I don’t have a dog in the presidential fight yet.  I’m nowhere close to picking a candidate.

Oh, I am advocating – for principles.  Seeing which candidate best articulates what I believe in – whatever that is – is the real test for me.  And none of the candidates is perfect.  None of them ever are.

Other than me.  And I’m not running.

Of course, now is the time to be an uncompromising purist.  If you support Santorum?  Paul? Perry?  Accept no compromise!

I’ve got some of the same problems with Mitt Romney that most of us conservatives do; he’s the “establishment” pick, for starters.

Which is funny, since I caucused for him four years ago – because he was the conservative option in the field.

Joel Pollak at BigGov makes the conservative case for Romney.

The first part is one that the anybody-but-Romney crowd are downplaying – the wages of “electability”:

First, while Obama might drive even more voters to the conservative cause in his second term, he could make lasting changes along the way–especially on the Supreme Court–that would frustrate conservative political goals for generations.

Imperfect as Romney may be, it’d be much better to have him nominating people for the SCOTUS.

Second, foreign policy could return to the fore in 2012–and Romney is one of the few candidates who has a well-informed foreign policy consistent with Ronald Reagan’s tradition of American global leadership.

I’m a lot more comfortable with Romney on foreign than domestic policy.  And Romney has a better command of the issue than any of his opponents.

Of course, domestic policy is what this election is going to be about.  And while Romney may not be “the conservative” candidate, on business and economic issues I think he’s conservative enough.

Finally, while Romney is not quite the establishment figure he is often made out to be, there is something to be said for having an establishment, even one in need of reform. After the dramatic changes of the past decade, Americans are eager for stability. That is a fundamentally conservative impulse, and one that an establishment leader could satisfy.

Democrats believe the best charge against Romney is that he is a “flip-flopper.” It’s not Romney’s inconsistency that worries conservatives, but his underlying convictions. Yet if we consider that the Supreme Court may strike down all or part of Obamacare next spring, and that even a Democratic Congress failed to pass climate change legislation, we may be able to look past the most problematic of Romney’s previous positions.

Sue Jeffers hates it when I say “perfect is the enemy of good enough”.  Down that road, she yells at me, lies mushy importent Arne-Carlson-style RINO-ism.

Which is true.  But down the other road – uncompromising purism – lies the Libertarian Party where, untroubled by ever needing to govern by dint of having been elected to, well, anything, they can sit about their conventions and think big, pure thoughts.  Politics is about, well, not so much being impure, but about making compromises with the other side(s) from a position of such electoral strength that as much of your pure agenda as possible survives.

Michael Reagan put it well when Brad Carlson and I interviewed him at the Midwest Leadership conference; a key facet of his father’s greatness was not his purism – George Will wrote an entire book on how impure a conservative Reagan was – but on his ability to bring the impure to his side.  Which meant compromise.  The sort of thing the “anyone but Romney” crowd eschews today.

As they should – today.  And through the caucuses.  And all way to the Republican National Convention, if need be!

But if he gets the nomination – is he conservative enough?  That’s a great way to start an argument these days in conservative circles:

Romney may not have courted Tea Party support, but he has tacitly adopted key points of its conservative agenda–repealing Obamacare, cutting federal spending, and fixing the entitlement system.

Conservatives should consider supporting Romney–and do so while understanding that unlike Obama’s left-wing base, we will have to be as strong a check on a president we have elected as we have been against one we have opposed.

And that is the big takeaway; for Republicans, the Presidential race is only a quarter of the battle.  To really put a ding in the juggernaut of Obama’s legacy, we have to eject Obama, and take the Senate, and hold and preferably extend our lead in the House, and consolidate and expand our gains at the State level.  Partly to support (we hope) a new president.  And party to keep that new president honest – meaning conservative.

The upcoming Minnesota Senate race, say some, is a foregone conclusion.  A-Klo in a walkover, says the conventional wisdom.

The MNGOP has three candidates vying for the nomination, so far..  Former State Representative Dan Severson is, by most accounts, the front-running.  Joe Arwood and Tony Hernandez round out the field of applicants so far.

I’ve interviewed Dan many times; in a just world, he’d be the Secretary of State today.  Hernandez ran a tireless State Senate campaign last fall in Saint Paul – which is like saying “the Light Brigade sure charged with energy!”, sure, but Hernandez is an amazingly sharp, capable guy.  And I met Joe Arwood over the weekend; I think he has a future in politics, too.   I could vote for any of them, after any of them gets nominated.

But let’s spitball for just a moment here.

What, according to the “conventional wisdom”, does the GOP need to win the Senate race?

The candidate has to be…:

• Someone with some name ID.
• Someone with some fundraising mojo.  That’s huge; with the departure of Bill Guidera from the race, I’m personally not seeing a fundraising superstar in the line-up.
• Let’s be honest – conservative.  A-Klo has done a good job of fooling Minnesotans into thinking she’s “Center”-left, although she’s feeling confident enough in her chances that she’s actually come out and co-sponsored some Obama-blessed legislation – something she’s eschewed (along with most work of any kind) so far in her career in the Senate; she’ll have the media to cover for her and shade her to the center.  The GOP loses nothing by presenting voters a real ideological alternative.
• Female.   Hey, it counts.  Minnesotans, I suspect, are hooked on the idea of their Senate delegation being a mixed doubles team.

So as I was thinking about this the other day, someone said “what do you think about Bridget Sutton?”

Sutton – a businesswoman who is currently on the Inver Grove Heights school board, is the wife of MNGOP chair Tony Sutton – which would be a two-edged sword, not only as a shrieking point for the DFL and media (pardon, as always, as always, the redundancy) but with elements of the MNGOP that are not happy with the current regime.

On the other hand, Sutton is smart, savvy, and would mulch Klobuchar in a debate.

So what does the assembled multitude think?

And who are we missing here?

I was talking on Twitter with a Democrat activist the other day.

The activist and I were debating what the 2012 election would be about.

I said “unemployment”.  I mean, do you really think people think they’re better off now than they were four years ago?

The activist’s response: “Depends on who people think is at fault. Thinking on that seems to be shifting”.

Well, the media will be doing its best to “shift” that “thinking” for the part of the electorate that doesn’t pay much attention to these things.

But I think the activist was overestimating their own party.  Because I will bank on the prediction that the Democrats’ campaign will key on the folloiwng:

• “Oh, that Hermain Cain!  He’s sure a randy one, isn’t he?  We can’t have a philanderer in the White House!”
• Related: “A president needs to be better at covering their tracks for their transgressions than that!”
• “We can’t have someone in the White House who gets mental blocks on tedious, repetitive questions at game shows debates, can we?  We can not have a President who makes gaffes and who doesn’t shine on TV, oh, no!”
• “Doesn’t Mitt Romney look insincere?”
• “Hey, don’t blame us – bailouts were all lBush’s idea!”

I thought yesterday – should I write something about Herman Cain?

I am, frankly, depressed at the way Cain and his campaign responded to the Politico hit piece.  Partly because it was so very, very predictable – the media will find any bit of dirt they can to hang on a conservative, especially a minority or female conservative.  I mean, have we learned nothing from the Palin candidacy?  (And spare me the “Romney or Perry leaked this” palaver; even if it’s true, it’s the media that will romp and play with the story).

Beyond that, though?  Cain’s response was straight outta amateur hour.  Cain knew that this story was coming; Politico contacted Cain’s campaign over a week ago on the story.

Joe Doakes of Como Park writes:

I saw Herman Cain on Fox News this weekend, discussing the sexual harassment issue. He blew it.

He said he’d never sexually harassed anybody and that if the Restaurant Association settled a claim, he didn’t know about it and he hoped they didn’t pay anybody because he never did anything wrong.

Now it appears there’s an out-of-court settlement involving two women who got a year’s pay each.

It’s never the offense that sinks you, it’s always the cover-up.

He should have said: “I was accused of sexual harassment when I worked for the restaurant association 20 years ago. I denied I did anything wrong at that time, and I deny it today. We ended up settling out of court because it was cheaper to settle than continue paying the lawyers. Both sides agreed never to discuss the details of the settlement and I’m sticking to our agreement. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Wise words for every politician, to say nothing of every non-traditional conservative.

That would have been honest and believable. Most people would said “huh” and moved on. Now, it’s not the accusation that troubles people – hell, lots of people get falsely accused of stuff and have to settle or take a plea to avoid losing everything in litigation – it’s the lying about it that troubles us. Next, he’ll play the race card and compare himself to Clarence Thomas. When that doesn’t work, he’ll probably enter sexual harassment training for a weekend and have Billy Graham pray for him. When his wife stands beside him on stage saying she’s always believed in him, that’s the death knell.

It won’t work, Herm. It’s never the crime that voters resent. It’s always the cover-up.

And there’s the lesson, again, for all you minority conservatives who want to get off the liberal plantation, just as the Palin candidacy should have been a teaching moment for conservative women who want to put on some shoes and get out of the kitchen; just being as good as your detractors isn’t enough; you have to be better.  You can’t get by being smarter than they are; you have to be smarter than they are depraved, patrician and nasty. And with the Dems’ oppo-research and smear machines, that is going to have to be smart indeed.

It’s the time of the campaign season for Republicans to go to war with each other.

Well, not really “war”; more like a tug of war.  If you’ve read this blog any length of time, you know the analogy I’m going for.  Politics isn’t a sprint.  It’s not even a marathon.  It’s a tug of war – or really an endless series of tugs of war, for control of everything from the Presidency down to the Soil and Water Commission, not to mention the various political parties,.  It’s a tug of war where, every two or four or six years, you take a snapshot and see how far to your side of the mud puddle your side has pulled each of the ropes.

And it’s the GOP’s turn to tug like mad.

Herman Cain has been pulling way about his weight, so far in this cycle.  And supporters of other candidates are pulling in response.

My friend Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring is one of them, in a piece entitled “Why 

Why 9-9-9 is stupid is because it’s being proposed by a Republican. If Democrats want to propose it, then they own that proposal. If a Republican proposes and passes it, then Democrats raise that rate, Democrats can rationalize it by saying they’re just raising a tax created by Republicans. In essence, they’d be saying ‘it must not be bad because Republicans proposed it’.

There is a good point there – but let’s be honest, any tax reform can be hijacked by the party in power.  It’s incumbent on candidates and parties to not only propose better ideas, but wield the electoral power it takes to defend them.  Even Reagan’s reforms got hijacked, in not a few cases.

Frankly, a pretty impressive case can be made that 9-9-9 is capable of doing alot more damage than the current tax code. A fairly easy case can be made that Rick Perry’s flat tax and Newt Gingrich’s tax overhaul are significantly better tax reforms than 9-9-9.

That’s all true, well, and good.

Now – go out on the street, or even into a GOP meeting, and ask anyone to explain Perry’s flat tax proposal (although it’s really not that hard).  OK, how about Gingrich’s plan?

Indeed, how about getting interested but non-wonky voters to explain any tax reform ideas of the past 30 years, correctly?

Tax reform proposals have two problems.  The complex proposals, like Gingrich’s, are in the realm of the wonk; nobody who doesn’t live and breathe politics knows a whole lot about them.  And the relatively simple ones, like Perry’s?  There’s the big problem; to the extent that any politician has ever really talked about them, it’s been largely in the form of lip service.  No serious candidate for President has ever seriously pinned their campaign on radical simplification of the tax code.

Serious, radical tax reform has never been anything but a side show in any Presidential campaign, even within the GOP.

And that is why Cain’s proposal is a wonderful thing, in concept if not in actual details (because Gary and the other critics are right; a national sales tax would be a problem); because Cain is, to my knowledge, the first serious presidential contender to try to make adoption of a flat tax a real campaign-defining issue with voters – the kinds of voters who, bless their hearts, do need a catchy, easy-to-remember formula.

Do we need a better one than 9-9-9?  Absolutely.  But 9-9-9 has made a flat tax – some kind of flat tax – part of the political conversation.  And while I might favor something more like Perry’s plan (I’d personally like to see a flat 15% corporate tax and a 15% personal tax on income above the poverty line, as well as Perry’s cap on federal spending tied to the GDP, a ban on bailouts, and a balanced budget amendment), at least the subject is seriously on the table.

The details, we can work out – but it is vital that this issue get out of the side-show tent and into the center ring.

And now that the issue is there, we can work out the details.

And that is a good thing.

Ask yourself, tax code, do you feel lucky? Do ya, punk?

 Rick Perry stabs the tax system in the heart.  But under the plan, is it dead or simply pining for the fjords?

Steve Forbes must feel like he’s stepped into a time machine.

The 1996 & 2000 GOP presidential candidate briefly electrified the denizens of political wonkdom with his conception of a national flat tax to simplify – and eliminate – the current overcomplicated tax code over 15 years ago.  Forbes’ idea of broadening the tax base while reducing the individual tax burden proved a temporary hit – too much of one as most of his 1996 rivals embraced similar policies.  Unfortunately for flat tax advocates, the only candidate who didn’t rush towards the concept was nominee Bob Dole, and since then the tax as languished as more theory than practice despite its success in many former Soviet bloc countries.

That is until now, as Texas Governor Rick Perry has revived the concept, winning Forbes’ praise and liberal scorn.  The headlines have screamed about Perry’s new tax rate of 20%, but in most reports, the lead has been buried:

“The plan starts with giving Americans a choice between a new, flat tax rate of 20 percent or their current income tax rate,” Perry writes. “The new flat tax preserves mortgage interest, charitable and state and local tax exemptions for families earning less than $500,000 annually, and it increases the standard deduction to $12,500 for individuals and dependents.”

 

The plan also drops the corporate tax rate to 20 percent and will temporarily lower the rate to 5.25 percent to promote companies working overseas to move to the U.S. along with implementing a “territorial tax system,” which will  tax in-country income.

 

The plan will eliminate the death tax and end taxes on Social Security, which would help an estimated 17 million Americans receiving benefits today. It would also cut taxes on qualified dividends and long-term capital gains.

The drop in corporate tax rate would put the U.S. as the lowest in the world (among major competitors; there are a number of nations with no corporate taxes).  And with most foreign economies unable or unwilling to respond in-kind with similar corporate tax rate cuts, the U.S. could be looking at an immediate repatriation of up to $1.4 trillion with the addition of a “territorial tax.”  Does that mean an immediate increase in jobs?  Not exactly, but a similar “repatriation holiday” for overseas corporations in 2004 spurred massive investments in capital and employment.

Lost in the corporate tax discussion has been Perry’s proposal to cap federal spending to 18% of GDP, or what would be roughly $2.54 trillion.  That’s under the projected 2012 revenues of $2.627 trillion and significantly under the Obama adminstration’s desired $3.729 trillion of spending.  Perry is obviously expecting that projected $1.4 trillion to soften the blow as increased income would (hopefully) spur GDP growth, raising Perry’s 18% beyond projected 2012 revenue levels.

The chief compliants from the right, much like with Herman Cain’s “999” plan, are that Perry’s flat tax doesn’t go far enough.  Indeed, both leading economic fixes from the GOP field disembowel the current tax system but keep it wrapped together in some fiscal Eraserhead policy nightmare.  Both Cain and Perry’s proposals have foreign models to work from – Cain’s VATesque vision which has hindered Europe; Perry’s opt-out Hong Kong-like system which has worked well despite the complication of individuals being potentially able to switch back-and-forth from flat tax to the current system year to year.

Ultimately, Perry’s flat tax needs to be seen as the beginning of a new policy discussion, rather than as a destination.  A total overhaul of the tax code, while popular in spirit, likely polls poorly when the roughly 47% of Americans who don’t pay federal taxes figure out they might be forced to actually contribute to the system.  As proposed, few Americans will find themselves benefiting from the policy, but I think critics are thinking too short term and too little on the potential corporate effects of the plan.

IHS Global’s economic model – reported by James Pethoukoukis – sounds a dire warning for The One:

“Based on the likely state of the economy in 2012, President Obama faces a steep uphill task to secure reelection. Based upon our forecast for the economy, our election equation projects just a 43.5% share of the two-party vote for the president, i.e., a heavy defeat.”

Pethoukoukis:

It may already be too late for Obama, given the lengthy lag between an economic turnaround and voter economic perception. Then again, maybe the Gray Davis model—use a huge fundraising advantage to squeak out a win—can be effectively employed by Team Obama.

As we saw earlier, you can expect the Dems to pull out their biggest advantage – plutocrats – for all they’re worth.  As it were.

But it’s not just IHS Global. Yale economist Ray Fair has a well-known election forecasting model that uses three economic variables to makes its call: a) growth rate of real per capita GDP in the first three quarters of 2012; b) growth rate of the GDP deflator in the first 15 quarters of the Obama administration, c) number of quarters in the first 15 quarters of the Obama administration in which the growth rate of real per capita GDP is greater than 3.2 percent at an annual rate.

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Over the weekend, Baird Helgeson at the Strib did a piece – the first I’ve personally found – on Alita Messinger, the largest non-union bankroller of the various “progressive” pressure groups that have been doing all the DFL’s actual work for it this past couple of years.  As I’ve been reporting for the past year or so, Messinger – an heir to the Rockefeller fortune – was the main funder of “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”‘s epic, toxic sleaze campaign that was the dominant – indeed, only – substantive output of the Dayton for Governor campaign last year (because, as this blog and the entire 2011 legislative session showed, he really had no other proposals).

Alida Messinger, an heir to the fabled Rockefeller fortune, has quietly given at least $10 million to candidates and causes over the past decade. Some recent gifts have been extraordinary: $500,000 to a group that last year backed her former husband, Mark Dayton, for governor. And before that, $1 million to help bankroll the ballot campaign for the Legacy amendment, which raised the state sales tax to create 25 years of new funding for conservation and cultural projects.

Once upon a time, the rich paid to improve life.  Alida Messinger pays to get government to get the improvements out of the taxpayer.

Now, Messinger is preparing for a new showdown that will be expensive, contentious and, for the first time, public.

She is vowing to do all she can to help the DFL regain control of the Legislature and get President Obama re-elected.

And I’m wondering if all those libs who’ve been wetting their pants over the Koch Brothers and ALEC will get the, um, juxtaposition?

Her millions could also become a force in the fight over the constitutional amendment on the ballot next year to define marriage as a union of man and woman — not gay couples. Messinger, 62, contends GOP politicians are harming Minnesota. “We are not a quality-of-life state anymore,” she said. “Citizens need to get involved and say we don’t like what you are doing to our state.”

She’s got a point.

Citizens; it’s time to get involved to blunt the influence of ofay, arrogant plutocrat dilettantes like Messinger.

Read Helgeson’s entire piece.  And then get pissed off.

They’ve got the dirty money – from plutocrats and the unions.  All we have is the desire to save this state.

To:  “Occupy Wall Street” in all its nationwide manifestations
From: Mitch Berg – one of the 99%
Re: Your Voice

Dear Occupiers,

You know that Obama, with his “too big to fail” and his Predator attacks and his caving in to the Neocons, is just another DINO.

You are looking for a candidate who gives your movement voice. And I think you have found her!

Lexington doctor Jill Stein launched a bid to become the Green Party’s presidential nominee today, saying the Occupy Wall Street movement shows voters are frustrated with President Obama’s stewardship of the economy.

Why settle for just a pale imitator who wants to co-opt the passion you bring to the table?

Why compromise?   Haven’t you all had to compromise enough already?

On the one hand, Barack Obama is throwing in his lot with a “mass movement” of professional protesters and  bobble-headed self-important “post”-adolescents…

Barack Obama, US president, offered more support for protesters against the global financial system after a weekend of demonstrations in cities around the world,

…more or less like George McGovern did.

On the other hand, he still wants as much of that Wall Street money as he can salvage:

but called on them not to “demonise” those who worked on Wall Street.

So perhaps they’re learning…

Chris Fields, as we’ve noted before in this space, is running for Congress in the 5th CD.

He’s running a design contest to pick his campaign logo.

Go and chime in!

The “N-Head” “controversy” – which was the most contrived, yellow bit of journalism since Rochelle Olson’s hit piece on Alan Fine back in the ’06 race in MNCD5 – may not be what knocks Rick Perry out of the presidential race.  Indeed, there are months before the fat lady sings, and anything can happen.

But Perry is making some unforced errors.  And it looks as if Mitt Romney is making some moves toward testing the thesis that he’s “the most electable Republican”.

Now, let’s be clear ; Romney’s never been my candidate, but he’d be light years better than Obama.  Indeed, except for John Huntsman and Mike Huckabee, every GOP contender (I know, Huck’s not in the race; work with me, here) would be a better president than Barack Obama, especially if we flip the Senate this next session; on dealing with the economy, Mitt Romney at the head of a Tea-Party-motivated two-house majority to temper whatever flecks of “moderate” impedimenta he still has would be just the cataract of common sense this nation desperately needs.

There is danger here, of course.  “Berg’s Law” – the immutable laws of human and political behavior that I’ve compiled over the years – pretty clearly apply here.

I’ll cite the relevant ones:

Berg’s Eleventh Law of Inverse Viability: The conservative liberals “respect” for their “conservative principles” will the the one that has the least chance of ever getting elected.

The McCain Corollary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: If that respected conservative ever develops a chance of getting elected, that “respect” will turn to blind unreasoning hatred overnight.

The Huckabee Corollary the McCain Corolloary To Berg’s Eleventh Law: The Republican that the media covers most intensively before the nomination for any office will be the one that the liberals know they have the best chance of beating after the nomination, and/or will most cripple the GOP if nominated.

No ambiguity here.

It’s why the media has given the likes of McCain, Huckabee and John Huntsman such “favorable” coverage; in the hopes of building them up into contenders that’d sap the real Republican front-runner, or even fatally weak nominees that they could then turn around and demolish (vide McCain).

Now, I think the Democrats and media (pardon the redundancy) are in a bind here; they hate Perry, obviously; if nominated, he’s win in a landslide, so the media is on full-blown destructo alert; unfortunately, Perry is obliging.   But they really wanted to prop up someone like a Huntsman, who is indistinguishable from a mainstream Democrat, or Huckabee, who is more of the same plus the kind of pro-lifer that’ll get the social libs exercised enough to maybe squeedge out some votes.

Romney?  He’s not a Tea Party favorite, but most of the Tea Party is driven by common sense, not purist ideology; the Tea Party is as much about rejecting socialism as it is adopting pure conservatism.

And that may sum up Romney’s appeal; he’s not a pure libertarian ideologue; nobody will ever mistake him for Ron Paul.  But he’s conservative enough on the issues that matter – the economy, business – and he’s got a lifetime of experience actually executing on that ideology, unlike the current resident.

So yeah, if Romney is the nominee, I won’t need to hold my nose to work and vote for him.  He’s not perfect, but he’s way more than “good enough”.  On a stage full of candidates who would all be better than Obama on every issue, Romney (along with Perry and Cain) stands out from the pack on the issue – the economy.

Could Herman Cain still blow this thing up?  It’s fun to think so; I’d hate to think that our race was already decided 10 months before the convention, 2-4 months before the first caucus or primary.

At any rate, as (I think it was) Mark Steyn noted on the Hewitt show the other day, the GOP race really has devolved  to “who is going to be Marco Rubio’s running mate?”

Polls taken 56 weeks before the election have a very dodgy record predicting real elections.

But they do make for good entertainment.

And this WaPo-ABC Poll is certainly good entertainment:

Overall, 55 percent of Americans expect a Republican victory next year. Fewer, 37 percent, predict that President Obama will win reelection. A majority of independents sense that the GOP nominee will prevail, but there is a gaping difference between party loyalists.

Fully 83 percent of Republicans say the GOP nominee — whoever he or she may be — is likely to claim the presidency next year. Among Democrats, far fewer, 58 percent, say they think Obama will win a second term. A third of Democrats expect a GOP win; just 13 percent of Republicans sense a repeat for Obama.

All the usual caveats apply.

Tangential question: I wonder if Nate Silver will use this poll to handicap the next election?  Or maybe he’s learned his lesson?

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Ah, political season, and the start of neutral, objective, even-handed news reporting in the Minneapolis paper.

The Strib’s headline reads “Oil refineries seek huge tax refunds that could force schools to give back money”, and as Joe notes…:

They couldn’t have been any cruder if they’d said: “GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry taking money from schools to give to oil companies.”

It’s the perfect Progressive attack headline.

Naturally, the story is written in modern techno-thriller style: start with an explosive scene, randomly jump around introducing characters without any context, play up the human tragedy about to unfold unless a hero steps in, blame the usual villains.

It does read a little like someone who didn’t make the cut as a writer for “24” is slumming as a journo…

The story is much less compelling if laid out in a logical format.

1. There’s crude oil under the ground in Texas.
2. Crude oil must be refined to be useable as gasoline, diesel fuel, etc.
3. Hauling crude oil to the refinery is expensive, so
4. Oil companies built refineries in Texas near the oil fields
5. People who wanted good-paying jobs came to work for the refineries
6. Merchants who wanted to sell things to high-paid oil refinery employees built stores near the refineries
7. Refinery employees, merchants and merchants’ employees built houses near the refineries and started raising kids
8. The kids needed to go to schools, built near the homes that were built near the refineries
9. Schools are expensive and are paid for from local property taxes
10. Property taxes are based on local valuation and refineries are valuable so they paid huge property taxes
11. Huge property tax payments by refineries meant lower property taxes levied on homes, paid by employees
12. School districts got used to funding schools with huge property tax payments by refineries
13. Merchant and employee property tax payers got used to living large on the refineries’ dime
14. But federal law requires refineries to invest in pollution equipment
15. And state law gives a tax refund to refineries that invest in pollution equipment
16. So refineries that did invest in pollution equipment, filed for refunds
17. Refunding money to refineries would reduce their huge property tax payments
18. The money refunded to refineries cannot be given to school districts
19. School districts will have to cut spending or raise local property taxes to make up the shortfall
20. The state, knowing this, denied the refund claims, which were appealed
21. The governor appointed a commission to study the problem
22. The governor is Rick Perry, Republican candidate for President
23. The governor’s hand-selected commission is leaning toward giving the refunds; therefore
24. Rick Perry is taking money from schools to give to oil companies

It is a lot more mundane.  It’d sell fewer papers – or get fewer people inflamed against the GOP, whichever.

Well, I guess, in a way, the headline is half-assed, sort-of-true. Good enough for the Star Tribune.

But the entire thing could have been summed up more succinctly as:

“Gravy train ending, women and minorities hurt worst.”

Hell, that’s not news.

But it is campaign material.

Accoriding to Saint over at Fraters Libertas, Pawlenty may have pulled out of the race too early:

Pawlenty’s potential was illustrated in February by Nate Silver. His graphical representation of the GOP field at the time shows where candidates fell on two of the most important variables for this years primary electorate, establishment vs. insurgent and moderate vs. conservative. At that time Pawlenty occupied kind of a sweet spot. Not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

Read the whole thing…

A few weeks ago, when I was in Minneapolis to speak at the SD61 special endorsing convention, I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Fields, who is running for the GOP endorsement to run against Keith Ellison in the Fifth.

And as Nancy at True North discovered, Fields is an imposing guy with a compelling story:

Fields grew up poor in the South Bronx and said he made “horrible choices” in his youth – including accidentally burning down his home while playing with matches at 5, and taking up smoking at 13.

And a conservative grew in the Bronx:

He lived in Section 8 housing and during that time his 24-year-old stepfather bought 3 buildings for $1 each, creating a co-op with the help of donations and volunteers. Fields says that investment now holds over $45 million in assets. He learned a valuable lesson from his stepfather — that anyone can make a positive difference.

After working on Wall Street, Fields joined the Marines and retired an officer after 21 years. Having served in the Middle East, he offers first-hand knowledge and perspectives of the complexities of fighting terror and maintaining a military presence.

It’ll take a confluence of several things to unseat Ellison in a district like the Fifth:

1. A wave of discontent with the Democrats and DFL so immense that nobody, not even Ellison, is invulnerable.
2. A GOP organization that goes against decades of history and gets hordes of volunteers out on the street.
3. A solid outreach to the minority vote that has become so important in both of the Twin Cities (an area where the DFL has been falling increasingly short, as they basically assume those votes are in the bag from the word go).
4. More fundraising than any Republican has managed in the Fifth in forever.
5. A Fifth District that’s been diluted (possibly)
6. A really good candidate.

Obama is losing ground to every Republican candidate:.

A new McClatchy-Marist poll finds that Obama looks increasingly vulnerable in next year’s election, with a majority of voters believing he’ll lose to any Republican, a solid plurality saying they’ll definitely vote against him and most potential Republican challengers gaining on him.

Even in potential matchups where he leads, Obama in most cases has lost ground to the Republican.

And we do mean any Republican candidate:

The biggest gain came for Palin, the former Alaska governor who hasn’t yet announced whether she’ll jump into the fast-changing race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

After trailing Obama by more than 20 percentage points in polls all year, the new national survey, taken Sept. 13-14, found Palin trailing the president by just 5 points, 49-44 percent. The key reason: She now leads Obama among independents, a sharp turnaround.

I still firmly believe that Obama will turn this around – indeed, by next year, if the Democrats don’t gain 2-4 seats in the Senate, flip the House back, and win the presidency with a five point margin, they should feel completely humiliated.

But I’m running out of ways to get from here to that end result.

…that they are tired of politicians who “act like politicians” – who calculate everything they say to a fine, calibrated sheen, in order not to lose a single vote.

And then you encounter the exceptions – and you realize why so many politicians do measure what they say so very very carefully.

Paul Wellstone was one of them; he pretty much shot from the hip and said whatever his heart put on his sleeve.  He was, of course, so thoroughly in tune with the the Minnesota mainstream media’s “Wish I coulda been at Woodstock” id that it never really cost him.

And then there’s Michele Bachmann.  A woman who proves the old saying “when a lefty calls you “crazy”, it’s their way of saying “you’re smarter than me” [*], she’s also the exact opposite of a Tim Pawlenty or a Norm Coleman; as I discussed almost three years back, if Coleman and Pawlenty are like political engineers, calculating out all their angles so that they don’t spring any rhetorical gusset plates and get dumped in the political river, then Michele Bachmann is like a jazz saxophonist, improvising, sometimes without a net.  When it works, it works, like Dizzy Gillespie improvising around a theme.  And when it doesn’t?  Gillespie used to repeat sour notes a few times, to make it seem intentional; in jazz, it works.  In politics?

Enh.

At the last Republican debate, Bachmann mentioned some unfortunate claimed outcomes from Governor Perry’s HPV vaccination campaign.

A couple of medical ethicists picked up on that statement, and theatrically demanded the details.

Mr. D from Mr. Dilettante’s Neighborhood found some irony in that:

I would assume that [the ethicists] both understand that releasing medical records is a dicey proposition, given the strictures involved. And it’s hardly surprising that the news media aren’t mentioning that these two ethicists are asking for a course of action that would be considered unethical. Would the parent of a child really consent to havving their child’s medical history splashed across the airwaves and the internet? Would you?

Not sure I’d want it mentioned in a speech, either, but there are different levels of intrusiveness involved here – some of them with legal implications.

But Mr. D. seems to have had that same feeling I got, too:

Having said that, Bachmann is wrong, wrong, wrong about vaccinations. The anti-vaccination folks are playing a dangerous game and Bachmann was exceptionally foolish to play along in the hopes of gaining a temporary political advantage over her rival, Rick Perry. Whether Perry’s approach to the matter was wise or not is tangential to the larger point, which is that vaccinations have greatly improved public health and saved the lives of millions of people.

To be fair, I don’t think Bachmann was playing to the “anti-vaccination” people so much as the “I’ll see to own kids’ vaccinations without any of your executive-ordering, thank yoiu very much” crowd.

Not that the left or media (pardon the redundancy) will help distinguish the two.

[*] OK, it’s not an “old saying”.  I made it up.  But I don’t think it’s especially inaccurate.

Joe Doakes of Como Park writes:

From yesterday’s paper.

Click to see full-size image

Does it seem as if the Left is a little desperate to find something, anything, good to say about the President?

The ones that aren’t giving up on him completely.

The part about the GOP victory in NY09 on Tuesday that the mainstream media are carefully skirting – many  more socially-conservative Jews oppose gay marriage:.

Voters interviewed Wednesday pointed to their opposition to same-sex marriage and Turner’s pro-Israel politics as factors that swayed them to pick a Republican. It was the first time in nearly a century that the GOP has won the Ninth Congressional District, which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

Research and polling on gay marriage at the polls varies widely – some say voters oppose it, others differ – everyplace but one; the actual polls.

So far, anyway.

Turner didn’t just beat Weprin last night. He brutalized him.  53-46 – for the Republican.  And it was more like 3:1 in Brooklyn.

In a district that voted 11% in favor of Obama in 2008, and hasn’t had a Republican in Congress in nearly eighty years.

Let the excuses for this past year begin:

• “We Almost Won The Wisconsin Senate Back!”: Great.  That’s more or less like getting inside your opponents 30 yard line before going four-and-out…
• “And New York Was…Well…”: …and then shanking the field goal.
• “It Wasn’t About Obama – It Was About Israel”: And Obama is behind our Israel policy.  Jews have been fleeing Obama. They were solidly for him three years ago.

If things don’t change soon, Obama’s going to have shorter coattails than a plumber.

Bear in mind, things can change between now an November of 2012.   I still fully expect Obama to win in 2012, to gain at least one seat in the Senate, and to retake the House; if they fail at any of these, given the magnitude of Obama’s original win and the wave that swept Dems into office in ’06 and ’08, it will be a humiliating defeat.

But this, like Scott Walker’s win in Massachusetts two years ago, could be an interesting harbinger for 2012 – If the GOP nominates a great candidate, and Conservatives hit the street and work like hell, like we did last year.

Gibson Musical Instruments Corp. CEO Henry Juszkiewicz via smacked Obama and his speech with a big piece of rosewood:

”He’s a government fan,” he says. “He has a problem with successful businesses. He thinks they’re the problem, that they shouldn’t be quite as successful.”

“He is using the levers of government to not only redistribute, but to penalize,” he adds. “I see a difference between what he said and what he’s doing.”

“We’re under attack,” Juskiewicz says. “It’s pretty interesting to see that one of the points in Obama’s speech was to cut back regulation and promote jobs, when, in fact, he’s done just the opposite…

The splash Obama’s made about “cutting regulation” is, of course, purely potemkin – or as that other Gibson player, John Lennon, once noted…

The Gibson "John Lennon", modeled after one of Lennon's old instruments

…it’s one (cut regulation) for you, nineteen for me.

Gibson Musical Instrument Corp. CEO Henry Juszkiewicz will be at President Obama’s “Jobs” speech tonight, to remind His Excellency and the assembled, adoring media that the Administration’s politicized, idiotic policies – enforcing an arcane Indian law – are going to cost the company millions of dollars, and if followed through will cost the Nashville area 40 skilled, high-paying manufacturing jobs.

Close-up of the new re-issue "Eric Clapton 1960 Les Paul". Hint, Santa.

In solidarity with Gibson, I’ll supply them some free advertising.

Indian Freaking Rosewood, Administration Byatches!

I do endorse Gibson guitars (although, to be fair, most guitar players do – even lifelong Fender guys like me; I finally took the plunge on a Gibson product last year, and yeah, it’s niiiice).

Oooh - Gibson provides jobs all over the world!

Gateway Pundit writes:

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz told reporters today that the federal raid on the popular American guitar maker will cost the company $10,000,000. Juszkiewicz also said that he will attend Obama’s big spending jobs speech tomorrow in Washington DC.

Is that a gorgeous piece of work or what? It sounds even better than it looks. And guess what? Yep - made in the USA. One of those "American Manufacturing Jobs" that lefties are constantly barbering about. Outsource this? Why not outsource guarding the Tomb of the Unknowns to the Pakistani military, while you're at it?

Attorney General Eric Holder said the raid on the Gibson was not political.

And if you believe Holder you are an idiot here’s an excellent Fox News clip summing up the entire story so far.

Remember – the CEO of Martin guitars (sorry – while they make gorgeous guitars, and I also own a Martin product, they get no free ads from me), which builds guitars out of exactly the same Indian-grown, American-finished rosewood as Gibson, which is not illegal under US law and only vaguely-sanctioned under Indian law, is a big Democrat contributor.

A Gibson ES335. A favorite of both jazz musicians and loud rockers who like the ES' excellent feedback characteristics.

Of course, Gibson is just one of many such stories – companies being harried, money being confiscated, jobs being destroyed by our rapacious, power-mad bureaucracy.

Yep, there's parts, too. This is a Gibspon "Soap Bar". I have one sunk into the middle position of my Fender Jazz, wired out of phase with the bridge pickup; when they play together, it sounds more like Mark Knopfler's Strat (think "Sultans of Swing") than Mark Knopfler's Strat does.

I’m working to get Mr. Juskiewicz on the Northern Alliance one of these next few weekends.  Keep your fingers crossed; if you’re a fan of limited government or music, it’ll be a great chat.

Obama’s approval among Hispanics slips under 50%, says Gallup:

Despite launching his presidency with a large majority of Hispanics approving of his job performance, along with most blacks, Obama has seen significant erosion in Hispanics’ support. As a result, while Hispanics’ approval of Obama was at one time 20 points higher than the national average, at this time it is just 7 points higher. Two significant slips in Hispanics’ approval of Obama were seen in 2010, perhaps linked with the president hedging on campaign promises to make immigration reform a priority. However, that decline has continued into 2011 as the nation’s focus has turned more to the economy and federal budget problems.

The fact that illegals are returning to Mexico to find jobs means that there will be fewer Obama voters in Minnesota, at any rate.

Kinky Friedman:

These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama. Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay.

Read the whole article – which is, in fact, about why America’s most famous Jewish cowboy is backing Perry.