The number three candidate in the DFL primary race is apparently courting the anchorette from the number three TV newscast. Robyne Robinson is apparently mulling joining the Matt Entenza campaign:

Robyne Robinson, who will leave her longtime post at FOX 9 this week, said Monday that she is considering signing on to be DFLer Matt Entenza’s running mate in the race for Minnesota governor.

But that makes it far from a done deal.

“I’m not saying yes or no to anything yet,” she said, confirming that she has been invited to be on the ticket. “When you’re approached with an offer like this, something very serious, very humbling, you can’t just give a frivolous answer.”

It’d be a good move for Entenza, who’d get access to Channel Nine’s Investigative unit.

Two weeks after caterwauling that Tom Emmer had “stuck to his extreme right-wing agenda” by selecting Annette Meeks as his running mate, two of the three DFL gubernatorial candidates have…

…stuck with their extreme left-wing agendas in their choices of running mates.

Last week Margaret Anderson-Kelliher selected John Gunyou:

Gunyou served as state finance commissioner during the first term of Republican Gov. Arne Carlson. He’s also worked as finance director for the City of Minneapolis and most recently as city manager of Minnetonka.

In other words, he ran the budget for a governor whose answer for everything was to raise taxes, then for a city that is falling apart, and finally as a manager for a third-tier suburb with a huge corporate and business tax base that can keep even the most megalomaniacal budget afloat…for a while.

And today came word that Mark Dayton has picked Yvonne Prettner Solon.  Prettner Solon is a legislator from Duluth who has a lifetime 14 out of 100 rating from the Taxpayers’ League – and only a 7 in this past session.

The lesson for average Minnesotans is clear; elect Tom Emmer, or just attach your wallets to a shop-vac and save everyone the trouble.

Dave Thompson’s website is right here.

Rob Port notices that have a hard time answering the question “what is the Tea Party?”

Back when the tea parties were first rising to national prominence as a political movement the unifying talking point from Democrats was that they were really nothing than GOP astroturf. They were being organized by “Republican operatives” and conservative “special interests” according to any liberal you cared to ask. Tea party activists actually had to work long and hard to make it clear that they weren’t just some quasi-official Republican splinter group.

But now that the tea parties have showed some staying power, and have proven that they’re going to have an impact on the 2010 midterm elections, Democrats have decided that a better talking point is to cast the tea parties as being anti-Republican. Thus driving a wedge between Republican candidates and the thriving political movement that’s going to push a lot of them to victory.

It’s a fact, and always has been; the Tea Party is independent of the GOP.  And may Teepers take pains to point out they’re not Republicans, they’re fiscal conservatives.  I’m fairly sure that’s behind a good chunk of the “defection” from Tom Emmer that the MPR/Hubert Humphrey Institute poll purported to show; they’re keeping their options open until they’re convinced which candidate is the best for taxes and spending.

Does anyone actually think Tom Horner or Mark Dayton is going to be that candidate?

So yesterday Minnesota DFLers were grinning like toddlers that’d just made a good pants at this MPR report that referred to this Humphrey Institute poll that showed Dayton beating the DFL primary field, and – more importantly – beating Emmer.

But the media reports on this poll have been, to be charitable, sloppy.  To be less charitable, they tip us off at the very least to the Humphrey Institute’s and most likely the media’s bias.

For those of you from out of state, the Humphrey Institute is a University of Minnesota think tank that is largely dedicated toward – wait for it – “better”, bigger government.  It tends to be a DFL feeder program.

The story is up-front about the criteria for the DFL primary poll (I’ve added emphasis):

Among likely voters, Mark Dayton (38%) leads Kelliher (28%) and Entenza (6%) in the contest
for the August 10th primary to choose the Democratic Party’s nominee.

That is as opposed to “registered voters”; likely voters are the ones who are most likely to actually make it to the polls.

Now, here is what the Humphrey institute wrote about the GOP race:

The most striking and unusual pattern in the Dayton/Emmer match-up is that a third of
Republicans are defecting from their Party’s candidate, an unusual pattern within the GOP
electorate. Dayton is drawing 11% of Republicans as compared to the 3% of Democrats
supporting Emmer. This may be a temporary blip as Emmer launches his campaign or a sign
that his conservatism may pose a challenge to unifying his party against Dayton.

“Defecting?”

Interesting word choice; it implies that a third of Republicans started out firmly in the Emmer camp, but have left.  Is there some prior poll over the past two and a half weeks – which was when Emmer was endorsed in the first place – that showed Republicans were completely united?  Sure, there are still some Seifert supporters with ruffled feathers; there are some Ron Paul people who are making a point of remaining undecided; there are still some Arne Carlson and Dave Durenberger “Republicans” – read “Democrats with better suits” – lurking around the party.

Which means Emmer’s got his work cut out for him – and the campaign knows that, just as they knew it when they lost the straw poll at the GOP Central Committee meeting by a fairly decisive margin.

So is it a sign that Emmer’s “conservatism” is a problem?  It’s possible – but it can not possibly be inferred by any of the data in a single, initial poll five months before the election.

Not that the Twin Cities media will say so.

The latest MPR/Humphrey Institute poll shows Dayton leading the DFL field:

A new Minnesota Public Radio News/Humphrey Institute poll shows former Sen. Mark Dayton with a comfortable lead over the other two candidates competing in the DFL gubernatorial primary.

This is good news for Tom Emmer; Dayton is a national laughingstock with negatives just south of Anastasio Somoza.  If he wins the primary, I’m seriously looking forward to November.

The DFL primary race isn’t all that close at the moment:

The poll of 701 Minnesota adults, which was taken May 13-May 16, shows Dayton is the favorite among likely DFL primary voters by a 10-point margin: 38 percent to 28 percent over House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher.

Dayton, Kelliher and former state Rep. Matt Entenza are competing for the DFL spot on the general election ballot. Entenza received just 6 percent of support in the poll. Whoever wins the August DFL primary will face Emmer in the November election.

Perhaps this is further proof that the DFL endorsement is the kiss of death?

Kelliher received the DFL party endorsement last month. Dayton did not seek it and DFL Party leaders punished him for that by barring him from the state convention. Still, Dayton is getting more support from Democrats.

It wouldn’t be a major-media story about Minnesota politics without a long series of quotes from Larry Jacobs:

“This poll is a real slap in the face to the Democratic Party,” said University of Minnesota political science professor Larry Jacobs, who oversaw the poll.

Jacobs, who heads the Humphrey Institute’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, says it’s not just that Dayton has a big lead over Kelliher among likely DFL primary voters. The poll shows Dayton is considerably more popular than Kelliher with women in the party…Kelliher has campaigned aggressively on the notion that she could become Minnesota’s first woman governor.

“DFLers, are you ready to make some history? Are you ready to make history together?” she said the party’s convention in Duluth.

This being a Humphrey Institute poll, you can expect passive-aggressive context-free sniping at the GOP:

When it comes to the general election, the poll shows only Dayton would win against Republican Tom Emmer. But Dayton would win by just 4 percentage points, well within the poll’s margin of error of 5.8 percentage points.

The poll shows Emmer beating Kelliher or Entenza, but, again, not by enough to be statistically significant.

The MPR story doesn’t indicate if the poll was of registered or likely voters – which is a fairly key bit of context to omit, in that it allows the inescapable Jacobs to have his way with context:

While Emmer has no primary battle on the Republican side, the poll indicates he faces a challenge in uniting the GOP behind him.

A third of the Republicans who responded to the poll said they were either undecided, supporting a Democrat or backing the Independence Party-endorsed candidate Tom Horner.

Jacobs says for the sole Republican candidate to have only two-thirds of party members backing him is extraordinary, and not good news for Emmer.

“Emmer, perhaps because he’s too conservative, is struggling at the outset to rally and unite Republicans,” Jacobs said. “Now, there’s a lot of time to campaign and Emmer, unlike other Republicans who’ve run for governor, is really a new name for many Minnesota voters, so we’ll have to see how that develops. But at this point, the [result] is a red flag.”

Emmer faced a similar hurdle winning the endorsement.  And let’s never forget that he’s alreadty facing the Twin Cities’ media’s usual slur of anyone running to the right of Arne Carlson, the “Too Extreme” meme that the media is doing its duty to help spread (along with a fair chunk of the media’s concerted effort to paint Tom Horner as Republican enough to soak up votes).  Horner eats up 10% in the poll, although the IP is always overepresented in these polls (or has been since 1998, anyway).

But outside the 35% of Minnesotans who will never ever ever vote for a Republican of any sort, there are three dynamics at work:

First:  When people meet Tom Emmer, they stand a good chance of becoming converted.

Second:  When people meet Mark Dayton, they stand a fair chance of falling asleep.

Third:  The media will be doing its best (and the DFL’s bidding) to keep voters from doing either 1 or 2.

I took a look at the “Independence” Ventura Party’s “Principles” page yesterday.

On the one hand, it’s a well-written statement, not far removed from the output of this effort within the GOP.

But I thought this bit here was interesting:

We are what we are and we don’t pretend to be something we are not. Our word is good and we are accountable for the promises we make. In our personal actions and party affairs, we seek to exemplify the same fair, open, and democratic processes we advocate for our government. Before we evaluate others in the light of our principles, we stand first in the light ourselves.

Wow.  Excellent!

So how’s about we have Tom Horner “stand in the light” and release his client list from his years as a political consultant?

So we can see the various causes he’s championed in his years as a wonk consultant.

So the people of Minnesota can perhaps judge for themselves if the media are lying to them about him being a “Republican” in any sense that the term should mean.

Go toward the light, Tom.

There’s an old Soviet-era joke that I remember from when I was a kid.  A Soviet radio station in Minsk was broadcasting a talk show.  The host said “Minsk is the most beautiful city in all of the Soviet Union”.  

A caller rang in, and asked “what do you think of the story that the Americans will be targeting nuclear weapons at all of our biggest, most important cities?”

The host immediately chimed in saying “Smolensk is the most beautiful city on all of the Soviet Union!”.

Two years ago, when the DFL ran former sergeant Steve Sarvi against (retired Marine colonel) John Kline in CD2, and former Marine lawyer Ashwin Madia against Erik Paulsen in CD3, military service was high on the DFL’s list of qualifications.  Very, very high, in fact.

This past year – especially with former Navy fighter pilot Dan Severson running on the GOP slate for Secretary of State, and former Navy helicopter pilot Chip Cravaack running against Jim Oberstar in CD8, that particular meme has disappeared from all DFL chanting.

But I have a hunch it’s going to disappear a lot more:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Connecticut finds Blumenthal with just a three-point advantage over Linda McMahon, 48% to 45%. Two weeks ago, he led the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment by 13 percentage points. The New York Times story broke late Monday; the survey was taken Tuesday evening.

Blumenthal is the anointed replacement for Christopher Dodd in Connecticut.  The NYTimes ran a story busting him saying he’d been in Vietnam when he had not.

To be fair, he spent the last years of the Vietnam War in a Marine Reserve unit in DC.

To be even more fair, isn’t that the kind of thing that the left raked George W. Bush and Dan Quayle over for?

I got the strangest sensation last week.  I haven’t had this sensation in the longest time.  Maybe a brief flash in 2000, but it wasn’t quite the same thing.

The DFL realizes that they’ve got nothing.

The Strib referenced Ben Smith in Politico this morning, saying that…:

Pawlenty appears to have run the table on the Democratic majorities in both of the houses of the legislature, forcing them to drop plans for new surcharges and scrap their top priority, an expansion of federal and state-funded health care for some of the state’s poor. They also enacted spending cuts that a court recently ruled Pawlenty could not make himself.

He will complete his two-term tenure at the end of this year having fulfilled his pledge not to raise taxes, with his approval ratings in positive territory, and having largely avoided the pragmatic compromises that often bedevil governors in polarized party primaries. His success gives him the accomplishments to match his conservative rhetoric, and set a high bar for other ambitious governors facing budget crises of their own in this lean year.

“We have some pretty clear values and principles in mind that we adhere to and when it relates to those core values and principles we don’t compromise on,” Pawlenty told POLITICO in an interview Monday after what he said was two hours of sleep on each of the two previous nights. “When it comes to issues around the role of government taxes and amounts of spending and other things, those are core values and principles by which we set our compass, and we stay strongly on that course and we battle.”

It’s a good piece.  You should read the whole thing. 

Perhaps the crux is right here; Pawlenty seems to have aversion-trained the DFL:

“Democrats have always known that a tax increase means a veto. As a result, there has been a grudging acceptance among Democrats that any package negotiated with the governor will not include tax increases,” Nelson said.

And this put the last piece into the (possibly completely-spurious) puzzle.  Maybe it’s just me, of course – but over the course of the past few weeks, it feels as if the Minnesota DFL has run out of gas.  They seem tired, like a boxer that’s gone a few rounds too many – as, in the legislature, they have, squandering four straight legislatures of prohibitive majorities but getting turned back by Governor Pawlenty at every juncture.

And if you’re a DFLer, after having beaten your head against a wall for four different sessions, culminating in agreeing to spending cuts that the Minnesota Supreme Court had just sent back from unallotment – snatchign political defeat from the jaws of a dubious legal victory – what do you have to look forward to?

A summer duking it out in a primary between a failed Speaker of the House, a former Senator that’s a laughingstock of the entire nation, and a former State senator who’s a pariah in his own party (not to mention Tom Horner who, ostensible former affiliations aside, is a moderate Democrat in policy terms, and who will draw away many, many more DFL than GOP votes). 

And when you pick from among those three deeply-uninspiring choices, you’ll stepping out into a hurricane; a GOP candidate not only at the head of an energized party out for four years of payback, but well-sited to bring in a huge chunk of the “Tea Party” vote.

It’s showing in a lot of ways; the DFL is skulking quietly away from the debris of the budget session tossing a few pro forma “Cold Omahas” and “we deserve betters” around; their big response to the Emmer campaign so far is to chant that he’s an extremist and to avoid any actual discussion comparing policy like a vampire avoiding sunlight.

Politics is cyclical; being a Democrat today must feel a bit like being a Republican (as distinct from a conservative) in, say, 2006; out of energy, out of ideas, needing a huge intellectual jumpstart.  Oh, they’ll pull something together for the campaign, but you can practically feel the fatigue.

 It won’t last forever, of course.

Not that we can’t try.

The media has been breathlessly trying to set up Tom Horner as a “non-extreme” Republican alternative to Tom Emmer.  For some, it’s a matter of conflating “Republican” and “Conservative”.  For others, it’s a simple desire to spoof the GOP for the DFL’s beneift.

But the more you look at Horner’s political record – which, let’s make sure we’re clear on this, is entirely as a political consultant, as opposed to “an elected official or representative” – the more you realize that Horner’s entire career is built on making government bigger.

This blog, and many other Minnesota conservative bloggers, will be going over the Horner record in coming weeks.

The upshot?  It’s looking pretty likely that Tom Horner will make a good, smallER government alternative to the DFL – but no Republican to the right of Ron Erhardt in his or her right mind should look at Horner as anything but “DFL Lite”.

You’ve no doubt heard; Larry Haws is retiring from the Minnesota House:

Because you’re a friend and supporter, I wanted you to know first about my decision to not seek re-election. Five years ago I offered myself as a candidate for public office in Minnesota out of a deep sense of appreciation of the issues important to the people of District 15B.

Our friend and my radio colleague King Banaian is the GOP endorsed candidate for the House in 15B.  Running for an open seat is easier under any circumstances; with the current anti-incumbent, anti-tax-and-spending tailwind, King’s gotta be feeling pretty good about his chances today.

Which doesn’t mean all you Saint Cloud Republicans shouldn’t be turning out in huge numbers to help; it’d be great to be able to not just win, but obliterate the DFL.

Thank you so very much for wasteing an hour of taxpayer time by convening the House a solid hour late this afternoon.

The taxpayers’ loss was the NARN’s gain.

If you believe the Dem’s current chanting points on the subject, you’d think that Tom Emmer had spent the last year at Sandals. 

Of course, when they say this they are seemingly oblivious of then-Senator Obama’s 300 missed Senate votes during his presidential campaign (documented all over the place).

Don’t they think people remember this?

But even more interestingly – its seems his endorsed opponent so far, Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson-Kelliher, has not only missed 51 votes this session, but – according to a source at the Capitol, “Al Junhke was voting from the speaker’s chair for Speaker Kelliher all afternoon – she was not even in the chamber”.  Word has it there’ll be photos of Rep. Juhnke leading the House, which is I’m sure exactly what Rep. Kelliher’s constituents wanted.

Another capitol GOP source notes ” Tom (Emmer) actually missed a vote this afternoon because he got held up in the hallway talking to MPR about missing votes. True story! This is getting ridiculous.”

It is indeed.

Eric “Big E” Pusey of the Minnesota “Progressive” Project has the wonks disease, and he’s got it bad.

He’s all atwitter about the current bit of conventional wisdom – that Tom Horner of the Ventura “Independence” Party is going to soak enough votes away from Emmer to tip the election.

Yesterday, the Independence Party nominated former Republican Tom Horner as their MN-GOV candidate. Horner’s entrance into this race makes it far more likely that a DFLer will win in November.

But for Jesse Ventura, the “Indpendence” party – which has its roots in Ross Perot’s “Reform” Party, although Ventura pretty well roto-rooted any Perot connection when he took over the Minnesota chapter – has been nothing but a spoiler, with varying success.  It’s likely Tim Penny soaked away the votes that might have put Roger Moe in office eight years ago; for that, we owe Penny our thanks.  The brittle, petulant Dean Barkley likely made the Franken/Coleman race as close as it was. 

And…:

In 2006, Peter Hutchinson won the IP endorsement and split the moderates with liberal tendencies away from DFLer Mike Hatch, but Horner will have little appeal to these voters. No, Horner will be peeling away moderate conservatives who cannot stomach Tom Emmer’s far right agenda.

That depends on a couple of big “ifs”.

First, Horner (and the DFL wonks that will be providing most of his PR “oomph”, to the extent that he has any) will have to convince “moderate Republicans” that Emmer is “far right”.  He’s not.  He states a pretty solid meat and potatoes pro-growth case;  he’s not even campaigning on social issues at all, except by example.

Horner will have to convince people in a very Reagan-y year to vote for another Arne Carlson. 

And he’ll have to do it with very little money. Although the IP has managed to maintain its grip on major-party status by the barest of margins (with attendant waste of state campaign funds going to their little vanity exercise), that’s about it.  There’s no big push for Horner anywhere (but the DFL); there’s no “Hornmentum”.

This also makes the road for Margaret Anderson-Kelliher easier if she ends up winning the August DFL primary.  Instead of needing to make sure a moderate candidate with liberal tendencies (like Hutchinson) doesn’t peel away her voters, she needs to focus on higher turnout in key DFL areas.

While in the meantime Emmer builds up votes on his home turf – the “Key MNGOP areas of everywhere but Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Duluth” – and Horner builds up his home turf…

…oh, wait.  He has none. 

Let’s get serious here.  Any “moderate” “Republican” who is wobbly on Emmer (and we’re not talking Seifert people, here; we’re talking the party’s less-and-less consequential Arne Carlson/Dave Durenberger wing) is probably every big as fair game for a DFLer to pick off as the underfunded, under-charisma’d, under-interesting Horner.

But we’ll see, soon enough.

Suffice to say that if Emmer wins, I’m going to have a huge “conventional wisdom” bonfire this November.

UPDATE:  The more I think about this, the more wrong Pusey’s “conventional wisdom” seems. 

Kelliher, Dayton and Entenza are all farther to the left than Emmer is, especially when you consider that the “Center” has displaced to the right since 2008.  I think it’s distinctly possible that Horner could leach more votes from the DFL. 

That is, of course, based on a couple of assumptions:

1. Emmer continues to run his current cool, calm, collected campaign.  I believe that the wave of provocations – the ugly racist heckling at the May Day and Cinco De Mayo parades, Kelliher’s alleged chanting “KKK Go Away”, and so on – are attempts to try to break Emmer’s cool, to try get him to lose his purported short temper.   It’s not going to work; Seifert’s people tried and failed to get him off the high road, it’s for damn sure the DFL can’t. 
2. The DFL nominates a DFLer.

I am not a betting man – but if I were, I’d say we have another log of conventional wisdom for the bonfire.

The Tom Emmer campaign has been aggressively pushing itself into places where, the conventional wisdom says, Republicans just don’t go.  Right after the MNGOP convention, Emmer paraded at the Longfellow May Day parade, promting all manor of victorian vapours among the lefty pundits who have, for some reason, stopped being big champions of the First Amendment since Barack Obama took office.

Last weekend it was the Cinco De Mayo parade, on Saint Paul’s West Side.  The Bill Jungbauer campaign blog  observed some intensely bigoted behavior…:

Another event that was totally outrageous occurred when we passed the dfl booth. About fifteen people stood in front of the booth in the street and chanted loudly in our faces, “KKK go away.”

And an interesting VIP (emphasis added):

Among the crowd was none other than Margaret Anderson-Kelliher, the endorsed democratic candidate for governor. The fascist, tax and spend feminazi was the ring leader amongst her merry band of liberals. So, rather than everyone sharing in our right to free speech and expression, these leftists, led by MAK, chose to disrupt and disturb us and those around us. The wonderful people of the community who only wanted to enjoy their celebration stood in witness to MAK and the democrats leftist hatred, exposing to us all their true fascist tendencies.

I don’t like bandying the “F” word around pointlessly – and I personally would like some third-party verification – but if a candidate herself gathers a pack of supporters, not to question or counterdemonstrate, but to heckle her opponent with defamatory ad-hominem, it’s not all that far off the beam.

What do you Democrats have to say about your endorsed candidate engaging in that kind of behavior?

Isn’t this the “angry” “provocation” that you are all mewling about the GOP doing (without, as always, providing any examples)?

UPDATE:  We may have video on the way shortly.  Stay tuned.

I really dislike political black-bag tricks.  I have little patience for oppo research, and don’t care much for the kind of political pranks that keep politics geeks giggling into the hours.

If there’s one thing I like less, it’s ofay, lie-clogged false-flag sites.  Like “Tom Emmer’s Minnesota”. 

I’m not going to link it here; I’m going to ask you to Google “Emmer For Governor” (I’ve helpfully done it for you here).

If you see, as I do, a “sponsored link” to “Tom Emmer’s Minnesota” at the top of the page, do us a favor and click it.

Don’t read it or anything – or read it knowing that every word on the site is bullshirt (as I’m showing, point by point, in my “Chanting Points Memo” project). 

But whomever put the site out is paying for every person who clicks on the site. 

And every dollar they spend getting people to click in is a dollar they can’t spend on anything useful.

…because “it’s all in your head that anyone outside of a couple of whackdoodle leftybloggers calls Tom Emmer extreme!  Why, the fact that you bring it up implies some sort of mental condition on your part!”

Yeah, I guess he’s right.  And anyway, my place is not to question my media/DFL overlords (ptr), is it?

HD25 Representative Laura Brod is retiring after eight years in the Legislature:

With your support and encouragement, I focused my efforts on the issues that impacted our daily lives. My efforts were directed to policies that I believed fostered an economic climate that was conducive to job creation and economic growth. I fought against excessive regulations that choke investment in our state and undermine the innovation and creativity of our private sector to generate the type of economic climate we need and demand.

Without your support, I could not have enjoyed the opportunity and the honor to serve that I have had for the past 8 years.

My belief has always been that we are a state that values a citizen legislature, and that there comes a time for other citizens to serve their community.

It is my belief that the time for others to serve in the Legislature for our district has come, and my time to find other challenges and ways to contribute is upon me.

It is in that spirit I announce that I will not be a candidate for re-election in 2010 for the State Legislature in District 25A.

There is a real change going on right now across the country. Finally, perhaps for the first time in thirty years, government is once again hearing from “We the People.”

Well, that’s a drag; Brod has been leadership material in the House’s conservative caucus, and that caucus is sure to be both growing and needing leaders in the next session.

But all the best, Laura!  And thanks for you service!

From the Dictionary In The Dark:

Chanting Point:  (Noun)  Similar to a “talking point”, but intended to be recited by rote (often as part of large real or virtual crowds) rather than critically analyzed.

The DFL response to Tom Emmer has largely consisted of what I’ve christened “chanting points”; bits of rhetoric that may or may not contain a grain of “truthiness”, but aren’t designed so much for substantial policy discussions as they are to be chanted by crowds, either in person or online.

The term occurred to me last summer at the Minnesota State Fair.  Ed and I were sitting on our stage, right across from the DFL booth, talking about the ongoing negotations that led to Obamacare, eventually.   A compact fiftysomething woman in a full Frankenware ensemble strutted to the middle of the audience area, folded her arms, and started shaking her head back and forth.

“Would you care to discuss this?” I asked her, getting ready to take the mobile microphone and hike out into the audience.

She took a deep breath as I stood up, and yelled “PUBLIC OPTION NOW!  PUBLIC OPTION NOW! PUBLIC OPTION NOW!”.  She then turned on her heels and scampered away as fast as her busy little legs could carry her.

Ed and I compared notes during the break; that was about as close to a substantive argument that most Minnesota DFLers came then, and now.  Words designed to be bellowed over ones’ competition.

Chanting points.

The political marketplace is getting clogged with the chanting points of the left.

And I’m going to tackle them.  And so can you.

Follow along in the “Chanting Points Memo” category.  Pass ’em around.  Learn ’em.  It’s gonna be a long campaign.

I sat about four rows behind Lori Sturdevant in the press pit on Friday.

Now, I’m a gregarious guy.  I took the liberty of introducing myself to MPR’s Tom Scheck (a lot younger than he sounds), the PiPress’ Bill Salisbury (memes about liberal press aside, he’s one of the greats) and WCCO-TV’s Pat Kessler (a charming guy).

But Lori’s body language was pretty emphatic.  She sat in the front row of the press pit, in her trademark scarf (Eric Eskola didn’t even have his with him) and Margaret Thatcher coif…

…and I don’t believe I saw her turn her head once.  The computer, the stage…and that was it.  That was her field of view, near as I could tell.

So between that, and the fact that there’s no figure in the Twin Cities media that I’ve spent more time criticizing than her in the past eight years save her papermate Nick Coleman, and I figured I’d stay in the back of the pit with the other bloggers.

In a sense, fisking her post-MNGOP Convention column was almost pointless;  the eight writers in the contest I’m running to parody the column pretty much caught it all; she renders the DFL’s chanting points so thoroughly that you can almost hear Darth Vader’s “Imperial March” in the background as she describes Emmer’s victory.

I’ll be adding bits and pieces of emphasis to the Strib column.

State Rep. Tom Emmer sold himself to Minnesota Republicans as a candidate who is “not a politician as usual.” At a convention infused with Tea Party revulsion about government spending, that evidently sounded gubernatorial.

I almost titled this column “Our Pauline Kael”.

Yes, he “evidently” sounded gubernatorial enough to convince the GOP to make a go of it.  Go figure.

Emmer, a trial lawyer/legislator from Delano, won an endorsement Friday that appears to assure him of the Republican spot on the Nov. 2 ballot to succeed Tim Pawlenty as governor. That’s so despite the fact that he may be the most conservative candidate endorsed for governor by a major Minnesota party since “Tightwad Ted” Christianson in the Roaring Twenties.

Ever tone-deaf to points of view outside the clubby confines of the media/DFL (pardon the redundancy), Sturdevant misses the point for the first of many, many times in this column.  Emmer won because he is conservative.  Emmer and Seifert got to the final round because they reflect how the MNGOP, and a good chunk of Minnesota, feels.

The piece’s comedic moneyshot is next:

No moderate Republican is girding up to take on Emmer in the Aug. 10 primary. The GOP of 2010 isn’t Star Tribune reporter Rachel Stassen-Berger’s Grandpa Harold’s party — far from it.

Right.

And, amazingly, enough, no “moderate” Democrat is getting lubed up to take on Kelliher, Dayton or Entenza; the DFL/media (ptr) have their choice of left, lefter and leftest.

Why, one might say the DFL “isn’t the party of Lori Studevant’s father/grandfather”, the one that supported the hawkish tax-cutter JFK, to say nothing of the one that cuddled up to Josef Stalin in the thirties and forties – or the Democratic Party of their parents, the party of Jim Crows.

One might say that – if one were not that bright.  Parties change. And all the DFL/media (ptr) clubbiness in the world doesn’t change that!

The GOP changed; Reagan changed the national GOP thirty years ago; that same change is finally happening here.  Like it or don’t, but quit pining for the intellectual fjords; the liberal Arne Carlson/Harold Stassen is one dead parrot.

What counted with those Tea-stained delegates, it seemed, was that Emmer appeared to be the stauncher conservative.

It takes decades of keen-eyed journalistic experience to note the bleeding obvious.

And it takes decades of careful towing of the DFL/media (ptr) line to look at the convention’s results through utterly DFL-colored glasses as Sturdevant does:

Seifert, a legislator since age 24, struck delegates as a career politician. In the vernacular of the 2010 GOP, that’s not a compliment.

Legislative skills aren’t much valued, either. Seifert got little credit among delegates for holding his caucus together on tough veto override votes in 2007 and 2009 — an achievement that greatly strengthened Pawlenty’s hand as governor.

He got credit for it.  Here’s the thing Sturdevant, with all her vaunted experience, missed; there was no evidence of a vote against Seifert among the Emmer crowd; his chops as a legislator are legendary; the MNGOP will do well to get him back into office, hopefully Congress, soon.

But Minnesota, and the MNGOP, want someone with an executive vision.  We’ve had eight years of leadership by a legislator – and Tim Pawlenty has done a great job (to Sturdevant’s eternal and obvious chagrin).   We’re in a time when a big, executive vision counts for a lot.

Sturdevant actually catches that, sort of – although she trivializes it:

The personal qualities euphemistically called “style” mattered more on Friday, and scored in Emmer’s favor. He came across as the affable hockey player he once was for the University of Alaska; Seifert seemed like the studious kid who was always in the library.

I excised a lot of the DFL chanting points from my fisk – but this was too rich to miss:

In coming weeks, Emmer will have to answer for a good deal more. He espouses the idea that government can abandon a big share of the public work it’s shouldered through the decades without damaging this state. That’s a notion that must be considered faith-based, since little evidence backs it up.

Because Minnesota has never tried.  Even after eight years of Pawlenty’s responsible leadership, the DFL/media (ptr) still think that everyone in the state should pay for everything in the state – the immense money-laundering scam that is Local Govermment Aid.

Emmer – and Seifert – want government to be accountable at all levels, rather than playing a fiscal shell game by laundering spending through the state.  It’s a huge winner among conservative circles; if the MNGOP can convince the people of Minnesota to wean themselves from the state’s bread and circuses, it could be a huge change in shining a light on the roaches that hide in the nooks and crannies of the system.

Bess Folsom, a Campus Republican from Gustavus Adolphus, attended her first MNGOP convention this past weekend.  She wrote as good a report of the climactic moment – Marty Seifert’s dramatic, aggressively-conciliatory concession –  as anyone in  this piece on her experiences at the event:

Two ballots, hundreds of handshakes, multiple cups of coffee, and one epic parade of “Seifert v. Emmer” enthusiasts later the delegation was getting ready to start a third ballot. With Emmer in the lead and the Seifert supporters standing firm, we were all prepared for a long night. Suddenly Marty came running to the stage and energetically grabbed the mic. It was then he announced that he wanted to throw his support behind Tom Emmer to elect Tom as the next governor of Minnesota. The Emmer crowd went crazy and the Seifert supporters looked like they’d seen a ghost.

Marty instructed his supporters to take off their Seifert stickers and slap on some Emmer ones. He was passionate as he urged the delegation to unanimously endorse Tome Emmer. And so it was done.

Tom came bouncing to the stage and embraced Marty. Balloons were falling down as the Emmer clan surrounded the two men, all grinning and happy stage one of the fight was over. It was a quintessential scene of unity. As corny as it sounds, I actually had goosebumps.

I was talking with Michael Brodkorb – deputy party chair and my former co-host on the Northern Alliance – as we were walking to the afterparty .  The final scene was spontaneous, of course – when Marty Seifert’s vote totals dropped rather than rose on the second ballot, he clearly knew that it was time to wrap it up.  He had the option of stalking away petulantly, of course (not that he would have), but he instead chose to make it a dramatic unifying event.

But it almost looked choreographed; it was so perfectly timed.  People were casting their third ballots; many had been glued to their seats since 9AM, and there’d been no lunch break, and suddenly at the crack of 5PM, just in time for the evening news and a well-earned dinner, we had this rousing outburst of class, unity and reconciliation?

Of course, if you’ve seen political parties trying to choerograph anything, you’d know how far-fetched that was.

Anyway, it was a great convention – and, I have to hope, a clear signal to Minnesota, coming after the snarky and indecisive DFL gathering in Duluth…was it really only a week earlier?

It was a great convention.  I’ve been to three State conventions, now, and this was by far the best.  Tony Sutton and Michael Brodkorb and the whole staff should feel proud of their efforts; while there will always be complaints (and I’ll be registering at least one of them), it was a smooth, open and participatory a political convention as I’ve ever seen.

As the Minnesota GOP congratulates Tom Emmer for his victory at the convention over the weekend, I thought it’d be fun to take a trip in the wayback machine to visit the keen-eyed analysis visited upon the GOP race by those keen-eyed monitors of the conservative psyche at MNPublius a week ago today (with emphasis added):

Immediately after Margaret Anderson Kelliher’s endorsement by the DFL, the Republican party and Marty Seifert’s campaign engaged in the time-honored ritual of issuing boilerplate press releases attacking her. Neither press release was particularly notable, as is always the case. What was notable, though, was that Tom Emmer’s campaign didn’t bother. The exercise probably took the Seifert campaign all of two minutes. It makes me wonder: Is the Emmer campaign giving up on the gubernatorial race?

Emmer, who has long been the underdog in the Republican race, has been the target of several nasty attacks from the Seifert campaign. Have they shaken his will to continue in this race to the point that his campaign won’t spend two minutes to put together a boilerplate statement on MAK’s endorsement? It would be a shame if Seifert was able to push Emmer out of the race by resorting to personal attacks.

Good call, Jeff Rosenberg!

Can’t wait to see your call on the general!

No, I’m going to speculate that there were two reasons for this:

1. Emmer didn’t do smears.  He didn’t counter-smear during the campaign, when his ancient DUI issues raised a brief kerfuffle.
2. And in fact he won’t need to.  Because Kelliher is a sideshow.  She’ll have no significant money to work with for the next four months, as the DFL establishment engages in fratricide leading up to the August primary; even in the unlikely event that she survives the primary, who cares?  She’s about the most unexiting choice for governor this state has ever had.  Margaret Anderson-Kelliher’s week-old candidacy is already in a coma, barely getting traction even against Dayton and Entenza, much less the rest of the state.  Why would Emmer waste the time it took to even mention her endorsement?

Back to MNPublius:

Or perhaps I’m reading this all wrong, and they just haven’t gotten to it yet. Looking at their press release page, Emmer’s campaign has never released a single press release on a weekend. Maybe their campaign only works from 9 to 5 on weekdays, and they’ll get to it today. If that’s the case, then they don’t really deserve to win.

Which says more about the lefty alt-media’s addiction to “West Wing”-style drama than the merits of the Emmer campaign.  And may be a bit about Emmer’s priorities; after the Unity Breakfast Saturday morning, when many candidates would be hitting the road to start the grind, and as DFL policy-wonk wannabees were sitting in Hell’s Kitchen trying to get a better deal on placard-printing on a Saturday?  Emmer was at his kid’s first communion.

Maybe MNPublius will interpret that as a sign of resignation, I dunno.  I think it shows who’s in control at this point.

I peeled this bit out of my liveblog, since I think it’s worth a discussion on its own.

One of the tempests in the teapot last night; a group of “liberty” members of the party were tweeting merrily away that Norm Coleman and that noted moderate Vin Weber were making phone calls on behalf of Tom Emmer.  Now, among the purist/libertarian wing of the party, Norm (and Pawlenty, for that matter) are anathema, because they’re just not pure enough.

Of course, absolute purism and fifty cents will get you a cup of coffee; politics means compromise.  Did Norm and Governor Pawlenty always make the right compromises?  Perhaps not – but you have to be in office to be have an imperfect record.

But here’s a question I’d like to ask (if only rhetorically) to the “Emmer’s a RINO because Norm’s calling for him crowd”; which of Norm’s objectionable policies do you believe Emmer subscribes to, merley because Norm is making calls on his behalf?

Or is this just the most ofay attempt at guilt by association – policy by association, really – that I’ve ever seen?

Feel free to leave an answer in the comments.

4:58 – Seifert announced his retirement.  I say he runs for CD7 if Byberg doesn’t win.  I think it’s a swell idea.

4:55 – I was back on the floor casting my ballot when Seifert conceded.  Incredible class act.

Emmer is on stage now – it took me that long to get back to the press pit.

He’s speaking now. Great acceptance.

Only real question – how many “angry white male” references will the press and leftyblogs snif about?

4:40 – Results in:

• One “No Endorsement”
• Three Undecided
• 22 Blank
• Seifert – 876 (43.8%)
• Emmer – 1118 (56%)

Needs 1199 to endorse.  Seating for third ballot.  Back in a flash.

4:33 – Second ballot results coming out – after Carol Molnau!

4:21 – Still waiting.  Whip count says Emmer up 2-3 votes in CD4.  We’ll see.

3:35 – Change in the report d/t computation error:  Emmer 52.6, Seifert 42.5 is the new official count.

Next ballot now.  Heading to the floor.

3:00 – First ballot results are final:  53-43 Emmer. Herwig, Haas and Davis are off the ballot (none got more than percent, by my count).    Emmer is currently 126 votes shy of the endorsement.  Fifteen minutes til the next ballot.  Bill Haas is coming back to the stage.

Haas has, as I (verbally) predicted, tossed his votes to Seifert.  All 26 of them.

Now Leslie Davis – with six votes – is on stage.  “Rivvizend stakely cash more excusiwavbay.  Yatukka wiveabengay, extortinga file cuz he cknows I’m here”.  No endorsement.

Herwig up next:  Throws his votes, also, to Seifert.  36 of them.

2:56 – Reading results.  Seifert just topped 40% as we plod thorugh the Eighth district – so we’ll definitely have a second ballot.

2:47 – They’re still reading results.  We’ve been through CDs 1,2,4,5 and 6; Emmer is up by a bit, but the 7 and 8 should  both be strong for Seifer.

2:29 – I just got back off the floor, after the usual irritating rules squabbles.  They’re reporting votes a BPOU at a time.

SITD SCOOP

Scoop here:  CD4 hasn’t reported yet, but Emmer took the 4th by 89 to 60 out of 152 allowed ballots.  That’s a better ratio than he had at the CD4 convention.

1:27 – I’m told Davis said if he’s not endorsed, we face “unparalleled misery”.  Let’s just say he’s not got the crowd wrapped around his finger.

1:17 – I’m sorry – it’s actually Leslie Davis.

1:16 – Michael Savage is onstage now.  He’s not close enough to the mike.  First Ringer; “someone didn’t take their non-drowsy pill”.  Hard to hear him.

:14 – Bill C, out on the floor, says it looks like Emmer 3:2.  Chad the Elder says he figured 60-40.  Mark Buesgens says three ballots – but then that’s his job as a campaign leader.

1:10 – Leo Pusatieri tweets “Larry Haas makes Phil Herwig look absolutely dynamic”.  Sad to say, it’s true.

12;56 – Haas on stage now.  Alone.  No organization.  Halting speech.  Gotta be tough to follow Emmer and Seifert’s shows…

Chad the Elder wonders “what makes someone carry on a campaign like this?  No chance, no support…is it ego?  Or what?”  I note that Haas has an actual track record of implementing conservative principles in government.  First Ringer – “He’s the credible fringe candidate”.

12:55 – Larry Colson says the Emmer floor demonstration says crowd feels like 55-45 Emmer.  Floor demo passion looked way in Emmer’s favor.

12:52 – Emmer floor demonstration carrying on.  I’m gonna say it looks like Tom has a slight edge.

12:50 – Emmer shoots fireworks as he leaves stage.  Good thing they didn’t play “Once Bitten Twice Shy”.

12:49 – “Say yes to lower taxes, to leave more money in the pockets of people who earn it!”

12:45 – Shouting out to Annette Meeks – “She literally wrote the book on conservative government”.

12:44 – Emmer talking now.  Kevin Ecker thinks crowd looks 55-45 Emmer.  We’ll know soon enough.

12:32:  Seifert left stage with his mass of supporters.  Emmer video running now.  Or is it Leslie Davis? No, it’s Emmer.  Trying to count the duelling crowds is difficult.

Emmer hitting on the family thing – seven kids.

Hitting on principles.

First Ringer has joined me on bloggers row.  “Vote for Emmer or the kids get it”.

Video ends with tagline – “now’s the time to be done with politicians as usual.

Brian Sullivan on stage to give the nomination.

12:15 – Browser crashes hard jus tin time for Phil Krinkie to introuce Marty Seifert.  Marty on stage now.  His organizaiton is showing, for better (boots on floor) and worse (all those frankly dumb hit pieces).   He’s hittting his rural roots hard.  Not sure if that’s a big winning tack in a year with statewide issues uniting us all.  We shall see.

12:05 -And still talking.

11:55 – Snuck away to a standup with Michele Bachmann.  She is studiously avoiding endorsing anyone.

11:45 – Phil Herwig is talking.

11:44 – Rumor has it that someone “really big” is going to introduce Emmer.  Rumor is passing around that there’ a “higher degree of security” than for, say, a congressperson.  There’s talk of Palin, but nothing is confirmed.  Pure rumor mill.

11:34 – Kolls – “Anyone ready to endorse a governor?”  Huge round of applause. Hopes up…

…but all we get is a credentials report.  Still – almost time to head back to the floor to vote.

11:05 – Governor Pawlenty is on stage now.  “Fortunate Son” is the song.  I’m waiting for some leftyblogger to mewl about the “irony” of it, understanding neither the term nor the song…

He opens by thanking the First Lady.  Drew a huge round of applause.

“Ironic that we’re meeting here just a few weeks after “tax day” – or as Democrats call it, “Christmas”.  Hammering on Dems’ spending mania.   “Bailouts – 700 billion.  Increase in deficit – 2 trillion.  Republicans elected in November – priceless”.

Notes that he’s the only governor in the US to sign concealed carry…twice.  “More people have been killed by the Hiawatha Light Rail line than concealed carry!”

Good speech to a friendly crowd; his last as governor, as he noted.

10:48 – Chip Cravaack – endorsed candidate in CD8 – talks.  He’s a former Navy helo pilot.  Dan Severson is a former F18 pilot.  Funny how the Dems have shut up about how important it was that Republicans serve in the military than in 2008, when Steve Sarvi and Ashwin Madia’s service was a dispositive sign of incontestible virtue.

10:35 – I’m back in the Press Pit.  I plan on dividing my time pretty widely about the place today; I’ll be doing some media, blogging, and occasionally sprinting back to 66B to vote – whenever we get around to it.

I had the pleasure of meeting Rep. Mark Buesgens in the walkway between the Party platform and the Press Pit.  Had a great chat with him; he’s an occasional SITD reader (thanks, Mark!), and he notes that bloggers play a vital role; “peole have been getting dumbed down for too long; blogs make people think!”.  I’m flattered.

…in time to seem Michele Bachmann go to the podium as “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” played on the PA.

She has the crowd, naturally, wrapped around her finger.

I’m in the Press Pit again, although I expect to be commuting over to 66B to vote not a few times today.  Craig Westover, Brad Carlson, Kevin Ecker, Luke Hellier and occasionally Derek Brigham are here.  I’m told Lassie is out on the floor, along with King Banaian, Chad the Elder and Matt Abe among others are out on the floor.  I know quite a few people are tweeting if they’re not blogging.

Liveblogging to ensue shortly.