The “MN Future” PAC has entered the gubernatorial ad fray:

MDE’s Luke Hellier takes apart Dayton’s response to the ad.

It’s…interesting.

Alaska’s cold war heads to a boiling finish.

The 2.4 miles that separate the island of Big Diomede and Little Diomede use to be among the most tension-filled in not only Alaska but the world. With Big Diomede part of Russian territory and Little Diomede part of the United States, the small space between Bering Strait islands was called the “Ice Curtain” and one of the frigid locations of the Cold War.

In the wake of Tuesday’s Senate primary, the Diomede Islands may need a new nickname.

The Murkowski/Palin spat, always tense since Palin’s upset victory over then-Governor Frank Murkowski in the 2006 Republican primary, didn’t seem like it could develop into any more of a blood feud short of Lisa Murkowski planting a Fredoesque kiss on the former VP nominee. But despite holding a nearly $1.6 million cash on hand advantage and a seemingly insurmountable polling lead, Sen. Lisa Murkowski has seen herself driven from the Republican nomination, possibly Washington, and probably the GOP. In the process, what was suppose to be a campaign as desolate in terms of interest as Alaska’s frozen tundra has turned into the punditry’s race du jour.

The Palin proxy for this would-be Alaskan dynastic rematch, Joe Miller, has already won the battle of expectations. The closet any poll got to Tuesday’s actual result was an Anchorage Daily News poll that still put the Tea Party favorite 11 points behind. And Miller could still lose as thousands of absentee ballots are left to be counted, to say nothing of a likely recount – which the NRSC appears already to be planning for as it sends lawyers north for Murkowski.

Despite such advantages of incumbency, the math remains firmly in Miller’s favor:

5801 absentee ballots were mailed out to Alaskans requesting the Republican absentee ballot….

In order to win the Republican Senate primary a candidate must have at least 49,094 votes (50% plus 1).

Joe Miller currently has 47,027 votes. He needs 2067 out of the available 5801 (36%) possible absentee votes to win.

Lisa Murkowski currently has 45359 votes. She needs 3735 out of the available 5801 (64%) possible absentee votes to win.

The math could look much better – if Murkowski ran as a third-party candidate. Even as the NRSC attempts to salvage Murkowski’s primary campaign, Murkowski is at least privately flirting with continuing her re-election effort under another party’s banner. This isn’t exactly a Joe Lieberman scenario. While Lieberman availed himself of Connecticut’s odd ballot access laws to file as an independent merely days after losing the Democrat primary, Murkowski would have to convince another party’s nominee to step aside and be nominated in their place.

The precedent has already been set in Alaskan political history. Former Republican Governor Wally Hickel lost the 1990 primary only to win the general election as the Alaskan Independence Party’s candidate. Unfortunately for Murkowski, the precedent isn’t quite precise for her. Hickel, a Governor in the 1960s and Secretary of the Interior under Nixon, was most certainly the more conservative candidate in his 1990 primary defeat. In contrast, Murkowski’s abortion record and last minute commentary in opposition to repealing Obamacare (see below) put her firmly in the moderate camp and squarely at odds with Alaskan conservatives.

If Murkowski does make a third-party bid, the welcome mat has already been extended by the state’s Libertarian Party. While ideologically speaking Murkowski and the Libertarians have about as much in common as Herve Villechaize and Manute Bol, a marriage of political convenience would spare Murkowski the baggage of the secessionist AIP (although it didn’t stop Hickel) and give the Libertarians something as unbelievable as a virgin in a whorehouse – a victory.

Lacking money, name ID with average Alaskan voters, and probably a general election campaign infrastructure, Joe Miller would need an even greater infusion of aid from the Tea Party Express than the $500,000 they spent. With Democrat Scott McAdams reporting only $4,000 cash on hand at the beginning of the month, Murkowski could easily pull Democratic voters into her camp – especially as both sides share the goal of rebuking Sarah Palin. No, Murkowski isn’t likely to pull an Arlen Specter and join the Democrat’s caucus (her 70% lifetime ACU rating is one reason), but she could turn a general election into a two-way race for all intents and purposes.

There’s little doubt that the Senate could benefit from more average Joe Millers than another Murkowski. Unfortunately, Murkowski it seems want to return to Washington no matter how many bridges she burns in the process. One can only hope that if Murkowski does cross party lines, it’s a bridge to nowhere.

Mark Dayton demanded that the GOP’s “Trackers” wear some sort of attire to distinguish themselves from all the other people gathered around him.

It’s part of his two-week old whinge against the recent college grads with flipcams who’ve been recording the things he says on the campaign trail to be checked against things he says elsewhere, in case he promises things to people in Bemidji that he eschews in the Twin Cities.

Now, I’m not sure what all his fuss is about.  Trackers aren’t hard to spot under any circumstances; they’re the youngish people with the video cameras.

For example, here’s “Zack”, the DFLer (poli sci grad from Macalester, not that that was a huge shock) we met at Tom Emmer’s SD54 Picnic appearance last week:

"Zack", DFL tracker covering Tom Emmer at the SD54 picnic last week.

Notice the boredom; he’s seen the speech a time or two.  That’s another common “tell” for trackers.

Not to mention the friggin’ flip cam.

Still, the MNGOP is all about the help.  Here,according to Michael Brodkorb, are the new tracker uniforms:

You’re welcome, Senator Dayton.

No, don’t mention it.

I think it was Mark Twain that said “a lie can make it around the world while the truth is waiting in line at Caribou”.

That’s the little swatch of human behavior that the Dayton campaign, and especially its’ money-laundering smear shop, “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”, seem to be hoping dominates the upcoming election.

Because to the extent that ABM’s strategy is intelligent, it’s in this way; a simple lie takes five seconds to tell; that same like will take sixty seconds to refute.  Do Minnesota voters have the attention span to absord sixty seconds of facts to counter five seconds of lying?

The GOP needs to hope so.

And if you’re ABM, or the DFL?  Do the phrases “A thousand dollars for every man, woman and child in Minnesota” and “Yes, We Can!” ring a bell?  They most certainly do to the people on the Dayton/Rockefeller family payrolls that are ginning up the dirtiest, most cynical political campaign in Minnesota history.

So I’m gonna get started on those sixty seconds right now.

ABM’s house blogger – inevitably anonymous (and, we’re told, paid) – writes:

Either Tom Emmer is still stuck on the first stage of grief because of his disastrous campaign to date,

Fact: Two points less “disastrous”, by all accounts, than Tim Pawlenty’s at this point in the race eight years ago.

which recently voted several staffers off the island,

Fact: What, campaigns never change staff?  The local jabbering class has spun the Emmer campaign’s turnover as some sort of unusual event after a primary.  Just plain dumb.

or he thinks that he’s campaigning to become governor of The Matrix. Tom Emmer’s most recent “I have absolutely no budget plan” distraction technique unveiled today is the red pill inspired: “There is no spoon”.

Fact:  Opinion:  Matrix references?  What next?  “Dayton is Spock, Emmer is Ferengi?”  Good lord, Emmer’s being attacked by the friggin’ chess club!

From Tom Emmer via MPR:

Where is the deficit? We talk about ‘You got to raise taxes, government has to invest.’ I’ll say it again, government in the state of Minnesota is scheduled to get a 7 percent increase in the next biennium. Government will have more money to spend in the next two years than it is spending right now.

You see, Minnesotans? There is no spoon. Whoa. The deficit is all in your head! If the budget crisis doesn’t exist –bam– no plan needed.

Fact: Opinion: ABM is a plan to employ the innumerate.

There might be a more civil explanation, but I got nothin’.

Even with his attempt to melt our minds by going all Neo on us, no one is fooled.

I’m having high school flashbacks.  Trekkies insisting they were really “TrekkERs”. “Live long and prosper”.  Ugh.  Must move on.

Despite Emmer’s selective accounting, we know we’re facing a historic budget crisis, and as Tom Scheck immediately points out, the major reason for the uptick in state spending cited by Emmer is that Tim Pawlenty’s kicking of the budgetary can is coming home to roost. (Mixed metaphors win elections)

I’m not sure if Tom Scheck of MPR is honest enough to point this out; it’s for sure ABM’s anonymous blogger is not.

Let’s accept that Tim Pawlenty “kicked a budgetary can” for sake of argument.

That “can” was made big and stinky by a DFL legislature that was fixed on raising spending, and especially using the state budget as a vehicle to launder money to help local governments hide their own rapacious spending – especially the DFL governments in the Twin Cities and Duluth, which got and get 250% more money than non-metro cities, entirely as a means to camouflage their ruinous spending and the costs of the DFL’s policy of warehousing the poor in the inner city.

With over a billion in school shifts and half a billion in temporary cuts coming off the chopping block, many of the gimmicks bullied through the legislature by Tim Pawlenty–with the full support of Tom Emmer and House Republicans– are putting the state in an even worse situation next year.

And all of that with an economy collapsing.  Wow. What do do?

What to do?

Instead of owning up to his role in the budget debacle we find ourselves in…

…that “role” being arguing for fiscal restraint against a DFL near-supermajority in the House that was fixed on spending first (and covering it with taxes from Minnesota’s productive classes) first and asking questions later.

— and provide us with what would actually be a “new direction” — Tom Emmer has decided to try and confuse us.

Fact: Opinion: In fairness to Emmer, it doesn’t seem like  it’d be that difficult a job…

Whether it’s mashing up $20 billion and 20%, or comparing Minnesota to a wagon full of Clydesdales, Tom Emmer is willing to say anything, except what he would actually do to the services we all use and rely on if he became governor.

Fact: The DFL and its paid spokeshamsters at ABM are being incredibly disingenuous.  Emmer has always said his plan will be out in September.  And so it will.  And it’s gonna turn the Dayton campaign on its ear, I have a hunch.

The problem? It’s pretty hard to dance around the fact that he introduced things like cutting the minimum wage while pushing for lower taxes on corporations.

Fact:  It’s even harder to dance around the fact that context is being waterboarded here.  Minimum wage cuts and lower corporate taxes are both proven means of creating more jobs.  Raising taxes and spending are both proven ways to kill (non-government) job growth.

We wont forget that — when he bothered to show up to vote– that he consistently sided with big businesses instead of working Minnesotans.

Where does this guy think “Working Minnesotans” work?

For the new direction the Minnesota needs someone ready to make the hard decisions to move us forward.

Speaking of “hard decisions”:  What is Dayton’s big proposal?  Besides “eat the [working] rich”, I mean?

We need someone who can lay out a plan to get Minnesota back on track, not more Pawlenty-styled governing by press release.

Well, you asked for a plan.  I suspect you’ll get one pretty quick here.

Then the fun will begin.

Zach Rodvold – a campaign staffer – is upset about Michele Bachmann’s round of “Taxin’ Tarryl” ads.

The problem is, the only thing he does is continue to repeat the same Big Lies the rest of the DFL is beating to death this campaign:

If Michele Bachmann wants to talk about fiscal responsibility – let’s talk. Tarryl Clark consistently voted to hold down taxes on 95% of working Minnesotans,

Well, no.  She supports Obamacare and the sunset of the Bush Tax Cuts, both of which will tighten the screws on all Minnesotans, in the exceedingly unlikely event she’s elected.

including reducing the burden of property taxes.

And this is one of the DFL’s most cynical lies.

This all ties back to their Local Government Aid canard; local governments, the story says, have to raise their property taxes when the state cuts LGA.  Conversely, cities and counties can lower property taxes when the state pays more LGA launders that spending burden through the Legislature and down to the rest of the state’s taxpayers.

Of course it’s BS; that was one of the rationales behind pushing all state education spending up to the State during the Ventura regime; local districts just displaced the spending and kept, or ratcheted up, the taxes.

There is no reason to believe that paying more LGA would make the DFL-controlled, spendaholic Twin Cities and Duluth any more responsible – much less induce them to cut property taxes.

Unlike Bachmann, Tarryl has taken tough votes to balance budgets

And that’s another DFL Big Lie – that “balanced budgets” are, in and of themselves, a virtue.  They’re not; they just mean that state government is completely paid for with the revenue at hand.  If you tripled the size of state government (and its spending), but confiscated three times the revenue to pay for it, they could say “the budget is balanced”, all right; it’d be balanced on the taxpayers’ backs. (Heck – they could quadruple taxes and brag they had a surplus!)

If there’s one byproduct to the Tea Party movement and the electorate’s swing to the right this past year, it’s that the DFL realizes they need to couch their rapacity in pseudo-responsible weasel words like “balanced budget” and “property taxes relief”.

Between the lines, it’s the same old rot.

The problem:  polling shows that Independence Ventura party candidate Tom Horner draws fifty percent more DFLers than Republicans, despite a months-long campaign to portray him as “the other Republican” to try to suck votes away from Tom Emmer.

You know the DFL is concerned.  Because Lori Sturdevant is on the case:

The Minnesota governor’s contest has two probusiness contenders — Republican Tom Emmer and the Independence Party’s Tom Horner.

That was the unanimous judgment of five Minnesota Chamber of Commerce audience members who lingered after last Tuesday’s three-way gubernatorial candidates’ debate to talk about what they’d heard.

The “unanimous” judgment; despite the fact that he wants to jack up sales taxes and a variety of other government excises, Horner is just dreamy.

Imagine that.

Oh, yeah:

The Republican candidate is singing the same smaller-government, lower-taxes tune that business lobbyists have been humming for years at the Capitol (though Emmer never seems to get past the chorus to any lyrics describing how he would downsize).

There are two and a half months go to, Lori.  I suspect he’ll squeeze it in there.

Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring notes that the Strib is participating in the effort to whitewash Mark Dayton’s record; an op-ed  by one Alison Rosholt tries to slip the reader dog poo and call it brownies in trying to sanitize Dayton’s most infamous crackup, the closing of his Senate office in 2005.

Gary exhumes some commentary from the time of the crackup (go to Gary’s piece and read it all), and  responds:

Ms. Rosholt’s account simply isn’t credible. Certainly, DHS would’ve contacted DC’s mayor had they discovered a credible, specific terrorist plot targeting Capitol Hill. The fact that Mayor Williams, a fellow Democrat, ridiculed Sen. Dayton by saying he wasn’t sure “what frequency the senator’s on” speaks volumes to Sen. Dayton’s sensibilities, or rather, his lack thereof.

It’s worse than that.

It’s an attempt by the regional left and media (pardon the redundancy) to feed the inconvenient bits and pieces of Dayton’s record down the memory hole; to convince average Minnesotans – the ones that were dumb enough to elect Al Franken, anyway – that Dayton “really wasn’t all that bad”.

Writing over at Culpable Stew, Aaron Klemz read my piece earlier this week, and flew into a violent, petulant rage, throwing things and losing control of his bodily functions and making bystanders wonder if he had some serious medical condition.

(I figured I’d shut down the left’s “so and so had a cow…” “argument” once and for all).

Anyway, Klemz thinks he’s got me (and Gary Gross) on my “cop-killer bullet” story from earlier this week – the bill written by Ted Kennedy that would have given the Attorney General the power to determine which bullets were “cop-killer” bullets.   The bill got shredded, losing by about a 2:1 margin.

Klemz’ rationale?  The language protects us!

But here’s the thing, in both Gross’ piece and Berg’s attempt to pile on, they love to cite legislative language except for the section which mandates exactlyhow the Attorney General will determine which ammunition is armor piercing (that would be section 926(d)):

Enh. I saw it. It didn’t change anything.  But here it is, with emphasis added:

(b) DETERMINATION OF THE CAPABILITY OF PROJECTILES TO PENETRATE BODY ARMOR–Section 926 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:“(d)(1) Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Attorney General shall promulgate standards for the uniform testing of projectiles against Body Armor Exemplar.

“(2) The standards promulgated under paragraph (1) shall take into account, among other factors, variations in performance that are related to the length of the barrel of the handgun or center-fire rifle from which the projectile is fired and the amount and kind of powder used to propel the projectile.

“(3) As used in paragraph (1), the term `Body Armor Exemplar’ means body armor that the Attorney General determines meets minimum standards for the protection of law enforcement officers.”

Back to Klemz:

Oh, you mean they’ll actually have to do objective tests? And that these standards, like all regulatory determinations, will be subject to oversight from the courts? And you mean that this determination is made in comparison to “standard ammunition?” Oh, and you mean that not only does the ammo have to be actually armor piercing according to objective tests, it has to be also “designed and marketed as having armor piercing capability?” That’s some “stroke of a pen.”

And this amendment failed nearly 2 to 1?

Yeah.  Proof that Congress isn’t always stupid.

There are two ways to look at any piece of legislative language; from the perspective of one who takes government language at face value and trusts government to act on the intent spun for legislators, and from that of someone who actually pays attention to history.

Liberal Attorneys General and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms (and now Explosives!) that report to them have a shameful record of manipulating gun control laws to maximize their control and the number of otherwise law-abiding gun owners they can prosecute under some grounds or another.

So if you are a liberal who looks at phrases like “shall promulgate standards for the uniform testing of projectiles” and says “Look! Standards!  In writing!”, then you are ignorant of the BATFE’s history.  During the Clinton Administration, the BATFE took the “standards” for importing firearms set under the 1994 “Crime Bill” and perverted them into a byzantine maze that seemed to be designed to entrap people who tried to be law abiding gun owners, but didn’t make a hobby of reading federal non-legislative regulation.  The “standards” observed during the “assault weapon ban” were…well, non-standard.  They made no sense.  Full-powered battle rifles like the HK91 would be allowed if they had a “thumbhole” sporting stock, while the less-powerful SKS would be banned because…it had a folding bayonet?  The rules were kept intentionally vague, and changed often, largely (it was believed) to entrap more law-abiding citizens – because it was almost impossible to stay ahead of the BATFE and the Attorney General’s “standards”.

And the “armor-piercing bullet” “standard” is, if anything, even more prone to abuse; your 30.06 hardball that you take deer hunting might be armor-piercing (because it’ll definitely shred most body armor), or it might not (because it’s pretty conventional), or it might be above certain loadings and muzzle velocities, or it might be any of the above depending on the “standards” the AG sets and – most importantly – the way the BATFE interprets the “standards”.

The bill lost 2-1 not because Republicans hate cops (as Klemz slanderously hints), but because of the record of the BATFE and, by extension, the federal government and setting standards like this.

(Klemz, with typical sorosblogger subtlety, entitles his “article” “Defending Cop Killer bullets, because that’s what they do”.  Well, no.  Unlike the Dems, the GOP has always proposed the laws that actually protect cops, and the rest of us too.  Of course, while Dems like Dayton are at the moment running away from their gun-control history, once you get them into places where they have complete control, like Chicago, we see the real truth; Liberals really hate  cops or black children).

(Isn’t the “disagreeing with me is a symptom of hatred” thing just a hoot?)

I ask my DFLer friends why they plan on voting for Mark Dayton.

“Because Tom Emmer is an angry extremist white man!”

“Because Target is anti-gay!”

“Because Emmer will cut the budget”…

…and so on.

But none of those responses answers my question; why are you voting for Mark Dayton?

Open thread for liberal commenters:  Why are you voting for Mark Dayton?  Actual reasons, please.

It’s 8PM, and I’m out on the patio at Keegans again, at “Meet Tom Emmer” night.  Not that there’s going to be a lot to liveblog – I’ve met Tom Emmer! – but I’m here with a computer, so why not?  About 21 people out here so far, and I expect more.  Emmer isn’t here yet – he’s out raising funds.

8:03 – 25 people now.  Not a fundraiser per se – just a meet ‘n greet.

I’m at a table with Barry Hickethier (running against Larry Pogemiller in District 59), Sue Jeffers, Craig Westover, John LaPlante, Guy Collins, and a whole slew of others.

The big table at Keegans. I'm getting deja vu...

8:12:  Greg Wersal – judge candidate – is speaking now.  Jacquie Emmer just showed up.

Greg Wersal speaks

8:25 – Barry Hickethier – who’s running against Pogey in SD59 – speaks.

Barry Hickethier speaks

Jacquie worked the crowd as Tom was detained at another fundraiser.  Too bad none of us are heirs to a huge fortune, huh?

Jacquie Emmer talking with Terry Keegan

8:45 – Emmer has arrived; he’s working the room:

Emmer meets and greets

9:00 straight up – Emmer talking.

The message hasn’t changed, says Emmer.  Dayton’s “message of hope” is about making more tax classifications.

“What’ll keep a business in Minnesota, if they’re going to be taxed like Dayton proposes?  They’ll move!  It’s a broken record”

Emmer speaks.

“Let’s stop destroying business!  The only future for this state is the future we offer; people, not government! Tha’ts the art of constitutional government!”

“We have to start re-educating hte public as to the message we offer.  And if we do that, w’ell not only win in November, but our kids will have the future we want ’em to have!”

Re: the Trackers:  “We’ve been running a clean campaign!  They’re the ones doing the attacking!”

“We need to leave the kids something other than our debt“.  That got a big round of applause.

Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities debate – “They knew about our conflict already”.

Emmer working the crowd.

When are you going to turn Annette loose? “She’s out there!”

It’s time to kill off the Met Council; Tom and Annette are in complete agreement.

How about the negativity:  “The campaign has just begun.  In coming weeks, more on the air, more on the ground.  TV and Also tell them – how depressed should the Dems be?  They’ve spend eight million trashing us, and we’re still, here.  The stuff that they ran?  People love to see it – but it’s numbed the public. ”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet!”

Barry Hickethier asks “plan for fixing out-of-control costs of post-secondary Ed at the U of M?”  “When I started talking with Bruinincks at the U, I see they have a lot of the same problems the state has.  MNSCU is a big part of the problem; they require dupblicative services…”

As we began the march toward the primaries, and I saw that Mark Dayton had (according to the KSTP poll) a 13 point lead in the race over DFL-endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher, I sat back in my seat and wondered “Why?”

Why Mark Dayton – a superannuated playboy with a 30-year habit of treating electoral office as a hobby?

“Because he can?”

Sure, but that explains a lot of people running for office.  Leslie Davis and Peter Idusogie and Ole Savior all ran for governor “because they could”.  They didn’t have the deep pockets of the Dayton and Rockefeller families to bankroll them, of course – but deep pockets alone don’t win primaries, much less elections; if they did, we’d be talking about “Governor Corzine”, and “Former California Governor Huffington”, for that matter.

It takes more than will, and it takes more than just money.  It takes skill and organization to spend all that money effectively in order to beat the combined brawn of the entire DFL machine to start a campaign, have it gain traction across this state, and take it through the primaries.

And that takes people who know the DFL; people who know the people whose palms need to be greased; people who know how to get out the people who get out the liberal votes; it takes people who know where the bodies are buried and how to put more there, as it were.

———-

One of those people is Ken Martin.

Martin is currently the director of “Win Minnesota“.  If you read this blog, you know who they are: they are a PAC that launders the Dayton family’s political contributions to “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” and the “2010 Fund” and the other arms of the Dayton Campaign’s tightly-wound little money-laundering and distribution machine.

And in 2006, Martin was Mike Hatch’s campaign manager, orchestrating an epic smear campaign against Tim Pawlenty that came within a cat’s whisker of winning.

———-

Mike Hatch needs no introduction.  A longtime legislator, former head of the DFL, former Attorney General, and two-time gubernatorial candidate, Hatch could be quickly but fairly described as the Lyndon Johnson of Minnesota politics.

Mike Hatch

Hatch has never been bashful about exerting his power.  During the nineties, he essentially ran Minnesota’s healthcare industry from the Attorney General’s office, using the AGO’s power to force the likes of HealthPartners to insert his cronies into controlling positions (on “consumer protection” grounds, naturally).

In 2003, Hatch tried to use the power of his office to try to intimidate the Commerce Department into pushing for an illegal settlement with a Florida-based insurance company – an effort that involved a shady potemkin contribution that amounted in my opinion to virtual blackmail against his political opponents, including the Minnesota GOP.  I reported on this story in 2003 (Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five).

After his failed gubernatorial bid in 2006, Hatch went on to “consult” at the Attorney General’s office, with his successor and longtime protegé, Lori Swanson.  It was, according to sources familiar with the arrangement, a potemkin consultancy; Swanson had served so long as Hatch’s understudy that the two were basically one and the same entity, for policy purposes.

It’s an open secret among Minnesota’s chattering classes that Mike Hatch is by no means ready to shuffle off into the sunset – at least when it comes to wielding political power.

And Hatch remains, by all accounts, close friends with Ken Martin.

———-

“So what?”, you might ask.

Here’s what.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that you are a superannuated playboy hobby politician with a reputation for being a blunderer.  You’ve been “serving” inside the beltway, or been out in the political cold.  Your last experience in state electoral politics was in 1995, when you left (hypothetically, mind you) the office of State Auditor.

What do you need to succeed?

A Chief of Staff who knows where the bodies are buried, and is dying to bury a few more.

And if you are – again, hypothetically – a long-time political majordomo who still thirsts for power, but has been rejected for the endorsement to get it via electoral means?  How do you find that power?  By latching onto a (hypothetical) administration led by an inconsequential candidate who is nonetheless capable of providing boundless funding to get elected, backstopped by an even less-consequential running mate (Yvonne Prettner-Solon, whose record is as negligible as her opponent’s, Annette Meeks’s, is impressive), that’s how.  And then getting appointed to a position to influence the weak-kneed top of the ticket.

Rumors are trickling around Minnesota political circles that Hatch  is angling for the Chief of Staff gig in a Dayton Administration.

A source with knowledge of capitol  politics tells me that her or his sources saw a group of key Dayton staffers in the back room at a south-metro Perkins restaurant not long before the primaries.  With them, according to the source, was Hatch’s pal and former campaign manger Ken Martin.

———-

Again, you might say “So what?  It’s just a staff gig!  A guy’s gotta earn a living!”

But Mike Hatch as Chief of Staff brings up all sorts of wrinkles.  It seems fair to conjecture, given Dayton’s ineffectiveness as a leader and inexperience at executive office, that a Chief of Staff Hatch would have a very strong influence on the policies of the executive office.  He also remains the de facto Attorney General; via his years at AG, he has an inordinate influence in the Commerce Department.

In other words, in a Mark Dayton administration, Mike Hatch would have unprecedented power for an unelected official in Minnesota.

“He’d be the King of Minnesota”, quipped my source.

Read this rather long analysis by Ace, about the media’s love of “neutral” story lines (which, timed as needed, become biased)…:

The media loves these story lines, because facially they appear neutral — “money in politics is a danger” has no on-its-face, explicit partisan import — but the timing of when to deploy a particular story line is highly partisan, and always made with the Democratic Party’s best interests in mind.

Thus, when Bush refused the campaign spending limits, and spent only private money, it was nearly a constitutional crisis; when Obama did the same, it was a triumph of people-powered politics.

Are conspiracy theories bad? Well, right now, when the Republican base is vulnerable to buying into conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace or sabotaged deep-drilling oil rigs, conspiracy theories are bad, and examples of the Paranoid Style of American Politics.

On the other hand, when former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright confessed to Mort Kondracke she feared Bush had actually captured bin Ladin and was secretly holding him only to publicize his capture on the eve of the 2004 elections, a party’s trafficking in conspiracy theories wasn’t even worth noting.

Certainly such conspiracy theories weren’t worth noting when Bush and Cheney (and their deadly cabal) were accused of sabotaging a plane in order to murder a sitting and popular liberal US Senator.

…and fill in “Target” and the “Minnesota Federation of Teachers” in the appropriate slots.

After a month in which groups paid for largely by his family and cronies ran more smear ads than were run in the entire 2006 governor’s race, Mark Dayton suddenly wants to play it clean:

Just a day after he declared victory in the DFL gubernatorial primary, former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton called for an end to all negative ads — including those from outside groups supporting him.

“I mean it,” he said.

He doesn’t mean it.

He’s posturing; trying to take the high road.  None of the groups supporting him (and paid for by him) are under the faintest obligation to obey.

Most importantly, the unions – who control their own political spending and don’t take orders from Dayton, nudge nudge wink wink – can do anything they want, spend as much as they want, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it (but heaven forfend that a business might be able to do the same thing).

Dayton is, at the very least, posturing.  At the most, perhaps, he might want to forestall future exposures of dirt in his record; the GOP’s “Erratic” ad is, truly, just the beginning.

The call comes weeks after the Democrat-supporting Alliance for a Better Minnesota released an ad smacking Republican Tom Emmer for past drunk driving charges and a day after the Minnesota Republican Party smacked Dayton for his past Senate history.

Minnesota has seen similar calls before — and seen absolutely nothing happen as a result.

And nothing will happen this time.  After months of paying for “independent” PACs to slime Emmer, Dayton’s current narrative is “I’m Being Swiftboated!”

In October of 2008, Republican U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman decided he would pull all his negative ads (they are no longer available on YouTube) and asked his supporters to follow suit. None of his supporters listened and they continued to rip Democrat Al Franken on the air. Franken ended up winning that Senate election by 312 votes.

Unlike Dayton, Coleman was sincere.

Michael Brodkorb, deputy chair of the Republican Party, said Dayton’s calls was hypocritical and the party would only consider pulling its ad after it had run as much as the Alliance ad had. Right now, it appears the GOP doesn’t have the funding to run it that often.

Given that unlike A4aBM’s largely fallacious spots the GOP’s commercials are true, the spending gap may not tell the whole story.

…but one poll is going very well indeed for Emmer.

I’ve been saying that Michele Bachmann will win re-election in the Sixth Congressional District by eight points.

After seeing Tarryl Clark’s performance in the primaries – getting just under 2/3 of the vote against an opponent that dropped out two months ago – I’m thinking I was too pessimistic.

I’m predicting Bachmann by 10.

OK, DFL.  You wanna bag on Tom Emmer from behind the cover of your little smear group?

Here you go.  It’s from that shadowy, mysterious group, the Minnesota GOP.

So here you go, DFLers.  After three months of flinging poo at Emmer’s 20 year old careless driving conviction, at his utterly accurate statements on the cost of minimum wage law  to both restauranteurs and lower-income food-service workers, and the free speech rights of corporations to combat the uncontested free speech rights of unions and plutocratic DFL supporters, we’re finally down to a real campaign here.

The astroturf campaign against Target really is emblematic of this campaign; like Target, Emmer is a home-grown guy whose mission is to bring people better stuff – bedding and appliances and groceries or government, respectively – for less money.  Like Target, the DFL and its big-money supporters, the unions and the Dayton family, need to destroy the notion that a homegrown company or guy can do that without government’s explicit blessing.

And you, plural, the DFL establishment, need to destroy Emmer (and his supporters, from Target all the way down to the regular schmoes in the street who speak out in his favor), because at the end of the day you are all now married to…:

A candidate with only one message: Raise taxes:  He (and, mostly, his supporters) gussy this up with talk of “fiscal responsibility” – but at the day the only responsibility it refers to is your “responsibility” to keep government fed, fat and happy.

A candidate who is lying about “The Rich”: If you’re in a two-income household with a successful auto mechanic and a nurse, or a cop and a store manager, or a computer programmer and a pharmacist, or a mid-level teacher and a project manager, or a successful salesman and an executive assistant, you may not think of yourself as “the rich” in the same sense as, say, Mark Dayton.  But according to Mark Dayton’s plan, you are.  You are the ripe sucks for his tax plan.

And to make matters worse, as we will explore in coming weeks, there is no way on earth taxing “the rich” – households making over $150,000 a year – will close the deficit; partly because there isn’t that much money in that pool, and partly because taxing that pool will drive down the revenue received.  And so Dayton will, inevitably, have to drive down the definition of “rich”; in a few years, it’ll be households making $100K.  And then $85K.  You get the picture.

A candidate who is going to destroy Minnesota’s already-ailing business climate: Minnesota’s business tax rates are already hurting Minnesota business.  Businesses have stayed here, more or less.  But most of the big corporations, your Targets and Best Buys and 3Ms, have been building most of their actual production facilities outside Minnesota for decades; our tax rates have been a boon for Texas, Mississippi, Mexico, and the Dakotas.  And many smaller business are on the bubble; they’re looking at this election and pondering moving to Texas, Arizona or the Dakotas if things get any worse than they are.  You haven’t heard of most of these companies; they’re little operations that employ dozens, maybe a hundred or two.  But those are jobs, especially outside the metro, that are slowly bleeding away and aren’t coming back anytime soon.

We’ll have more on this in the next week or so.

A candidate whose behavior has been, to say the least, erratic over the years: Mark Dayton has admitted to suffering from Depression.  So did Winston Churchill.

Dayton has admitted to being an alcoholic.  So were Ulysses S. Grant and George W. Bush.

Depression and alcoholism clearly don’t disqualify people from political office.

But the erratic behavior that accompany depression and addiction certainly need to be considered.

When one of history’s greatest terrorists threatened to bomb London (and followed through in spades), Winston Churchill didn’t shut down Parliament and flee to Kenwood.  He stuck a cigar in his mouth and threw Hitler a rhetorical middle finger and fought, and won, the war.

When the Union cause got incredibly difficult, and the equation came down to trading horrific casualties for the wearing down of the enemy – a commander’s worst nightmare – Ulysses S. Grant didn’t relapse, throw his hands in the air, and walk away from the job.  He gritted his teeth and won the Civil War.

So as Minnesota faces its biggest budget challenge in almost eighty years – maybe ever – can you honestly say you see that kind of response in Mark Dayton?  In any facet of his thirty-odd year record as a dissolute playboy political hobbyist?

Is it fair to even bring up alchoholism and mental illness?  Irrelevant; I’m not.  I’m talking only of Dayton’s long history of just plain strange behavior.  And since the DFL saw fit to make Tom Emmer’s two careless driving convictions from a generation ago into election fodder, it’s only fair that Dayton’s behavior be on the table as well.   Of course, Emmer’s last problem was 20 years ago; he’s gone on to become a pillar of the community in every sense.  What’s Dayton done?

What has Dayton done?

We’ll be talking about that for the next three months.

I stand by my prediction: after all of the Dayton family money is spent, and the unions have stomped and squealed, and all is said and done, Minnesota will atone for the madness of 1998 and 2008  and put Emmer into the Governor’s office by a four point margin.

Because I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it at least weekly until this election is tagged and bagged; when you meet Tom Emmer, even if you’re not fundamentally disposed to agree with him, you at least walk away liking the guy, and thinking he’s got something going on.  When you meet Mark Dayton, you feel…just a little off.

Go ahead, DFL.  Start defending the guy.

This oughtta be good.

The whole point of the astroturf campaign against Target’s donation to pro-Republican PAC ‘MNForward”was to try to make it too painful for corporations to exercise their right to donate money to campaigns (which, need we add unions and the Dayton family are doing pretty promiscuously already).

It isn’t working:

Graco Inc., headquartered in Minneapolis, contributed $50,000 to MN Forward at the end of last week. Graco Inc. is “a world leader in fluid handling systems and components,” according to the company’s website.

Now that we have an actual campaign, the fact that Dayton will be a disaster for business should start to play a role.

Primaries are today.  If you’re a Republican, find your polling station here.  If you’re a DFLer, Mark Dayton will tell you where to go.

It’s important to go if you’re a Republican today.  Emmer should be safe from the Leslie Davis juggernaut, but our Attorney General candidate Chris Barden faces a familiar challenge – Sharon Anderson.  Back in 1994, she beat the endorsed GOP candidate Tom Neuville.  Part of it was the “Anderson” name; part of it was that there was at the time a TV talk show host in the Cities by the same name.

This year, the worry is Sharon Anderson will get votes intended for endorsed State Auditor candidate Pat Anderson.

So  while this blog never ever endorses anyone – it’s Barden for AG.  Not Anderson.

I’ll be voting after work.

Luke Hellier at MDE notes that  Time Magazine seems to have scrubbed its’ 2006 “The Blunderer” story, in which they declared Mark Dayton one of the five worst Senators in the US:

In 2006, Mark Dayton was named one of America’s Worst Senators by Time Magazine.  The story was featured in the magazine and online.

But now, the story can’t be found any where.  The story can’t be found on Time.com and can’t even be found on Lexis Nexis.

One has to wonder if Time Magazine decided to pull down the article to prevent more people from reading the story.

I found a copy on an internet archive site that was linked from Dayton’s Wikipedia page.

It doesn’t seem to be available on Google anymore; about a month ago when I wrote about the story, it was top front and center.

Yet another chapter in the media’s shameful record of being in the bag for the liberal canddiate in a local election?

(more…)

I caught most of the DFL goober debate on MPR last night.  For the benefit of those of you who did not, I’ll sum up the gestalt of the three candidates’ positions:

DAYTON:  “I’m gonna raise taxes!  And I”m gonna keep on raising them until things improve!”

KELLIHER: “Hey, lookit how relatively responsible, sane and conservative I seem compared to Dayton!”

ENTENZA: “We don’t call it spending, we call it an inves…hey, I just spent five million dollars and every  nickel of it went to bashing Tom Emmer, rather than explaining to Minnesota why I’m a better DFL nominee than the other two candidates!  Why, it’s almost as if my spending did nothing but benefit Mark Dayton!”

The latest polls show Dayton up by eleventy-teen bajillion points.  Stick a fork in Entenza.  As re Kelliher, the DFL endorsement remains the kiss of death.

Bring on Wednesday, baby!

Last winter, there was a leftyblogger conference in downtown Saint Paul.

Someone must have run a session on how to play investigative reporter. “Minnesota Observer”, writing at “Cucking Stool”, thinks she’s onto something.

Let’s read the story…

D’oh.  Not that link  It’s a dead link.  Because MNob had to pull the story down and retool it just a tad.

But retool she did – and it finally ended up at this link…I think.

Yes!  It’s there!

Spot [leftybloggers have trouble using their real names]  has often jousted with St. Cloud State University professor of the dismal science King Banaian over matters of economic policy here at the Cucking Stool.

Spot “jousts” with King in the same way the Washington Generals “joust” with the Globetrotters.  But I digress.

What I want to talk about today is something a bit different, and a bit more personal to the professor: the Communications Act of 1934. Specifically section 315 of the Act and its equal opportunity requirement on a broadcaster, say a radio station. The Act requires that

If any licensee shall permit any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office to use a broadcasting station, he shall afford equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office in the use of such broadcasting station

I remember having to learn this bit of law ,when I first started in radio (um, 31 years ago this month); it means that radio and TV stations have an obligation to provide the same access to the air to candidates from all parties.

Of course, not every candidate;  otherwise, stations would be so busy broadcasting screeds from the Grass Roots party and the Natural Law party that they’d sound like AM950, and have the ratings to match.  No, candidates have to be officially-endorsed candidates that are legally on the ballot.  Which means they’ve been endorsed and the convention or, if there’ a primary, the election winner.

The equal opportunity requirements contained in section 315 of the Act have been described as “the closest thing in broadcast content regulation to the ‘golden rule.'”

In the same way that I’ve been described as “Original Gangsta”.

The law – or at least the Cliff Notes version of it – aside, MNob cuts to what passes for the chase:

Professor Banaian is running for the Minnesota legislature, seeking to serve the people of House District 15B…He has a website up, he’s on Facebook and the Twitter. He’s pretty obviously a “legally qualified candidate” these days under the Act.

And, as MNob noted (it was apparently why she took down the original post) the DFL doesn’t have a legal candidate yet; they’re duking it out in the primary tomorrow.  King will take the winner on in November (and, I suspect, win by 5-10 points).

But he also has a media presence that his opponents do not, one that brings us back to section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934. You see, he also has four hours of air time every single week in the form of the “King Banaian Show” on 1570 AM, some “Business Talk Radio” station here in the Twin Cities…

Remember that phrase – “here in the Twin Cities”.

Candidate Banaian has had hours of air time at his disposal. I don’t see that anyone else in the race appearing on the KYCR schedule.

Well, no.  Economist Banaian has had the hours “at his disposal” to do a show about economics.  And it is “in the Twin Cities”; not in Saint Cloud, part of which is in 15B.

But MNob is – to a point – correct; he’s a candidate.

On his candidacy website, Facebook, and Twitter he makes no mention of his radio show, and the radio show’s website doesn’t mention his candidacy, which makes me think he knows that all is not entirely according to Hoyle in this scenario.

Not sure how MNob’s crack research skills missed the fact we’ve been plugging King’s show every week for ten months now; King’s been on the air on one Salem Twin Cities station or another for six and a half years, now.  I’m not a lawyer, so I’m obviously not mentally equipped to ponder the workings of the law-school-trained mind, but if “according to Hoyle” means “publicized”, King’s pretty much got it covered.

I’m not completely detached from the discussion; I was there for part of it.  When Salem Communications switched King’s program from AM1280 to AM1570, to give it one of the most solid, credible local voices in the market for discussing business and economic  issues, everyone knew that there was a possibility that King would run for office.  The question went up the corporate food chain and came back down positive.  King could do his show, but he couldn’t talk about being a candidate; his focus was the same as the station’s; business, not politics.

Still, MNob’s right, so far – since King is a candidate…

…under the law, his care in avoiding discussions of his candidacy doesn’t won’t matter. Most likely, once he received a party unit’s endorsement and certainly once he filed his paperwork, his presence on the air triggered the equal opportunity provisions of the law.

Well, sure, once the Democrats endorse an opponent.

Or it would; if KYCR were heard under any normal, reasonable circumstances, in House District 15B.

Here’s HD15B (warning: PDF file!): it’s eastern Saint Cloud and its southeast environs in Stearns county.

Here’s KYCR’s listening area:

The red circle is the “Local Coverage” pattern – the area where the station can be reliably picked up. it ends a good half a county short of the nearest tip of District 15B.  The lavender line is the “Distant Coverage” pattern – where the signal catches a bare corner of 15B, but only if you’re pretty darn motivated and have a good radio or a big antenna.  The blue line is the “fringe coverage area”, where you have to be more or less lucky to be able to find the station even if you want to try really hard (and I’m here to testify – it’s real hard to get a station in the fringe area, and harder still to get a meaningful signal).

As you can see, over 90% of the district is in the “Fringe” overage area (Coverage maps explained).  Experience says even the red circle is optimistic.  Oh, and at night – when half the “equal time” would occur – the range is about 2/3 of what you see on the map above.

I’m not bringing this up for the wonky radio-geek-olicious fun of it; the “Equal Opportunity” rules have limits.  One of those limits, as far as the FCC is concerned, is “does a voter in an area have a reasonable chance of being able to pick up the candidate’s broadcast?”   If a candidate in Fargo has a show on a station in Louisville, Kentucky, the Kentucky station would not likely be forced to give up equal time; nobody in Fargo will ever hear the candidate’s broadcast, so it can’t influence the election even indirectly.

And, according to a source familiar with this situation, that’s why Banaian’s show continues – because it is impossible for anyone in HD15B to hear it under normal circumstances, except via the internet – and the FCC doesn’t require Equal Opportunity on the Internet, because candidates can produce their own webcasts as easily as Salem can.  Probably easier.

So while the Equal Opportunity rule might apply to the race in 15B, it’s a real stretch.

Of course, “stretch” doesn’t mean “impossible”.  So if I were KYCR’s program director (and I am not!), I’d say something like this:

MANAGER MITCH: Sure, Zach Dorholt or Carol Lewis, whichever of you wins the primary!  You want equal time?  You got equal time!  You roust yourself up at 7AM on Saturday, and get on the road by 8:30.  Get yourself from Saint Cloud to Eagan by 10 or 10:30, because you’re going on the air at 11!  You have two hours (the same length as King’s broadcast; we’ll rebroadcast it on Sunday night, just as we do King’s.  Oh, unless you’d rather come down here on Sunday night!).

The law requires us to give you two hours of airtime and a microphone.  I’ll throw in an engineer to run the board for you, naturally.  But making yourself sound good and credible when you’ve probably never done any radio – that’s your job!  So you can sit in that room for two hours – it’s actually 88 minutes after commercials – and try not to sound like a cottonmouthed stammering fool.  Unless, of course, you’d like to have one of the hosts in the building lead you through a discussion of the district’s issues…oh, wait.  All conservatives.  Sorry about that.

And you can do that 88 minutes on the air knowing that not a single person in your district will ever hear what you’re saying, unless they really love tinkering with radios, which, let’s be honest, on a summer Saturday in Minnesota, nobody does.

(D’oh, sorry – you might be dimly audible in the southeasternmost tip of the district – the Republican part.  Time well spent, folks!)

You’ll be off the air at 1PM, which leaves you back in St. Cloud by about 2:30, if there’s no construction.

So you go ahead and tell your campaign manager “Hey, I’d like to take six hours of prime Saturday campaigning time to drive to Eagan to do a broadcast that absolutely nobody in our district will hear, except maybe a few people who are rock-ribbed Bachmann supporters anyway; nobody from Saint Cloud, the only place we’ll be getting any votes, will be able to hear it even in the unlikely event they’d try”.

And then, you tell that manager you’re going to be doing it every single week until the election is over, or until Banaian decides to take a break from it.

C’mon down!  Mi airtime es su airtime!

Perhaps Mr. Dorholt and Ms. Lewis’ campaign managers might want to be in touch with MNob to ask her to quit doing them favors.

Look – it’s entirely possible that King will put his show on hiatus has the campaign switches to its final push for November, and hand it over to guests hosts or do a few months worth of “best ofs”.   Campaigning is hard, and I’d imagine King could use a few extra hours a week when the end-of-cycle grind really kicks in.  And if he gets elected – and I think he will, and I think the smart money would think so even if King hadn’t been one of Smart Money’s friends for over six years – we’ll have to see what happens, then.

But it’ll have nothing to do with the FCC – for the radical reason that everyone involved in the show at Salem and KYCR thought about all these possibilities well in advance.  Equal Opportunity might apply to the DFL candidates in 15B; they might just be really dumb to try to use it.

But if all you leftybloggers want to get equal time, pass the word to Dave Walz, Keith Ellison and BettyMcCollum that my repeated invites to appear on the Northern Alliance still stand.  Of course, nobody at any of those offices has the manners to respond, much less the seeds to take us up on it (even though RT Rybak found Ed and I perfectly respectful and civil interviewers; McCollum and Ellison apparently need interviewers who’ll paint their toenails on the air for them)…

…possibly because there’s no FCC law that requires them to accept the offer.

Pity.

Speed Gibson has probably the best summary I’ve seen of the DFL’s endorsed slate in the primaries tomorrow.

Granted, Speed’s a conservative – but even with that understood, he’s not impressed:

In a game of poker looking at these five jokers, I’d draw five.

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (Governor):  “Margaret” as she seems to be calling herself now is just plain inauthentic.  She certainly didn’t learn her big city liberal values from that farm upbringing she keeps mentioning and that’s the point.  She doesn’t want us to think she’s a big city liberal.  Neither does Matt Entenza, whose campaign is following the same theme, poor boy from Worthington.  Mark Dayton is also a big city liberal, but at least he doesn’t deny it, in fact, doubling down by promising the largest tax increase by far of these three Primary contenders.

Finally – a pundit who correctly uses the phrase “doubling down”!

Dayton has two other advantages, family money and superior political skills.  Margaret is a big city liberal, but not quite yet at least, a big city liberal politician as she’ll likely find out this Tuesday.

John Gunyou (Lt. Governor): You’ve met this type of individual many times I bet even if you haven’t met Mr. Gunyou or seen his presentations as I have.  These people make lists of problems, then sit back and wait for you to solve them.

No kidding.  Watching John Gunyou talk reminded me of watching former Saint Paul mayor Jim Scheibel, after he’d left office to become a “housing advocate”.  I sat for half an hour watching him speak; his message was “the poor need attractive, comfortable housing near mass transit”; when asked “Um, how do we afford it?”, his response was basically “If you care, you’ll figure it out”.  The audience cared deeply enougn, naturally, to universally endorse spending other peoples’ money on it.

Mark Ritchie (Secretary of State): In just one term, Mr. Ritchie has undone this office’s sterling national reputation built by Joan Growe (1975-1999) and Mary Kiffmeyer (1999-2007).  He was soon caught lying about misuse of his office’s resources, then went on to be materially involved in swaying a tight election toward now Senator Al Franken.  Mind you, former Senator Norm Coleman deserves full blame for losing this election.  It shouldn’t have been this close against an arrogant buffoon like Franken.  But most damning for Mark Ritchie is that he has done absolutely nothing since then to tighten up the many lapses and inconsistencies that left many on both sides concerned about our state’s ability to run fair elections going forward.

The next liberal hamster who chants “our electoral system is the best in the nation” is going to wish they hadn’t.

Rebecca Otto (State Auditor): Let me put it this way: if Rebecca Otto can competently perform these duties, the office should be abolished.

Hah!

Lori Swanson (State Attorney General): The sudden opening with then incumbent Mike Hatch running for Governor in 2006 probably thrust the decision to run upon Lori Swanson sooner than she wanted and it has certainly showed these past 3+ years.  The staff was unhappy day one.  She had to bring Hatch back initially because she so obviously couldn’t handle the job initially.  Those things have settled down, but she remains a Hatch clone who envisions her office as primarily consumer protection bureau.  It’s easier work and you get to fawn before the media, right or wrong.

I used to think our DFL constitutional officers were underachievers.  I was wrong, of course; they were just overpromoted.

This is the weakest slate of state office candidates the DFL has put up that I can remember, all of them people who can’t or won’t competently do those jobs.  I’ll include Dayton and Entenza when I further clarify that raising taxes in this economy alone is job-killing inc

Wednesday morning is going to be Day One of the golden age of Minnesota conservative blogging.

Just thought I’d kick back and remind you all that after two months spent feverishly debunking the many, many lies of “A Better Minnesota”, and pointing out what the regional mainstream media wouldn’t – that A4aBM is largely a front for Dayton family money – the word is finally getting out.

Last week Pat Kessler basically reached the same conclusions that I did over A4aBM’s funding.

And late last week, Factcheck.org – a production of those conservative tools the Annenberg Foundation – basically agreed that you can tell Alliance for a Better Minnesota is lying when their lips are moving, in an article that excoriates the PAC for its mangling of the truth.

When you want actual facts, who ya gonna call first?