Open Letter To Hennepin County Subjects [1]

You voted for Mary Moriarty for Henco Attorney.

Granted, it was a closer race than one might have expected; the endorsed DFLer won by 20 points, rather than the expected 40-50.

Still, Henco spoke: they’re OK with carjackings, home invasions, random gunfire ripping through (black and brown people in North Minneapolis) houses, and criminals getting sprung over and over.

They made their choices. Now, they’ll be getting the consequences, good and hard:

Great job, voters. Enjoy the abortions.

[1] Yes, formally you’re still “citizens”. But honestly, “subjects” is a better term.

What A Difference Two Years Makes

Democrats, 2020: “It’s time to eliminate the Electoral College and make the Senate more “democratic” and reflective of the popular vote!”

Democrats, 2022, probably: “Uh…”

“…checks and balances and enumerated powers are good, Winston!”

Berg’s Law: On Final Approach

Not sure how to word it, but it’s got to be a Berg’s Law in some way, shape or form:

“Democrats, knowing their key demographics are driven by emotion and don’t think critically, can say pretty much anything they want; given the media’s bovine kowtowing, they know there will be no consequences for the lie”.

Case in point:

Neither were in any danger. But given the bovine emotionalism of the typical DFL voter, Walz could have warned of Martian landings or floods of snipes, and gotten the same crowd to not onyl turn out, but angrily lash out at people who didn’t openly worry about Martians or snipes.

Tuesday’s Gone

Fleshing out my first thoughts on the most recent election:

In Minnesota, the age-old wisdom prevails: money talks, bullshit walks. Tim Walz is sputtering fool, but he will be governor for the next four years. Unless his A1C level approaches triple digits, it’s highly likely he’ll complete his term and step aside for another sideshow act once he passes his sell-by date, some time around 2027. The DFL has the money and the infrastructure to control this state for the foreseeable future and the GOP has nothing. The DFL proved they could elect any droolbucket with a brand name when they pushed Mark Dayton across the line in 2010 and 2014. A guy with Walz’s skillset and mien wouldn’t get beyond middle management for any respectable company in the state, but he’s won twice. We can see all see it for what it is, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest — for the fourth election running, the DFL showed Team Rocks and Cows their ass. I don’t doubt they’ll find another standard bearer who is (a) absurd and (b) likely to win in 2026.

Keith Ellison is corrupt as the day is long, a 30-year grifter. He let a $250 million fraud run without interruption for the better part of two years. He’s now won statewide office twice. We’re pretty far gone if he can’t be defeated. I don’t doubt Jim Schultz is a competent lawyer, but his affect was of a guy who doesn’t get out of the conference room nearly enough and he was too nice a guy to run against a bully. To take the AG’s office back, the Republicans need a crusading litigator type who can prosecute the prosecutor and expose the rot within. There has to be one of those out there.

On the national level, it has to be said: Donald Trump didn’t help. He was and continues to be horribly wronged by what he’s gone through at the hands of his persecutors. And since civic education in this country is essentially dead in the water, most citizens can’t recognize that Trump is living example of why the Founders were against bills of attainder. Having said that, Trump will never get a sympathetic audience. He’s an obnoxious boor and he can’t get past his own solipsism; if he had even a scintilla of self-awareness, he might understand where he is, but we’ve been watching him for well over 40 years and that’s not in his skill set. Trump fancies himself the indispensable man, the conquering hero, but if he sincerely loves his nation, he’d recognize that martyrdom is a better career move. Not a chance in hell he’ll accept his fate, though.

Aside from the utter domination of Ron DeSantis in Florida, election results did not go well as one might have expected. Even so, the Republicans could still flip the House and the Senate. Based on reports from Arizona and Nevada, the Republicans could get over the line despite the Fetterman debacle in Pennsylvania. It appears likely that Adam Laxalt will win his seat in Nevada and there’s reason to believe Blake Masters may squeak by with Kari Lake becoming the governor in Arizona. Meanwhile, Herschel Walker will be going to a runoff in Georgia and has a good chance of prevailing this time. Even if the Senate ends up 50/50 again, I can imagine Joe Manchin may try to cross the aisle to save his ass in 2024. What will be interesting is whether Mitch McConnell would want him. I am not convinced McConnell enjoys being majority leader; he has more opportunities for self-enrichment in his current position.

Meanwhile, the Donks own the next two years. And they are going to hate that. There is still an urgent need for them to ease out Biden before too long, but they aren’t going to have an easy path to removing him, unless they decide to use Hunter Biden’s depredations as the pretext. Still, they will need a plausible successor. Kamala Harris impresses no one. Gavin Newsom is an empty suit. Pete Buttigieg? I don’t think so. Maybe it will be time for President Fetterman. 

The Biggest Losers

The biggest losers last night:

3. Trafalgar Polling. Their “secret sauce” seems to have hit its shelf date with velocity. Utterly useless.

2. Minnesota taxpayers – as in, the ones that actually pay taxes.

And the #1 loser last night: Donald Trump’s endorsement and coattails. From Keri Lake to Don Bolduc to Scott Jensen, they fared terribly. There were exceptions – but JD Vance likely needed the “R” rather than the “T” behind his name in Ohio.

So congrats, Democrats.

You have a senile president, a thin lead in the Senate, a looming recession, inflation that your policies stand every chance of turning into hyperinflation, and an election built largely on dissatisfied young people who your policies aren’t going to help beyond a few transient payoffs.

Good luck with that.

He Knows What Matters

Crime. Inflation. Shortages. Unprecedented division and balkanization.

Enh.

President Brandon’s tackling the stuff that really matters:

I suppose if you hang out at concert venues all night, you don’t need to heat your house…

Why I’m Voting GOP, Part II

Because there’s an election denial problem – among Democrats…

…that they’re trying to project onto the right.


Because I’ve got your “Amnesty for using Covid as a cover for the most immense peacetime power grab in history” right here:


Because Keith Ellison french-kissed “Anti”-Fa…

…and they returned the favor with a night of “mostly peaceful protest” that did this…

…three blocks from my house.


Because when you scratch the surface with the most prominent, outspoken thought leaders of the Democrat party, from Kamala Harris to Jamar Nelson, you find an undercurrent of hatred for the American experiment…

…and the rule of law…

…and, for that matter, their fellow Americans…

Collins2

Because while work themselves into McCarthyist glee referring to people as “fascists”…

…it is in fact they who seek to enforce acquiescence – whether via blandishments or violence, the Left doesn’t care.


Because America has built back battered…

…and it’s not sustainable.


Because America has a problem with racism – on the left, in places like New York City…:

…and Apple Valley:

…and the response of our “enlightened” ruling classes ranges from the trite:

to the very trite…

…to the, uh, opportunistic, exploitive and cynical.


Because for all of Governor Klink’s yapping about “fully funding education”, the system in Minnesota (outside the parts where the upper-middle-class white DFLer live) is broken…

…and no wonder, since the adults running the system are themselves, while highly schooled, very poorly educated:


To complete the job of contesting control of the party with those who should have nothing to do with conservative politics and make sure those among us who are inclined to giving the party self-inflicted wounds…

…are ushered out without ceremony.

Because whoever you are, where-ever you are, you are not better off than you were four years ago, unless you work for a Democrat non-profit.

Today will be the straightest ticket ever.

Place Yer Bets

It’s finally Election Day and we can all breathe easier now that we won’t have to see Angie Craig’s alternating rictus grin/contorted face of rage multiple times a day on television, social media and other media. But will we see Craig going forward? While I sincerely hope not, it’s difficult to know. So let’s hazard a few guesses on how it will play out today and in the coming days.

Governor: Tim Walz deserves to be tossed out on his well-padded posterior, but I suspect he and Peggy Flanagan will survive. Scott Jensen ran a decent campaign but it’s difficult to overcome all paid advertising from Alida Messinger and the free advertising from the Esme Murphys of the local media.

Secretary of State: Steve Simon is a smooth operator and Kim Crockett is not. Should those traits matter? No, but they do. Simon wins.

Attorney General: We have had the DFL Lucys pull this football away before. Recent polling suggests Keith Ellison is in trouble and that Jim Schultz is leading. Do you believe it? I don’t, but I sincerely hope I’m wrong.

Auditor: If the Republicans are allowed to win a statewide office, it will likely be this one. Republican Ryan Wilson has run a fine campaign and you can’t spell blah without DFLer Julie Blaha. The auditor has limited power but a committed auditor can at least turn over a few rocks the DFL would prefer to keep stationary. Wilson wins.

CD-2: While there are 8 congressional districts in Minnesota, apparently only the 2nd is being contested this year. We’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds of ads featuring the odious incumbent, Angie Craig, and her rival Tyler Kistner. It’s been a nasty race and Craig has serious money behind her. She’s vulnerable because of redistricting, but it’s not clear to me that Kistner has made the sale. A left wing veteran’s group has also run some stolen valor ads in the final weekend that may affect the outcome; I have not been able to determine if their claims are accurate, but if Kistner loses, that last-minute attack might make the difference. As an aside, I really wish we’d seen Republicans make more of an effort in CD-3, where it’s been entirely too easy for Dean Phillips.

Elsewhere: Control of the House and Senate are at stake and the deep unpopularity of the Democrats will almost certainly mean Congress will be in Republican hands in 2023. A few guesses on races in other states:

Wisconsin: while the population and demographics of Wisconsin are similar to Minnesota, Wisconsin is not a blue state. Milwaukee and Madison are lefty enclaves, but their overall population is less than 40% of the total population, while the Twin Cities are about 60% of the total population here. As a result, it is easier for Republicans to win. Ron Johnson, the incumbent Republican senator, is a bit on the crusty side, but he’s a smart, effective campaigner and looks to be a good bet to win against his opponent, Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, a gladhander in the Hakeem Jeffries/Barack Obama style, but less effective. In the governor’s race, Republican challenger Tim Michels is also a bit crusty, but the fluke incumbent governor, Democrat Tony Evers, is an ineffective milquetoast. Look for the Republicans to win both. Continue reading

Checking Back

I saved this tweet by “Historian” Michael Beschloss over the summer, just so see how it’d age.

I feel a bit like I’m opening a time capsule. I may do more of these in the future.

Beschloss – who’s built a bit of a career bastardizing history on behalf of Joe Biden, and is one of the people who cheapened the value of a “blue check” to $8 – thought, last summer, at the height of the “blue counter-wave” hysteria, that last night’s election might be a parallel with the 1936 election, which FDR and his servants in the media painted as a referendum on the Supreme Court.

So – how’d that work out?

Electioneering

One of my personal traditions is, whenever I see someone in an unopposed race on the ballot, and I’d rather not vote for them or leave the spot blank, I will write in one of my pets.

I think today’s Ramsey county commission race leaves is just such a choice; Ren Moran, or my cat.And so…:

If not now, when? If not him, what other animal?

Redolent

DFL communications guy on Twitter Dash which I’m told most Democrats will be leaving, apparently on their way to Canada:

Neo Marxist iconography? Specious reference to “democracy“ from a party that has been actively fighting the things that make American democracy good and useful?

Yes. Yes, it really does “say at all”.

Open Letter To All Minnesota DFLers

To: Minnesota Democrats
From: Mitch Berg, Irascible Peasant
Re: Fake Beliefs

DFLers,

A few points of information:

  • There is no “Swat Plan”. It was an off-the-cuff, tongue-in-cheek remark by Kim Crockett’s husband, at a Tea Party meeting, and of no more policy impact (or taste) than DFL staffers calling for “guillotines” for Republicans.
  • The Governor can not directly change MN abortion policy
  • Attorney General Ellison openly supported defunding cops.
  • A. Quarter. Billion. In. Fraud. So. Far. It’s going to be half a billion by the time they’re done.
  • MN, locked down, did no better in pandemic than our neighbors.
  • Nothing about Republicans or their ideology is remotely “fascist”, and we are less a threat to “democracy” than your beliefs are.

That is all.

Why I’m Voting GOP Tomorrow – Part I

I think I voted for some Democrats in the 1982 midterms, when I was 20 and still fighting with my Democrat upbringing. The last Democrat I know I voted for was 26 years ago – because she was unopposed, and her constituent services person worked wonders (she actually went on to be one of the few sane members of the Saint Paul City Council). Not sure I’d do it again, but there you have it.

That, and a few elections during my Libertarian years, 1994 through 1998, were about as far as it went for me not voting Republican.

But notwithstanding that, it’s still not a “gimme” of a vote. The GOP has to earn my vote, or at least (some years) be the lesser of two evils – because if the lesser evil loses, you get a greater evil.

But I’ll be voting GOP this year, straight ticket, every race. No exceptions.

And I’ll be doing it for a lot of reasons.

I’ll be doing it for the guy who ran the little shop over on Snelling that tried to stay open during Walz’s arbitrary, scientifically-vacuous lockdowns – and failed, while the big-box store he competed successfully with for two decades trundled along with government’s blessing. And for every other business that got shut down.

I’ll be voting especially to repudiate Keith Ellison, who spent most of two years siccing his legal goons on businesses that were trying to stay alive, owned by people who’d done something Keith Ellison has never done; invested their life’s savings into trying to run a business in this state. I’m voting Republican to help bring the day when that might not be a stupid idea, maybe, someday, again.

I’m voting GOP for every cop who shows up and tries to do a good job, and is tired of having the political class spitting on her. For every officer that’s brought in a perp, and seen them sprung before the paperwork was done.

I’m voting GOP for every father that had to watch their kids being born via video. For everyone who had to watch their loved ones die via video, or hear about it after the fact from some overworked nurse on the phone.

I’m especially voting GOP for everyone that went through that, and then watched Governor Klink, mask stretched over his maw, jammed into a seat at George Floyd’s very public, very crowded funeral, for which “science” somehow made an exception. I’m voting to throw a huge, red finger at anyone who excused that.

I’m voting a straight Republican ticket for all the nurses, techs and doctors who got laid off about twenty minutes after being hailed as “front line heroes”, because their clinics were shuttered, or their hospitals and networks were realigning due to the market distortions caused by the lockdowns.

I’m voting GOP for everyone wondering how the hell they’re going to heat their house AND buy food this winter.

I’m doing it because of all your “SAVE DEMOCRACY – VOTE BLUE!” buncombe. The left is, year in, year out, the actual threat to our constitutional order, to “democracy”, to freedom.

I’m voting Republican to stick it to the Electoral College denialists and the Supreme Court Conspiracy Theorists. And because Democrats are inflation deniers, crime deniers, American History deniers and, here in Minnesota, fraud deniers.

I’m voting Republican for everyone that lost their job due to the Vaccine mandate.

I’m voting Republican for every National Guardsman – every “19 year cook” – who had to face off against their fellow citizen in the street because their political leaders in Mpls and Saint Paul were too PC and cowardly to enforce the law, reform the police and deliver the “privilege” of public safety for we pay all those f**k**g taxes before Minneapolis became a powder keg.

I’m voting GOP for every beleaguered homeowner in North Minneapolis and the lower East Side of Saint Paul who wonders if this is the night all that gunfire in the distance stitches the walls and windows of their house.

I’m voting GOP to tell every Latino and Black voter who is pondering voting GOP for the first time, and feels as I did when left the Left in 1984 – like they’re stepping off a cliff into the great unknown – “Welcome. Let’s kick some ass”.

I’m voting GOP with the “Rocks and Cows” – all the people in Greater Minnesota who are sick to death of being condescended to by chirpy little 20-somethings from Macalester with poli sci degrees and “mushroom head” haircuts and resumes of short careers spent chasing DFL non-profit bucks.

For every Iron Ranger who’s tired of being told “stocking shelves at Shopko is just as good a career as mining, and all that money’s probably pretty bad for you, really” by Metro-area “environmentalists” in 2 million dollar houses in Kenwood.

I’m voting Republican because they are coming for your guns. Over the past couple years, they’ve felt emboldened enough to admit it. They’ll get ’em, not over my cold dead body, but over theirs.

I’m voting GOP because the DFL turned a blind eye to their contributors taking anvil cases of money out of the US, with (I believe the record will show) a nudge and a wink. The $250 million for “Feeding our Future” is just the beginning.

I’m voting Republican to tell Lisa Bender and every DFLer who believes as she does, “You’re right. Law and order is a privilege. And delivering on that “privilege” is one of government’s few unambiguously legitimate jobs, for which we pay the taxes and lend out the liberties we do.

I’m voting for every cancer patient who wishes they could have had a biopsy six months sooner, or isn’t alive to wish it. For the people whose health – physical and mental – was directly impacted by a state that treated bureaucratic prerogatives better than they treated science.

I’m voting for everyone with chronic pain – the cancer patients and accident victims and repeat-surgery patients with horrible chronic pain who can’t get the pain meds they need, since the same ham-fisted system that locked down the state also investigates and destroys the careers of doctors who give “too many” opioid prescriptions (in the view of some soulless bureaucrat) – while the DFL basks in the sickly glow of having “stuck it to Big Pharma” (while in many cases raking in big contributions from “Big Pharma”).

I’m voting Republican for everyone who’s sick of the DFL-dominated “Laptop class” getting rich on your backs.

I’m voting Republican for everyone who’s more than a little irked at the crude irony of people who vote for Keith Ellison calling Scott Jensen “too extreme for Minnesota”.

I’m voting Republican because I don’t want my granddaughter to have to pay for Joe Biden’s re-election spending spree, although I fear it’s too late.

I’m voting GOP for every kid that slowly lost interest in school, in learning – and in all too many cases, eventually in life itself.

I’m voting GOP for the owners of the my drugstore, my luthier, and every other store that got burned, looted or vandalized; every shopkeeper that had to spent their nights patrolling their stores – or figuring out how to clean up the wreckage.

I’m voting GOP for every parent that is sick of politicized school administrators and school-board politicians undercutting them, and for every parent who’s wondering why their schools just keep getting worse even as the price just keeps rising.

I’ll be doing it for everyone whose car got jacked, for every victim of everyone sprung onto the street by the Minnesota Freedom Fund or whiffleball DFL judges and prosecutors.

I’ll be doing it for every poor family scraping by wondering how they’re going to replace a catalytic converter on top of all the other bills and crap piling up these days.

I’m voting Republican because the shrapnel from Governor Walz’s hamfisted “state of emergency” was utterly. bitterly personal. I had to delay moving my mother – whose husband had just died, and was in a long-term care in North Dakota, pretty much alone – for months while the state worked out all its many mistakes in nursing homes. She was in a competently run state, so she didn’t catch Covid – but the months alone didn’t help one bit. And for that, I have a grudge. Oh, yes I do.

I’m voting GOP for everyone who’s sick to death of being gaslit by Hollywood, by Academia, the media and our own government, and isn’t going to take it anymore.

I’m voting Republican for the 13 soldiers and Marines who died in Afghanistan. Joe Biden wants them forgotten – but I will not.

I’m voting Republican because I read and have critical thinking skills.

I’m voting Republican because I can, and I’m going to keep it that way. Don’t tread on me.

Peaking?

Yesterday was a big day in polling for MN Republicans.

Top of the order – Real Clear Politics’s polling summary shows Scott Jensen behind, still – but the second most-improved of the GOP hopefuls:

That’s over the previous two weeks – and it was the best performance of a number of underdog Republican gubernatorial candidates. As Dan McLaughlin said:

In the gubernatorial races, the Wave Surfers are Christine Drazan, Kari Lake, Joe Lombardo, Stitt, Derek Schmidt, and Tim Michels. Maybe you could persuade me with one more poll to slide Scott Jensen into this bracket.

And its been 16 years since that’s been said out loud.


Later in the day? I suspect some interns were soundly thrashed when the news came out:

Wilson up five over Blaha, with plenty undecided, but Biden underwater in Minnesota and momentum apparently moving the other way? Fingernails will be chewed. But it could be worse.

And the big news:

Courtesy KSTP-TV

GOP Attorney General candidate Jim Schultz up by nearly double the margin of error, with barely enough undecideds to swing the race to Ellison if they all joined him (ignoring the MOE for a moment).

As to the Governor’s race?

Survey USA, which had Jensen down 18 points two months ago, currently has him…

…down eight.

I’m not going to claim SUSA is biased in the same way I showed the Star Tribune Minnesota Poll was. Clearly the methodology differences between SUSA and the Trafalgar Poll a few weeks back are pretty immense, and it’ll be interesting, to say the least, to see how this shakes out over the next week.

Assault

SCENE: Mitch BERG is out dropping literature for a candidate for the Minnesota state House of Representatives. As he walks toward a door, he encounters Avery LIBRELLE, carrying a shopping bag full of campaign literature.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Oh, Chriiiiistchurch New Zealand is beautiful this time of year, hey, Avery, how…

LIBRELLE: Shut up. Paul Pelosi was attacked by a MAGAt terrorist who represents the inner id of all Republican scumbags, something that every voter needs to remember as we head towards a midterm election where some polls are showing democracy itself is a threat from slack-jawed, drooling yokels in red caps.

BERG: “Uh, there’s no evidence that DePape was a Republican or conservative in any…”

LIBRELLE: “He was an old man who was attacked, and all you can think is politics?”

BERG: (Glances into LIBRELLE’s shopping bag) Uh, Avery, that’s all Republican literature…

But LIBRELLE is already scampering down the road

And SCENE.

Coattails

As polling results (and, I suspect, internal polling) show the GOP statewide slate is showing promise, two things are happening:

First: The DFL is throwing everything they can find against the wall. Look for a raft of abstruse “Campaign Finance Board” accusations – the political equivalent of “Karen” demanding you wear a mask while out walking. It’s impossible to run a campaign without violating some rule or another, and everyone involved knows it; the charges are there purely to logroll the gullible.

Second and less predictable? Donald Trump, looking to burnish his record as a kingmaker, has bungee-corded into the state with a raft of endorsements. Earlier this week he endorsed Kim Crockett and Scott Jensen.

The bad news? It gives the DFL another framing point to use to try to seize control of the message.

Jensen’s campaign is reacting, I think, appropriately:

“…ultimately, we only care about one endorsement: the support of Minnesota voters. We are continuing to barnstorm this state, engage in meaningful conversations, and work every day to earn the votes of Minnesotans by fighting Walz-Biden inflation, ending our crime epidemic, protecting parental rights, and funding students, not broken institutions,” Jensen said.

A source close to a statewide candidate told me yesterday that it was not the news they were hoping for: they were just starting to get the conversation in their statewide race focused on issues rather than personalitymongering; Trump’s endorsement may have complicated that.

The good news, maybe, possibly, if you’re a GOPer who’s forgotten what contending in an opinion poll, much less winning an election feels like? Trump, burned by a couple of bad calls in primaries, is likely saving his last-minute bungee endorsements for candidates who’re going to burnish his record. Which means – I’m guessing here, but not without some reason – that the GOP’s internal polling is looking more like Trafalgar and less like Survey USA.

Proud To Be A Minnesotan Today

Governor Walz picked up a vital endorsement yesterday:

So let’s make sure we get this straight: An incumbent who dunks on Scott Jensen for being a “conspiracy theorist” is proud of his endorsement by a 9/11 truther who was an enthusastic employee of RT, Vladimir Putin’s propaganda network.

Good one, Governor Walz.

How’s The Campaign Going?

Shot: “Stop all that conservative talk or we’ll tell your dad”

Y’see, Jensen’s father was apparently a Democrat, and if there’s one thing “liberals” believe it’s that sons gotta follow their fathers footsteps in absolute lockstep.

Chaser: “Keith Ellison is so great…uh, my, you’re a little fella!

Remember – David Brauer is one of the deans of Twin Cities journalism.

Enthusiasm Gap

This email was – ostensibly – leaked by a DFL operative.

If true, it indicates that the DFL is having a hard time getting people out on the street for the DFLin the Metro and ‘burbs:

The email includes a typo so perfectly placed, it almost makes me wonder if it isn’t a troll

I’m both pessimistic and a little tiny bit…not “paranoid”, per se, but I tend to try to assume that one’s opponents is smart enough to play mental games with you.

Still – if true, it explains a lot of things:

  • The Trafalgar polls just might correlate with reality
  • Angie Craig’s orgy of TV spending that indicate her internal polling has been worrying her for six months now
  • Ellison, Blaha and Simon turning up for debates; the “conventional wisdom” has it that debates only make sense if you believe the risk of making a campaign-scuttling flub is outweighed by the opportunity to goad your opponent into making a bigger one, because you need it.
  • Governor Klink’s evading debates – indicating he may be husbanding a lead too small to want to risk a disastrous performance that drags the Attorney General, Secretary of State and Auditor even worse than the polls show they are doing.

Remembering how the DFL acted in all of their statewide races since 2012, sitting on leads that their internal polling showed were pretty comfy in hindsight?

It wasn’t like this back then.

16 Years

2006.

That’s how long it’s been since I’ve seen a poll – any poll generally considered reputable – that showed a GOP statewide candidate, a Governor, Attorney General, Auditor or Secretary of State – ahead in a race before an election.

We’ll come back to that.


A few weeks back, my NARN colleague Jack Tomczak and I were invited to speak at a Liberty Tea Party Patriots meeting. The invite came right after the Survey USA poll, right after the State Fair, that showed Scott Jensen down by 18 points. It was a dismal couple of weeks to be a Republican. The organizers wanted someone to help put the poll in context. Jack lives and breathes that stuff, and I have done a little dabbling on the subject as well.

In the intervening weeks between the SUSA poll and a Trafalgar poll that showed the governor’s race at five points, things got a little brighter – a poll with a history of measuring Republican turnout adequately accurately showed us losing a little less badly than Jeff Johnson in 2018.

So when the meeting came around, Jack pretty much had the line of the evening. I’ll paraphrase it: if you’re looking for a poll that shows Jensen leading? There is none. The only way to fix that is to get out there and work like hell to change that by election day.

And he was right.

And he still is.


The good news: another Alphanews Trafalgar Poll shows Jensen ahead by half a point.

The bad news: An Alphanews Trafalgar Poll shows Jensen ahead by half a point.

I’ll explain.


Special Sauce: It’s a Trafalgar Poll, sponsored by a right-leaning news organization. A DFLer might squawk “Hah! It’s a conservative-leaning poll sponsored by a conservative propaganda mill! OF COURSE they show Jensen leading!”

Alphanews is indeed Minnesota’s main conservative-leaning daily news source. But dismissing Trafalgar because “it’s Republican” is just as intellectually dishonest as dismissing Survey USA or PPP or Quinnipiac because they’re Democratic. Are the facts presented right, or are they wrong? That’s the only question that matters.

Let’s focus on facts, not parties, for a moment.

Trafalgar was also pretty much the only poll that showed Trump with a shot at winning in 2016; they called the much better-than-expected showing for the GOP in Congress in 2020. The theory is that whatever methodological “special sauce” (to borrow David Brauer’s term) Trafalgar brings to the table that helps them to measure Republicans, who seem to be stubbornly undercounted by Survey USA and 538 and the like, might give this poll a little extra credibility.

Pollsters’ special sauce is a little like boy-band popularity; it comes and goes fast.

Remember John Zogby? He was the “It” boy of the 2000 race. Whatever his special sauce was, it hit the mark in the Bush/Gore race. But thet was a long time ago; By 2008, Zogby was background noise; he still does polling, but the results rarely seem to track observed reality. His special sauce hit its shelf date.

Rasmussen? They nailed 2004, and stayed relevant through most of the decade. They’re still out there – but nobody’s called him the best in the business in quite some time.

Nate Silver and 538? Quinnipiac? SUSA? Each of them went through a period as the “it” poll. And just as surely as New Edition handed off to Bell Biv Devote, to Boys 2 Men, and thence to New Kids on the Block, then Backstreet Boys and NSYNC to One Direction to BTS, every few cycles brings a new “it” pollster.

Trafalgar was “it” in ’16 and ’20. They didn’t get a lot of credit for it in the media, since Trafalgar brought them bad news of Republican strength.

Do they still have their special sauce?

We’ll know two weeks from Tuesday, I guess.


So what does the poll actually say?

Courtesy AlphaNews

Half a point.

But there are 3.9% worth of voters polling for four third-parties, all of them somewhere left of center: the remains of the “Independence” party, Jesse Ventura’s vanity organization, which was and remains moderate-libertarian left, the two legal weed parties (mostly libertarian left) and of course the Socialist Workers. Will the Democrats in those parties come “home” to the DFL to beat back the Red horde? DFLers tend to fall into line after they get their rebellions streaks out of the way.

And there are another 3.9% undecided. Toward whom will they break?

Well, one hint comes further down in the poll:

Presuming, as always, that Trafalgar’s methodology is sound, Biden is not polling well in Minnesota. One suspects that in most cases it’s due to inflation, crime, fuel prices, stagflation and oncoming war.

But Minnesota being Minnesota, you have to figure some of the disapproval is from the left.

Still – it may point to a lack of enthusiasm among Democrat voters to turn out for Walz.


Undercards: All qualifications about special sauce aside? The other Constitutional Office races might prompt some optimism, if I were more susceptible to it:

Here’s the AG race:

A five point margin with 4.5% undecided?

If – as always – accurate, that might explain Ellison’s drive to slap a coat of “tough on crime” paint over his “Anti”-fa frenching past.

State Auditor?

The only candidate who was straight up leading in the September Trafalgar poll, added a point to his margin – with six points of Pot Party candidates, and nearly 10% still undecided. I’m a little less sanguine than the numbers might warrant; this is the lowest profile race of the bunch. All those undecideds – the ones that vote, anyway – will most likely follow the top of the ticket. The question is, who is the top of the ticket – Tim Walz, or Joe Biden?

Secretary of State: Kim Crockett is a good personal acquaintance. Say what you will about the campaign she’s run – the DFL has certainly put money into running against her.

And if Trafalgar’s right, there might be a reason for that:

All that money – millions and millions of dollars from Progressive plutocrats. Steve Simon is actually having to put money into TV ads of his own – something I don’t recall seeing in any systematic way, ever.

And this – presuming, as always, Trafalgar’s secret sauce is valid – is what they got for it. two points, with almost nine undecided. And those nine will likely break toward the top of the ticket, whoever that is.

And I don’t recall even seeing a Kim Crockett ad.


So – the good news: Presuming Trafalgar is right, there is hope.

The bad news: Presuming Trafalgar is right,, it’s a razor-thin margin, and the Governor and Constitutional Officer races are going to depend heavily on:

  • Whether Progs “come home” to the DFL from the weed parties, and
  • Which way “undecideds” break, and
  • How much effect Bidens apparent unpopularity in Minnesota drags the DFL ticket, and overcomes any corruption that might exist in the metro.

Either way, Jack was right. If you care about Minnesota not collapsing further, and you’re not volunteering time or money for a candidate, statewide or legislative? What the hell are you waiting for?

Whiffle

SCENE: Mitch BERG has found a cache of hard-to-find chili paste at a Vietnamese grocery store, and is putting a half dozen in his basket. Distracted, he doesn’t see Avery LIBRELLE rounding the corner, wearing an N95 mask.

LIBRELLE: (Muffled behind mask) Mrrg.

BERG: Oh, ffffaaaaercrying out loud, how ya been…

LIBRELLE: (Muffled) Jw Shlll hm nmmr prfmkmmd m kem in crm.

BERG: Jim Shultz, the GOP candidate, has never prosecuted a case in court?

LIBRELLE: Ylm .

BERG: Huh. OK. Got a list of cases that Keith Ellison has prosecuted?

LIBRELLE: Hm pm Drmk Shmvm m prmm.

BERG: He put Derek Chauvin in prison? Sure – in exactly the same way that I fixed the plumbing in my bathroom. I hired a professional. The prosecuting attorney of record was a private practice lawyer that Ellison hired.

LIBRELLE: Hm rm thm cmmm!

BERG: He ran the case? Sure – the same way the MNDOT Commissioner runs a road construction project. MNDOT guy manages. He doesn’t do the surveying, engineering, or driving the steamrollers. Ellison managed the lawyers. But if he ever went into the courtroom, he was there as an interested spectator.

LIBRELLE: Thm Slmstm gmrm um fm Unumfm stem thmm “hm brm hm ekfpmfmm em m lorr tm br emrm deh”!

BERG: The Solicitor General of the United States said he”brought his experience as a lawyer to bear every day”? Perhaps. But that didn’t make him a prosecuting attorney. He has never sat at the prosecution table in a trial.

Long story short – do you list of cases where Ellison has been an actual lawyer of record for the prosecution in a criminal case?

LIBRELLE: Duh ym hem umm frm Schlmmm?

BERG: Do I have one for Schultz? No – but he’s never claimed to have one, and he’s not the one using his vaaaast courtroom experience to try to separate himself from Schultz.

So – you have that list of cases for which Ellison has been the prosecutor of record?

(Brief pause. Then LIBRELLE’s face goes red, and steam starts shooting from under the N95).

STORE CLERK: Did he…er…sh… (BERG shrugs shoulders) did this person try the chili paste?

BERG: You’d think.

And SCENE

Dirty Harry Meets Batman

Shot: Representative Omar with a devastating riposte to Jim Schultz, GOP candidate for Attorney General, giving us all a civics lesson:

Chaser: Keith Ellison, himself giving, in turn, a, uh, civics lesson of his own:

Which is it?

Is prosecuting violent local crime a job the AGO does when asked? Or is Keith Ellison a caped crusader patrolling the streets and heading off crime…

…badly and half-heartedly, and not at all until a month before an election?

But Why Is Keith Ellison Running All Those Ads Portraying Him As Tougher On Crime Than Dirty Harry?

Ted Nugent/Oathkeepers poll shows a supermajority of Americans blame “woke” politicians for the crime wave.

Wait – did I say Ted Nugent/Oathkeepers? I meant Harvard:

The correct answer to the poll is “yes’ to both, of course.

Can You Feel The Pain?

To: Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan
From: Mitch Berg, Irasicble Peasant
Re: Judging A Book By The Cover?

Lt. Governor Flanagan,

Two data points aren’t a trend – but you do seem to be trying to make your attire a campaign issue.

We talked about this a few months back – your, um, exchange with “Baaaaahb from FRID-ley” over your, well, attire:

As I noted at the time, I found the whole thing implausibe at best, gratingly classist at worst: you are, after all, one of the four most powerful people in MInnesota. You are arguably the most powerful Lieutenant Governor in recent Minnesota history, since the Governor only serves at the pleasure of the extreme “progressive” caucus you lead, and to court whom Governor Walz put you on his ticket in the first place.

And it scarcely needs to be said, you’re a member of the political class, from a social echo chamber in you can do pretty much anything you want, without any consequences whatsoever (and, indeed, have done just that). You could wear aluminum foil pants and a 2LiveCrew t-shirt, or pretty much anything but a MAGA cap, and nobody significant would say “boo” about it.

Indeed – since you’ve never worked in the private sector, I have to ask – have you ever worked at a job where your attire was even a factor?

But no matter – because while neither I nor anyone but the (apocryphal) Baaaaahb from FRID-ley cares what you wear to, uh, work, you most certainly seem to:

I’m going to go out on a short and sturdy limb and guess that maybe half of Minnesotans know what the Lieutenant Governor is.

A little further out? Of that half, maybe 25% could pick you out of a lineup, whatever your attire, unless you were wearing a T-shirt that said “I’M PEGGY FLANAGAN, THE SITTING LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR” in big letters.

And of that (checks figures) 12.5% of the state, I’m going to hazard a guess than maybe 10% would have an opinion, positive or negative, about what you wear.

If I may be so bold, it strikes me as if you, one of the four most powerful people in Minnesota, are trying to find some little bit of grievance, however contrived, to wrap yourself in, to generate “sympathy” in the home stretch of the election.

But then, I’m just a middle-Minnesotan taxpaying schmuck, so nobody cares what I think, either.

That is all.