Give Mom the gift of self-defense!

A few months ago, I wrote about the Vemork raid – in which a small party of Norwegian commandos derailed the Nazi nuclear program with a daring raid to destroy a heavy-water plant in the wilds of the Telemark.

The London Telegraph notes that one of the raid’s two surviving heroes, Joachim Rønneberg, is breaking his traditional Norwegian modesty; he’sA  speaking out to try to teach a new generation of Norwegians, about the raid, the war, and what it means to people today.

You should read the whole thing – but I liked this excerpt:

Rønneberg, the leader of the team, was hailed a hero, thanked personally by Churchill, and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. But for years, he refused to talk publicly about his involvement. Naturally self-effacing and suffused with a deep sense of loyalty, he was loath to take any of the glory for himself. The march of time, however, has caused him to reconsider. Now aged 90, Rønneberg is one of only two members of the team still alive; the other is 99, and was recently hospitalised. He feels it is his duty to tell the story of the raid while he still can…

Despite his age, he still cuts an imposing figure; tall, with broad-shoulders, a square jaw and an air of quiet self-control. “Having been more or less silent for years, now I realise it is important and quite natural for people to ask about the past so they can plan for the future. People must realise that peace and freedom have to be fought for every day.”

Rønneberg, as a  young fella, set sail in a fishing boat across the Norwegian Sea just a little less than seventy years ago, to fight for freedom.  His is a story more people today need to learn, if only because we all know what happens when people forget their history.

I’m proud to announce the winners of the “Write Lori Sturdevant’s GOP Conventi0n Column” contest!

It was the tightest contest in the history of Shot In The Dark, with my evil twin brother Jed’s “Anger Close” barely tipping Dave from Mound’s “A Tale Of Two Cities“, by a total of two votes.   Speed Gibson’s  “It’s The GOP’s Turn To Unify” came in a close third.

Thanks to everyone for participating!

From the Dictionary In The Dark:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chanting points.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I almost titled this column “Our Pauline Kael”.

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

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

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

The piece’s comedic moneyshot is next:

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

Right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UPDATE AND BUMP:  I’m moving this to the top for today.  Get your votes in by noon!

———-

As noted last week, it’s time for the “Write Lori’s Next Column” contest – in which you, the Shot In The Dark audience (Audience In The Dark) write Lori Sturdevant’s post-MNGOP Convention column for her – to move into its final phase!

Judge each of the columns by the following criteria:

• Which one best captures Strib columnist and DFL flak Lori Sturdevant’s writing style
• Which one best reflects her relentless DFL upsucking?

I’m going to publish one post for each of the contestants; I’ll take a poll at the end, with the winner to be announced on Monday.

There are eight entries:

Dave from Mound’s “A Tale Of Two Cities”

Mr D’s “The Republican Hangover”

Ben’s “Teabags For 2,000”

Bubbasan’s “It Was A Snark And Smarmy Night”

JW Of Minnesota’s “We Are Women, Hear We Roar”

Speed Gibson, “It’s The GOP’s Turn To Unify”

Golfdoc50’s “The Wind Is Blowing Left”

Jed Berg’s “Anger Close”

Vote! Vote! Vote!

UPDATE! The column we’re parodying – or perhaps, joining in parodying – is already out!

Expect a full fisking Sunday or Monday.

But until then – vote vote vote!

Some thoughts about the 2010 MN GOP Convention.

Stoked: I made a pretty religious point about not “endorsing” anyone leading up to the convention, and I always will.  Part of it is that I’ve always felt it was the height of misplaced vanity for bloggers to “endorse” anyone – as if our individual votes are a matter of any public importance (I’m speaking only for myself here; all of you who did endorse, or just make your sympathies known, have your reasons, and I’m cool with it).  Even worse, since I do have some following out there, I’d be afraid someone would cast a vote because of something I wrote, rather than forming their own opinion.  I criticize news media for endorsing candidates; why would I be different?

But the members of my House District convention (66B) needed to know who they were sending to Minneapolis – so with them, I was open about supporting Emmer.  I stressed that I wasn’t voting against Seifert – indeed, choosing between Emmer, Seifert, Dave Hann (who dropped out of the race over the winter) and a potential candidacy by Laura Brod was among the toughest political choices I’ve ever made.  Emmer won my vote for two reasons; speaker points (he is, quite simply, the best stump speaker in Minnesota politics today; at the gubernatorial debates, he will mow through whomever the DFL chooses, Kelliher or Dayton or Entenza, like a lawnmower through a cabbage patch) and his ability to show people in the middle why to move right, rather than moving himself to the middle to meet them.

Practically every commentator who’s written on the subject has complimented Seifert on his concession during the third ballot.  It’s hard to describe how important – indeed, stirring – it was.  He took the stage, introduced a motion to unanimously endorse Emmer, got 2,000 “seconds” and an acclamation voice vote that rattled the rafters.  The word “electrifying” is overused, but it fits.  This past weekend is among the very few times I can say the MN GOP feels not just unified, but mostly happy about it, in all my years of following the party.

The activists on the floor nearly shook with their desire to get on to November.  In the three State Conventions I’ve attended now, I’ve never seen the party this fired up.

Emmer Is King Cool:  If there’s a lesson for non-GOPers to learn from the convention, it is to put a lid on “conventional wisdom”.

“The CW” says that Tom Emmer is “angry”.  Not just in the “angry white male” sense, although that’s been slathered about promiscuously by a whole lot of media and “alt” media who have a vested interest in Emmer losing.

But in fact, the campaign showed that Emmer keeps his cool.  He was the target of an awful lot of low blows in the weeks before the convention; not only did he not overreact, he didn’t respond.  He didn’t take the bait.  An “angry” man would have at least gotten off a killer comeback; I’m not especially angry, and I love whacking down hecklers more than most things in life.  Emmer’s good at it.  And yet he kept his silence, his counsel, and his eyes on the prize.  “Never let them see you sweat”, says the famous showbiz bromide and deodorant ad.  “Never let them see you blow your top” is equally vital.  Emmer stayed his course.

Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Nothing!: The “Ron Paul Crowd” has established itself within the party; it’s not a “Kingmaker” faction, by any means, but the Liberty lobby in the MNGOP can not be ignored.  It’s hard to tell if it’s part of or distinct from the “Tea Party” faction – which was important enough that the party invited Toni Backdahl, the powerhouse who organized the past four Tea Parties in Minnesota, to speak, even though she and the Party emphatically do not endorse parties, much less candidates.

There was a curious diversion on Friday night, though; a group of “Liberty” candidates started bagging on Emmer’s “establishment” status, because Norm Coleman and Vin Weber were supporting him.

And I asked – in person, on the blog and via Twitter – what of Coleman’s “RINO” policies did Emmer adopt just because Coleman – who was an imperfect conservative, but voted correctly enough on the majority of issues – was supporting him?

I mean, we’re talking Tom Emmer, the guy who introduced the “Firearms Freedom Act” in the Legislature – which, title notwithstanding, is a bill to reinforce the Tenth Amendment more than the Second.  The guy who, when asked (in front of a live audience at the Northern Alliance Radio Network at the State Fair) what he believed about Gay Marriage replied “I don’t care” (he personally opposes it, but it’s not the governor’s job to decide) – he’s “anti-liberty?”

Because…Norm Coleman made phone calls for him?

I may be just a dumb unedumacated talk show host with a blog on a tiny station that nobody listens to (no, really – he says so!), but that just doesn’t make any sense.

Higher Callings: Sarah Palin’s endorsement seemed to make a bigger splash among Seifert’s people, and the thin-but-significant film of non-Palin-fans in the house, than among Emmer’s people.  I heard some chatter alluding to the rally that Rep. Bachmann had thrown sixteen days earlier in the same room, which was a huge morale boost for Bachmann’s campaign (not that she needs it; she’s going to crush Tarryl Clark this November).  They decried the obstreporously Christian nature of the rally.

Truth be told, I felt a little bit the same at the time.  The rally opened with a Christian “rap” group whose problem was less that their freshly-scrubbed boy-bandish style promiscuously mixed rap, country, arena rock and N-Sync-style R’nB than that they sang over recorded backing tracks, which is a huge pet peeve of mine.  It led off with an invocation from a very fundie minister that took, let’s just say, a less-than-inclusive tack.  Now, both Palin and Bachmann are fundamentalists; the minister may have reflected them adequately enough.

But there’s a good point there; while I am an unapologetic Christian (a militant Presbyterian), I’m in a city where I’m surrounded by people who should be Republicans; Asians who live and breathe free enterprise; Arab and Farsi businessmen who treasure capitalism and liberty (including my neighbor on the floor in my district); Latino Catholics who are disgusted with the education system and are every bit as socially-conservative as Mac Hammond’s flock, and have a work ethic that’d make an Edina realtor blanche nod with respect.   So should they feel for a moment excluded from the party because they are Buddhists, Taoists, Moslem or even just non-evangelical?

For that matter, do we want to turn gay conservtives away?  Because they’re out there, and their votes, checks and energy count just as much as yours do.

I no more want my candidates to preach to me (outside the context of an individual conversation on the subject) than I want the government to tell me what to believe – even if I am a Christian, and even if most of the people in my party are too.

In Living Colour: Some of my snarky lib pals have asked “what color were the attendees?”

Simple.  There were almost 2,000 Red, White and Blue people there.

But since we’re talking to a liberal audience, who obsess over (and prosper from) race and class divides – there were more non-white delegates than I’ve ever seen. Quite a few Asian delegates, a few Asian/Middle Eastern (including the guy in the seat next to me), and more African-Americans than I’ve ever seen.  Many were younger guys – they looked like college kids or or recent grads.  But there were plenty more – a fiftysomething gentleman in full VFW regalia who clearly wanted to be identified by more than his skin color, and a good contingent of guys who looked…a lot like me.  30-40something family guys with kids.  And I can’t imagine why anyone of any ethnic background with kids in the schools and half a brain would vote DFL – but it’s a matter of empirical record the schools fail black kids the worst.

Pardon an observation – and that’s all it is – but I think Barb Davis-White’s candidacy made it safer for black conservatives to come out, especially in places like North Minneapolis, which are testimonies to the failure of DFL policy.  More than that, I think she made it safe for Afro-Americans in Minneapolis to look past the party divides and take a fresh look at conservatism.

I wonder if the Central Corridor – which will target Asian businesses in Frogtown like a heat-seeking missile targets jet tailpipes – will do the same in Saint Paul?

Nothing To Stand On: One of those black conservatives, Walter Scott Hudson, writes Fightin’ Words, one of the better new blogs I’ve read lately (note to Walter; you should join the Minnesota Organization of Bloggers).  Hudson observed the battle over the platform that I’ve been writing about, the struggle to make it shorter and more accessible.

As I noted on Friday, while the CD3 GOP passed the “Statement of Guiding Principles” that Derek Brigham, John LaPlante, Rick Weibel, Jan Schneider and I wrote a few weeks back – a simple one-page, ten-item list.  It passed CD3, but got held up in the Platform Committee.  It got reintroduced from the floor.

Hudson picks up the story:

Having been adopted at the CD3 convention a few weeks prior, the Republican Guiding Principles and Values Statement came before the state convention on Saturday. There were vigorous arguments against the document which provoked reflection upon the entire platform building process.

One delegate rose to argue, “Principles are like posteriors. Everyone has them. None are good to look at other than your own. And God made it so we can never see ours.” The line got a hearty laugh and some applause from the crowd; but I’m not sure how to derive anything meaningful from it. In point of fact, the principles articulated in the statement are universal to the party membership. Consider points 7-9:

7)  The Pursuit of Happiness is essential to our existence; we support equal opportunities not equal results.

8)  Charity comes best from the heart of individuals and cannot be forced or coerced via taxation and regulation.

9)  The law must be applied to everyone equally; no one is above the law.

Are these really statements of biometric specificity which no two people can share? I think not. I think they are pretty dead on representations of beliefs commonly expressed and acted upon by Republican candidates and public servants.

Many delegates seemed territorially indignant, expressing concern the platform was being usurped, or that something was being taken away from them. One rose to extol the virtues of the specificity in the platform (i.e. aforementioned Eddie Eagle language) as both representative of the grassroots and necessary for holding the party’s elected officials accountable. These concerns seemed plainly unfounded. The document was clearly submitted as new and distinct from the platform. The grassroots, best represented in individual precinct caucuses, have their submitted resolutions thoroughly eviscerated by time the platform draft makes it to the convention floor. Finally, nothing binds any Republican elected official to abide by the party platform. In short, a platform is not legislation.

The process of going through resolutions seems to occupy the time of people who don’t understand the process all that well; the platofrm isn’t, as Hudson notes, legislation; indeed, something as long and occasionally contradictory as the Platform scarcely serves as a guide to the legislators we have.

The statement, however, apparently passed, so that’s all good.

It’s troubling, though, that so many Republicans are so unclear on the idea of what “princples” are.  We had some big laughs at some of the rules debate, when people who clearly had not been to state conventions questioned “roll call voting” that had, in fact, been practiced since the Civil War (at least – I mean, I dunno); it turned out that the BPOU by BPOU roll call vote was the hit of the convention, giving an unprecedented level of transparency to at least the first ballot; each person in each BPOU had a fair idea of who’d voted for whom, and the whole convention could stink-test the results in real-time.

But that’s just education.  It’ll come along.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good call, Jeff Rosenberg!

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

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

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

Back to MNPublius:

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

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

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

The below is a contestant in the “Write Lori Sturdevant’s Next Column” contest, written by “Dave From Mound”.   Vote above.

Last weekend, the DFL loyalists journeyed to Duluth to make their endorsements for statewide offices, including governor.  They joined together, deliberated, and celebrated.  They made history and exited Duluth unified behind their flag bearer.

On Friday, it was the GOP’s turn in Minneapolis.  Needless to say, their convention had a palpable feel that was not evident at the DFL’s productive and positive environment.  It felt as if the caustic infection that afflicts the body politic in Washington DC has invaded our ‘Minnesota Nice’.

Whether it was the heated speeches by Michele Bachmann, who took as many cheap shots and one-liners at the DFL and President Obama as time permitted, or the anti-government Tea Partier banter heard among the delegates, the atmosphere was less a political convention than a well-dressed and better-organized lynch mob.  Where have the reasoned and balanced Republicans gone, such as Governor Arnie Carlson or Jim Ramstad?

Friday’s events were highlighted by the endorsement of Tom Emmer, the conservative state house representative from Wright County.  In contrast to the DFL’s convention, this day of endorsement battles again revealed deep fissures in the GOP by way of petty partisan attacks made by Emmer and his endorsement rival Marty Seifert.

Even after the bruising endorsement battle ended, the sniping by the delegates and their candidates continued as they exited the convention hall.  Each side remained steadfastly committed to their candidates, leading to significant speculation that Seifert will break his previous pledge not to run in the August primary.

The bitter divisions were best illustrated by the political punches thrown by the Lieutenant Governor candidates.  The first body blows were thrown by Annette Meeks, the running mate for Emmer.  In speaking informally with delegates, Meeks was heard disparaging her counterpart, Rhonda Sivarajah, over revelations of her pass DFL association and not-so-conservative past credentials.  Sivarajah, Seifert’s running mate, countered with Meeks’ association to Newt Gingrich, during the time when his infidelities to his cancer-ridden wife were at their height.

Needless to say, the contrasts between the two conventions were stark.  Last week, a unified and energized group of DFLers left Duluth a cohesive political force, ready to take back the Governor’s mansion after 20 years in the political wilderness.  In witnessing the adjournment of the Republicans, the divisions appear incredibly and permanently deep, too deep for their recovery in time for November’s elections.

The below is a contestant in the “Write Lori Sturdevant’s Next Column” contest, written by “Mr D”.   Vote above.

The Republicans were on a 3-day ideological bender at the Convention Center this weekend, so it was perhaps appropriate that they selected a 2-time DWI offender, Tom Emmer, to carry their unsteady banner against the DFL-endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher. In their Tea Party-fueled fervor, it seemed that the GOP lost sight of the optics of nominating a twice-convicted drunk driver in the immediate aftermath of tragedies on Minnesota highways only the week before.

The below is a contestant in the “Write Lori Sturdevant’s Next Column” contest, written by “Ben”.   Vote above.

The Republican Party proved that they have been taken over by the extreme right-wing teabaggers. They had a choice between someone who actually knows about government and wins in a very liberal area and a kook from Delano. Of course they chose the kook from Delano what would you expect. The Lt.Gov candidate is a member of the Met Council who wanted to get rid of the Lt.Governor position so will she resign if somehow the people of Minnesota send this crazy duo to the Governors Mansion? Somehow the DUI’s of Emmer’s past didn’t seem to matter to the delegates of the teabagger convention though, and I am sure MADD will let everyone know just how bad Emmer is. Can you imagine someone having veto power while drunk? We are not the former Soviet Union. What were the delegates drinking? If Siefert had been nominated I would have been able to throw my support behind him if Kelliher didn’t survive the primary. But now this conservative will support whoever is the DFL nominee after the primary. It is time to send the Democrats back to the Governors mansion, because in fairness they deserve a chance.

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On a warm and sunny evening on upscale, progressive Minneapolis, a small handful of right-wing politicos selected their ringleader to succeed Tim P. After hosting the Young Socialists meeting at my ELCA worship center, I decided to hop in the Pruis and swing over to Minneapolis for the Republican convention. What I found was a bunch of grey-suited power-brokers striving to select another grey suit. After several breath-taking rounds of voting, the grey suit driving all the long way from that suburban Delano was selected.

He’ll mount a fine Minnesota challenge to the recently selected DFL’er Kelliher. Strong on Minnesota dairy farm values, with the right touch of Minneapolis progressive thinking, Kelliher will put up a super-duper fight.

Calling on an old friend from my reporting days, I spoke with the well-known conservative Arne Carlson. He tells me “Lori, the Republicans keep moving so far to the right, Genghis Khan would blush.” We wholeheartedly agreed the problem grey suit faces is not in his well-spoken, experienced DFL adversity, but with his predecessor. Following Tim Pawlenty won’t be easy. It’s tough, given the millions poor and children who have been forced to live on the street due to Pawlenty only growing the state government in single digits.

A reputation like that needs a strong-willed woman and community organizer from Minneapolis to move across the lovely Mississippi to make the Governor’s mansion a home.

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It was a dark and stormy night in Minneapolis when the Republicans gathered, the city anti-tobacco ordinance thwarting their dark dreams of selecting a grey suit in a smoke filled room. Out of the pall of American flags, anti-choice rhetoric, dangerous concealed firearms, and rejection of the common good came a man who will carry the GOP banner, Mr. XXX XXXXXXX.

The grey suited candidate wasted no time in slandering colorful Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the DFL nominee, for her stands supporting women’s rights, the responsibility of the prosperous to pay for the common good, and protection of public safety by restricting dangerous weapons in the hands of those not qualified to use them. It was a performance worthy of his convictions for drunken driving and his treatment of his GOP opponent, Mr. XXXXXXXXX.

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Style, not substance, perceived to be the key to victory.By MOSTLI IRRELEVANT, special to Speed Gibson

Last update: May 1, 2010 – 4:37 PM

MINNEAPOLIS – While the DFL quickly closed ranks behind Margaret Anderson Kelliher last week as their endorsed candidate for Governor, many in the GOP left the Minneapolis Convention Center clearly unhappy – with the choice, the process, or both.

Kelliher led from the first ballot, but Silas Marner had to come from behind to edge Uriah Heep, finally prevailing on the seventh ballot. It was difficult for the delegates to separate these two ultra-conservatives, the difference according to many delegates being electability.

“We have to assume that Kelliher will survive the primary, maybe convincingly so with Gaertner dropping out,” said one delegate. “The DFL isn’t going to hop off her love train to embrace a couple of retreads like Dayton or Entenza. I worked hard for Uriah, but we’re going to need some charisma of our own to beat her.”

Many of the remaining Heep supporters saw it differently. “Once [Mariner] got a small lead, the party leadership pushed hard, really hard, just to get a decision,” said a disillusioned floor walker. “We in the grass roots came here to pick the best candidate.”

It was a tough choice. They’re both likable, veteran legislators and they’re both committed to deep spending cuts to close the state budget gap. Both are firmly against tax increases. But how do you put a human face on the dramatically reduced state services that requires? That was the ultimate question, and enough delegates eventually found their answer in the more personable Silas Marner.

Uriah Heep actually has been in the legislature 6 years longer than Kelliher, chairing the Finance Committee until the DFL took control in 2007. Since then he has been the ranking member on Ways and Means, and Minority Whip the past two years. As such, he matches up well against Kelliher’s own impressive record and qualifications.

But enough Republicans were willing to trade some of that for the affable personality and tireless energy of Silas Mariner. A longtime Redwood Falls business owner, he came out of nowhere to win a 2003 special election to replace Senator Teresa Defarge when she took a job transfer out of state. And he’s been impressing people at the Capitol ever since. Barring a major upset in the DFL primary, he’ll need all of that to overcome Kelliher’s wide respect and support, which by the way includes a number of Republican women. The prospect of the first woman Governor in Minnesota history is not lost on them either, especially those with school age children.

For it’s one thing to sharpen pencils and affix green eye shades when tackling the state’s short and long term financial shortfalls. It’s quite another to face young parents and explain why their schools will have to cut back even further. Health care, the other big cost driver, will affect almost everyone, and the word will go forth: you’re on your own. Even the gifted orator that is Silas Mariner is already behind in trying to explain how there is a pot of gold at the end of his rainbow of across the board cuts.

Still, Mariner likes his chances in what will undeniably be a good year for Republicans, certainly at the Federal level. But by that reasoning, Mike Hatch running in a strong Democratic year would be Governor today. We therefore look forward to a spirited, creative campaign as Silas Mariner seeks to extend the GOP’s unbroken 24 year reign in St. Paul against the historic candidacy of Margaret Anderson Kelliher.

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Bob Dylan famously wrote “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” If the Bard of Hibbing and 4th Street had been in the gallery at the Minneapolis Convention Center he might have noticed which direction the tea leaves were blowing when Tom Emmer tried to generate enough wind shear to dispel the anxieties about his checkered personal history. Perhaps those with short memories won’t shudder at the similarities between Emmer and Jesse Ventura, but citizens concerned about the continuation of basic government services in the next biennium will surely sit up and take notice.
The gray suited Republicans and their ladies in fur probably didn’t notice the tattered looking homeless hugging the curbs of downtown as they pulled up in their limos in front of the Convention Center, but the contrast between the smug and the unlucky was never more obvious.
How do you choose between a country club attending suburban elitist and neo-populist from the outer exurban ring? Closing your eyes to the plight of those clinging to the safety net that is the only thing between them and sleeping on street grates or under bridges every night.
As I was pulling my weekly one hour shift ladling soup at a homeless shelter, one of the regulars there, a toothless schizophrenic veteran tugged at my sleeve and gave me one of those looks. The kind that all great journalists expect to see when they feel the weight of the world compress their ASICS jogging shoes. Illuminating the self absorbed snotty Republican world view isn’t pretty, but somebody has to do it!

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I walked out of the Minneapolis Convention Center late on a rainy Friday night, after nearly 2,000 mostly white, mostly doughy, mostly men spent [FILL IN TOTAL TIME] hours debating between two mostly identical, but yet distinctively extreme, white men, Marty Seifert and Tom Emmer.  It took [FILL IN TOTAL BALLOTS] to endorse [FILL IN WINNER], making [FILL IN WINNER] the most extreme person ever to run for governor.

I walked out under a sky that scowled at us like the ghost of Elmer Anderson, wondering what had happened to a party that had once worked with the DFL to bring Minnesotans the services they expected?  The party that had walked side by side with the DFL to ensure that everyone paid their fair share?

The clouds threatened to rain – or was it the ghosts of the great Republicans past crying, wondering what had gone so wrong with their state?

But I took courage in the eyes of the protesters gathered across the street from the Convention Center – and was reminded of the spirit I’d felt only a week earlier in Duluth, as the sun shone brightly on the DFL as they endorsed a woman – a brilliant, respectful, genial woman! – to lead the DFL, and Minnesota, in the spirit of those great leaders of the past.

And I smiled,  And so, I think, did the sky itself.

Or was it the ghost of Elmer Anderson?  I’ll let you know what he tells me.

Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 9AM-3PM.

• Volume I “The First Team” –  Brian and John or some combination thereof kick off from 11-1.
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed is back; we’ll be up from 1-3.  Lots to talk about today – the State Convention, the Emmer campaign, and some national stuff too!
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