So the landed punditry is declaring the Democratic race pretty much all over.

Paul Mirengoff’s predictive powers are, well, fallible.

On the other hand, his analysis is generally not.  He notes that there’s a qualitative calculation to predicting who wins the White House; the fundamentals include the economy,  any ongoing wars and their popularity with the people, how long the current party’s been in power, and so on.

This year, these “fundamentals” point to a Democratic victory of at least 10 percentage points.

Make mine a double…

Weighing against this outcome is, first, the fact that McCain is a better than average nominee in terms of electability. For one thing, he does not have a close association with the unpopular president. In addition, his appeal to independent and centrist voters is well known. Second, Obama may well prove a worse than average nominee. He lacks anything like the experience voters look for in a president, and he’s an extremist as presidential nominees go, a perception that now is reinforced by some of his unusual associations.

At this stage, though, it seems more likely than not that these factors won’t overcome the fundamentals.

Read:  Mini-Carter!

What about all those Clinton voters who say they will vote for McCain? The short answer is, if they’re Democrats I don’t believe very many of them. Look for the party and its rank-and-file to rally around Obama.

Tic candidates can usually count on the left-wing hive instinct to overcome a lot of problems.  As 2006 showed, the right can’t.

To:  Al Franken

From: Mitch Berg – mere peasant taxpayer

Re:  When The Going Gets Tough.

Mr. Franken,

I’m Mitch Berg.  I’m a conservative Christian Republican.  And I wouldn’t vote for you if you waterboarded me.

But I’m here to ask of you; please, please, Al – be a profile in courage.

Resist the tide.

Don’t drop out of the race.

Now, I don’t give you a lot of credit in the whole “guts” and “perseverence” department; partly because you run like a scared bunny before even the fundamentally-friendly mainstream media, to say nothing of conservative media; if you can’t handle Minnesota’s notoriously-DFL-up-sucking deadtree press corps or a group of conservative bloggers, how the hell are you going to deal with the knock-down, drag-out of life in the Senate?

No matter.  You need…Minnesota needs you to stick this battle out.

Go for the nomination, Al.  Fight for every last Minnesota DFLer vote.  Raise every DFL dollar you can.  Battle for every news cycle.  Send your oppo people to slash and burn your opponents – and respond in kind to their assaults!

The Minnesota DFL needs it, Al.  And deserves it. 

Please, Al.  You’re good enough.  You’re smart enough.  And dog-gone it, bloggers need you.

That is all.

“Summer Side of Life” is one of Gordon Lightfoot’s best songs.

The scandal of the “comfort women” – girls from Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan and other Asian nations (and a few Dutch internees as well) kidnapped to serve as sex slaves to the Japanese military during World War II – is one of the great human rights scandals of the 20th Century.

Somehow, it would never have occurred to me to combine the two.

And, I must say, it still does not.

“Five Dollar.”

“Five Dollar, Foot Looooooong”.

“Five”.

“Five Dollar.”

“Five Dollar, Foot Looooooong”.

“It’s ca-ca-catching on”.

It’s been going through my head nearly every waking moment of the past ten days.

It was Friday, May 6, 1988. Another pleasant spring day with hints of hot and humid in the air. The spring-y scent that blew threw the windows in the morning was being augmented with a little early-summer funk, sooner than usual.

I didn’t care. Destiny awaited.

I went downstairs around 8AM, calculating the time to try to call Charlie at the station in Orlando. I figured he’d be in around 8 or 9ish, but he’d have the usual early-morning clusterfargs to take care of before he started doing show prep for his own show – 1PM Eastern. So the sweet spot would be between 10 and 11AM eastern. 9 or 10 Central.

Make it 9:10, to not seem too anxious. Never let ’em see you sweat.

At 9:10 on the button, I picked up the phone.

Silence.

I hung up and tried again.

Nothing.

Oh, there was some kind of signal on the line – an occasional electric “click” gave it away – but no dial tone.

We’d been shut off.

Wyatt had stiffed me on the bill in April, pleading “I got no money”, and promised to pay it this month.

“Wyatt!”, I yelled up the stairs. He was in bed with…Michelle, I think? One of his “B-list” girls, who’d been showing up once or twice a week.

“Huuuh”, he groaned in his affected Arklahoma accent.

“Did you pay the phone bill like you said?”

Silence.

“Yo?”

“No, I didn’t. I came up a little short this week”.

F**k, right, I muttered, you had plenty of money to go partying last night, a***ole. Figures.

I grabbed a notebook, some paper, and my passbook, and ran out to my car. I jumped in, ran to my nearest bank branch. I got $20, changing $5 of it for quarters.

I looked at my watch as I ran out: 9:30.

There was a pay phone in front of Rainbow Foods, right across the parking lot. I ran over…

…and saw a disheveled-looking obese white man wearing droopy sweat pants and with terminal plumber’s crack, swearing incoherently into the phone. I stood, hoping that meant the conversation was near an end.

It wasn’t.

9:40.

I ran back out to my car, and drove up the street, looking for another pay phone.

I saw a bar. It was open. I’d been in there once before; it had a pay phone.

I parked, and ran inside and dialed the number. After I deposited $2 and change in quarters, my call connected, as I frantically wondered how I was going to tell the guy not to bother calling me for a couple of days – I’d be “out of town” or something, anything, to keep him from trying to call and hearing the dreaded “disconnect” recording.

And, for once, I actually got through.

“Mitch! Here’s the deal”

And we talked, as I anxiously counted out my minutes, hoping that it wouldn’t be obvious that I was on a pay phone. He was interested in having me host a nightly “News Magazine” show – 6-9PM. Not the best shift – competing with prime time TV was always brutal – but it was a shot in the major markets. The money was, by industry standards, adequate, and by my standards at the moment, spectacular.

“Call me back, say, Tuesday or Wednesday. I’ll have an update. I’d like to move fast on this”, he said.

I left the bar…

…no. I didn’t. I had a beer (75 cents!) to celebrate.

Then I left. And drove downtown to the phone company. And wrote out a check for yet another *&^%$# bill.

(Twin Cities hYpStRz know the bar as the Turf Club, today.  Back then it was still the Turf Club – but this was five or six years before alternative rockers discovered the place.  The Turf was full of serious drinkers, old guys who’d worn the stools into the shapes of their butts from being there so long; the “live music” was an accordion band that’d show up on Fridays or Saturdays, back then.  We’ll revisit the Turf in about eight more years, as the series, God willing, continues). 

Not sure how many tickets are left for The Donnybrook in Brooklyn Park tomorrow (although Chad The Elder reports that you AM950 people better start stepping up for your homey Ed) – but if this is like the typical Patriot party, you’re gonna need to get haulin’ to get in on the debate.  Michael Medved will be on the right, Ed Schultz will be on the left, and you’ll all be out front for the fireworks!

Get your tickets at the Patriot website – they’re $99 for the VIP Ticket, which includes dinner with Medved, Schultz and about a hundred of their closest friends, plus the debate and a photo op.

Tix for the debate only are $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

Oh, yeah – I’ll be co-MC-ing the event, along with former St. Paul representative and current MN2020 poobah Matt Entenza. 

A number of people – from insufficiently-perceptive stalkerbloggers to people in my comment section – have reacted to my statement on the NARN last weekend that “defeating RINOs is almost more important than defeating DFLers”.

Some commentators have spun that, in their invincible ignorance, to read like an either-or scenario.  It’s not, of course.  Far from it; for the GOP to win, it has to provide an alternative to the DFL.  Republicans who are indistinguishable from DFLers – as Rep. Peterson, who voted with the DFL 52% of the time – are not; they provide no alternative to the DFL, and indeed one would be hard put to answer the question “if Peterson were a DFLer, what would be different?”

Put another way – if it were revealed that the way for the GOP to pick up an additional 10% come election time was to embrace higher taxes, more intrusive government, abortion on demand, gun control and a continued state monopoly on education, would we?

No.  The future of the GOP is to provide an alternative to the dominant vision of poltiics in this state.
Commenter MarianneS notes in my comments:

You’re right, of course, in that the viability of the GOP requires brand dependability, basic core principles the general public can come to rely on.

That’s right.  The fringe benefit of providing the alternative tp the stultifying “moderate”/leftist vision is that it is, in the end, the only way to really affect politics in this state; the odd RINO may or may not win an election, sure – but when the party as a whole acts like Tics with better suits – the sixties, seventies, eighties, early nineties, and 2006 – we not only lose, but we become irrelevant.

Any chance you’d care to extrapolate that to the presidential race?

I tried!

Look – I’ll cop to it.  I’m idealistically ideological, and pull like hell to pull the rope in the great electoral tug of war as far to the right as I can, on every issue.

But I think people need to balance their ideology and their idealism with some pragmatism.  I’d have vastly preferred Fred Thompson or Mitt Romney to be the GOP standard-bearer at this point – but that’s not the way the break broke.  We’ve got McCain – an imperfect conservative, to be sure (although not quite as imperfect as some of the more hysterical Republican commentators would have him; as bad has he is on immigration, immigration is not the only issue), but incomparably better on every single issue than the alternatives.  The utility of a protest vote needs to be balanced against the fact that there’ll be three Supreme Court seats opening up – and if Hillary or Obama wins, they’ll go to a French transgender-issues theorist, a Ghanaian Maoist and Dennis Kucinich.

I’m not sure that I’d even say “holding my nose” applies to my support for John McCain – although I, and every conservative within the sound of my voice, should be working overtime to ensure Mac knows which way the wind really does blow in the party.

Some commentators have tittered and asked that since Marty Seifert – the best GOP leader we’ve had in the legislature in forever – is publicly supporting Representative Tingelstad, so why am I being such a hard-liner on the Override Six?  It’s simple; Seifert’s job is to lead a party caucus; it’d be very bad form for him to be tossing his team – as crummy a bunch of teammates as they may be – under the bus.  There are people in the party whose job it is to toss her under the bus – her district’s delegates.  And they have done their job.  As to the appeal to authority?  Please.  If I were wired to yell “off what?” every time a party leader says “jump”, I”d be a DFLer.

So to summarize: we need to expunge the RINOs – not instead of beating the DFL, but so that we can do it more effectively.  Elections are the here and now – the party is the future.  Individual elections are games; the party is the rules, our coach, and our team spirit all rolled into one.

A: “When someone you disagree with has an experience, and still draws different conclusions than yours”.

There are two Americas.

One of them admires former terrorist thug Bill Ayers.  Y’know – the major political influence that Barack Obama hasn’t tried to underbusify yet.

That is an American flag he’s standing on (although this first America doesn’t care much). 

The other America doesn’t.

Don’t forget – Wednesday night is the Donnybrook in Brooklyn Park, between Michael Medved and Ed Schultz.  It’ll be at the Northland Inn, from eight-ish until just-close-enough-before-ten to stay respectable.

Get your tickets at the Patriot website – they’re $99 for the VIP Ticket, which includes dinner with Medved, Schultz and about a hundred of their closest friends, plus the debate and a photo op.

Tix for the debate only are $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

I’ll be there, co-MC-ing the event, along with former St. Paul representative and current MN2020 poobah Matt Entenza. 

And yes, you in the audience will get their chance to get their questions into the debate.  Which is more than the “League of Women Voters”‘ll getcha.

I was going to respond to Hillary’s newfound love of the Second Amendment…

…but Carnivore at TvM beat me to it:

 Hillary attacks Barack for his previous support for a ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns. Hillary, of course, is on record as only favoring massive licensing and registration of handguns, not a complete ban. You know, licensing like they have in New York City where lawyers specialize in helping you get your one-year pistol license. Miss your appointment with the firearms officer and you are out of luck for a while. Of course she now says pursuing such a licensing scheme is not politically feasible. She’ll just continue to demonize gun owners until there aren’t as many of us……then they can ban what they want.

Both Hillary and Barack favor bans on “assault weapons” as well. You know why they support bans on “assault weapons” and not handguns, when, admittedly, it is handguns that are used in most crimes? It’s because there are less (although growing) numbers of people who own “assault weapons”. Its easier to attack the minority of us who use certain semi-automatic firearms. It’s the standard liberal tactic of get whatever you can now and go for the rest later.

Beware of Greeks Democrats bearing gifts copies of More Guns, Less Crime.

I hate to think that I’ve become this cynical – but, sad to say, I have.

Whenever I see some lefty parrot-media outlet make some disparaging claim about Republicans, in the back of my mind a voice chimes in “somewhere out there, a Democrat is doing the same thing, only worse, and they are trying to draw attention away from it”.

And that little voice is usually right. Nobody would be argling about “McCain’s preacher” had it not been for Jeremiah Wright. Not a single Dem would be nattering about Limbaugh’s tongue-in-cheek “Operation Chaos” if they hadn’t been doing the same exact thing for years.

And so when I saw that the leftybots at Uptake were yapping being ejected from GOP conventions…

Minnesota’s Republican Party seems very camera-shy. Over the past several months Republicans have prevented journalists from recording their candidates at events…“[the] DFL makes it a policy to allow press, including videobloggers to attend all of its conventions and debates”,

…that voice said “the Tics have to be doing it, and much worse”.

And as usual, that voice was right. DFLers ejected Republican camerapeople at DFL conventions all over the state.

At CD2:

a Republican staffer was told to stop video tapping at 2nd CD DFL convention today.

And CD1:

Last week, a Republican staffer was kicked out of the 1st CD DFL Convention. If you’re keeping score at home, this is the second black eye for the Minnesota DFL.

And CD8:

…a Republican tracker at the 8th CD DFL convention was verbally and physically harassed. The staffer was pushed, his camera was grabbed and disgusting comments were made to him about President Bush and Senator Coleman. Thankfully, most of the incidents were caught on film.

Michael adds:

I should add that I haven’t had any trouble blogging from DFL conventions and both DFL staff and volunteers have treated me with respect.

It’s up to the hosts, of course – but I conventions should be opened to the other party’s observers, especially bloggers. And the local Sorosphere should be ashamed of their one-sided “reporting” of this issue.

Or, since shame would seem to be beyond them, the news consumer should know that they’re only getting half the story or less from them.

UPDATE AND BUMP:  The MinnPost, which claims to be “High Quality Journalism For People Who Care About News”, runs the Uptake story pretty much verbatim, ignoring the DFL’s at-least-equal transgressions.

Why, it’s almost like the MinnPost is…a leftyblog!

CORRECTION:  My bad. I have the “Daily Planet” and the “MinnPost” in the same category in my feed reader. 

I apologize for any insult inherent in comparing the MinnPost to the Planet – a site that can be fairly described as “all the measured journalistic detachment of the Minnesota Monitor, heh, without the funding”. 

My bad.  Sorry.

Three weeks, two big wins.

About a month after issuing my challenge to a slew of local DFL candidates and politicians, in response to Andy Birkey’s piece about Rep. Bachmann’s refusal to do non-conservative/non-Christian media, the score is:

• Stuart Smalley:  Bupkes.
• A-Klo:  Nada
• Rep. Ellison:  Zippo
• Betty Mac:  Pfffft.
• Dave Thune:  While not specifically part of my original challenge, I did ask Thune several times to come on the air for some questions about his “puking Republicans” slur.  We’ve not heard the last of that one, yet.

Of course, two weeks ago Ed and I had a great time talking with Growth and Justice’s Dane Smith – and last Saturday, I had the privilege of interviewing Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak.  As much as I disagree with Rybak on policy grounds (and the disagreements are very, very many), it was one of those interviews where half an hour just isn’t enough time.  The Mayor offered to come back and talk some more, and I fully intend to take him up on it.

I need to emphasize – I haven’t even heard a single word back from any of the other five liberal politicians; not even the courtesy of a “Thanks for the invite, but he/she is busy” as a polite dodge, to say nothing of an “we only do friendly mainstream and liberal media”.

I’ve had a few comments and emails about this effort; the gist of them has been “you can’t possibly think you’re on the same level as WCCO-TV or MPR or the Strib.  The Patriot and the NARN are just niche media.  You have neither the mainstream status nor the credibility of any of the news outlets that Bachmann refuses to talk to”.

My reply is twofold:

1. Duh.  Of course the NARN is conservative niche media.  Part of the point is that while the Patriot and the NARN do broadcast to a niche, our niche is quite large among Twin Cities conservatives – who are taxpayers and constituents of all of these politicians.  They deserve to get their questions heard by their representatives as much as any MPR listener does.  Dave Thune or Keith Ellison, for example, represent cities that usually vote 30-40% Republican; once they are actually in office, their job is to represent them, just as they do those who voted for them.  Not to do so – not to answer to them, purely on ideological grounds – is puerile, vindictive, and deeply unstatesmanly.  Also, as we’ve seen, typical.
2. As to credibilty – the NARN has never pulled a stunt like the Morgan Grams defamation against Rod Grams.  We’ve never left out key elements of the story in order to slime the opponent of a candidate we favor.  We’ve never abused whatever power our podium gives us to destroy a political opponent.  Judged by the standard of our actual record in interviewing our opponents and representing what they say, we are in fact more credible than WCCO or the Strib (to say nothing of kept boys and girls like the Minnesota Monitor, whom I will call “journalist” when they call me “Admiral”), and a vastly better risk for liberal politicians than the mainstream media is for the likes of conservatives like Reps. Bachmann and Kline.

My next project:  get Thune to talk about his “puking Republicans” slur.  And then get ready to have T-shirts distributed for election time.

Dean Barkley is thinking about running for Senate!

Run, Dean!  Run!

I just got done interviewing Jan Schneider – the GOP-endorsed candidate to run for the US House against the Sturdevant-endorsed RINO Neil Peterson in District 41B.

Jan sends me this:

This November, 122 State Legislative campaigns will go before the voters and help cement the decision-makers in St. Paul for the next four years.  And despite the wild swings of the electorate in 2002, 2004 and 2006, still relatively few seats will be truly in play.  But a handful of voters can decide the direction we take. 

This is one of those seats – not just for the State but the Republican Party.

I’m Jan Schneider and I’m the endorsed Republican candidate in House District 41B.  In my race, unlike almost all 121 others, the critical election isn’t in November (although that’s going to be very competitive too), but in September.  And most certainly unlike most of the other races, the impact of who emerges to run in November will be felt far beyond the borders of my district of Western Bloomington and Southern Edina.

My opponent is probably well known to most of you – Rep. Neil Peterson.  And between now and September, you’ll likely hear that the opposition to Rep. Peterson is based solely on his transportation vote – as is my candidacy.  But those of us who live in 41B known the fuller picture.  For four years, Rep. Peterson has put his voice and his vote to such projects as the Twins Stadium, a clothing sales tax, the Dream Act and, originally, in opposition to eminent domain reform.  In 2007 alone, according to the Journal of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Rep. Peterson voted with the DFL 52.1%  Surprisingly, I agree with some of Rep. Peterson’s defenders – one vote shouldn’t define a record.

But I’m not running simply to “oppose” Rep. Peterson anymore than I’m running because of one vote or issue.  For 25 years, I’ve operated my own small business as an executive business consultant, working with small companies as well those listed among the Fortune 500.  I’ve made my career out of striving for greater efficiency and effectiveness and it has long aggravated as many of our legislators, Democrat and Republican, have chosen the path of least resistance by “striving” for more of the same. 

I have also served in civic government, sitting on the Bloomington Planning Commission and being elected Chair by my fellow commissioners – many of whom held diametrically opposed views to my own.  I’ve long believed in reaching across the aisle, but not walking across it.  Much like Thomas Jefferson, I believe that “in matters of style, swim with the currents.  In matters of principle, stand like a rock.”

The statement that the delegates and alternates of 41B sent when they endorsed my candidacy in early March reflected more than one vote.  It also reflected more than frustration with Rep. Peterson or support for my candidacy.  It reflect a desire felt in every corner of our State that the status quo that we have accepted – be it from our politicians or in the policies they create – is no longer sustainable or tolerable. 

Should Rep. Peterson prevail this September, that message will be lost and replaced not just by the same old standards, but those standards on steroids.  When a candidacy dedicated to innovation and principle is stopped by a career politician who has a 52.1% voting record with the DFL – in a Republican primary – who will believe that Republicans, let alone Minnesotans, are serious about change?  .

I need your support.  Please contribute to my campaign and help sent a message that will reverberate across Minnesota in both parties.  Let the powers-that-be know that while we may “stand like a rock” in our beliefs, we will no longer just stand idly by.  I invite you to visit my campaign website at www.ElectJanSchneider.com and get involved any way that you can. 

Jan Schneider

Jan needs your help, of course; Peterson is supported by a phalanx of big unions, including the construction unions that’ll be the big beneficiaries of the Transportation Bill. 

Check out the website, and help out any way you can.  Defeating the DFL is important; knocking off the Override Six is almost even bigger, since the long-term viability of this state is so closely tied to the viability of the GOP.

It was Tuesday, May 3, 1988. A pleasant spring day.

My attempts to break back into talk radio – or news, or sports, or pretty much any kind of radio at all – had fallen to a desultory hour or two of calling to check up on old contacts, once every week or two.

Oh, I was still nominally in play, sort of. Kind of. Stations in New Bedford and Fall River Massachussets, Hammond Indiana, Sarasota Florida, Santa Rosa California and Albuquerque New Mexico all liked my tape, and told me to stay in touch. So I did.

And did.

And did.

And I’d occasionally dig back through the SRDS directory – which, after a year of very heavy use, was getting pretty beaten-up – and try to see if anything had changed at any other stations.

Late the previous week, I’d called a station I’d tried once the previous year – a talk station in Orlando, Florida. I found there was a new program director. I got through to him. He was a jovial-sounding guy who’d been there maybe three months. We clicked on the phone. I’d sent him a tape.

He’d gotten it.

“Mitch”, he said, in a voice that sounded like his mouth was always full of potato chips, “I love your tape. I have an idea. I can’t go into it right now, but gimme a call back at the end of the week, and let’s talk”.

My heart jumped. I wrote it down on my calendar. Friday. Call Charlie in Orlando.

We’ll be interviewing Mayor R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis during the NARN show today (listen on AM1280 The Patriot, either via radio or the website). 

Got questions for the Mayor, but don’t want to call?  Leave ’em in the comment section below.

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network:

• Volume I “The First Team” – Chad, John and Brian will do their thing from 11-1.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed is off on assignment.  I will be on from 1-3.  I’ll be joined by Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak  to talk about the state of Minneapolis, the upcoming convention, and whatever have you.  Plus Jan Schneider, one of the Republicans who’s going up against the Override Six this fall; she needs your help, and we’re gonna make sure she gets it!
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – Michael with special guest host Sean Broom from MNPublius are in from 3-5.

So tune in to all six hours of the Northern Alliance Radio Network, the Twin Cities’ media’s sole guardians of sanity. On the air at AM1280 in the Metro, or streaming at AM1280’s Website, or via podcast at Townhall.

And don’t forget the David Strom Show, with David Strom and Margaret Martin, from 9-11!

News Flash; the Minnesota Monitor is helping Al Franken circle his wagons by taking an ad hominem attack at Michael Brodkorb.  Indeed, other than Katherine Kersten (who earns the left’s ire by transgressing the liberal old-boy’s-and-Lori-Sturdevant’s-club at the Strib), nobody in the Twin Cities arouses more deranged ire than Brodkorb.

Indeed, it seems sometimes it makes them depart the surly bonds of reason.

Disclosure:  Michael’s a friend of mine, and my NARN colleague.

Background:  Along with many of us on the center-right, Michael smelled a rat when the Monitor – whose operations are underwritten by the “Center for Independent Media” – went live back in ’06.  The CIM started life sharing offices with George Soros’ attack-PR firm Media Matters for America – which, many of us felt, was more than just a coincidence.  The Monitor’s first editor, Robin Marty, tittered and giggled and obfuscated when Michael and many other local bloggers asked for details about the Monitor’s funding – or even a denial that Soros was involved.  Not that it would have mattered, other than as a way of helping the casual reader assess the “independence” of the “Center for Independent Media” from Soros; to the informed observer, being in bed with Soros, whose other activities are to say the least unsavory, might have helped the reader in judging how much and what kind of credibility to assign the Monitor. 

But other than a slip of the lip from a contributor (who admitted that the Monitor was  “supported by liberals with deep pockets”) and stalled – until former Strib reporter Erik Black let the truth slip out when departing the Monitor for the MNPost last fall. 

Now, there’s a reason the left gets all deranged over Michael Brodkorb; if Michael were a fighter pilot and big scoops on DFL shenanigans were enemy planes, the side of his cockpit would look like John Landers’ P51, only with donkeys instead of swastikas and rising suns.

“Surely”, their reasoning goes, “he must be on the GOP’s payroll”, the reasonable among them insist – although nobody’s ever come up with anything, beyond Robin Marty’s hit piece from a few years ago (which made the unsubstantiated leap from “Brodkorb was a paid consultant to the Mark Kennedy campaign” to “the GOP pays Brodkorb to blog”) which served only to give the local deranged left an ad-hominem shrieking point.

And to this day, they’re still hovering out there.  Still trying to make that connection. 

Today, we got a double helping of fun.  We were not only served with the rich irony of Paul Schmelzer (whose writing and editorship I have in the past guardedly praised in this space), a paid employee of a group linked with people to whom the Monitor and the CIM have gone to great lengths to hide their ties, flogging the thin gruel of Robin Marty’s old, debunked accusations about Brodkorb’s blog’s supposed financial ties to the GOP…

…but we got him muffing the basic facts of the story – the AP piece by Pat Condon I wrote about earlier today.

Schmelzer:

The AP neglects to mention Brodkorb’s past work as research director for the Republican Party of Minnesota and a part-time gig as “press consultant” to former Republican senatorial candidate Mark Kennedy; according to Federal Elections Commission reports, he earned $4,500 per month at that job.

Condon’s AP story:

He dropped out of college in 1995 to work on the failed U.S. Senate campaign of Rudy Boschwitz. In the late ’90s, Brodkorb worked for state Senate Republicans, where he started to learn how to do “opposition research” — digging up dirt on opponents. He did it well enough to become director of research for the state Republican Party, and served in similar roles for several Republican campaigns…

…and later…

Brodkorb started Minnesota Democrats Exposed anonymously in 2004, when he was still a paid employee of the state Republican Party.

I think that counts as a “mention”, don’t you, Paul?

Schmelzer: 

The AP also doesn’t mention the check for $5,500 Brodkorb received on September 3, 2006, for research services provided to the Michele Bachmann campaign.

And for about the thousandth time in three years, I have to ask – so what?  Brodkorb gets to have a day job – right?  Leaving aside that adding “scare quotes” around “press consultant” doesn’t by itself impeach Brodkorb’s story (right?), I have a question for the Monitor:  Given the reputation as a giant-killer that Michael Brodkorb has built up, and the fact that he is not a dumb guy, and that he’s got a city full of leftybloggers and DFL opposition researchers scurrying about like cockroaches on amyl, looking for that magic link that’d discredit him, does anyone rationally think that Brodkorb – who claims not to earn his living from politics today – would risk all of that by trying to lie about his income?

Y’know – like the Monitor did?

And when you get back to us on that, Paul and Robin and your various supporters (heh), please try to use things like “evidence” rather than “innuendo” and “jumping to conclusions that aren’t warranted by evidence”. 

UPDATE:  Joe Tucci hit the same conclusion at about the same time, noting that Schmelzer has added a “correction”:

The “correction” is even funnier than the “error”:

The AP only mentions in passing Brodkorb’s past work as research director for the Republican Party of Minnesota and leaves out specific reference to a part-time gig as “press consultant” to former Republican senatorial candidate Mark Kennedy… (emphasis mine).

It’s a 1,000 word fucking wire story. Should they have posted a detailed and exhaustive C.V. along with the story? “OMFG – Brodkorb worked at McDonald’s when he was in high school , and they clear cut rainforests!!!”

Is that something they normally do? Is it desirable?

Only if you’re a power hungry partisan hack with an axe to grind

It smelled lovely in the hotel room on Sunday. Bun had brought her bouquet from the wedding:

…which was a real work of art.

But then it was off to a big day of chasing around.

First: Brunch at my stepson’s new in-laws in Brooklyn, not far from the Brooklyn Museum…:

…with its famous chorus of synchronized water fountains (which don’t lend themselves to still photography).

Of course, for Zam the main event, in his little 15 year old skateboard-obsessed mind, was yet to come; the Brooklyn Banks:

Above is the Brooklyn Bridge. To the left is One Police Plaza. And up ahead? Well, skateboarders. Doy.

Bun and I went to the Staten Island Ferry – my first trip on the fabled boat.

Bun contemplates the Bayonne skyline:

…and takes a look at Derek Jeter’s fishing boat:

…until The Donnybrook in Brooklyn Park – the great debate between talk radio titans Michael Medved (R – Salem) and Ed Schultz (D – Jones Media).

Get your tickets at the Patriot website – they’re $99 for the VIP Ticket, which includes dinner with Medved, Schultz and about a hundred of their closest friends, plus the debate and a photo op.

Tix for the debate only are $20 in advance, $25 at the door./font>

I’ll be co-MC-ing the event, along with former St. Paul representative and current MN2020 poobah Matt Entenza.  This is gonna be fun!

The biggest buzz in the Minnesota GOP in the current electoral cycle has been, regrettably, not been the whole “beating the Democrats” thing.

It’s been the whole Ron Paul “Revolution”.

Whatever side of the situation you’re on, let me just say – I’ve been there and done that.

I left the GOP in 1994, out of disgust with the GOP’s support for Bill Clinton’s 1994 “Crime Bill”, which did fairly ghastly things to Americans’ civil liberties. I joined the big-L Libertarian party, and ran for office (The story’s right here).

I came back about ten years ago because I realized that the reason the Libertarian Party could be so ideologically pure on liberty was that they were never going to have to prove anything to anyone; they were never going to have to put their beliefs through the scrum of interaction with other peoples’ ideas, the eternal “tug of war” that politics really is.

And when I came back, I was regarded with suspicion by some of the regulars in my district. It was almost funny, back then; the district conventions would like up with about half the people to stage right whose only apparent issues were abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research, and the other half to stage left who were into everything else – taxes, guns, terrorism, growth, what-have-you. Talking amongst ourselves, some of us thought that some of the Fourth District leadership might be a lot happier if we’d all just shut up.

But we didn’t. –

And so I, and the few other Libertarian Party refugees, jumped into the fray and did our best to pull the district toward our agenda. We didn’t win every battle – but we made our presence felt. And some of us are still involved with the party.

That brings us to this year. Whatever you think of Ron Paul’s politics (my take: gratifyingly pure from a libertarian perspective – which is a perspective that can lend a lot of great points to the larger GOP, but can only exist as an entire political philosophy in a hothouse. You’re more than entitled to your own opinion – indeed, if you’re an SD66 blog writer or feel like leaving a comment, by all means do!), the good news is that he brought a lot of enthusiastic new people to the party – and to SD66.

And while some in the Fourth, the City and the District are upset about some of the things that the influx has brought to the party (a concern about long-term commitment to the party, as opposed to Ron Paul alone), they bring something the Fourth CD and District 66B desperately need; enthusiasm.

So here’s my hope; that the “old line” Republicans in the district will take the influx of Paul supporters and their agenda for what it is; a challenge to put up or shut up; to espouse your own principles (and, if necessary, refine them) as effectively as they do theirs. To bring the same energy to the table that they do. To represent for your own beliefs, whatever they are.

Viewed that way, the Paul influx is a gift.

And I hope, in turn, that the Ron Paul supporters will learn something from those of us who’ve been banging away for this party for years, sometimes decades; that there’s a lot to learn; that while politics starts with passion, it ends – inevitably, since our government governs with the consent of all of the governed, one way or another – with compromise. And that compromise is like that tug of war I keep writing about; the best you can do, always, is pull that compromise as far your way as your reason, your dedication and your passion can pull it.

So let’s get out there and pull. Together.

(Cross-posted at District 66B Republicans)

My NARN colleague Michael Brodkorb has been beating up the Franken campaign like Mikek Tyson going over an errant waiter.

Now, even the AP is on the story, with this piece by the AP’s Pat Condon (with whom we’ve visited in the past) on Brodkorb and his MO:

From the kitchen table in his tranquil suburban neighborhood, Brodkorb for the last year has used his blog “Minnesota Democrats Exposed” to launch a furious political assault on Franken. He’s labeled the former comedian and liberal commentator a “mean-spirited and un-Minnesotan” candidate who’s running a “desperate and ridiculous” campaign.

That’s routine stuff in the world of political blogging, but in the last two months Brodkorb has scored two direct hits that have the Franken campaign reeling. Brodkorb scooped the traditional media by detailing extensive bookkeeping problems in New York and California that ultimately prompted Franken, this week, to pay about $70,000 in back taxes to 17 states.

The stories have knocked Franken off balance as he prepares to take on Sen. Norm Coleman, in what’s expected to be one of the most expensive and toughest-fought U.S. Senate races this year.

I loved this next bit (emphasis added by me):

Democrats have tried to downplay Brodkorb by portraying him as part of coordinated Republican attacks.

“When people talk about the right wing noise machine, that’s what it is,” said Franken spokesman Andy Barr.

But even some of his harshest critics admit Brodkorb, who has no real counterweight on the left, has been effective.

No counterweight.  I love that.  And ain’t it the truth.

UPDATE:  The DFL is spinning like mad to try to un-poink Franken.  And Gary Gross is chopping the spin up like a rhetorical teppanyaki chef.  Read the whole thing, and – if you don’t much care for the notion of a Senator Franken – chuckle.  It leaves a mark on a lot of people other than the would-be senator.

What was that term we used to use to refer to nebbishy guys who’d suddenly get all ten-foot-tall-and-armor-plated when they’d get a couple of Sex On The Beaches down the hatch?

Oh, yeah – “Liquid Courage”; the phenomenon whereby someone with no aptitude at something becomes an expert, maven or badass after marinading their brain in ethanol for a bit.  It has analogues in the worlds of philosophy, sex, music and so on (Liquid Intellect, Confidence and Talent, respectively).

The kicker is, “Liquid” attributes aren’t all bad.  How many of the world’s great works of art have been created by people who were more bombed than Atomizer on a Saturday morning at Byerly’s?  How much of the world’s great music was created by people who washed their great ideas down a chaser?  Not just booze, of course; drugs and mental illness have both helped artists, thinkers, creators of all stripes to unlock their inner genius.  Or at least swing for the fence.
Of course, anything the human mind and body can do on ethanol, it can do with technology.  Photoshop has given almost anyone the ability to alter photographs in a way that used to take LSD or spyrochaetal paresis.  The reversible turntable allowed people who can’t play music to…play music.

And in the days before the Line Six computer-based modeling preamp, there were two ways to sound like Jimi Hendrix or Jimi Page: great drugs, or the Big Muff.

The Muff was a “fuzz box”; it introduced distortion into the signal chain between the guitar and the amp, making an amp at normal indoor-level volume sound like it was being overdriving until the speaker cones were red-hot. The three knobs controlled the tone, volume and…er, flatulency of the “fuzz” effect, while the big stomp-switch allowed you to turn the effect on and off with your foot.

It didn’t put out the really nice, high-quality harmonic and overdrive distortion that you got from cranking a Marshall stack to 11.  It was more the kind of farty-sounding “fuzz” you heard on songs like “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”, George Harrison’s “What Is Love”, and a zillion other sixties and seventies songs. Which wasn’t a bad thing in its own right; psychedelic, gassy fuzz has its place.

But here was the cool part; if you turned the “fuzz” off, but cranked the output volume on the unit anyway, it would make your clean amp (me: a 1960-ish Fender Deluxe) sound just a tad dirty; the difference between sounding like George Benson and George Thorogood.  It’d add that little edge of drive that’d put just a sweet little tinge of distortion around the edge of you “clean” tone.

In other words, there were the Two Stages of Big Muff:

1. the Psychedelic Hummingbird phase – where you wallow in fuzzy pseudodistorition because it makes your notes bleed together enough to make you sound really cooo, maaaan, and…
2. The Preamp phase – when you realize that the Muff sounds best when it’s “off”, yet still “on”.

Mine got stolen in high school, by the way.  I know who did it.  And I know where you live, and I’m just biding my time.

Another law-abiding homeowner with a gun became possessed by the spirit of his/her firearm, and ran amok, killing indiscriminately.

Well, no.  Actually, a Saint Paul homeowner apprehended a violent scumbag with a knife who’d broken into his house.

The really amazing part about this story?  The Strib carried it:

Jon Sokol wasn’t trying to be a hero when he confronted a burglary suspect who had brazenly broken through the front door of his home in St. Paul.

Sokol, 49, said his adrenaline was flowing as he crept up the stairs, revolver in hand, from the basement bedroom he shares with his wife.

His wife had been awoken at about 4:45 a.m. Wednesday by their alarm system and initially thought Sokol had — again — opened the door to get the newspaper without turning off the alarm. But there he was, sleeping right next to her.

Then she heard footsteps. “I think there’s somebody in the house,” Sokol recalled her whispering. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Noooo.'”

Sokol said he’d gotten to the second step when he saw somebody cross the room upstairs. “Oh my, there is somebody in our house,” he thought.

“I grabbed our gun, which we keep for protection,” he said.

Of course, it was all a terrible misunderstanding.  He was just a Japanese exchange student, or a drunk college kid or…

…or….

…er, no.  He was a dirtbag with a criminal record longer than Bill McGuire’s portfolio of backdated options, armed – according to the Saint Paul police – with a knife and possible a fireplace poker.

“As I stepped around the corner, he hit me … right between the eyes,” Sokol said. “And I fired the gun.

“Down on the ground he went and I insisted, in a not very nice way, that he not move,” he said. “I held him at gunpoint until the police arrived.”

Michael G. Spencer, 31, of St. Paul, has been charged in Ramsey County District Court with two felony counts of burglary. He has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for theft and burglary as recently as last year.

Now, all joshing aside for the moment – nobody claimed that having a gun was a panacaea.  Having to use a gun to defend oneself is pretty much always the second worst option available to you. 

[Sokol] ended up with a small cut on his forehead and a somewhat shattered sense of security. He and his wife dead-bolted themselves in their bedroom Wednesday night, and still he stayed awake all night keeping watch while his wife slept.

But it could have been much, much worse. 

As, indeed, Sokol seems to realize:

“It’s a happy ending, I guess,” Sokol said. “The good guy’s still alive, for the time being. And the bad guy is captured. It turned out like you see in the movies.”

Perhaps. 

Beats the hell out of the alternative.