My Weekend In Duluth, Watching The Weekend In Rochester

This past weekend was all about political conventions; for the first time in a long, long time,

The Gales Of November Came…In Spring:   When I left Saint Paul on Friday morning, it was up around 80 degrees.  When I got to Duluth two hours later, it was 47 with a wind howling off the lake.

But the cold on the first day of June was just about the only surprise.   Every one of the front runners – Jeff Johnson for Governor, Karin Housley and Jim Newberger for Senate – got the endorsement.

It wasn’t completely uneventful, of course.  All weekend, there were rumors that the Pawlenty campaign had voting shenanigans afoot – getting his delegates to vote No Endorsement, and then flip to Parrish.  There were signs early – the first ballot showed 7% “No Endorsement”.  That faded to 2% by the second ballot.

More surprising was Mary Giuliani Stevens’ showing.  The Woodbury mayor had a large, enthusiastic showing on the floor.  Scuttlebutt had it that if Johnson didn’t win on the first ballot, there’d be a huge Giuliani Stevens surge.   It didn’t pan out – Johnson won the first ballot 45/26 (with 20 going to Parrish), and extended his lead to 50/25/16 on the second ballot.  Dock a point from the rumor mill.

So given that the whole thing is going to a primary with Pawlenty, it’s probably just as well we didn’t waste a lot of effort on convention dramatics.

Especially since the other convention was providing plenty of that.

Crazy In Clinic Town:   We knew it was going to be a doozie when we read Rep. Jamie Becker Finn’s endorsement statement for Tim Walz:

With a sendoff like that, what could go wrong?

The first signs that the crazy train had pulled into the station came early in the afternoon Saturday, when the first ballot came in in the DFL Attorney General race.  Lori Swanson won the ballot – by four points, 52/48, over left-wing extremist Matt Pelikan.  Then, reportedly, Pelikan spoke to the delegates, telling them that Swanson had an “A” rating from the NRA (for all of Swanson’s liberal interventionism, she has always been solid on 2nd Amendment rights).  She reportedly dropped out of the endorsement race, leaving Pelikan to get endorsed by acclamation.

Rebecca Otto – one of the most disagreeable people in Minnesota politics – went out early, after one ballot, with 18 paltry percent.  The conversation in the press pit turned to What IT All Meant for the DFL Governor endorsement.  The conventional wisdom had been calling for a Tim Walz win, early and fast.

But after six ballots, extremist Saint Paul prog legislator Erin Murphy was pulling ahead.  After six ballots, not wanting to fight against the endorsement, Otto and Walz came out on the floor, urging a “No Endorsement” vote.  But Murphy was not to be denied.   She took the endorsement after, I forget, six or seven ballots.

And so two vital DFL seats were decided, in large part, because of current or former stances on the Second Amendment.   Let’s put a pin in that.

But we’re not done yet.

Upshot;  The DFL convention continued until Sunday – when Murphy made her big announcement; her running mate was…

…Erin Maye Quade.  A left wing extremist, whose wife is a paid organizer for Michael Bloomberg.

So the message from the DFL convention: “Don’t be silly, nobody’s coming for your guns. But we’re coming for your guns”.

DFL endorsed gubernatorial candidate Erin Murphy has never minced words about her antipathy toward civilian gun owners; her platform is a dog’s breakfast of every terrible, ineffective bit of security theater that *can not* affect crime rates *or* mass shootings. And Erin Maye Quade’s wife is a paid “Everytown” employee. Long on snark, short on reasoning, Maye Quade never saw any pointless theatrics she didn’t like.

And long-time DFL Attorney General Lori Swanson lost the DFL’s endorsement, almost like flipping a light switch, when challenger (and extreme gun grabber) Matthew Pelikan mentioned that, as liberal as Swanson is on every other issue, she’s a solid defender of the law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms. And Tim Walz lost what had been considered a sure-fire endorsement in large part because he *used to be* a strong 2nd Amendment supporter (before throwing Minnesota’s law-abiding gun owners under the bus to unsuccessfully woo the increasingly extremist DFL delegate base; even that wasn’t enough to save the endorsement.

The DFL reflects a base that is more afraid of law-abiding citizens than they are of society’s actual problems. Don’t take my word for it; look at their endorsements.

Every last one of them.

This Is Tina Flint-Smith

Over the weekend, Tina Flint Smith – former de facto governor of Minnesota, and currently finishing out Al Franken’s term and running to replace him this fall – had this to say on getting (shock of shocks) the endorsement of Education Minnesota.

Read it and pass it around:

Was it Will Rogers who said sometimes politicians slip up and tell the truth?

“…A Man Who Is Not Conservative At Forty Has No Brain”

Millennials are drifting to the right, according to that noted conservative tool Reuters:

The online survey of more than 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34 shows their support for Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about 9 percentage points over the past two years, to 46 percent overall. And they increasingly say the Republican Party is a better steward of the economy.

Although nearly two of three young voters polled said they do not like Republican President Donald Trump, their distaste for him does not necessarily extend to all Republicans or translate directly into votes for Democratic congressional candidates.

Will it continue? We’ll see.

I think there’s a decent chance. Part of it is the inevitable rightward drift of adulthood.

And part of it?

Work with me, here.

“Millennials” grew up during the Great Recession. And one of the iconic bits of escapism during that time has been the series The Walking Dead – a show whose moral is “the world is not a safe space; merit is survival.”

I don’t want to overplay a Hollywood entertainment as sociology – but as Breitbart said, politics is downstream of culture.

Their Wish Is My Command

Erin Murphy – DFL bot rom Saitn Paul – declared that:

“Something is going to happen I don’t know if it is going to happen this legislative session,” she said. “I think Minnesotans understand the reach of the buy lobby and the NRA, I am happy to say that I have always gotten an ‘F’ from them and have never taken their money.”

The other DFL candidates for governor, state Rep. Tina Liebling, State Auditor Rebecca Otto and congressman Tim Walz, all are calling for tougher gun control measures, including limits on assault style weapons.

The next time some liberal hamster condescendingly coos “nobody’s coming for your guns”, just play them that video.  Or read them House File 3022.

They are coming for your guns.  It’s just not politically safe to say so (outside liberal enclaves like the Twin Cities and the WCCO newsroom) yet.

Mangy Housecat + Sharpie = Leopard

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails re the feckless cynic Tim Walz:

When he represented Southern Minnesota, Tim Walz proudly wore an NRA hat.  Now that he’s running state-wide, he’s “changed the ideology.”  Is that another word for “principles?”  Does he have any?
Why yes, yes he does.  His guiding principle is to gain power over others.  Say anything, do anything, pretend to believe anything, to get the power.   He’s not unique, he’s standard DFL, right off the rack.  Clinton kept the promises he meant to keep.  If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.
The sad part is so many voters are perfectly happy to reward such bald-faced liars by giving them the power they so desperately crave.
Joe Doakes

Most Minnesota voters  go by that “feel good” gut feeling.  Look!  She baked a casserole!  Just like mom did!

Outside Her Job Description

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

 

Lori Swanson is Attorney General of Minnesota.  She’s a busy little beaver:

She’s suing because Trump rolled back Obama’s last-minute internet regulations.

She’s suing because Trump rolled back Obama’s illegal health care payments.

She’s suing because Trump tried to keep terrorists out.

She’s suing because Trump threatens to end Obama’s illegal Dream Act for illegal aliens.

Aside from fielding a team of taxpayer-funded lawyers to litigate Democrat talking points, Ms. Swanson, what is the Attorney General’s job?

What would you say you do here?

Joe Doakes

The honest answer would be “Get some taxpayer-funded chanting points to flog on the stump during a gubernatorial run”.

Politics Of Convenience

Chris Coleman – Saint Paul’s utterly undistinguished three-term DFL placeholder mayor for the past 12 years, and yet again a DFL candidate for Governor – released his gun control agenda.

That it’s a monument to DFL Metrocrat entitled ignorance should come as no surprise.

But there’s a dose of the kind of hypocrisy you only find in a one-party city thrown in as well.

Ignorance Is Chris:  The first point makes sense – if you know nothing about the issue.

Requiring background checks on every gun purchased or transferred in Minnesota. There should not be different safety rules for online gun purchases vs. in-store gun purchases.

You already need to get a background check – in stores, or at a federally license dealer if you buy online.

Either Coleman is aiming for the hysteric vote, or he’s being advised by the terminally ignorant, or – and my money’s on this – both.

They Blinded Him With Pseudo-Science:  Next, a bow to the DFLers who think they love them some science because Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

Allowing scientists to do their jobs by rolling back gun lobby restrictions on studying gun violence as a public health issue. We must invest in the Minnesota Department of Health and give researchers the tools they need to help address the epidemic of gun violence.

The notion that crime is a public health issue is balderdash, postulated by that rare breed of “scientists” who start with their conclusion before the actual experiment.  Government is right to withhold funding from this non-scientific “science”.

Guilty Until Proven Guilty:  This next one almost sounds like it makes sense:

Implementing a Gun Violence Protective Order (GVPO) law to create a legal path for family and household members, and law enforcement, to temporarily remove guns and prevent new gun purchases by those who pose a risk to themselves or others.

Sounds like a good idea, especially in the wake of last week’s shooting in California.

But be careful; if this proposal skirts judicial due process, then it’s a camel’s nose under the tent.  Before long, it’ll turn into the terror watch list – any government bureaucrat will be able to put your name into the database over some of the most abstract possible definitions of “risk”.

Among Friends:  But number four?  That’s the funny one:

Requiring mandatory reporting of all lost or stolen guns because we know the sooner law enforcement can identify and recover missing firearms, the more likely we are to keep dangerous people and criminals from perpetrating gun-related crimes. States with mandatory reporting laws report 33% fewer gun-related crimes than states without these regulations.

Does that include buddies of the Mayor?

Like Melvin Carter, who had two guns stolen from his house, but never bothered to report them?  And then went on to become the next mayor of Saint Paul, in part with Mayor Coleman’s endorsement?

Tim Walz: Today The ELCA Hair, Tomorrow The Buzz Cut

As we noted recently, Representative and gubernatorial candiate Tim Walz is:

  1. trying to get the DFL Metrocrats who will endorse the next DFL goober candidate to forget that he was endorsed by the NRA as a strong gun-rights supporter to get elected in the first place in his rural, largely Real American district.
  2. Throwing shooters under the bus for all he’s worth
  3. Going, upon any future endorsement, to work hard to get shooters statewide to forget a and b, above.

But when even the local bought and paid for lefty zine twigs to your hypocrisy, maybe you’ve bitten off more than you can chew.

Rep. Walz: Lie Down With “Protect” MN, Wake Up With ELCA Hair

To:  Representative Walz
From:  Mitch Berg, Obstreporous Peasant
Re:  Pandering

Rep Walz,

The other day, you took time off from measuring the drapes in the Governor’s office to Demsplain how you plan to end atrocities like the  Las Vegas shooting:

Representative Walz:  I realize you’re talking to your DFLer base, and they’re not long on logic, much less less knowledge on this issue, but perhaps you, or one of them, could tell me:  how would “background checks” have prevented a shooting by a person with no criminal background that anyone seems to be aware of?

I’ll be inviting Rep Walz onto the Northern Alliance Radio Network this Saturday to discuss this.

But let’s focus for a moment on the statement “Let me  be clear:  I’ve got the credibility to bring gun owners to the table in St. Paul to get this done”.

Rob Doar from MNGOC had the most accurate response so far:

Pandering, you say?

Why, yes – pandering is the word:

Rep. Walz cavorting with the Dreamsicles, just before the 2016 election.

With that photo, you are as “credible” with gun owners as David Duke would be as an emissary to Black Lives Matter.

Princess Pander

It’s almost a year until the convention, but Saint Paul DFL gubernatorial candidate Erin Murphy’s campaign is already doomed.

Rep. Erin Murphy, doomed gubernatorial candidate

Perhaps with that in mind, she’s swinging for the (Metrocrat) fences, calling for single payer helathcare:

Murphy criticizes capitalist models of health care, saying that a for-profit model of any part of the health care system is bad for Americans. She tells a story of her dying mother’s struggle to get her insurance company to cover the care she needed for cancer treatments near the end of her life.

“We must guarantee health care for people who are sick, focus on the health of Minnesotans, and control health care costs,” Murphy wrote. “We must make strategic and difficult choices with valuable resources, putting the health of Minnesotans ahead of health insurance profit making.”

Asked how this plan would be paid for, Murphy responded “with golden coins borne down from heaven by unicorns [1]”

[1] Fake but conceptually accurate.

 

Attention, DFLers!

Be advised that there is only one acceptable DFL candidate for Governor in the upcoming race:  Minority Leader Thissen:

Speaker of the House Paul Thissen, in this AP file photo, receives a packet of orders – legislative and food delivery – from AFSCME, back when he was Speaker. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

To settle for anyone less would be a betrayal of progressive principle.

Unless Sandy Pappas runs. Then vote for her.

A Hit, A Laugh, And A Warning

Warren Henry, in writing about the “Womens March” for women against Donald Trump, notes sort of clubby fragmentalism that accompanies so much of the far left these days:

Black feminists have turned off white women with calls to check their privilege. The march’s inclusion of a pro-life group as a partner in a march that cites abortion rights as one of its “unity principles” was proven controversial and “horrified” the usual suspects. The march has now disowned the pro-life group. Given the march’s problems with alienating women, it is not surprising that the enterprise has had some difficulty attracting men.

The New York Times helpfully explains that “[t]his brand of feminism — frequently referred to as ‘intersectionality’ — asks white women [and presumably everyone else] to acknowledge that they have had it easier.” Moreover: “[T]hese debates over race also reflect deeper questions about the future of progressivism in the age of Trump. Should the march highlight what divides women, or what unites them? Is there room for women who have never heard of ‘white privilege’?”

Under Urbal Liberal Privilege, there are no contradictions.

I cite this partly to diagnose some of the problems with the American left today – and partly to give me an excuse to run this video which is the ultimate illustration of the phenomenon:

But let’s not get too smug, conservatives.  We’ve got problems of our own too – starting with the fact that while we started this cycle with over a dozen great conservatives, none got to the White House.  Remember how the Cruz faction hated the Rubio faction?

We’ve got our own homework to do.

What Might Have Been

Nate Cohn notes why Hillary couldn’t reassemble the Obama Coalition:

It is entirely possible, as many have argued, that Hillary Clinton would be the president-elect of the United States if the F.B.I. director, James Comey, had not sent a letter to Congress about her emails in the last weeks of the campaign.

But the electoral trends that put Donald J. Trump within striking distance of victory were clear long before Mr. Comey sent his letter. They were clear before WikiLeaks published hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee. They were even clear back in early July, before Mr. Comey excoriated Mrs. Clinton for using a private email server.

It was clear from the start that Mrs. Clinton was struggling to reassemble the Obama coalition.

At every point of the race, Mr. Trump was doing better among white voters without a college degree than Mitt Romney did in 2012 — by a wide margin. Mrs. Clinton was also not matching Mr. Obama’s support among black voters.

The one “down side” – I”m exaggerating – to Clinton’s loss as far as I’m concerned?

We won’t be able to test my theory that, had Clinton won, all the liberal money and media love lavished on Black Lives Matter would have dried up before Hillary Clinton left the inauguration stage, because the reason George Soros was pouring megabucks into BLM was to get black voters, who’d turned out in cataclysmic numbers for Obama, to take any interest in a geriatric white patrician.

The First “Trump 2020” Campaign Ad

After an election where Identity Politics generated an identity politics backlash that overwhelmed the Identity Politicians, MTV News triples down with perhaps the most textbook example of tone-deafness in a movement that can’t carry a tune in a bucket in the first place.

Broad, ofay stereotyping is now good, apparently:

“White guys”.  Huh.  Because an Italian about as much socially in common with a Swede as a Korean has with a Philipino?

My “favorite”?  “Learn what ‘mansplaining’ is, and stop doing it”.

Ma’am, I know what “mansplaining” is.  It’s a way to dismiss someone’s argument without actually having to address it.  It’s a weaponized rhetorical coin trick that genderizes, at most, poor communication, and at the very least, personal annoyance and peevishness.  Nothing more.  In a world run by Mitch Berg, using the term “Mansplaining” to cut off an argument would be grounds for spraying people in the face with mace.

And if I could just take a moment to express my complete fatigue with Millennial hipster pajama-boy gamma male virtue-signalling?

I plan on circulating this far and wide – until it gets disappeared, at least.

It’s also more than a little tempting to do my own New Years resolutions list for MTV and our Social Justice Warrior community.

Official

Today’s the day that the Electoral College will meet and, despite six weeks of demonstrations, threats and magical thinking, elect Donald Trump as president.

The Electoral College – which, back in the days when Hillary was considered inevitable, was above reproach – like so much in our federal system, is designed to protect the huge, diverse minority from the majority.

And it worked.  And that doesn’t sit well with our left:

Donald Trump’s election is difficult for many Americans to accept, but there is no good reason to question its democratic legitimacy. For better or worse, Trump won the presidency by constitutional and sensible democratic rules that guided both campaigns and were known to any politically conscious citizen. He also won the national popular vote cast outside of the single state of California. Moreover, Clinton won all of California’s 55 electoral votes despite the fact that 4.3 million of the state’s voters voted for Trump. That big winner-take-all advantage for California’s Democrats and Clinton was certainly felt, but it wasn’t enough to override her losses in many other states.

Under our electoral vote system, American voters elected a national president, not California’s choice. It is in the nation’s interest for Democratic Party’s leaders and for Clinton voters to fully recognize the legitimacy of the election as they had urged Trump to do after the third presidential debate.

I say this:  if you want to abolish the Electoral College, and make this nation a pure majority-rule state – i.e. ruled by California and New York – go for it.

But then, remove all impediments to secession.

UPDATE:  There’s one “faithless elector” so far.  It’s a Democrat, naturally – and, of course, from Minnesota:

Of course it was a Minnesota Democrat.

No word on whether Jill Stein is going to demand a recount.

UPDATE 2:  Democrat demonstrators outside the State Capitol urging Minnesota’s electors meeting therein to “vote their conscience”…:

Downtown St Paul

Posted by Deb Brown on Monday, December 19, 2016

…notwithstanding that, per state law, they were bound to vote HIllary.

UPDATE 3:   1:54PM ET:  Trump goes past 270 electoral votes.

1:55PM ET:  Democrats:  “Well?  Why isn’t America great again?  Huh?  Huh? Huh?”

Unsung

Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

It occurs to me that I haven’t heard Larry Jacobs opine about Kellyanne Conway, the woman who ran Donald Trump’s stunningly successful Presidential campaign.  Why not? 

 It’s not as if she had such a great candidate that the campaign was a walk in the park.  Trump isn’t George Washington, someone the whole public would love to proclaim King.  I’m absolutely confident that no other candidate could have beaten Hillary.  The other Republicans all were hiring the same strategy consultants, making the same media buys, hitting up the same super PAC fundraisers.  They even shop at the same tailors: I never saw so many identical outfits as when the twelve dwarfs were in those early debates.  Somehow, she pulled her guy to the top of that heap.

 And did it practically free.  She convinced the media to give Trump a zillion dollars of free publicity, thinking they were killing his campaign by reporting on his outrageous promise to “Build the Wall” when in fact, he was using them to reach out to Joe Six-Pack who heard the slogan and thought “Damned straight and about time!”  Talk about your all-time classic backfires . . . that’s a brilliant tactic nobody else could have gotten away with.

 Kellyanne Conway ought to be on the cover of every political magazine, the talk of every political news program and the subject of every Poli Sci class on every campus.  She ran an insurgent campaign on a shoestring and beat the best political consultants and candidate in the nation.  And did it with a unruly novice as the candidate!  And won walking away, an Electoral College landslide. Why isn’t she getting more praise?

 She’s either the single luckiest woman in the world or the smartest, I’m not sure which and I don’t care.  I’m just grateful to her for preventing The Lizard Queen from ascending to the Rose Garden Throne.  In the first week alone, she saved me $1,000 that I was planning to spend on ammunition before Hillary banned it.  Her guy hasn’t even taken office and already, my life is richer.  

 Joe Doakes

Same same.

A Modest Proposal

I didn’t get to bed until 5AM yesterday morning.  It wasn’t “excitement” so much as “restlessness”, to be honest.

Watching liberal media, blogs and social media, you’d think the US just got conquered by Francisco Franco.

It did not.

Watching the mobs of pajama boys grrls that our “educational” establishment has spawned taking their sick days and rushing to their safe spaces, you’d think we’d suffered a terrorist attack.

We didn’t, unless you consider dissent “terrorism”.    And I know some of you do.

Of course, there’s no discussing this with some people.   (To be fair, while you can discuss it with me, and I’ll listen hard, you’ll have to bring your A game).

But how about let’s try?

I’m going to borrow an idea from Dennis Prager.

Let’s talk in two years, right before the mid-terms.

If we get the Armageddon you all predict – rampant discrimination (real discrimination, not dissenting sentiments by marginal figures and isolated people) against immigrants in general, society turning into a dystopia for women, gays, Latinos, blacks and everyone in between, violent nationalism running amok – I’ll admit publicly I was wrong.

If we don’t –  or, if in fact attitudes about immigration, race and the economy improve – you admit publicly you were wrong.

Let me know if we have a deal.