio.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Ramsey County District Court, claims the addition would “obstruct the access of light and air to the Nilsson-Keillor property” and “impair or destroy protected historical resources.”

The complaint also said the project would obstruct their view “of open space and beyond” and possibly hurt property value. The estimated market value a year ago for Keillor’s home was about $1.2 million, according to property tax records; Anderson’s was about $600,000.

The City of Saint Paul – which administers building permits rather carefully in the tony, historic Ramsey Hill neighborhood via its’ “Heritage Preservation Commission” – is also a defendant; it claims Keillor was notified the same way all Saint Paulites get notified of such things; by mail.
Naturally, there are at least two sides to the story.

Anderson, who has owned her home since 1999 and lives there with fiancé Paul Olson, said Monday that Keillor and his wife have been good neighbors and that she is wary of offending them.”We were heartsick,” Anderson said of learning about the suit.

Olson said when he and Anderson decided to marry, they realized their one-car garage wasn’t big enough. Even before they hired an architect, the couple said they talked to neighbors. They planned to build three stalls, a storage area and a mudroom on the first floor and a studio for Anderson’s business on the second. The addition would be a few feet lower than the existing home and would be attached to the rear.

The project would add about 1,900 finished and unfinished square feet to the home, which now has 2,124 finished square feet. The Keillor-Nilsson home has 5,168 finished square feet, according to tax records.

According to Anderson, they jumped through all the usual hoops one must go through to build an addition to a home, especially a historic one.

City Attorney John Choi said Monday that “we have reviewed the plaintiffs’ allegations in the complaint and find them to be without merit. It is our position that the city, Board of Zoning Appeals and the Heritage Preservation Commission acted in compliance with the law and within our legal discretion.”

Olson said Monday that Keillor and his wife “couldn’t have cared less” when Anderson told them they were building a bigger garage.

“He’s a busy guy,” Olson said. “We didn’t feel obligated to include him in the planning.”

Let’s take a step back.  Keillor’s public persona is that of a lovable, if unctuous, academic – that fuzzy-headed professor that’d make you laugh when he wasn’t boring you stiff.

As I wrote five years ago, there’s another side:

I used to be a radio producer. I knew people who’d dealt with Keillor – fellow low-level producers, production assistants, the grunts that do the dirty work that has to be done for show like Keillor’s to come off. To a person, they all – every one – describe him as “extremely abusive when angry”, “selfish”, “never has a good word to say about anybody”, “no social skills”, “treats his colleagues like dirt”, ” keeps people hanging on without officially hiring them”, “destroys people behind their backs”, “acts like his shit doesn’t stink”, “dumps [employees] without warning”. Most concisely, “a complete son of a bitch”. Every one of those is from people who’ve worked with Keillor in some professional capacity, many of whom don’t dare say a thing because they want to work in these towns again. Keillor, it seems, also as a reputation for squashing careers.

It was a local joke among radio people in the eighties – Keillor went through “personal assistants” like kleenex. He was as petulant as any caricature of a golden-age movie queen. He demanded his subordinates worship him. He cast them off like old underwear when they displeased him. He was a spoiled, petulant egomaniac.

The article above was a follow-up to this one which, in addition to garnering my first Instalanche and putting this blog on the map, drew a number of emails from former and current Public Radio and Keillor employees.  They excoriated the man – and, to a person, begged to be kept anonymous.

Keillor’s not a pleasant employer.

And if the Strib’s story is true, I can’t say as I’d want to be his neighbor, either:

Olson said he and Anderson were on vacation in New Zealand when they received “an angry e-mail” from Keillor on Nov. 29. The e-mail accused Anderson and Olson of building “a carriage house” and said, “If we had known, we would have been horrified. … Neighbors do not deal with neighbors the way you dealt with us.”

Anderson and Olson cut short their vacation and returned home, hoping to talk to Keillor and Nilsson.

“We wrote them a very conciliatory e-mail to say we’ll do anything we can to work it out,” Anderson said. “They refused to talk to us.”

To paraphrase P.J.O’Rourke, you can reason with Keillor.  You can also reason with livestock, for all the good that’ll do you, if his former colleagues are to be believed.

I wonder – if he loses the court action, maybe he’s thinking of packing up and moving to New York in a snit again?

I’ve been going to GOP precinct cauci and district conventions in Saint Paul for nigh on 20 years now. The ritual is always the same. There are only small variations.

In good years for Republicans – say, 1994, 1998 or 2002 – the GOP “Basic Political Organizational Unit” (BPOU – the lowest level of GOP organization) and City party conventions will whip up some enthusiasm for candidates for the House, Senate and City Council; money will be raised; impassioned speeches will be given; “this could be the year!”. Delegates will be elected that will go to the Congressional District (MN4, in this case) convention, who will in turn endorse a candidate for US House.

And on the first Tuesday in November, the candidates will all lose by 20 points.

On the other hand, during bad years for Republicans – 1996, 2006 – the City, BPOU and CD conventions will start with somber speeches about how the inner-city districts have to try to at least make a showing, to draw away some spending from the safer GOP districts out in the ‘burbs; to fight the good, futile fight, in other words. And the candidates – usually long-time party functionaries – will be endorsed, to put a warm body in a place on the ballot. And they’ll campaign, either with great enthusiasm (Obi Sium, the CD4 US House candidate last year, or Alan Fine over in CD5), or they’ll put in a dilatory showing of the flag.

They’ll lose by 30 or 40 points.

And yet, as I’ve said over and over again, the inner city is positively clogged with people who should be conservatives:

• African-American parents, for whom the failure of the inner-city schools to help make their kids competitive is a finger in the eye, an insult added to the injury of 400 years of slavery and racism in this nation, and who should know that the DFL stands foursquare behind the foetid status quo.
• Asian residents, whose commitment to free enterprise did what two generations of government programs couldn’t; saved inner-city Saint Paul.
• Legal immigrants, who are – according to polls – increasingly opposed to coddling illegal immigration.
• Hispanic residents who see that the DFL piddles on their Catholic/Evangelical social conservatism.
• Anyone who can see that three generations of “city as DFL social laboratory” have made parts of Minneapolis among the poorest, most dangerous inner-city enclaves in America.
• Oh, yeah – and all of us Republicans. And you might never know it, but we’re one of the biggest minorities in Saint Paul; 28% of the city registers GOP – and if the party could ever field a serious candidate, a fair chunk of the DFLers who are growing tired of the Tax ‘n Spend claque that has City Hall under its boot might be convinceable, too.

This, indeed, has worked for Republicans; Brett Shundler spent years as mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey, running on a platform of security, fiscal discipline, low taxes and common sense – in a city that’s even more hamstrung with Democrat tradition than the Twin Cities (6% registered GOP), and with a state Republican party that’s worth even less than Minnesota’s for supporting conservatives anywhere, much less in the inner city.

So why not here?

Why, indeed, is “inner city Minnesota GOP” almost as big a synonym for frustration as “Vikings in the Super Bowl?”

Chalk it up to infrastructure.

No, not bridges and roads…well, actually, yes – the political equivalent of bridges and roads and fixing potholes.

Bear with me, here.

The DFL has spent three generations or more in complete, unquestioned power in inner Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Over those decades, the DFL has insinuated itself into every aspect of life; it runs the schools; it controls the city councils (shut up about the Greens, already – they are indistinguishable on the streeet); they control the planning, zoning and spending apparatuses; they control the public employees unions that run the schools, the administrations, the civil service, the public works departments, even the police and fire deparments and libraries. DFL is a de facto synonym for civic life and, in many ways, day to day non-political life as well. You can literally not not make contact with the DFL or a DFL-controlled organization in some part of your day to day life in the inner city.

You can literally count the elected Republicans in Saint Paul on one hand – School Board member Tom Conlon – and get four fingers’ change.

This complete control of all political and civic life in the city has several effects which stunt the city as well as the opposition:

• The city’s residents are disproportionately employed by DFL-linked unions; AFSCME, MAPE, Education Minnesota and the various Teamsters and AFL/CIO bodies are very disproportionately represented among residenets and voters – and those unions are all but subsidiaries of the DFL.
• Even non-political residents are in constant contact with the apparatus of DFL power and control. This is important both for showing people what “the norm” is, as well as giving the DFL an audience that doesn’t know better than to question the DFL’s claims as to what’ll happen to government “services” if they ever lose power.
• The DFL controls the entire revenue stream; the government that levies the taxes, the administration that collects them, the council that budgets the money, the district councils and schools and departments that do the spending, all are controlled by DFL sinecures.

Every aspect of life in Minneapolis and Saint Paul – family and personal as well as civic and political life – has contact with the DFL.

And so, every couple of years when the GOP throws “warm bodies” and “sacrificial lambs” at the entrenched DFL bureaucracies, it’s not unlike the British and French marching across No Man’s land into the teeth of machine guns entrenched in bomb-and-bullet-proof concrete pillboxes; it’s a slaughter, and everyone knows it will be even before they climb out of the trench or leave the BPOU/CD meeting.

So how is that going to change?

More tomorrow.

The inner cities have their issues. If you’re in Minnesota and reading this, you know about them; you’ve either fled them, are paying for them via your taxes, or are – like me – living among them.

Minneapolis and Saint Paul are taxed half to death; Minneapolis’ crime rate has fallen from brutally-high to merely ridiculously-high, with a murder rate higher than New York, Boston, LA, San Francisco.  Higher, indeed, – ironically, given how Minneapolis’ political, academic and media elites sniff at them – than Mobile, Omaha (twice as high!), Tampa, Jacksonville, higher in fact than all of the major cities in Texas but one (and only slightly off Houston’s pace).  Only marginally lower than Chicago. (Saint Paul’s is quite low by major-city standards – 60% lower than Minneapolis – a testament to Saint Paul’s excellent police department, strong neighborhoods, and at least a couple of relatively sane administrations).

The cities are addicts; their drug is money. Nearly four decades ago, the “Minnesota Miracle” enacted the idea of “Local Government Aid”, which as the DFL’s stranglehold on the inner cities accelerated turned into an eternal subsidy of DFL inner-city policy by the parts of the state that actually pay their way. Governor Pawlenty’s cuts in LGA acted the same way as cutting off the heroin acts on a jonesing junkie; the addict went crazy. The body couldn’t get along without the drug; the drug had incorporated itself into the body’s chemistry. City governments had been providing “services” far beyond what their eroding tax based could provide, even as their left-leftward-moving policies drove more and more of the tax base out of the cities themselves. When LGA cuts forced cities to pass the “service” costs directly to their own tax bases, and the cities were forced to pay their own bills – well, you’ve read the headlines and the op-ed pages, right?

And yet, election after election, the DFL stranglehold over the inner city not only deepens, but gets more and more radical; Greens now have a solid foothold in Minneapolis; Saint Paul’s “Gang of Four” ultra-liberal councilpeople is now a Gang of Five. Policies that were madness thirty years ago are commonplaces today.

How did it get this way?

90% of politics is local. And the DFL understood this from the very beginning, and over the past fifty years has extended its reach into every corner of life in the Cities.

Is there hope?

More tomorrow.

I was worried the Saint Paul City Council wasn’t going to tackle the big issues facing our city:

On a 6 to 1 vote, council members banned the [Sugar Glider, a breed of] nocturnal marsupials that hail from the South Pacific and have flaps of skin from wrists to ankles and a bit of a sweet tooth.

Although St. Paul isn’t teeming with the critters, banning their purchase, sale and ownership is a preventive measure, city officials say. The animals wouldn’t do well in this climate, and are high-maintenance, leading the city’s animal control department to fear frustrated owners would abandon their pets.

The ordinance stems from an incident in which a person was selling the animals at a trade show without a license. Animal control employees did research and found that sugar gliders take a lot of maintenance, make a lot of noise and can smell.

They haven’t actually chewed any children to death, of course; stealing candy, maybe, but again, we don’t know. 

No, the Saint Paul City Council – led by the Gang of Four Five – is getting out ahead of the plague of flying, candy-craving mini-possums because the might be difficult to handle. 

“I think they were misinformed about many things when they made their decision,” said Jeff Stein, who with his wife, Terri, breeds sugar gliders in Lino Lakes.

They have a room full of about 34 adult gliders, which sell for prices starting at $200. “They’re harmless little friendly things.”

Put “Buck Fush” T-shirts on ’em.  The Council will reconsider faster than your Sugar Glider can unwrap a Starburst.

(Via Margaret at Anti-Strib)

…after Christmas.

It’s a Christmas poem by SaintPaulicy that should chill the heart of all Saint Paulites.

Joe Kimball at the MinnPost briefly profiles St. Paul school board member Tom Conlon – the sole elected Republican in the city:

Conlon is the lone elected Republican Ranger in a city dominated by DFL office holders. Not since Norm Coleman changed his party stripes in Mayoral Term Two (1997) has there been another Republican elected in the city. Before that you have to go to the 1970s and ’80s with names like Ron Sieloff and John Drew and Joe O’Neill and Bob Pavlak.In those cases, Republicans were elected in St. Paul thanks to their personalities and connections, and despite their Republican affiliation. So, it seems, is the case with Conlon.

“Every time, I hold my breath, thinking: Is this the time they’re going to get me?” Conlon said Wednesday, before heading out to pick up lawn signs from supporters’ lawns all around St. Paul.

So what’s the secret? Conlon points to three things:

Read the whole thing. Note that none of the three things involve any help from the Republican Party, which continues to abandon the parts of the Fourth CD south of County Road C.

A DFLer friend of mine sent me this photo of Kathy Lantry, Mayor Coleman and Dave Thune at one of the DFL victory parties last night:

Oh, that was a cheap shot.  I’m sorry. 

But, as Sheila notes with her usual impeccable timing, it is the anniversary of the Russian Revolution today.

She describes with her usual pithy passion her fascination with the Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiva [1]:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: any time some politician starts talking to you about Utopia, grab your loved ones and run for the hills. Make sure you are heavily armed. Utopianism is one step away from totalitarianism. In order to actually achieve any kind of Utopia, the individual must be ground to powder. There can be no individuals in a Utopia. But …. er … no matter what you do, you cannot get rid of the individual. Totalitarian states don’t care that their very IDEAS are illogical. They just want absolute power.

This is the secret in the secret book in 1984. This is what nobody told you, although their actions spoke loud and clear. The point was NEVER equality. The point was ALWAYS power – and controlling power into the hands of a very few. But the theories and ideals surrounding this secret were compelling to so many … many still refuse to believe that there is no secret. That the smokescreen of equality was STILL the real point.

Apropos – as they say – nothing.

(more…)

I voted last night, natch.

I voted a straight Republican ticket, to the extent that it mattered. “Big surprise, there”, I can hear some of you writing. Well, it’s not as big a lock as some of you might think.

SaintPaulicy had some predictions; sorry to say, he blew a couple.

We only had two races in St. Paul last night; School Board and City Council.

There was good news and status quo news.

St. Paul School Board

18609 19.78 ANNE CARROLL
16828 17.89 KAZOUA KONG-THAO
13258 14.09 TOM CONLON
13126 13.95 KEITH HARDY
—————————-
11683 12.42 KEVIN RIACH
08969 09.53 DAVID PETERSON
07976 08.48 JENNETTE GUDGEL
03106 03.30 BERNARD RUPPERT
00511 00.54 WRITE-IN**
== == == == == == == == ==

It’s good news that Tom Conlon – the district’s sole sane member Republican, got re-elected. It’s even better that he made the cut in third rather than fourth place, by a 132 vote margin. Saint Paul’s students thank you, voters. (Next election, could we see about chasing Tom Goldstein from the building?)

I voted a straight GOP ticket – Conlon, Peterson and Gudgel – and for my fourth vote wrote in my cat, Nosemarie. She’s becoming Saint Paul’s most-seasoned campaigner, I think; she’s gonna get elected one day.

Now, off to the city council, where the news is just plain worse:

COUNCIL MEMBER WARD-W-01
2633 57.50 MELVIN CARTER
1932 42.19 DEBBIE MONTGOMERY
0014 00.31 WRITE-IN**

This is bad news; the Gang of Four is now the Gang of Five. It’s a bit of an upset – SPicy predicted “Debbie Montgomery has a past of being a history maker in Saint Paul. She is the first African-American female police officer, City Councilor and holder of other notable successes. What Debbie will now be is the first African American woman to be re-elected to City Hall. ” Blah.

Carter is yet another nutso liberal. Hang on to your wallets, Saint Paul. Montgomery was a voice of moderation on the district – ergo, the DFL put her on the hit list.

Big tent. Hahahahaha.

COUNCIL MEMBER WARD-W-02
2733 53.02 DAVE THUNE
2399 46.54 BILL HOSKO
0023 00.45 WRITE-IN**

This was a much closer race than expected. Thune should have buried Hosko without much effort.

Speaking of burying…

COUNCIL MEMBER WARD-W-03
4369 86.29 PAT HARRIS
0639 12.62 GERALD MISCHKE
0055 01.09 WRITE-IN**

Sigh.

Now, to my ward:

COUNCIL MEMBER WARD-W-04
3115 80.93 RUSS STARK
0691 17.95 TERRANCE BUSHARD
0043 01.12 WRITE-IN**

The GOP in Saint Paul is a disorganized mess; there’s no money to mount a credible campaign. Which is a shame, since – even though there was never a chance that a standard Republican would win in the smug, government-employee-clogged Fourth Ward, the open seat left by Jay Benanav was at least a place to make a race of it.

The Fourth Congressional District GOP habitually starves the city of money, focusing its’ efforts north of Larpenteur Avenue. It has to change.

COUNCIL MEMBER WARD-W-05
2124 51.52 LEE HELGEN
1983 48.10 DAVID HAAS
0016 00.39 WRITE-IN**

This hurts.

The “anti-Helgen” movement did their homework, pounded their pavement, and worked their butts off to remove the (in my opinion) loathsome Helgen from his seat. A charter member of the Gang of Four, Helgen squeaked through.

Blah.

COUNCIL MEMBER WARD-W-06
2507 53.69 DAN BOSTROM
2142 45.88 PAKOU HANG
0020 00.43 WRITE-IN**

Bostrom – one of the district’s few voices of sanity – withstood a full-court push. Thank goodness.

COUNCIL MEMBER WARD-W-07
1737 71.25 KATHY LANTRY
0689 28.26 JANINE KELLEY
0012 00.49 WRITE-IN**

Lantry is the boot on the Saint Paul taxpayer’s throat, (seeminglyl) forever.

So at Hamline University – my bad neighbor in the Midway – here’s how the hierarchy of un-PC offenses breaks out.

Commit a gratuitously racist act?…

Hamline University has suspended six players from its football team for donning blackface and body paint to dress up as African tribesmen for an off-campus Halloween party, an incident that has sparked a discussion about racial sensitivity at the St. Paul liberal arts college.

…get a slap on the wrist:

The six have not been suspended from school but will not be able to play for the rest of the football season.

But exercise your first amendment right to free speech in defense of your second-amendment right to self-defense?

[Troy] Scheffler received a letter informing him he’d been placed on interim suspension. To be considered for readmittance, he’d have to pay for a psychological evaluation and undergo any treatment deemed necessary, then meet with the dean of students, who would ultimately decide whether Scheffler was fit to return to the university.

So, kids – the lesson is this; be a racist all you want, but for goodness’ sake, don’t talk about killing homocidal psychopaths – at least, not in self-defense.

I’m worried that Hamline’s administration isn’t stable enough to trust around kids.

Saint Paulicy – the best Saint Paul politics blog there is – is covering the…er, odd Pakou Hang campaign for city council:

For a mere fifty cents a day over what was then 10 days left, you could answer the call of the campaign to fund Pakou in her 10 day muffin eating marathon. The campaign sent out a plea for more money to help send Pakou “over the top.” The campaign missed a golden opportunity to call on supporters to help send Pakou over the “muffin top.”

At first SPicy thought that Pakou had scored a major endorsement from Sally Struthers and the Feed the Children Foundation, instead Pakou is soliciting donations to feed herself.

Hang is running against councilman Dan Bostrom:

City Council Member Dan Bostrom should donate $500 in gift certificates for muffins and coffee for Pakou. Then he can just sit back while Pakou does her campaigning in locally owned neighborhood coffee shop featuring organic gluten free muffins while she ponders what she is going to do after the election…The DFL left her hanging weeks ago focusing their efforts on Wards 1 and 5.

It’s actually an idea for fighting hunger…

Now she wants supporters to buy her muffins. If the voters of Ward 6 decide to send Pakou to City Hall, SPicy will eat a big old bran muffin, and you know what’s next.

Hm. I think I’d take a shot at Sakura or Murray’s. Or at least a bagel shop.

Not a big muffin fan.

SaintPaulicy notes a new campaign teeing up in Saint Paul:

While campaign staffs in wards across the city work hard to get to Election Day – another race is quietly taking shape and there is already one candidate in the contest.

SPicy has learned that a very prominent Saint Paul leader has apparently decided to be the first to challenge Chris Coleman.

No, fellow SPicy readers – it’s not Tim Marx. It’s none other than William “Corky” Finney.

Finney has apparently made the decision to run for Mayor – before the “current occupant” hits the half way point.

What would make a one-time-supporter of Chris Coleman break ranks?

SPicy is on the case – and remember – you read it here first.

Finney – Saint Paul’s former police chief and a DFLer with immense political capital – would make this next mayoral race a very interesting one.

Last spring, I wrote about the allegations that former St. Paul School Board president, and at that time sitting member, Al Oertwig, had used a computer at a local university library to view kiddie pr0n.

The Saint Paul Police have, at long last, officially cleared Oertwig of any wrongdoing.

Police have cleared former St. Paul school board member Al Oertwig of looking at child pornography at a university library computer, though the investigation concluded there was adult porn on the computer.

Oertwig, who had been St. Paul’s longest-serving school board member, resigned in the midst of the investigation, which began in the spring. Oertwig faces no criminal charges.

A St. Paul police sergeant filed his final report on the matter Thursday, closing the case and declaring the allegations unfounded.

From the beginning, Oertwig proclaimed his innocence in the child porn allegation but said he stepped down to avoid a distraction for the district.

“You see now it’s been closed. There was nothing there,” Oertwig, 62, said Monday. “There is no child pornography involved, and it is time to focus on my lifelong career on the school board.”

While I disagreed with Oertwig vocally and intensely on many issues – indeed, nearly every possible issue – it is good to see that he’s been cleared of this charge.