Tom Horner and Matt Entenza answered questions specific to the legal world. They agreed on concerns about the politicizing of judicial elections. But they disagreed on taxes, with the former Republican-turned-Independent Horner being more open to increased sales taxes than DFLer Entenza.

When asked about extending the sales tax to legal services Entenza said “I’m not going to take a pledge, but I don’t think expanding the sales tax is the direction we want to go.” Horner on the other hand cited a nearly $6 billion shortfall saying “we’re going to need new revenue, I do think we need to increase the sales tax.” The IP-endorsed candidate added that some business taxes should be reduced as well as possibly lowering and broadening the sales tax.

…”Horner is a republican;  Horner is a republican; Horner is a republican; Horner is a republican; Horner is a republican…”

No.  Shush, and get chanting.

During the 2006 election, the Star/Tribune ran a story about Alan Fine, the GOP candidate for the Minnesota house against then-candidate, now-representative Keith Ellison.

The piece, with a byline from reporters Rochelle Olson and Paul McEnroe, but which reportedly included a lot of reporting from Erik Black, dropped right before the election, and covered a 12-year-old domestic violence case in which Fine was arrested after a reported altercation with his then-wife.

I looked at the story and thought, for a variety of reasons, that it stank to high heaven.  Scott Johnson at Powerline , being a lawyer, was able to put fact, or lack of it, to the   Strib’s “coverage”; the Strib piece omitted the facts that there was no physical evidence of abuse, no charges were ever filed, the arrest was expunged from Fine’s record, that Fine had eventually won custody of their minor child (a rarity in contested divorces in Minnesota), and Fine’s ex-wife later went on to get arrested for…domestic abuse.

I asked the Strib why all these facts got left out of Olson and McEnroe’s story.

“It was an editorial decision; there wasn’t enough room”, went the response.   But that was dodgy; in an exercise in which I left out some of the puffery and marginalia from Olson and McEnroe’s original story, I got in all the facts with plenty of room to spare (in terms of word count and column-inches).

So you may ask; why did the Strib run an incomplete story that related an inaccurate story that served only to slander a Republican candidate against the candidate that the DFL and Star/Tribune both endorsed?

Do I need to start over, or what?

———-

The problem is, if last week is any indication, the regional media is getting worse – even more selective in its relation of fact, bespeaking an even more bald-faced desire to get Democrats elected.

Last week, the Strib’s Pat Doyle ran a piece purporting to report on some of Tom Emmer’s legal wranging.  I covered it at the time,  calling it a “dog bites man” story of a lawyer…practicing law, and dealing with some of the collateral stresses that come with practicing small-town law; an embezzling office manager, a complaint from a former client, some other issues.  Even on a “Dog Bites Man” level, the story was thin, runny gruel.

The single story of the four that seemed to perhaps hold water was the tale of the landscaper that, to read Doyle’s account, lost a lawsuit against Emmer and his wife Jacquie.

Now, if you take Doyle’s account at face value, Emmer looks like a parsimonious weasel who wriggled out of a bill on a technicality:

In small claims court, District Judge Kathleen Mottl awarded Poppler his entire claim. She added that Emmer’s “request for reimbursement of ‘attorney’s fees’ is wholly inappropriate, as he represented himself.”

Emmer took his appeal to District Court, where his lawyer argued that he wasn’t responsible for the landscaping bill because his wife had initiated and modified the job.

Earlier, Mottl had disagreed with that notion. “She essentially did so as her husband’s agent,” she wrote.

But District Judge Dale Mossey ruled that Emmer was not responsible for his wife’s actions. Poppler said Jacquie Emmer has not paid the $1,237.

He said he’s considering suing her, but he is concerned about attorney’s fees.

Sounds pretty damaging.

And sources out on the campaign trail tell me that the tale has raised some eyebrows.

But Doyle’s story is missing some key facts.

———-

A Minnesota Tenth District Court document, “Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Order” for Case Number CV-07-7141, filed on December 28, 2007, includes the following “Findings of Fact” (transcribed from the order), relates the conclusions of the judge, after a December 13 hearing in Buffalo between Tony Poppler and defeandant Tom Emmer.:

1. In May of 2006, Jacquie Emmer contacted Plaintiff, seeking the performance of landscaping work.  Plaintiff and Ms. Emmer discussed the scope of the work and the price to perform that work.  Plaintiff and Ms. Emmer entered into an oral contract to perform the work.
2. On June 22 and 23, 2007, Plaintiff performed the work requested.  During the work, Mrs. Emmer requested additional work to be performed and Plaintiff agreed to perform it.  Part of this additional work included removal of certain dirt.  Mrs. Emmer and Plaintiff did not discuss the specific cost of the additional work.
3. Defended is married to Mrs. Emmer.  During the course of the project, Defendant looked over some of the work that had been performed and said that it looked good.
4. Defendant never asked Plaintiff to perform any work whatsoever.  defendant never agreed to pay for removal of dirt.  There is no evidence that Defendant directed Mrs. Emmer to seek landscaping services or to remove dirt.
5. Plaintiff has been compensated for all materials and labor except for, possibly, the removal of dirt.  Plaintiff does not seek recovery from Defendant or Mrs. Emmer under any theory of contract.  Plaintiff does not seek recovery from Mrs. Emmer under any theory.  Plaintiff seeks recovery from Defendant on a quasi contract theory of unjust enrichment.

Re-read number five.   It says that, as a matter of fact, Poppler didn’t try to sue Mrs. Emmer, the person with whom he had the “contract”.  He’s trying to get the money out of Tom Emmer for “unjust enrichment“.

The “Conclusions of Law” are pretty succinct:

1. Plaintiff’s performance of landscaping work at the direction of Mrs. Emmer does not unjustly enrich Defendant. Schumacher v. Schumacher, 627 N.W. 2d 725, 729 (Minn App. 2001).

In other words, the basis of Poppler’s suit – that Tom Emmer was “unjustly enriched” by the flap between he and Jacquie Emmer – had no basis in law.

And the “Order for Judgment” is one simple line:

1. Defendant is entitled to dismissal of Plaintiff’s claims, with prejudice, and to tax his costs.

I’m no lawyer, but it looks as if Mr. Poppler and Jacquie Emmer had a misunderstanding about billing – even though as the court directly noted, he was paid for everything but the dirt removal.  Poppler went after Tom Emmer and, after an appeal, lost, and was compelled to pay Tom Emmer’s court costs.

A source with knowledge of the situation emailed: “Basically, [Poppler] didn’t sue Jacquie because he couldn’t – he did not have a contract and he would have lost. So he tried to sue Tom for “unjust enrichment.” In the findings of fact, the judge wrote that he didn’t have a case against Jacquie. He ruled that the guy sued the wrong person. And he gave Tom court costs. A clear victory for the Emmers“.

But to hear Pat Doyle tell the story, you’d think it was one of a pettifogging attorney welching out on a contractor, and getting away with it on a petty technicality.

Pat Doyle would seem to have printed all the news that fit…the Strib’s narrative.  It’s of a piece with the 2006 smear of Alan Fine, the 2000 smear by association of Rod Grams (reporting on his son Morgan’s addication problems while omitting the fact that Grams had had very little contact with his son; his ex-wife had custory), and other among the Strib’s greatest hits, and might prompt a thinking person to say “there’s a pattern here”.

I will be asking Pat Doyle for comment.  Don’t hold your breath; most Strib and PiPress reporters seem to think they’re above answering questions from peasants.

You just can’t keep some people happy.

The media and DFL have been chanting for the past week that Emmer hasn’t released his plan for completely re-engineering government.  I pretty well walked through the reasons not to yesterday.

But another reason might be that Emmer knows – as anyone who watches the Minnesota DFL can figure out – that actually answering questions isn’t the issue. 

One area where Emmer has put out actual numbers and concrete proposals is the issue of Local Government Aid.

And yet one of the DFL’s latest chanting points is that “Tom Emmer wants to eliminate Local Government Aid.  The four DFL candidates Dayton, Anderson-Kelliher, Entenza, and “Independence” Party  DFL-Lite candidate Horner all duly parroted the line at the “Green” debate, and Minnesota’s huge class of government hangers-on has uncritically adopted the line.

Naturally, it’s not true.

As we noted in my five-part series on Local Government Aid (Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five – Six and Seven are actually on the way), Local Goverment aid…:

1. …was originally intended to subsidize basic services in poor outstate cities,
2. …has been completely inverted, with the Twin Cities, Minnesota and Duluth getting 2.5 times as much LGA per capita as the rest of Minnesota’s cities,
3. …has become a vast money-laundering scam, to intended to conceal profligate local spending by fobbing it off on the rest of the state, and thus…
4. …causing the Big Three cities to act like a heroin addict deprived of his fix when the funds are cut at all; the Big Three cities have become used to being able to hide their excesses by paying for it with other peoples’ money; when LGA gets cut, they face what would be a sisyphean choice for most government bodies, to cut or to raise taxes.  For the DFL-dominated cities, it’s not really a choice; they raise taxes and pass the proverbial buck.

So LGA has become a political kicktoy; big cities need it to keep up the spending and so secure their constituencies and still avoid the pain of excessive tax hikes;  the Republicans in their base – the exurbs – understandably ask why it is that a program that was supposed to ensure that Middle River could pay for a water plant now forces Minnetonka, which gets no LGA at all, to pay for Saint Paul’s fire department, so Chris Coleman can build more indoor ice rinks.

As Emmer’s campaign notes on its website notes on its website, Emmer has sought to stop the insanity:

Tom Emmer is the author of the Minnesota Fair Plan, a bill that would institute a new program to replace (not eliminate) the current system of local government aid (LGA). The Bill was HF 339 of the 86th Legislative Session of the Minnesota Legislature.

The Minnesota Fair Plan would eliminate the current practice of allocating LGA resources by city, a process that has proven rife with political wrangling, with a more equitable system of pooling LGA resources by county and placing responsibility for the distribution of such funds to the county commission. This is hardly the equivalent of “eliminating LGA.”

Emmer’s worked as a defense attorney; I suspect he’s had to shepherd more than a few defendants through spin-dry, and he knows that addicts like crackheads and major cities don’t just recover from their addictions instantly:

The transition from the current system to the new system is designed to take place over several years, to allow city councils to adjust to the Minnesota Fair Plan.

The base level of LGA will be reduced to 40% of the 2009 level for cities over three years with the balance of the funds given to counties to distribute among any and all of the localities within their county as they see fit. The total amount of LGA available will continue to be determined by the legislature. The amount for the current fiscal year listed in the bill was $526,148,487; or just over a half billion dollars.

Half a billion dollars.  To be accurate, the total LGA amount for 2009 (the year Emmer introduced the bill) was $526,141,547 – about $7,000 less than Emmer’s proposal, according to League of Minnesota Cities figures. 

So what Emmer has actually proposed isn’t eliminating LGA; it’s taking the cities’ share (all cities, from Middle River to Minneapolis) out of the cities’ hands and issuing it (over time) to the counties.

It’s not a matter of money; it’s a matter of control.  The DFL wants it; Emmer’s proposal would put a speed bump in the way – another level of accountability.

And the DFL hates speed bumps on the road to your wallet.

Barack Obama is doing so badly at foreign policy, at dealing with the economy and at running an administration that predictions that he may be “the next Carter” are sounding optimistic.

But when it comes to neutralizing his competition, he shows he’s learned something from all his years in Chicago:

Keep your friends close—and the competition closer. There has been a buzz about Petraeus and the presidency since about the fall of last year, and to many in the Republican Party—a party bereft of ideas and credible leaders—the general has increasingly taken on the aspect of a possible messiah. His impeccable military credentials, his undoubted intelligence, his mastery of personal and professional politics (you wouldn’t catch him talking to Rolling Stone in a million years), plus his undoubted (if carefully tailored) conservatism have led many to see in him a man who can take on Obama in 2012, and beat him. He is even the sort of guy who’d allow the GOP to broaden its tent, drawing in “undecideds” and independents.

This can no longer happen.

Gotta hand it to the President.

The Strib goes after Tom Emmer’s professional life in a hit piece today by Pat Doyle.

The piece, titled “Emmer’s Feisty Spirit Fuels Legal Fights”, relates four stories:

Emmer has mixed it up in civil cases and filed a report that led to a criminal case, court documents show. He has aggressively litigated some cases. His wrangling over money or other business matters is described in court documents, an ethics probe and interviews.

As opposed to the way the rest of the world behaves when swindled, dued and attacked?

The first incident related to an office manager that swindled over $7,000 from Emmer’s law office:

McElroy’s lawyer, Chad Throndset, wrote in one court document that Emmer was “scapegoating” her to justify the firing and “to cover up illegal and unethical business practices, client claims of illegal billing and legal malpractice, and to create a smoke screen.” Emmer called that accusation “unfounded and libelous” in one court document.

Three years after the case began, prosecutors agreed to “suspend prosecution” until Oct. 20, 2010, when the charges will be dismissed if she avoids similar charges, pays Emmer $14,146 and writes him a letter of apology. “The case was resolved with an order for full repayment of the moneys taken and an apology,” Emmer said in his written statement.

In other words, Emmer got redress from someone who’d swindled him.    Is that “feisty” or “temperamental”, or a victim’s right under our criminal justice system?

It’s Emmer 1, DFL/Strib 0.

Next – a landscaper sued Jacquie Emmer for shorting a payment for some landscaping work:

Emmer gave him $2,000 and said in his statement that the landscaper “overcharged for work.”

When Poppler took Emmer to small claims court to recover the remaining $1,237, Emmer sought $3,600 in attorney’s fees for his time in small claims court. Poppler didn’t back off.

In small claims court, District Judge Kathleen Mottl awarded Poppler his entire claim. She added that Emmer’s “request for reimbursement of ‘attorney’s fees’ is wholly inappropriate, as he represented himself.”

Emmer took his appeal to District Court, where his lawyer argued that he wasn’t responsible for the landscaping bill because his wife had initiated and modified the job.

Earlier, Mottl had disagreed with that notion. “She essentially did so as her husband’s agent,” she wrote.

But District Judge Dale Mossey ruled that Emmer was not responsible for his wife’s actions. Poppler said Jacquie Emmer has not paid the $1,237.

This bit leaves a slew of questions.  What were Emmer’s grounds for withholding the money – and I mean all of the grounds?  And why did the District Court toss the suit?

Emmer 1, Strib/DFL 0, one tie.

In another case, a woman sued Emmer in 1996 for a collision in which she’d been injured.  Emmer, it was claimed, ran a stop sign; Emmer claimed the sign was obscured.

Emmer’s attorney, Michael Schwartz, said the claims against the state and county for sign maintenance “served to protect the rights and safety of all motorists in the area.” He said all claims were settled.

So it’s Emmer 1, Strib/DFL 0, one tie, one “Get a life, he defended himself”.

Next:  Emmer sued someone for injuring him:

Emmer also sued a Dakota County man in 2003 for leg injuries Emmer said he received when the man’s vehicle struck him while he was standing in a driveway, according to court documents. Emmer claimed partial disability. The case went to mediation and Emmer won a $187,500 award. But the Dakota County man’s lawyer had difficulty getting Emmer to sign a release as part of the deal, court records show. After pressing for a year for Emmer to sign, the lawyer threatened to compel his signature. “Whether it be simple neglect, such neglect is inexcusable,” attorney Nicholas Klehr wrote in a court document. He said last week that the case was resolved to his client’s satisfaction.

“The claims were amicably and equitably resolved and the settlement was finalized without court involvement,” said Schwartz, who said selection of an annuity company to handle some of the payout delayed the process.

So it’s Emmer 1, Strib/DFL 0, one tie, one “Get a life, he defended himself”, and one “Gosh, legal proceedings taking a long time, notify the media…oh, wait you did!”

A client made an ethics claim against Emmer for a bill that’d caught him by surprise:

The director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility rejected the recommendation, saying that the rule doesn’t require regular written billing and that Emmer claimed he discussed the fee structure at the very beginning.

“Best practices would indicate that sending clients regular billing statements would be prudent in preventing situations like between Mr. Emmer and Mr. Ahlstrom,” the director added in the office’s written determination.

I’m not sure what percentage of lawyers get some kind of ethics complaint or another, but I’m told it’s rather high.

So it’s Emmer 2, Strib/DFL 0, one tie, one “Get a life, he defended himself”, and one “Gosh, legal proceedings taking a long time, notify the media…oh, wait you did!”

Finally – Emmer and a former law partner had a falling-out:

The dispute was settled. Lively said he and Emmer are barred from talking about the dispute because of a confidentiality agreement, but added, “It was just time to part ways. … Tom and I had been friends for a very, very long time and I really hold no animosity toward him at all.”

Said Emmer: “The case was resolved with the terms being honored.”

So it’s Emmer 2, Strib/DFL 0, one tie, one “Get a life, he defended himself”, one “Gosh, legal proceedings taking a long time, notify the media…oh, wait you did!”, and one “go figure, lawyers sueing each other, and how about some details?”

Can you see why the media wants to get at Emmer’s plan?

QUESTION:  Do you suppose Pat Doyle will cover this story?:

After a leave of absence, necessitated by health problems, from his position as a State Office Manager for Senator Dayton Brad Hanson was fired. He subsequently sued his former employer for discrimination on the basis of a disability and for failure to pay overtime compensation under the Congressional Accountability Act. Dayton argued, and continues to argue before the Supreme Court, that the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution grants him immunity from this action and therefore the suit must be dismissed. This case will turn on the issue of whether an administrative or personnel decision, such as firing an employee, is a legislative act within the meaning of the Clause.

Any bets?

Last week, we discussed the media flap over what amounts, in the end, to Tom Emmer’s not releasing details on how he plans to change Minnesota government until he actually has an opponent.

Politics In Minnesota Weekend summed up the details:

On Monday, Tom Scheck reported a piece for MPR that digs into Emmer’s publicly stated plans to downsize state government.

The Emmer campaign responds via an “Emmer Truth” section of its website, implying that claims made by Sheck’s story are inaccurate and cherry-picked.

Enter Dave Mindeman (mnpACT!) and Eric Black (MinnPost), who call EmmerTruth “pretty weak” and “winging it.” Jon Tevlin at the Strib also gets his two cents in, basically repeating the cries for Emmer to get specific.

Mitch Berg (Shot in the Dark) and Gary Gross (Let Freedom Ring) hit back, generally with two points: Scheck’s and Black’s reports wereinaccurate/mangled the context, and it’s a legitimate and sensible strategy for Team Emmer not to give up the “master plan” so early in the campaign season.

Charlie Quimby (Across the Great Divide) comments on Berg’s blog: “I think if you put Emmer’s full statement in front [of] 100 voters, not many would find it definitive or conclusive or clarified.” And Berg in reply: “As to how 100 random users would perceive Emmer’s statement … I don’t disagree; presentation counts … But is it the media’s job to relate the actual facts, or to reinforce confusion?”

A terrific question, if a little antagonistic in the wording.

Antagonistic?  Moi?

The piece, by…well, I never got the name, but it’s someone on the Politics In Minnesota staff – summed up the issues pretty well, so far.

But perhaps more to the point, there was nothing confusing in the MPR piece. In fact, both EmmerTruth and the conservative blogs skip the entire point of Scheck’s reporting while digging around in the semantics: Emmer, as a candidate, has promised major redesigns of government, but the programs and agencies he’s highlighted so far are playing with thousands or millions of dollars, not billions. The “could not should” distinction is sort of absurd.

To be fair to Gary and I, we were reacting to the presenting issue; we had leftybloggers and the media chanting “Emmer said he’d hack a third of State Government!”. 

But the real issue is the beef.

Now, to most of the Twin Cities media, that question is…:

 If the media’s job is to relate actual facts, then it’s perfectly reasonable — no, responsible — for the media to ask Emmer, the candidate for Minnesota’s highest office, what he would do if elected. If the answer is, for now, that he’s not sure, then it’s the media’s responsibility to say so.

True. 

But it’d be useful for the media to also note that Dayton (and Kelliher, Entenza and Horner’s, not that it matters) plans are no more articulate; if Emmer is saying “Cut Cut Cut!”, as John Tevlin wrote, then the Four Stooges are responding “Tax Tax Tax!”, with no more articulation.

I hate to repeat myself, but I think I summed up my most serious response to this in my response to Erik Black last week:

Black:  And [Emmer] owes the voters of Minnesota some straighter talk, not about what he could do, but what he would do to balance the budget. (Not to say that all the other guv candidates have been clear abut how they would do it. They haven’t.)

Let me get this straight:  the DFL candidates have been “unclear”, but Emmer “owes” everyone an explanation now …?

Why does the MinnPost hold Republicans to a different standard than the DFL?

When Mark Dayton and the other three soon-to-be-chum contenders appear on Midmorning with Keri Miller, will Miller press any of them for details on how their “Tax, Baby, Tax!” agenda is going to lead to more (non-public-employee union) jobs?  How they lead to recovery?  How they will defy history by actually improving the economy?

Will Nick Coleman and John Tevlin and Lori Sturdevant demand more details amid their inevitable victorian vapours?

Will Erik Black and Tom Scheck write pieces noting how vague they’re being?

So there are two questions for everyone that’s demanding answers from Emmer, the Tom Schecks and Erik Blacks and John Tevlins and Charlie Quimbies:

1. Where is the scrutiny of Dayton and the other three?  The double standard was plain as day in the Black quote above; why do you, as a group, observe it?  Or does supporting the status quo (only more of it) get one a pass with the media?
2. I asked this before, I’ll ask it again:  What is in it for Emmer to put his entire platform out there six weeks before the DFL has a candidate, for the DFL-leaning media to spin and soften up while the DFL goes through its primary contortions?  How would that benefit Emmer and the MNGOP in their quest to win the race?  Because this race isn’t about making the media’s job easier, or making the DFL’s job easier; it’s about saving Minnesota.  Why does Emmer “owe” Minnesota any more than his opponents do?

 A listening tour is a fine populist idea, but with Minnesota accumulating red ink in Deepwater Horizon-like volumes, a candidate — from any party — should be able to talk state finances in real terms. We don’t buy the idea that campaigns for office build policy proposals around a master plan that remains absolutely secret until the last possible moment.

“Last possible moment?”  Of course not.   What’s unreasonable about waiting until he faces the real opponent, as opposed to the opponent’s legions of ringers?  Because Mark Dayton isn’t his only, or even his most serious, opponent in this race.

The Tea Party and the avalanche of dissatisfaction that are at Emmer’s back are driven by a fairly articulate demand for real answers; if Emmer doesn’t do better than the “Tax Baby Tax!” crowd, that’ll be a big problem.

I”m pretty comfortable he will have the goods on August 11, when Mark Dayton finally starts his campaign.

The KSTP/Survey USA poll yesterday confirmed my predictions on both counts.

First – as I’ve been predicting for the past few weeks, Dayton seems to be pulling away.

Dayton – 39

Kelliher – 26

Entenza – 22

There are still eight weeks until the DFL primary, but Dayton’s out-state name recognition and years as a “Senator” are giving him a huge head start.  

As I noted yesterday, Emmers numbers were (expectedly) off from the May, post-convention numbers – but the match between Emmer and Dayton is a statistical tie.

Emmer – 35

Dayton – 38

Horner – 12

Remember, Republicans – the Dems are going to play this like the election is already over.  Don’t believe the hype.  This is the  truth:  Dayton is a former US Senator with huge name recognition across the state – and he’s polling within the margin against a state representative who three months ago was unknown to most non-GOP Minnesotans.

That is, at the very least, not good news for Dayton or the DFL.

Note that Horner’s numbers from the ballyhooed PiPress poll from last week do seem, as we noted here, to have been BS – off a solid third.  If the PiPress poll wasn’t rigged (the poll was run by a friend of Horner’s), then it was too sloppy to worry about.

Emmer and Kelliher?  Not that it matters; it’ll take a miracle to get her through the primary…

Emmer – 35

Kelliher – 33

Horner – 12

…although Dayton has made a career out of giving his opponents miracles.  Still, at this stage it seems the DFL endorsement is on track to remain the electoral kiss of death.

Emmer and Entenza?  Who cares – Entenza is DOA. But here y’go:

Emmer – 37

Entenza – 33

Horner – 12

Stick a fork  in it.

Some perspective here:  in 2002, polls were showing Tim Pawlenty trailing Roger Moe by eight, and Tim Penny by 6 – in September.

This campaign is shaping up pretty well.

Channel Five is going to be releasing their next round of Minnesota Gubernatorial campaign polling today; they’ll reportedly be running DFL Primary numbers in the afternoon newscasts, DFL/Emmer matchup numbers at 10. 

It’s going to be a lot closer than the last poll Channel Five ran, which showed Emmer with a nice lead; it could very well show Emmer running behind.

The DFL/Establishment Media (pardon the redundancy) and their minions in the Sorosphere will try to spin this as a setback for Emmer;  their goal is to demoralize you, the conservative in the street.

Don’t buy the hype.  And don’t let anyone else buy it.

The GOP convention is six weeks in the past, and Emmer’s campaign is in the “face to face” stage; Tom is using his two month head start to travel the state, meeting people, shaking hands, kissing babies (or teaching them how to check) and listening to people around Greater Minnesota.  He has no ads running; the only “news” his campaign is making right now is the manufactured variety the DFL/Media toss out there.  

In the meantime, the DFL are moving into the peak of their primary season; they’ve got TV ads moving, they’re in full campaign mode, and they – at least, Anderson-Kelliher and Entenza and Horner – are working full-bore to increase their name ID (which is the least of former Senator Dayton’s problems).   They’re in the news – and even if you leave out the mainstream press’ outbreaks of partisan fawning, they are filling more space right now.

And the Emmer vs. DFL numbers will be skewed by the fact that none of the DFLers are “for real” yet; since none of them is the official candidate, none of them has any realy sticky negatives – unlike Emmer, against whom the DFL and their drinking buddies in the media are circling their wagons. 

So it’s to be expected Emmer’s numbers are going to cool off just a tad.  Indeed, if the Dems don’t post a lead of some sort, against a GOP candidate who is still building stateswide name ID, it could be considered a bit of a slap in the face at this point in the campaign, under the circumstances.

Remember – in September in 2002, Tim Pawlenty was trailing Roger Moe and Tim Penny, if you believed the polls.

So stay strong, Real Americans.  We have not yet begun to fight.

Matt Entenza, running a weak third in the DFL primary race, promised to release a “bold” “education” “plan”:

DFL gubernatorial candidate Matt Entenza Thursday will release a “a bold education plan,” his campaign said Wednesday.

He’ll talk about the plan on campaign stops in Duluth, St. Paul and Rochester.

Entenza, who is vying in a DFL primary, took a hit at Republican candidate Tom Emmer in making his Wednesday announcement.

“During his tour Entenza will highlight a basic premise: to make Minnesota great again, we need to make our schools great again. It is a concept that Tom Emmer has failed to grasp,” the campaign release said.

The swat at Emmer is the left’s latest meme, trying to drag Emmer into talking specifics so the left and media (pardon the redundancy), as we discussed yesterday.  

Of course, you won’t see Mark Dayton or Margaret Anderson-Kelliher releasing “plans”.  Entenza, trailing very badly in the race, has nothing to lose.

Except that when he says it’s going to be a “bold” plan, set your expectations accordingly.  Entenza was the founder of MN2020, a think tank that has, among other things, been effusive in supporting the Teachers Unions, and  in reinforcing our wretched status quo at the expense of any new, better ideas.

So I believe it’s a safe bet that Matt Entenza’s education plan will be “bold” only in the brazenness of its support for the status quo and demands that we peasants fall in line.

the AFL-CIO Min has declined to endorse a candidate so far:

n a somewhat surprising move, the AFL-CIO opted NOT to endorse a gubernatorial candidate “at this time.’

In recent days, the DFL-endorsed candidate, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, has been picking up the endorsements of individual unions at an impressive rate. But this afternoon, a big one — the AFL-CIO endorsement — got away.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess they’ll come up with one right about August 11.

Back during Desert Storm, Saturday Night Live – which still had Phil Hartmann, Dennis Miller, Jan Hooks and Dana Carvey, and was hence still funny at the time – parodied one of the military press conferences that were such a staple of the coverage of that war, way back when.

In it, a stoic military officer (played, if I remember correctly, by Kevin Nealon) stood, trying to remain unruffled, as “journalists” asked a series of increasingly absurd questions:

REPORTER:  “Tell us, Colonel:  what will be the targets, strike times and units involved in any air raids today?” 

OFFICER:  “Um, I am afraid I can’t, er, discuss that…”

ANOTHER REPORTER:  “Colonel, when exactly will the ground attack take place, and where?”

OFFICER:  “Um…”

The media’s coverage of Tom Emmer’s gubernatorial campaign reminds me of that skit.

I noticed this bit in Erik Black’s piece in the MinnPost that I covered yesterday (and that Black’s old colleague John Tevlin, in true “Circle The Wagons!” style, also covers today, in nearly identical thoughts if not words):

[Emmer] owes the voters of Minnesota some straighter talk, not about what he could do, but what he would do to balance the budget. (Not to say that all the other guv candidates have been clear abut how they would do it. They haven’t.)

I asked yesterday – Emmer “owes” the people “straight talk”, while the DFLers merely get a mild joshing nod?

Still, I’ve heard this from a few people; “If Emmer’s so great, and if he’s going to rebuild government, then where is his master plan on how he’s going to do the whole thing?”

I gotta confess sometimes, I”m curious myself.

But it doesn’t take a political consultant or an especially curious journalist to see that…:

1. We are still two months away from having a DFL candidate.
2. We do, however, have a huge pool of establishment journalists, “alternative” media figures who are dying for material, and…
3. …a legion of DFL hacks and flacks whose mission it is to try to take the battle to Tom Emmer during these two months, to try to derail any momentum he builds while the Dems are noodling around with their primary process (and, let’s be honest, most of the “establishment” media in #2 above is at the very least sympathetic with, if not actively working to promote at some level, the DFL).

So with that in mind, tell me – what sense would it make for Tom Emmer to release “the master plan” for his administration, two months before there is an alternative to compare it to?  All that would do is give the DFL and the media (that is, let’s be honest, largely on the DFL’s side) time to define, frame, and re-spin it, long before the Dems ever have a candidate, much less a “plan” to “scrutinize”.  Which I put in scare quotes, since I’m not willing to take it on faith that anyone in the Twin Cities’ establishment media will “scrutinize” the DFL’s “plan” so much as run cover for it; that’ll be, as usual, the job of the conservative alternative media.

What’s Emmer’s plan?  I dunno.  His rhetoric is certainly building up expectations; if he’s not swinging for the fence, he’s at least aiming for the outfield. He’s be nuts not to, in my humble opinion; this is a year when people want to see results, and are showing everyone who cares how sick they are of arrogant, rapacious, thud-witted goverment and the bills it leaves us.

But is he wrong to sit on that plan until it matters?  Even if , horror of horrors, it leaves the state’s chattering classes and the designers of the DFL’s Chanting Points less material for the time being?

I’ll give you my answer when I see Mark Dayton’s plan.

(more…)

“This will not be so much an anti-tax-and-spend election as an anti-incumbent election!”

It’s one of the things that Dems tell themselves to comfort themselves as they face what looks to be a fairly ugly year for them.

And they’re right.  The latest Fox News/Rasmussen/Sean Hannity/Michael Savage poll shows that it is going to be an anti-incumbent year.

Anti Democratic incumbents, anyway; the Fox News/Rasmussen/Sean Hannity/Michael Savage poll shows 37% of respondants in Republican-controlled districts want to flush their incumbents.  It’s 49% in Dem-controlled districts.

Yeah, I know.  It’s just a poll taken six five months before the election.  And it’s only the Fox News/Rasmussen/Sean Hannity/Michael Savage poll.  Still, I don’t think anyone would have expected this two years ago.

CORRECTION:  I mistakenly referred to the “NPR Poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies/Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research” as the “Fox News/Rasmussen/Sean Hannity/Michael Savage poll”.  I regret the misunderstanding.

I could make Scarlett Johannson the happiest woman in the world.

Let’s see if Tom Scheck and Erick Black start staking out Ms. Johannson’s house.

It might be easier than answering the questions about their coverage of the Emmer campaign.

———-

Tom Emmer launched “Emmertruth” – a site dedicated to countering the media’s context-mangling DFL-agenda-m0ngering – yesterday.  And right in the nick of time.

This past April, Emmer appeared on Gary Eichten’s mid-day show on MPR.  Eichten asked Emmer a hypothetical question about how he’d hypothetically handle Minnesota’s budget.

Now, as someone who talks on the air live for two hours a week with no more “editing” than a dump button in case Ed starts cursing again, I’ll tell you – every so often you say something on the first try that isn’t quite right.  So you take another pass at it.   This happens even if you’re very good at speaking off the cuff – which, by the way, Tom Emmer is.

Most print news people – like Erik Black, formerly of the Strib and currently of the MinnPost – have a hard time with this; they can go their entire career without a “rough draft” going out to the public.  And MPR’s Tom Scheck perhaps is the wrong person to ask about it, since MPR is about as  spontaneous and unedited as the Catholic Mass.

Anyway – according to Emmertruth, this is what happened, with emphasis added by me:

Emmer did initially say the overall budget should be around $40 billion, down from the current level of $60 billion. But seconds later he clarified with the definitive statement that we “can reduce government easily by 20% in the next four years.” When Scheck chose to use the $20 billion figure instead of the more definitive final word on the question, he made a critical and material journalistic mistake.

Here – in Tom Scheck’s piece on the subject, which extensively quotes state bureaucrats on why Tom Emmer should not cut state bureaucracy – is the quote in question:

In late April, he suggested he could eliminate a third of overall state spending, roughly $20 billion.

You be the judge – but from where I sit, Scheck is wrong, or misleading, when he uses the $20 billion number. Emmer said – in the definitive take on the hypothetical question – he’s cut 20% over 4 years. Not that he’d immediately slash $60 to $40 billion.

It’s not rocket surgery to expect that the local mainstream media will circle its wagons to defend the rest of the media.  And some of the regional  media, including Erik Black’s former bosses in the Strib editorial board, are pretty transparently working to see a DFLer gets elected governor this fall, as usual.  And while I’m the last person in the world to impugn the integrity of MPR News – whose standards I’ve repeatedly praised in the past – their coverage of Emmer bears watching, since Emmer has spoken of cutting the state’s subsidy of MPR.

Black continues:

he has launched a feature called “EmmerTruth,” in which he will set the record straight about distortions of his record, position and statements.The first couple of entries, though, are pretty weak. In one, he complains that MPR reporter Tom Scheck said that Emmer would cut $20 billion in state spending. But Emmer says he never said he would cut $20 billion, only that he could.

And then…what?

He went on to clarify the whole thing!

So why did Scheck choose to go with the initial – and, via Emmertruth, admittedly bobbled – take on the hypothetical, when the clarification is, with a nod to Regis Philbin, “the final answer?”

And why did Black ignore this?   Do the facts matter, or is it all about playing “gotcha” with off-the-cuff answers to hypothetical questions?

Black concludes:

I’ve about convinced myself that Emmer owes Scheck an apology.

I’m dying to figure out why.

And he owes the voters of Minnesota some straighter talk, not about what he could do, but what he would do to balance the budget. (Not to say that all the other guv candidates have been clear abut how they would do it. They haven’t.)

Let me get this straight:  the DFL candidates have been “unclear”, but Emmer “owes” everyone an explanation now – so the DFL and its friends in the media can bag on it at their leisure until the DFL picks a candidate?

Why does the MinnPost hold Republicans to a different standard than the DFL?

DISCLOSURE:  I recently signed on to have occasional posts from this blog re-posted on MinnPost.  We’ll see how that works out now, won’t we?

UPDATE:  Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring and True North covers this as well.

CORRECTIONS:  In the original take on this story, I’d forgotten that there is, technically, a GOP primary.  That’s right, Leslie Davis and Ole Savior get their moment in the electoral sun.  Als0,  I had the wrong date for the original broadcast on the Eichten show that spawned this “controversy”.

We’ve been covering the DFL’s chanting points for the past month or so.

As the DFL still has two months to go until they get to the primary, they still have eight weeks of internecine bloodletting before they actually have to try to unite behind Mark Dayton.

And so the regional media and the left-leaning “alternative” media are focusing their coverage of the Emmer campaign on a number of chanting points whose relation to factuality doesn’t stand up to the most cursory examination….

…but then, chanting points aren’t supposed to.   They are responses to Josef Göbbels’ classic Public Relations dictum “if you want people to believe a big lie, repeat it often enough”. 

They’ve got the repitition part down, of course; you can practically trace the Minnesota leftyblog chain of command [1], watching the various memes – Chanting Points – making their rounds, starting with the big DFL-affiliated blogs, and filtering their way down to the little footsoldier blogs.

The purpose of the “Chanting Points Memo” is to give you, the conservative in the street who may not spend your time living and breathing  politics, the material you need to respond to some of the tripe the DFL is spreading about when you hear it from your DFL friends, relatives and co-workers – not so much to convince them, as to make sure any undecided or non-aligned voters that are in on the conversation can get the actual facts.  From you!

So let’s run down the big Chanting Points offenders so far in the Gubernatorial race:

“The GOP is in disarray because Tom Horner and Arne Carlson oppose Tom Emmer”: This is often followed with “Tom Horner is a Republican.  End of Story”, from the kind of people who believe that saying “end of story” actually ends the story.   See below.

Right.  And the DFL is in disarray because Randy Kelly and Norm Coleman aren’t part of it.  Right?

It’s balderdash, of course.  While Horner, Carlson and Dave Durenberger were part of the GOP mainstream twenty-odd years ago, before conservatism made any serious inroads in the party, today they are relics of an era when the old “Indpendent Republican” party was no less a big-government, big-tax party than the DFL.  Just like Kelly and Coleman are, by DFL standards, fossils from an era when Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey combined their “progressive” ideals with a staunch patriotism and the sense that the the taxpayer wasn’t a ripe suck that deserved what they got and should just shut up already.

[1] Oh, I know – it’s not a literal chain of command, except as re the Minnesoros “Independent”, which takes its orders from the supremely-ironically-named “Center for Independent Media”.   But watching memes circulate through regional leftyblogs is a bit like watching word spread through a bee hive  that there’s a pollenating flower nearby.

“Tom Horner is a Republican!  End of Story!  Hahahahaha!” – Right.  He’s part of the big-government, big-tax, big-spending wing of the GOP;  the part that has been so completely marginalized within the party that they have to go to places like the “Independence” Jesse Ventura Party to get a shot at running for office.

Since the twilight of Governor Ventura, the “IP” has been mostly a haven for “moderate” Democrats like Tim Penny, cast-off wonks like Dean Barkley, and “Independent Republican” fossils like Horner, who may have been a typical Minnesota Republican establishment figure in the early eighties, but is not today.

Is it possible it’ll backfire on the GOP?  Has the GOP moved “too far to the right?”  Well, we’ll find out in November, in the only poll that matters.  It’s entirely possible the party could lose its shirt this fall – but I”m just not seeing it.

Because what’s interesting is that Republicans who’ve run to the right of the conventional wisdom in the past two cycles – historically awful cycles for the GOP – have done better than the ones that scampered to the center.  Michele Bachmann beat back two challenges in a row,  and rode out being abandoned by the weak-kneed leadership of the national GOP.  Tim Pawlenty took a hard line on taxes and spending – very “red” behavior – and held on in 2006.  Erik Paulsen ran well to the right of the conventional wisdom in the Third District, back when that “wisdom” said the Third was “deep purple”; Paulsen may be no Newt Gingrich, but he’s well to the right of his predecessor, Jim Ramstad – exactly the opposite of what the conventional wisdom was saying about the district two years ago. 

If bright red carried the day in both of those horrible cycles, what do you think it’s going to do with the Tea Party at its back, in a year that is shaping up to be less “anti-incumbent” than “anti-big goverment?”

“Tim Pawlenty has destroyed Minnesota!” – We’re in mid-recession, and our unemployment rate, while high, is the 13th best in the nation, almost three points below the national average.  Check out the states with the best unemployment; most of them conservative-run states outside the deep south.  Liberal cesspools California and Michigan, at 48 and 50 on the list, with 12.6 and 14% respectively, are what the DFL would have; high-tax, high-“service” states that, when times get tough, fail with a huge “foomf”.

I’d love to see what would have happened in this past four years had the MNGOP been able to hold even one of the houses of the Legislature; while Pawlenty essentially held the line on spending, he couldn’t stop everything that the DFL’s two-house press threw at him.  Spending rose – at a time when it needed to be cut, and cut sharply.

But no – when the DFL says Pawlenty “destroyed Minnesota”, what they mean is “Pawlenty made government a tad less comfortable; he slowed the rate of increase in a way that forced government to have to actually adapt, like all the greasy hoi-polloi have to do when times get tough”. 

Goverment hates that.  DFL is the party of government.  Connect the dots.

“Emmer is running scared!” – Of what?

Polls?

Leaving aside the fact that the only poll that shows dodgy results for Emmer – the “PiPress” poll earlier this week that was commissioned from a company run by a pal of Tom Horner’s – is the most transparently risible exercise in DFL morale-building since…well, the last “Minnesota Poll” – so what?   If credible polls taken months before elections mattered, Emmer would have dropped out of the race after Marty Seifert won the Central Committee poll, and won it soundly, last winter.

Emmer spent the winter getting name recognition among Republicans, and bit by bit snuck up on and, finally, defeated Seifert for the nomination.  And he did it the old-fashioned way – one voter at a time.

Emmer has always been the underdog.  If he’s the underdog now, that’s fine – Mark Dayton has huge name recognition outstate (Entenza doesn’t matter, and I’m verging on saying Kelliher doesn’t either), but after the primaries, when Minnesota voters look at the DFL slate and say “Oh, that Mark Dayton?”  It’s fair to say that someone meeting Tom Emmer stands a great chance of coming away a supporter; someone meeting Mark Dayton may need a cup of coffee, stat.

“Emmer is an extremist!” – Over what?  His push to fundamentally rebuild government into a more responsible, less costly, less-entitled institution?  Most Americans and Minnesotans agree these days. 

Over Arizona’s immigration law?   Emmer supports the same law – which does not allow profiling – that nearly two in three Americans do.

Emmer is the mainstream candidate.  Which is the only reason the DFL and their blog friends need to keep repeating the lie that he’s not; it’s the only response they have.

We’ll do another digest after the DFL and their pals in the media and their kept blogs send some of these memes to the showers and wheel out some new ones.

I checked out the big headline on Twin Cities überleftyblog MNPublius this morning, and I started to worry:

Horner campaign gaining support of influential Republicans

…and read the lede…

Tom Horner is becoming a serious problem for Tom Emmer and the Republican party.

“Wow”, I thought.  “This could be serious business.  What “influential Republicans” have lined up behind the big-tax, big-spend, big-government Horner?

I read on, drum roll playing in my head:

•  Bryan Anderson, press secretary for former Rep. Gil Gutknecht
• Former Pawlenty communications director Dan Wolter

 To which I responded “Huh” and “Huh”?

Two press guys?  One for a Congressman who ran too far to the center and got beaten in 2006, and another that’s been out of the governor’s office for years?

Two guys who’ve never won an election?

Two guys who may have never even changed a single person in their lives to switch a vote?

One guy I’ve never, ever heard of, and another that I dealt with oh-so-briefly back during, if memory serves, George W. Bush’s first term?  Both of whom I suspect are known only to wonks and media people, are utterly unknown to anyone who doesn’t eat, drink and live politics?

It’s ludicrous, and I suspect even Jeff Rosenberg knows it. 

Here’s what’s happening:  faced with Emmer’s two-month head-start and very anti-establishment message, and knowing that at the end of that they’ll have to sell Minnesota either a national laughingstock or a woman whose entire platform is summed up “spend money like a crack whore with a stolen Platinum card”, the  entire regional Sorosphere (paid or not) is trying to repeat a couple of transparently bogus lines so many times that people start to believe them:

1. That Tom Emmer  – who is running on making government more sane and responsible and less expensive – is “extreme”.
2. That Tom Horner – big-government, big-tax, big-spending PR flak with establishment connections that’d make Chris Dodd blanche with shame, and who once slapped an “R” after his name, back when “R” in Minnesota meant “DFL with better suits – is an alternative.  But only for Republicans, mind you.
3. That the Emmer campaign is “scared” of Horner.  You see it in practically everything every leftyblogger in Minnesota writes about the subject.  What an amazing coincidence, huh?  (Aint’ so, by the way.  I am utterly unconnected with the Emmer campaign, but I know plenty of people who are.  Let’s just say they’re looking forward to the end of primaries, to say nothing of November).
4. That, indeed, every single thing that every single conservative/Republican blogger says or writes in any medium for any reason is motivated by “fear”. 

I’ll say this in their defense; if I was looking forward to having to support someone like Mark Dayton  or Margaret Anderson Kelliher against a Tom Emmer, I’d stick with repeating big lies in the hopes that gullible voters will believe it, too.   After all, it worked 18 months ago.

 There are two ways to look at today’s PiPress/Horner “Decision Resources” poll.

One of them is accurate.

Option 1:  The sky really is falling in on the Emmer campaign, and Tom Horner – a government insider whose very face screams “slick operator” – really did post a nine point gain by selecting a nobody for a running mate and promising to raise taxes in the most anti-tax year in Minnesota memory.  Honest.

Option 2:  Worried that actual reputable polls were showing Emmer pulling into leads over all three DFL stooges and the would-be spoiler Horner, alarmed by a record surge in MNGOP voter ID and trying to forestall wholesale demoralization among a DFL rank and file that has to look forward to  two more months of brutal campaigning followed by getting behind one of three of the least interesting characters in recent Minnesota political history,  the left – Horner and the DFL – commissioned a fairly transparently bogus poll to keep their troops’ morale up.

I’m gonna bank on #2.

So is the MNGOP, who has just filed a complaint in the past hour with the campaign finance board over the fishy-looking conflicts of interest between Horner and the polling organization involved in the PiPress poll. 

Relax, conservatives.  The Minnesota Left is calling in its markers with the consulting class and the media.  They’re doing it because Emmer scares the crap out of them.

In the 2000 Presidential election, it’s entirely possible that George W. Bush was put into office by Ralph Nader, who stole just enough votes from the radical fringe of the left to make it close enough for the freakish electoral college result we got.

And it’s very likely that we dodged the spectre of “Governor Hatch” because mushy liberal Dean Barkley squatted on enough moderate-left votes to keep Governor Pawlenty in office.  Thank God.

The Dems would very much like to repay the favor.  The Indyparty candidate this year, Tom Horner, is a former Republican – in the same way that Arne Carlson and Dave Durenberger were Republicans. 

Only worse. 

And while the media has been strongly hinting to undecided conservative voters that “Horner is the moderate Republican”, Derek “Chief” Brigham at Freedom Dogs has been following the Horner candidacy with a two-part series (One and Two) running down Horner’s supporters.

Hint: with his years as a “PR consultant”, it’s mostly big-government special interests, including the MN Vikings (although as the Strib noted in an editorial last weekend, we dont’ knwo for sure – Horner’s firm “Himle and Horner” won’t release a client list), and big-government “Republicans” like Carlson.  And the DFL, naturally. 

Which means Horner is not only no more “conservative” or “fiscally responsible” than the most crack-whore-with-a-stolen-Gold-cardish DFLer, it also means Horner is a raft of conflicts of interests.

“But wait a minute, Berg – Emmer’s a lawyer!  He might have represented people who might give him a conflict of interest if he’s elected!”   Well, no – there are fairly strict rules for lawyers when it comes to conflict of interest; the rules are a lot less clear-cut for PR flaks. 

And it doesn’t matter.  Horner will get three percent of the vote, and the Independence Party will likely lose major-party status this year.  The DFL and Media’s (ptr) only interest in the subject is to make sure that those three percent come more from Emmer than from one of the Three Stooges.

Because they’ll need all the help they can get.

Expect the DFL to do the endzone happy dance over this latest PiPress. showing each of the DFL candidates trouncing Tom Emmer, with crypto-liberal Tom Horner taking an absurd percentage of the vote.

Doing the happy dance even more was Horner who, 24 hours before the poll was released, tweeted

Luke Hellier at MDE notes…:

Bill Morris, the principal at the polling firm also has close ties to Horner himself.   

Morris was seen staffing Horner at the Minnesota News Council Debate earlier this year.

In the article Morris is quoted:

Asked what the poll results mean, Decision Resources President Bill Morris said, “The bounce that Emmer enjoyed after the Republican convention is gone.”

The Pioneer Press has an obligation to disclose, unless they were unaware, the pollster’s relationship with Tom Horner.

The poll also sampled almost a fifth more Democrats than Republicans – 39-31%.

This reminds me of the Strib/“Minnesota” poll the week before the 2002 election that showed Roger Moe, Tim Pawlenty and Tim Penny tied around 30% each.

Hellier calls on the PiPress to disclose the relationships between Horner and Decision Resources. 

He also says it’s a bogus poll.  I think he’s being charitable.

Five months ’til midterms, etc, etc.

Got it.

Still, the latest Rasmussen polls are looking decent:

Republican candidates now hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, June 6. That’s up slightly from a week ago and broadly consistent with weekly results from the past year.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 44% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 35% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for GOP candidates held steady from last week, while support for Democrats is down two points.

“Rasmussen?  Why not quote Fox News?”

I’ve been noticing that Gallup shows the same results a week or two later.

Apropos not much.

Blogging hits the ballot in California.

On Tuesday, voters in the Golden State will chose nominees for the state’s U.S. Senate general election.  And while most of the media oxygen for the race (already fighting for air against the uber-expensive GOP gubernatorial primary) has been sucked up by the Republican electoral 3-way, Democrats must thin their herd as well.  Only two Democrats are saying “no ma’am” to another term for incumbent Barbara Boxer: a disheveled, quixotic blogger and a vainglorious Hollywood “producer” whose campaign seems to be an excuse to post pictures of him with famous people.

Guess which of the three scored a profile by the New York Times:

No, this is not your typical Senate campaign command center; but then again, [Mickey] Kaus is not your typical Senate hopeful. His lair speaks more to his career of the last 10 years — prolific blogger and professional curmudgeon — than the one he’s currently aspiring to. As the one-man show behind Kausfiles on Slate, Mr. Kaus was one of the first political bloggers, after a print career that included stops at publications like Newsweek and Harper’s…

“If you’d asked me is he ever going to run for Senate, I’d say, ‘Are you crazy?’ ” says Michael Kinsley, editor at large of The Atlantic Wire and a longtime friend. “He seems like a classic blogger — someone who is happier in front of his computer than he is out kissing babies.”

But Mr. Kaus has thrown himself into his quixotic campaign with surprising earnestness, undeterred by his prospects (grim) and general diagnosis (insane). He is the first person to admit that he has absolutely no chance of becoming California’s next Senator, but contends that this is not really the point. He says he is running as a protest candidate in order to draw attention to his pet issues.

California has often been viewed as political laboratory – from recall elections and an ever-expanding list of constitutional propositions – even if most of their creations have taken on a Frankensteinesque quality in recent decades.  So it might as well be that the strengthes and limitations of the first fully blog-based candidate be demonstrated on a West Coast ballot.

Much like the blog, Kaus Files, that launched him into prominence within the punditry, Mickey Kaus’ candidacy has been rife with political paradoxes.  Instead of focusing on areas where he agrees with the Democratic base, Kaus is solidly running to Boxer’s right on unions and immigration.  Attacked as a closet Republican, Kaus invokes Paul Wellstone is his campaign’s sole TV advertisement.  Treating his campaign as a Dave Barry/Gore Vidal joke candidacy one minute, the next Kaus is writing serious political manifestos.

Yet it’s hard to escape the feeling that had Kaus taken himself – or his campaign – more seriously, his spoiler candidacy might have done more than simply garner a few memorable press clippings for his scrapebook. 

If the mood of the electorate is hostile across the country, California voters appear ready to find the nearest Bastille.  Every single major party candidate has their approval/disapproval numbers upside-down, including Boxer at 37/46 – and that’s relatively healthy compared to most of the other statewide candidates.  And whether California Democrats wish to acknowledge it or not, Kaus’ pet issues of unions and immigration are two big parts of the mosaic of problems that have painted the state forever in the red.

When even the LA Times refuses to endorse the incumbent, you know the political climate has turned stormy.  But the limitations of Kaus’ own personality precluded him turning the non-endorsement to his advantage.  Or as the paper put it: “But we can’t endorse him, because he gives no indication that he would step up to the job and away from his Democratic-gadfly persona.”

Blogging has certainly give Kaus an leg-up otherwise undeserved by his campaign.  What other forum would allow a candidate with a $36,000 budget, no visible support and with such blunt honesty about his chances that he was deined a speaking slot at the Democratic convention, as much media fanfare as Kaus has enjoyed?

But persuading an electorate is world’s away from simply unleasing opinions into the ether of the internet. Even recognized as one of the Founding Fathers of internet journalism and blogging, the height of Kaus’ popularity was 40,000 unique visitors each day – a tremendous audience in blog terms but a pittance in political value.

“The Kaus blog speaks to a very smart and important influential niche, but it’s still just a niche,” says the conservative blogger Jonah Goldberg, who has supported Mr. Kaus’s campaign in the National Review Online. “The universe of bloggers is a hell of a lot smaller than a lot of bloggers like to think.”

UPDATE: So much for the New York Times. Kaus was demolished, as expected, but surprisingly finished in 3rd – 55,000 votes behind Hollywoodd hanger-on Brian Quintana for 5.2%.

I read a Tweet from State Senator Taryll Clark, the endorsed DFL candiate running against Michele Bachmann in the Sixth District this fall.

The Bachmann Agenda: More media less legislation

And I thought I should thank Senator Clark for illuminating the difference between liberals and conservatives as thoroughly as anyone possibly could.

Do we judge our legislators by how much legislative manure they shovel through the grinder?  Or can we go for something a little deeper?

The tweet linked to this bit on her website:

Minnesota congresswoman and conservative darling Michele Bachmann has mastered the art of bypassing the mainstream media in favor of more ideologically friendly outlets, according to a long profile in today’s Washington Post.

Oh, goodness.  We’re back to that old chestnut?  Goody.

The first time this accusation came out – from Andy Birkey at the Minnesoros “Independent”, no less – that Rep. Bachmann shied away from liberal news outlets and favored conservative ones, I took the liberty of asking RT Rybak, Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Keith Ellison, Betty McCollum, Dane Smith and a few other prominent DFLers to come on the Northern Alliance – the Twin Cities’ flagship conservative media outlet.  Only Smith and Rybak appeared and, for that matter, paid us the courtesy of a response.

So since Taryll Clark is so into across-the-aisle communication, I invite her to come on the Northern Alliance Radio Network with Ed Morrissey and I.  We’ll talk for 30-60 minutes.  It’ll be fun – ask RT Rybak!  I’ll make sure she gets this invite, but if you’re a member of Sen. Clark’s staff (or one of her St. Cloud-area gadflies), feel free to forward my cordial and sincere invitation.

But that appears to have come at the expense of her legislative activities.

Washington’s got all kinds of legislators who shovel legislative manure into the hopper.  Bachmann is leading a movement, and doing spectacularly well at it.

And if Bachmann beats Clark by less than eight points in November, I’ll be amazed.

Arne looks to be Revered.

During the 1980s, the growth in state government exceeded the growth in people’s paychecks by 15 percent.  Since then we have frozen the number of state employees, held the growth of government to the growth in personal income, implemented a wage freeze, and cut welfare for able-bodied adults…

In the process, we quickly became the target of nearly every entrenched and powerful spending system in Minnesota.  And as we were being attacked by all the forces that resists change – it was then that I knew we were doing something right.  — Gov. Arne Carlson’s 1994 State of the State Address

As former Governor Arne Carlson begins his much media ballyhooed “Paul Revere Tour” doing largely what he’s done for the past eight years – needle the Pawlenty administration – it’s not hard to look back at his 1994 comments and wonder which “side” the Arne Carlson of the 90’s would view his 2010 doppleganger.

Whether Carlson’s tour caused him to be revered or tarred and feathered, the former governor is indirectly experiencing his largest political relevance since leaving office.  Between the candidaces of self-described “former Republican” Tom Horner and former Carlson finance director Jon Gunyou, Arne’s old “Independent-Republican” brand (which the party called itself from 1974-1995) will be a subject of hot political debate and historical revisionism.

But how much are Carlson and others engaging in euphoric recall?  For most of Carlson’s eight years, the relationship between the chief executive’s office and the legislature looked as cozy as an Israeli/PLO summit.  Despite Carlson’s recent shot that Pawlenty “lacks leadership” due to his vetoes and inability to compromise with the DFL legislature, it’s Carlson who maintains the lead in the veto count.  In fact, it’s not even close as Pawlenty’s 96 vetoes are dwarfed by Carlson’s record 179.

Until at least 1998, when Carlson’s State of the State address read like an heiress’ shopping list amid his bid to buy a legacy, Arne had a far different reputation that his current incarnation as putting the ‘I’ in ‘IR’.  The Beta version of Arne Carlson was known by his liberal opponents as a tax-cutter, a supporter of vouchers, and a proponent of reducing funding to cities and counties.  He publicly rebuked the federalism of HillaryCare, decrying the would-be mandates on the states.  Carlson even tepidly backed the idea of a TABOResque constitutional amendment that would require voter approval before raising taxes.  Combined with his penchent for spending, especially later in his term, Arne’s dig at Pawlenty that “what the governor wants to do is to say no to taxes, yes to spending” seems apt to describe Carlson’s tenure as well.

Arne Carlson and his current supporters can definitely argue that circumstances were different in the 1990s when he professed such conservative positions, although Minnesota (like most of the nation) saw largely languid growth and recession for most of Carlson’s first four or so years in office.  But what may truly gall Carlson is that his Republican predecessors actually believe the rhetoric Carlson and his IR-brand of Republicanism once spouted.

Despite the invective hurled at Carlson during most of his term by the very same political and media institutions that now champion his public criticisms, most of the fiscally conservative positions that Carlson took were politically expedient. Rhetoric towards smaller government, tighter welfare rules and tax cuts were not just en vogue for most of the 1990s, but politically necessary for a governor viewed as boardline illegitimate by activists in both major parties.

Democrats and conservative Republicans groused at Carlson’s last-minute entry into the 1990 governor’s race following Jon Grunseth’s attempt at a Hot Tub Time Machine that would get him under the swimsuits of three teenaged girls. From the-then Republican perspective, Carlson had already lost the endorsement and the primary to Grunseth and had been trying to undermine the party with a write-in candidacy in the general election. 

Democrats hated that Carlson had narrowly beaten incumbent Rudy Perpich despite only being in the campaign for days and tried to steamroll Carlson’s early days, forcing a number of vetoes. Thus for Carlson, while it could be argued whether or not he viewed fiscal conservatism as good policy, it was certainly good politics.

16 years after his political highwater mark, Carlson still knows how to practice good politics – at least for himself.  Gaining nothing by defending Pawlenty or the GOP, which would in essence be defending many of same fiscal practices and positions he said he held while governor, Carlson can hold some media limelight by embracing his former opposition.  Whether that involves doing political gymnastics worthy of Nadia Comaneci – from now backing nationalized health care, to his views on vetoes and budget shifts – perhaps matters little.

Carlson believed he was fighting the status quo in 1994 and still believes it today.  Considering the Minnesota budget has expanded since he left office from $10 billion to $34 billion, Arne might seriously wish to question if he’s fighting for or against the dominant attitudes in St. Paul.

The media’s been starting – juuuust starting – to get a little critical of The One.

The immigration debate?  Jobs For Congressmen?  Oil washing up on the media’s vacationing grounds?  When you have not only CNN and Brian Willians but also Chris Matthews and Jon Stewart tagging on him, it’s gotta be bad for The Anointed – doesn’t it?

Unless you remember the mainstream media’s prime directive – keep Obama and Democrats in office – it might seem that way.

Paranoid?  Well, Ed Driscoll and I are both on the same wavelength.

Assuming BP is able to get the oil spill in the Gulf plugged, how much of this is the media laying the groundwork for their “comeback kid” narrative to roll out…right around September or early October, and running to, oh at least, the first Tuesday in November — and possibly longer, depending upon the outcome on election night?

Who knows how the next months will play out, but it’s something to salt away for the future.

Best way to tell?  If the Media and left (ptr) find a squishy moderate-ish Republican to start building up – a la McCain and Huckabee – for later tearing down, you’ll know Ed’s onto something.

Andy Birkey of the Minnesoros “Indpendent” and Bradlee Dean of punk-rock fundamentalist ministry “You Can Run But You Can Not Hide” and AM1280’s “Sons Of Liberty” are so different from each other that Hollywood is reportedly talking about putting them on an island and doing a reality show.

Not without reason, of course; Dean is an outspoken fundamentalist who believes God condemns homosexuality; Birkey covers the gay beat for the Mindy, especially focusing on outrages against gay rights (provided they’re not from Keith Ellison).

Of course, Dean’s preaching on the subject is not unusual among fundamentalist ministries; most African-American Baptist churches are every bit as fire-and-brimstone on the subject as Dean. But I’m at a loss to find another fundamentalist minister who’s been the subject of seventeen pieces in the Mindy in the past eight months.

Lately, as we noted last week, the subject of the coverage has been a radio broadcast where, to read Birkey’s account, Dean said executing gays was moral.  We dealt with and disposed of that this past week; Dean will no doubt address the issue this weekend on “Sons of Liberty”.

Now, even the Minnesoros “Independent” knows that “fundamentalist cites Leviticus in re gays” is “dog bites man”.  It’s not news.  And the “Independent” doesn’t really cover theology.   Their mission is to advance the left’s agenda.

And part of the left’s agenda this year in Minnesota is to win the Governor’s office.

With this in mind, Birkey has spent his last couple of articles trying to tie the Tom Emmer campaign to Dean and his ministry.

The “ties”, according to Birkey, are:

An almost-two-year-old “donation” of $250, in the form of buying seats at a You Can Run benefit dinner in November of 2008.  This, by the way, was long before YCR was on the regional media radar – although Birkey continues to refer to this “donation” with context and time frame carefully buried.

Tom Emmer stopping by and getting photographed at the YCR booth at the Minnesota State GOP Convention (as he had stopped by every single gathering of conservatives anywhere in Minnnesota for the past year).

An appearance on “Sons Of Liberty”.  By that token, RT Rybak, a former NARN guest, must be a conservative sympathizer.

Tom Emmer calling Bradlee Dean and his associates “nice people“.   It’s perhaps an inconvenient truth to Andy Birkey that Bradlee Dean and Jake MacMillan are nice people.  They may have different beliefs than Andy Birkey and, also, me.  And perhaps it’s easier to believe people who disagree with you are foul people with horns growing out their heads.  But Dean and MacMillan and their wives and associates are a genial bunch.

And that’s it.  That, according to Birkey, is the extent of Tom Emmer’s “link” to YCR.

And yet Birkey wrote (with emphasis added):

“Emmer is one of several Republican leaders involved with the ministry of Bradlee Dean,”

Andy Birkey:  Where is the “involvement”? All you have is an ancient donation, a photo and an off-handed and, as it happens, accurate impression of personalities.

Does Emmer have any substantial link to YCR?  Does YCR have any significant influence on Emmer?

Or is the Mindy just repeating a big lie until people believe it?

Andy Birkey and the Mindy:  Either show a real, current, substantive link between Emmer and You Can Run – and by “substantive” I mean more than a grin-‘n-run photo or a door-knocking-stop – or get real, grow up and drop your unsupported meme that Emmer is, in your words, “involved” with YCR.

Because you can mislead, but you can not get away with it.

Say what you will about Matt Entenza.  The current #3-runner in the DFL primary race knows what makes liberal voters (as opposed to DFL activists) swoon.   He ended a couple of days of speculation yesterday by picking Channel 9 anchorette Robyne Robinson as his running mate.

In a news release from the Entenza campaign, Robinson said: “Whether it’s his vision for the clean energy economy, his dedication to reinvesting in schools, or his commitment to civil rights, Matt has spent his career standing up for Minnesota families. I am humbled and honored that he asked me to join his campaign. I look forward to traveling the state over the next months on the campaign trail and then getting to work making Matt’s bold vision a reality.”

Entenza’s “bold vision”, of course, is the same as that of Margaret Anderson-Kelliher and Mark Dayton (and his “Independence” Party rival, crypto-liberal Tom Horner); more m0ney.  More money for PC boondoggles, more for the Minnesota Federation of Teachers (with fewer strings attached), more money for molding Minnesota to the DFL’s vision.

But Entenza has differentiated himself, and perhaps shrewdly, by picking Robinson.

Unlike Margaret Anderson Kelliher’s faux-bipartisan mock-reach-across-the-aisle to died-in-the-wool liberal John Gunyou (who is “bipartisan” because he was budget director for Arne Carlson, which is like saying Meier Lansky wasn’t a mobster because he wasn’t Italian), and Mark Dayton’s dreary shoring-up-with-the-activists choice of Yvonne Prettner-Solon, Entenza has shown that he understands the real lessons of the Obama victory; go shallow.  Play for surface effect. 

The mere possibility of an Entenza-Robinson ticket generated more heat for Entenza’s campaign than he’d been able to produce on his own, despite his year long campaign and his first-in-the-race television ad presence. While Fox 9 isn’t seen in every corner of the state, she has fans all over and adds star power to his campaign.

“This reinforces our message; we’ve got to do things a new way and we have to get refocused as a state. The old ways aren’t working,” Entenza said Thursday.

Robyne Robinson; bringing that vaunted TV Anchor rigor and knowledge to the Entenza ticket.