I’ve said it many times in this forum; Gay Marriage isn’t the biggest issue to me.

Oh, I believe “marriage” is about a guy and a gal and having kids, sure enough.  I believe that marriage is something sanctioned by the God I believe in.   I believe the religious reason is rooted in an evolutionary reason – children need both male and female parents to grow and develop as best they can (and, with that in mind, I’ll also say that I support gay adoption, in preference to single parenthood, if only because the stresses of single parenting are so very very intense). There is not a single significant religion in the world that sanctions same-sex marriage.  Not that all of the world’s religions are internally unified on the idea of same-sex marriage, as with any other political issue.

You, naturally, don’t have to believe in my God, or believe in Him in the way I do, which is why our government separates church and state.  And why I believe there’s a case to be made to allow single-sex couples to sign contracts with each other (and, for that matter, to allow any religious denomination to find some way to theologically justify it).

But while it’s not a big issue for me, personally – I’m here, I’m straight, and I’m not going away – it certainly is a defining issue for a lot of people, including quite a few that aren’t traditional Republicans.

Earlier this week, Archbishop Nienstedt, the top Catholic in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area, released a video – on Youtube, and on a DVD that is being mailed to Catholics throughout the region via the good graces of an “unnamed donor” – that pretty much laid down the ecclesiastical smack on single-sex marriage.

Now, Nienstedt is a social conservative, in contrast with his predecessor.  His message is far from unexpected.

What is unexpected is the regional social left’s response to Nienstedt’s video.  They are outraged.

It almost seems out of proportion to the video; after all, Nienstedt has been a social conservative all along; as such, among largely traditionally left-of-center Twin Cities Catholics, he’s been a known quantity since long before he became Archbishop.

No – they are outraged because same sex marriage, even in traditionally “purple” Minnesota, is not just a loser for the Dems; a new poll shows it’s a potential game-changer.

Lawrence Research carried out a poll three weeks ago, among 600 likely voters.  The poll, by way of level-setting, discovered Minnesotans feel the state is on the wrong track by a 57-31 margin.

And, as befitted a poll taken in August, two weeks after the primary, as Tom Emmer’s campaign was just getting started, the initial poll result looked good for Mark Dayton, who pulled out to a 40-33 lead, with Horner drawing 14%.

Then, and only then, the pollsters brough same-sex marriage into the picture.   The Minnesotans polled say “marriage” should be between a man and a woman by a 58-36 margin, with very few – 6% – undecided.

The sample also overwhelmingly believe that future legislation about the definition of marriage should be carried out by the voters, rather than the Legislature or the Federal courts (62%, 6% and 19% respectively, with 13% undecided).

Here’s where it got interesting.  I’ll quote from the Lawrence poll:

5. Have you heard or read anything about efforts to have the state legislature legalize same-sex marriage in Minnesota?

Yes, aware……………………………….. 51

No, unaware…………………………….. 49

Initially I was surprised the “Yes” was that low.  Then I realized – the DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) have wanted to soft-pedal this news.  After reflection, I’m surprised it’s that high.

Because I suspect they knew how this next question was going to break out:

6. Gubernatorial candidates Mark Dayton, DFL, and Tom Horner, Independence, both support same-sex marriage while Tom Emmer, Republican, believes that marriage should be preserved as only between a man and a woman.  In light of this, if the election were held today, would you vote for … (ALTERNATE READING 1-2-3 AND 2-1-3)

Tom Emmer, Republican……………… 43

Mark Dayton, DFL……………………. 36

Tom Horner, Independence Party…. 11

[UNDECIDED]………………………… 10

Catch that?  Among this sample, introducing the notion that the definition of marriage will be taken out of the peoples’ hands and given to the legislature or, worse, the courts causes a 14 points swing.

And the poll has ramifications down-ticket, in state legislative races, as well:

7. Let’s say you have decided to vote for a candidate for the state legislature because you agree with most of his or her positions on the issues.  Then, let’s say you find out that your chosen candidate has the opposite position of yours on the marriage issue.  Would you still vote for that candidate or would you switch and vote for someone who agrees with your position on the marriage issue?

Would still vote for original candidate………………….. 47

Would switch and vote for someone else……………… 38

[NO OPINION]…………………………………………….. 15

That means over a third of respondents would ditch a legislative candidate who favored legislating single-sex marriage from above (almost invariably DFLers).

Bear in mind, this poll was taken in a linear order.  There’s a reason for this; it helps pollsters measure how ideas change peoples’ minds.  The poll took one more look at the Governor race:

Looking ahead to November’s election for governor one more time …

8. If you knew that Mark Dayton and Tom Horner are opposed to letting the people vote on the same-sex marriage issue, and Tom Emmer favors letting the people vote on the same-sex marriage issue, would you then vote for … (ALTERNATE READING 1-2-3 AND 2-1-3)

Tom Emmer, Republican……………… 44

Mark Dayton, DFL……………………. 33

Tom Horner, Independence Party…. 11

[UNDECIDED]………………………… 12

Now, it’s only 600 voters.  The margin of error is 4.1% either way.

But the overall impression – people want to decide the future of marriage themselves, even in “liberal”, “purple” Minnesota – is broad and unmistakeable.

And that’s why Nienstedt, his DVD, and his un-named mysterious donor are all public enemies-number-one for the regional left.

For my purposes, this election is about the economy, jobs and the role of government.  But same sex marriage is a sleeping giant of an issue throughout this state.

The latest Rasmussen Poll shows the race still a dead heat, but with Emmer ahead:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Minnesota Voters shows Emmer earning 42% support to Dayton’s 41% when leaners are included. Independence Party candidate Tom Horner is a distant third with nine percent (9%) of the vote. Six percent (6%) like some other candidate in the race, and two percent (2%) are undecided.

The findings move the race to a Toss-Up from Leans Democratic in the Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 Gubernatorial Scorecard.

Dayton’s supporters will do the usual bleating; it’s a landline phone survey, yadda yadda.

And some of the local wonk class are astounded that Tom Horner, who drew 18 points in the last KSTP/Survey USA poll, is down to 9 in the lastest Raz.

I think there’s a rational reason for it; I’ll add emphasis:

This is the first survey of the governor’s race to include leaners. Leaners are those who initially indicate no preference for either of the candidates but answer a follow-up question and say they are leaning towards a particular candidate. Rasmussen Reports now considers results with leaners the primary indicator of the race.

Excluding leaners, Emmer edges Dayton 36% to 34%, and Horner chalks up 18% support. Horner’s loss of support when leaners are added highlights the tendency in most races for supporters of third-party candidates to gravitate to one of the major party nominees as Election Day approaches.

I suspect an awful lot of people consider third-party candidacies as a sort of personal “protest” against the major parties – up until it becomes real to them.

We’ll be talking about one of those issues that are making the leaners lean real hard, at noon today on Shot In The Dark.

If you are a charter school parent, no matter what your politics, I urge you reprint this article and pass it around to your friends,

While Minnesota is proud of its education system, its great achilles heel is the inner city.  The Twin Cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, have among the highest achievement gaps in the nation between white and black students – and pouring money into the districts isn’t changing anything.  Indeed, as the budget has skyrocketed, the situation’s gotten worse.

So for many parents in the Twin Cities, charter schools have been a lifeline – a place where their kids aren’t just numbers on a school district spreadsheet, where they have some input into how the school works.   The vast majority of parents in inner-city charter schools are, ironically, minorities.  Most are below the district income averages.

Mark Dayton wants to slash state funding to charter schools.

His budget plan (both of his tries at a budget plan, actually) will slash lease aid payments to charter schools.

This is a huge financial hit.

When people throw around figures like “it costs $11,000 a year to teach a student in this district”, remember that public districts can float bonds to build their school buildings, as well as get extra money from special local school tax levies.  Charter schools are forbidden by (a stupid) state law from spending their money on buying buildings.

The state allots a certain amount of “lease aid” to charter schools, which helps them rent space.

Dayton wants to slash this aid.

It may or may not affect well-heeled schools in tony suburbs.  But it will shred poor inner city charter schools.

So, all you black, Latino, H’mong, Native American, or Muslim parents who pulled your kids out of your wretched inner-city public schools?  Most of you, statistically, will vote for Mark Dayton.

You are voting for your kids’ ticket back to sub-mediocrity.  The ticket back to being treated like a number.  The ticket back to being written off, and treated like make-work programs for the teachers’ union, rather than future people with immense potential.

Mark Dayton cares more about feeding money to the union that helped cause your neighborhood schools’ collapse than he does about your kids and the path to education that you, the parents, have chosen.

Think about it.

I joined a good chunk of the blogosphere in reviling Michelle Obama for saying she wasn’t proud of being an American until her husband became a contender.  It was a dumb remark.

Still – hearing that the Democrats are going to do this…:

Comedy Central humorist Stephen Colbert is set to testify before a House subcommittee on immigration at 9:30 a.m. today. Yes, you heard that right. Colbert is scheduled to appear alongside United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, whose group initiated a campaign called “Take Our Jobs” that challenged U.S. citizens to replace immigrants in farm work. On last night’s edition of “The Colbert Report,” Colbert took the challenge, packing corn and picking beans to see if he could handle farm labor. As it turns out, he really can’t.

…and I gotta confess, they might wanna close the Statue of Liberty, because it’s gonna fall over.

Next week, look for the Cookie Monster to talk about childhood obesity.

I’m not one to jump to rash conclusions.  I’d hate to have my self-appointed betters call me a “lazy-ass activist”, after all – that is one of those things where the mere accusation makes it so, at least if the subject is a conservative in Minnesota, apparently.

So I sent the following email to the Dayton cmpaign.

I’m Mitch Berg, of WWTC-AM’s “Northern Alliance Radio Network” and the blogs “Shot In The Dark” and “True North”.

Senator Dayton has said that he attended the University of Massachusetts at Amherst after graduating from Yale University.

I called Amherst; they said they have no record of a Mark Dayton, DOB 1/26/1947, attending the institution.

I’m sure this is just a paperwork flub on someone’s part. Would there be any way the campaign could confirm Senator Dayton’s attendance?

Thanks, and stay dry!

Mitch Berg

“The Northern Alliance Radio Network”

WWTC-AM, Eagan, MN

“Shot In The Dark” – www.shotinthedark.info

“True North” – www.looktruenorth.com

I’ll be following up by phone later today, if I don’t get an answer.

You could almost call it a “malaise“…

Vice President Biden said Thursday the conservative Tea Party movement might be “the best thing to happen” to Democrats with the midterm elections approaching.

…couldn’t you?

I’ve more or less kept out of the flap over Dayton’s time as a teacher in New York.

The MNGOP has not.  And their angle is an interesting one; Dayton, who opposes Alternative Licensing for teachers, got his license through alternative means:

St. Paul- According to documents obtained by the Republican Party of Minnesota from the New York City Department of Education under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), Democrat gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton was licensed by New York City as a teacher under “Alternative B Requirements.” As a candidate for governor, Dayton is supported by Education Minnesota, a teachers union fiercely opposed to alternative teacher licensure.

He did, of course, teach.  Sorta – emphasis added throughout:

According to the New York City Department of Education documents, Dayton taught in City schools through an alternative teaching program called Teachers, Inc (page 1). As part of his arrangement with Teachers Inc., Dayton enrolled in courses at the University of Massachusetts (page 12) after graduating from Yale University in June 1969. Dayton worked as a “term sub” for 89 days (pages 25-27, 30) from 1969-1970.

Near as I can tell, “term sub” is a form of “long term substitute”.

Dayton submitted his resignation to the New York City Department of Education during the middle of the school year on January 11, 1971 for “personal reasons” (pages 28-29). As a candidate for public office, Dayton has routinely left the impression with Minnesotans that he was a full-time public school teacher for two years. [Note: Page number references correspond to numbers on top right hand corner of documents provided by the New York City Department of Education to the Republican Party of Minnesota]

I’ll work on getting a copy of those dox to see what else might be socked away in there.

Drake continues:

“Mark Dayton was able to teach in New York’s schools under an alternative teacher licensure program, but he is now captive to the teachers union, which opposes this common sense reform that a supermajority of Minnesotans support and which allowed him to teach forty years ago. While Dayton has personally benefited from an alternative teacher licensure program, he promises to protect powerful special interests and defend the status quo as governor.

So he was a substitute teacher who worked the equivalent of 18 school weeks over a school year and a half (during which, by my math, he’s have been eligible to have taught 45 or so weeks).  Cool.

The story, so far, is that Dayton, having graduated from Yale without any “teaching hours” or certification, went to the U of Massachusetts at Amherst to get qualified.

So I took the liberty of contacting the public information office at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

This was the email I got back:

From: [redacted] <[redacted]@urd.umass.edu>

To: “mitch[redacted]@[redacted].com” <mitch[redacted]@[redacted].com>

Hello,

According to the registrar’s office, the name of Mark Dayton, born 1/26/47, does not come up when searched at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

I wanted to confirm this, just to make sure there was no mistake.  I sent the following:

From:”mitch[redacted]@[redacted].com” <mitch[redacted]@[redacted].com>

To:  [redacted] <[redacted]@urd.umass.edu>

Ms. [Redacted],

Thank you – the date of birth is the one that I have, and the full name was Mark B. Dayton.

So he did not attend. By this, is it correct to assume that Mark B. Dayton did not receive either a degree or a teaching certificate from UMA?

Thank you so much for your help,

(etc etc)

The representative responded:

From: [redacted] <[redacted]@urd.umass.edu>

To: “mitch[redacted]@[redacted].com” <mitch[redacted]@[redacted].com>

I do not know. All I can tell you is that they searched the name Mark Dayton, dob 1/26/47, and came up with no information.

I”ll be asking the Dayton campaign about this.

I’d like to ask you all another hypothetical question.  All of you lawyers out there will again be especially useful, but it’s not just a legal topic, so everyone can chime in.

If someone were, hypothetically, to propose a law that would punish the Press for gross negligence of their duty as the news media in a free society, what would the “elements” of such a law be?

Now, let’s be clear; I’m not advocating such a law.  This exercise has nothing whatsoever to do with proposing a law; the law would be unconstitutional anyway.

But if we were, hypothetically, to try to make such a law, what would be the defining factors of the crime of Press Negligence?

Joe Doakes from Como Park writes:

Sheriff Fletcher got in trouble for using the Concealed Carry Permit holder’s list to invite permit holders to shoot on the Sheriff’s indoor pistol range in exchange for a contribution to the Sheriff’s favorite charity. He got lots of people to come and raised money for charity which was good, but using the list was bad and he was properly chastened for it.

It was exactly the sort of thing Second Amendment activists and other Real Americans were concerned about when the Legislature used to propose gun registration.

Ramsey County is having a charity drive again and employees are permitted to bid on donated items, one of which is an hour of time on the Sheriff’s indoor pistol range actually shooting the guns the Sheriff’s Department uses. Notice that the bidding has been fierce. Link here:

http://www.32auctions.com/organizations/681/auctions/735/auction_items/12381

I don’t know the details of the RCSD’s range, but I think the State Patrol used to run a close combat pistol range in the north ‘burbs; I’d bid on time there, if it still exists…

It’s evident there is strong interest in shooting on the Sheriff’s range. People are willing to pay good money for it. Why not take the money?

Why not open the Sheriff’s range to the public a few hours per week? Take some of the pressure off Bill’s.

Here you go, voluntary additional revenue for public safety. Why isn’t this a no-brainer?

Because RamCo’s pea-brained County Commission gets all teary-eyed when they think about private citizens with guns, most likely.

But it is a great idea…

After four months of demanding “details” from Tom Emmer, and a month of carping about the details that were actually released, Mark Dayton had to…

…um, scrap his first budget and start over.

The second try isn’t a whole lot better than the first.

I’ll do a much more detailed analysis later, but at first blush, Dayton Dustbowl 2.0 isn’t much better than the first.

Some key points:

Shift This: Remember when Democrats, leftybloggers and the media (pardon the redundancy) excoriated Emmer for delaying repayment of “the shift” – the 1.4 billion of education budget pushed to future biennia in the last budget?  And now Dayton would never ever ever do that?  Either do they; Dayton now puts delaying “repayment” on the table.

It’s Racist: We honkies took Minnesota from the Native Americans.  To give them a leg back up, the State of Minnesota has granted them an exclusive franchise on casinos.  Dayton wants to build a “racino” – a casino at the Canterbury Downs racetrack. In addition to breaking the state’s promise – “reparations”, if you will – with the victims of cracker perfidy, it’s likely the proposal to create such a casino would face huge legal and legislative hurdles.  It’s not so much a “plan” as it is “hope”.  Hope is not a plan.  And Dayton banks a lot of money on this.

All Of The Worst Parts Of 1.0 – Still Right There!: It’s still going to jack up income taxes on upper-middle-class wage earners to almost 11 percent.  Not the “rich”, mind you – there’s nary a reference to trust funds anywhere in the budget.  It’s going to send more job creation out of state.  It’s going to send more than a few Minnesota businesses packing for more hospitable states.  It’s going to be a boon to South Dakota.

Some Of The “Savings” Aren’t: Dayton still claims that cutting state contractors will save hundreds of millions.  Of course, much of that work will sooner or later go to state employees, especially unionized ones.  Maybe not in the next biennium (maybe), but certainly the next one.  Today’s “cut” becomes tomorrow’s eternal entitlement.

It’s Still DOA: The legislature, as Phil Krinkie said, will never pass it.  In the last biennium, the legislature could only pass the current budget by one vote – that of Tarryl Clark. This with the DFL in control of two chambers of the Legislature, at the height of Obamamania. The next Legislature, with a chamber likely to flip and with the wind blowing against profligate spending an taxing…

…well, you fill in the blanks.

And finally, It’s Still A Billion Bucks Short: He’s a billion short!  A freaking billion short! A billion!  A million large! What the flamin’ hootie-hoo – a billion!

When will the media admit to the people of Minnesota – Dayton is not ready for prime time.

More – much more – later.

I have this friend; let’s call her “Lydia”.  “Literal Lydia”, we called her in high school.  She was a little anal-retentive.  She sorted her sock drawer by thickness.   She reportedly brushed her teeth before and after giving a talk in speech class.  She pronounced the “g” in words like “Knowing” and “Sailing” and “Talking”; “if it’s in writing, that’s how it’s supposed to be”, she always said.

Back when we were filling out our high school yearbooks, I made the mistake of writing “Thanks a Million!” to one of our other classmates.  She saw my yearbook, and looked at me.  “You neither said nor wrote thank you a million times!  You are a liar!”

“But it’s just a figure of spee…” I started to try to explain.

“What’s in writing is the only reality!” she bellowed.

A few years later – ten, to be exact, since I long since learned one must be exact when talking about, to, or in reference to Literal Lydia – I called her to tell her that my oldest had been born.

“What’s the name?”, Lydia asked.

“Bun [*]”, I responded.

“Did you file a birth certificate yet?” Lydia demanded.

“Well, not yet…”

“Then she has no name!”, Lydia bellowed.  “Because the written word is the only reality there is!”

Lydia worked as an actualry for about ten years after college, but she got fired for harshing the other actuaries’ mellow.

She might be a liberal blogger today.

———-

You’re running for governor.

You’re facing an opponent who can outspend you 3-1 just out of his own personal checkbook, who can finance a campaign by unloading a Renoir or two for more money than you will ever make in your life, your spouse’s life, and your kids’ lives.  Your opponent’s campaign is backstopped by a media that is thoroughly in the bag for your opponent.  You are on the road eight days a week, between debates, campaign stops and fundraisers.  Your staff – small, young, underpaid and and running more on Red Bull than cash – is doing the work of a couple of staffs.

So given the above, triage the following activities:

1. Make it to your campaign events on time.
2. Get to your fundraising events on time and rarin’ to go.
3. Update niggling paperwork, especially paperwork that has no legal requirement for the timeliness of any updates.

Which of the above a) must you do, which will you b) do the best you can, and c) which miiiiiight just fall through the cracks?

If “3” is anything but “c”, you have no future as a shoestring underdog campaigner.  However, I know a chick named Lydia who might dig you…

Lydia would dig Jeff Rosenberg of MnPublius. Jeffthinks he’s onto something; he and his blog-mate Zack Stevenson appearently noticed that while Mark Buesgens had left the Emmer Campaign on September 13, the state Campaign Finance Board website still showed Buesgens as the campaign’s chairman.

The Emmer campaign had apparently had the temerity to insist that Buesgens had left the campaign on the 13th to take a position at the Minnesota GOP.

The Emmer campaign, instead of just telling the truth and admitting that its campaign chair made a mistake, fell back on its time-honored practice of trying to mislead Minnesotans. They claimed Buesgens was no longer the campaign chair, when in fact he had been attending functions as campaign chair just the day before.

Now, Rosenberg presents no evidence of any such appearances, so I have no real way of running this down; I don’t attend many campaign events. But apparently the Star/Tribune, in covering Buesgens’ arrest, was under the same “delusion“:

Emmer and Buesgens were together briefly earlier that day at a campaign event, Emmer’s campaign said. [The Strib writers, Baird Helgeson and Paul Walsh, apparently didn’t notice anything about Buesgens being introduced as a chairman]

Buesgens was Emmer’s campaign manager from June through the weekend before the primary in August.

Buesgens also served as a consultant for Emmer, but a campaign spokesman said his last day was Sept. 12. Buesgens now works as a consultant for the state Republican Party, said Mark Drake, a party spokesman.

Seems pretty clear-cut to me.

It does to Rosenberg, too – but not in the same way that most of us think:

When the news broke yesterday, Emmer sent a letter to the Campaign Finance and Disclosure Board asking that his registration be changed, and backdated by a week.

Did Emmer really think nobody would find out that he did this? He could have told the truth and admitted Rep Buesgens made a mistake, and that would have been the end. Instead, his first inclination was apparently to lie about it.

And here’s the “smoking gun”; a fax from the Emmer campaign to the Campaign Finance Board:

So – we have a fax, sent a week after the effective date of Buesgens’ job change, to a state bureaucracy, asking them to change the Campaign Chair listing.

Obviously there’s a coverup.

Well, if you presume that everything the Emmer campaign told the Strib, and sent out in their press release on Buesgen’s departure, was false.

The problem is, it’s not.

I talked with MN GOP spokesman Mark Drake.  On the record.  Mark Buegens started with the party on September 13 – exactly as the Strib was told.  Exactly as the press release said.  “These conspiracy theories are just wrong”, Drake added with a chuckle.

Speaking on background, another source at the Minnesota GOP said that while the party isn’t giong to release payroll records to the public, they do in fact show that Buesgens started with the party on…

…September 13.

Just like the campaign said.

It’s also only an issue if there’s any statutory deadline for reporting staff changes to the Campaign Finance Board.  Did the campaign stretch any rules, much less break any laws, by waiting a week to notify them, inadvertently or not?

I don’t know the rules on this – and I’m going to guess Rosenberg and Stevenson don’t either – but I’m gonna guess the answer is no.

Oh, and the one-week-late, “smoking gun” fax?

So why would the DFL and their affiiliated bloggers be carping about this – words fail me – mind-numbingly trivial paperwork bobble, when their candidate Mark Dayton just released another budget that falls billions short of balancing the budget even as it mercilessly punishes initiative and merit…

…oh, yeah.  Never mind.

(more…)

I’d like to ask you all a hypothetical question.  All of you lawyers out there will be especially useful, but it’s not just a legal topic, so everyone can chime in.

Laws, especially criminal laws, have “elements” to them – criteria that must be satisfied for the law to apply to the situation.  For example, in Minnesota the “elements” of a defamation charge are:

1. Someone has to say something about you to a third party or parties…
2. …that is untrue…
3. …that has a reasonable chance of damaging your livelihood and/or reputation…
4. …and, if you’re a public figure (and there are elements to the definition of “public figure”), it has to be done with malicious intent.

If you want to sue someone for libel or slander you have to meet each, as in all three of the criteria (four if the plaintiff meets the criteria for being any form of “public figure”),  of the criteria above, for the charge to even be allowed to go to court.

If someone were, hypothetically, to propose a law that would make media bias illegal, what would the “elements” of such a law be?

Now, let’s be clear; I’m not advocating such a law.  This exercise has nothing whatsoever to do with proposing a law; the law would be unconstitutional anyway.

But if we were, hypothetically, to try to make such a law, what would be the defining factors of the crime of Media Bias?

There’ll be another hypothetical question tomorrow.

Heh.

(Via Amy Alkon)

So yesterday former Emmer campaign manager Mark Buesgens was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving.

Well, that’s news, sorta.  Granted, Buesgens left the campaign over a week ago, but facts are facts.

Of course, the media flogged the “story” that Tom Emmer had had two alcohol-related careless driving convictions, in 1981 and 1991 – nearly twenty and thirty years ago – earlier in the campaign.

So at least the Buesgens story was timely

Now, this…:

Another DWI with Emmer campaign ties

Posted at 6:31 PM on September 20, 2010 by Tim Pugmire

Filed under: Campaign 2010, Minnesota Governor

The Associated Press is reporting that the former manager of Republican Tom Emmer’s gubernatorial campaign, David Fitzsimmons, was arrested for drunk driving…

Hm.  I’ve met Dave.  Didn’t know about this.

Was it…recent?

…shortly after stepping down from that job back in May.

Fitzsimmons was arrested for DWI in Hennepin County on May 16,

May 16? This story happened after the convention, and three months before the primary, but MPR’s Tim Pugmire felt the need to run the story yesterday? Why, what could have possibly happened yesterday?

Could it have been that Fitzsimmons was convicted of DWI yesterday?

but he was not convicted.

Ah.  So he was acquitted yesterday?

From the Henco court record:

08/25/2010

Disposition (Judicial Officer: Hedlund, Deborah)

1. Traffic regulation – failure to drive in single lane-hazardous

Convicted

2. Traffic – DWI – Operate Motor Vehicle – Alcohol Concentration 0.08 Within 2 Hours

Dismissed

Er…so the case was disposed of three weeks ago?

So the “news” is not actually “new?”

The revelation about Fitzsimmons followed today’s earlier news that state Rep. Mark Buesgens, R-Jordan, was arrested for DWI Saturday in Wright County. Buesgens was Emmer’s campaign chairman until about a week ago.

Odd choice of term, “revelation”.  It’s the noun form of “to reveal”.  Who “revealed” it?

Because here’s my guess:  The DFL has  been sitting on this “revelation” since May.  Dayton’s budget plan is in trouble, his numbers are diving, and he really has nothing up his sleeve.  His opposition people did what oppo people do; found an opportunity (Buesgen’s arrest) to drop the Fitzsimmons story.  They placed it with the media, to further the narrative that the Dayton Campaign has been running since the beginning.  You know – the one that starts…:

Emmer had his own DWI issues in 1981 and 1991.

…and has been rammed home with about 20,000 ads paid for by “Alliance For A Better Minnesota” over the past few months.

It’s better for the DFL if people focus on drunk driving incidents (even if they have nothing to do with the campaign, with Emmer’s policies and plans, than on the ongoing disintegration of the Dayton campaign.

Tom Horner wants to put you on the hook for a new Vikings stadium:

In an attempt to drum up interest, Horner will appear outside the Metrodome Sunday before the kickoff of the Vikings’ first home game of the season to pitch his proposal to fans. Under Horner’s proposal, the team would pay 40 percent of the cost.

Well, good luck with that, Tom.  The precedent has long been set; teams will stomp their feet and make noises about moving to Los Angeles if they have to pony up a greasy nickel.

Leaving you, the taxpayer – who will already be paying for two billion in new taxes (in the first biennium) – holding the purple bag:

The state would issue 40-year bonds for about $32 million a year and fans would shoulder part of the burden, most likely through higher ticket prices.

Yay!  More debt!  To subsidize billionaires!

Of course, Tom Horner’s PR firm has been in bed with the ‘queens for years:

Horner’s former firm has longstanding business connections with the Vikings, although Horner said he has not been personally involved in previous contracts. He did take his plans to the Vikings in a private meeting this summer, but said there is a firewall between him and his old firm.

I’d like to see that “firewall” vetted.  Perhaps after Horner’s budget is vetted by the MN Department of Revenue?

No rush or anything, Tom…

Hugh Hewitt has put out a bleg for his top twenty races to watch and, ideally, pony up for.  These are not just big races with solid conservative candidates; these are big races with solid conservatives facing serious opposition (hence no John Hoeven, who will win by fifty points), and with major down-ticket and regional significance.

1.  John Kasich for governor in Ohio.  You can donate online here.

2.  Pat Toomey for senator in Pennsylvania.  You can donate online here.

3.  Marco Rubio for senator in Florida.  You can donate online here.

4.  Sharron Angle for senator in Nevada.  You can donate online here.

5. Carly Fiorina for senator in California.  You can donate online here.

6.  Ken Buck for senator in Colorado.  You can donate online here.

7.  Scott Walker for governor in Wisconsin.  You can donate online here.

8.  Dino Rossi for senate in Washington State. You can donate online here.

9.  Mark Kirk for senate in Illinois.  You can donate online here.

10.  Tom Emmer for governor in Minnesota.  You can donate online here.

Booyah!

11.  Rick Perry for governor in Texas.  You can donate online here.

12.  Roy Blunt for senate in Missouri.  You can donate online here.

13.  Kelly Ayotte for senate in New Hampshire.  You can donate online here.

14.  Nathan Deal for governor in Georgia.  You can donate online here.

15.  Chris Dudley for governor in Oregon.  You can donate online here.

16.  Joe Miller for senate in Alaska.  You can donate online here.

17.  Charlie Baker for governor in Massachusetts.  You can donate online here.

18.  Rand Paul for senate in Kentucky.  You can donate online here.

19. Christine O’Donnell for senate in Delaware.  You can donate online here.

20.  Charles Djou for Congress in Hawaii.  You can donate online here.

I’m gonna do what I can, here.  Hope you can too.

From the “Sports I Had No Idea Existed” department:

From Pete the neighbor…

Reacting t0 the news that the Minnesota Department of Revenue found that Mark Dayton’s original budget “plan” came in about $3 billion light in its attempt to close the budget shortfall by “taxing the rich” (Minnesotans with adjusted gross incomes greater than $150K for a family or $130K for an individual), the Dayton campaign is apparently going to try to get it right this time:

Democrat Mark Dayton’s campaign spokeswoman says the campaign will release an updated budget plan [today]. The campaign has been crunching the numbers after the MN Department of Revenue released an analysis that Dayton’s proposed income tax hike on Minnesota’s top earners wouldn’t generate the money he predicted.

So what’s going to change?

No idea.

All we do know is what we heard from a source who told conservative bloggers that someone overheard Dayton in his campaign HQ bellowing “Plug the damned hole!” last week after the wheels came off the first version of his “plan”.

More as developments warrant.

I’ve never cared about Ozzy Ozbourne.

Black Sabbath?  Zzzzzz.  Ozbourne’s nasal yawp combined with Tony Iommi’s guitar playing (he sounds he’s fingering notes with his nose) has always bored me stiff.  Who cares?

The superannuated, drug-addled caricature on “The Osbournes?”  I’ve seen maybe twenty minutes of the show.  I regretted every one of them:

And his career in between?  Nope.  Largely don’t care about that, either.

But it was thirty years ago today that Osbourne changed metal forever.  Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the release of Blizzard of Ozz:

Blizzard took Osbourne’s ageing, cartoonish persona and updated it with an approach that owed much (under the hood) to punk’s frothing energy.  Seventies metal’s lugubrious plodding was tossed out the window; this was music you could mosh to!

The real star of the album, of course, was Randy Rhodes, a  24-year-old guitar phenom…

…and classical guitar buff who ushered in the age of the “guitar player who could do anything”.

Seriously.  Check out “Crazy Train”:

That’s a plain, vanilla (figuratively and color-wise) Les Paul Standard.  I’m seeing this for the first time as I’m writing this; he’s not using a Floyd Rose whammybar to get those howling glissandos.  It’s pure freaking technique.  And thirty years after it came out, and 28 years after Rhodes’ death in a plane crash at age 26, it amazes me now more than it did then – and it amazed me a lot back then.

With Eddie Van Halen, you always got the impression you were listening to someone who was pushing back the limits of what a guy could do on the guitar.  With Rhodes, you felt that the guy just lived at the limits to enjoy the view, rhetorically speaking; he was less a pioneer than someone who’d internalized “amazing”.

Ozzy?  Pfft.  Who cares.  Keep it all.

But Blizzard of Ozz still thrills me to listen to.

“Charles Manson stole this song from the Beatles.  We’re here to steal it back”

— Bono, introducing “Helter Skelter” at the beginning of Rattle and Hum.

———-

There aren’t many things in the world worse than someone – especially someone putatively in charge of you – claiming credit for your work.

All of Minnesota should be upset.

Fifty years ago, Minnesota was a sleeping giant.  Blessed with immense natural resources – taconite, lumber, agribusiness – and with huge advantages being the geographic, demographic and communications center of the upper midwest and upper Great Plains, Minnesota had been hampered by the same dynamics that hampered all rural Midwestern agricultural states.

Minnesota had communications – rails and rivers and roads – and a couple of big cities full of people and a huge land-grant university, located smack -dab at the confluence of America’s greatest river and one of her greatest rail nexuses.

Once communication and capital met, really, it’d have taken serious effort to keep Minnesota from prospering.

And Minnesota did, finally, prosper.  In the 1970s, the combination of brains, talent, communications and infrastructure finally moved Minnesota out of the “underachievers” category and onto the “overachievers” list.  Minnesota companies – 3M, Dayton Hudson, Carmichael-Lynch, Target, Sound of Music (now Best Buy), Musicland, Toro, Polaris, Northwest Orient Airlines, Control Data, Honeywell, IDS, Cray, Medtronic and a slew of others became the lynchpins of a regional economy that performed well above its weight.

Around that same time, the Minnesota Legislature – controlled at the time, we are reminded, by the Republican Party, in those days long, long before “Republican” meant “Conservative – instituted a series of programs that redistributed the state’s new, skyrocketing wealth from the parts of the state that had it – the cha-cha Twin Cities – to the parts that didn’t, the poor rural areas in the north and the the economically-lagging Iron Range and Arrowhead.  The reasons made some sense at the time, in a Keynesian sort of way; the Twin Cities, and especially their new, booming suburbs, were awash in money; towns like Virginia and Thief River Falls, presiding over eroding industries and smaller, less resource-rich populations, were sucking pond water.

Rolling in tax receipts as the regional and national economies both boomed in the sixties and very early seventies, the state launched a variety of programs – “Local Government Aid”, which redistributed money from the Cities outward and helped smaller, poorer areas of the state build better infrastructure, which made sense at the time, and an orgy of spending on schools and post-secondary education and infrastructure.

The national media, noticing the story of Minnesota’s booming growth at a time in the pre-Reagan era when people were still liable to attribute all good things in life to government, dubbed the explosion “The Minnesota Miracle”.  It even made the cover of Time Magazine.

Gov. Wendell Anderson

The message was fairly clear; Minnesota’s growth was due to govenrment.

Now, I’m not so dogmatic a conservative as to say that government had no role in Minnesota’s growth.  In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that, given the mentality of the time, Minnesota’s state government was a capable partner with Minnesota’s huge, growing, thriving business and higher education communities.

I’m a uniter, not a divider.

But that was then.

Now?  To the Minnesota DFL, what once were tools are now entitlements.  “Local Government Aid” has switched from being a hand-up for outstate Minnesota into a vehicle for laundering spending for the DFL; the Metro area and Duluth get 2.5 times more money per capita than the rest of the state, and many outstate cities get no LGA at all; indeed, some are opting to do without it altogether.  It’s become a political football and, worse, just another entitlement program.

And the companies, big and small, who were once the key partners in this growth?  Who invested billions in infrastructure to create jobs in this state?  They’re still here – it’s a nice place to live.  Taxes don’t necessarily kill big companies, or drive them completely out of the jurisdiction.  Just as companies remain in high-tax hellholes like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, the Twins’ big-ticket employers, the Targets and Best Buys and 3Ms keep their headquarters’ here – but are sending their new jobs and new growth pretty exclusively elsewhere.

And yet the media, and its DFL-allied shills and cheerleaders like Nick Coleman and Lori Sturdevant, keep pining for the myth of the “Minnesota Miracle”, where (liberal) government leads the rest of society into a great glowing glorious future with everyone Happy To Pay For A Better Minnesota.

It’s garbage, of course.  Government, at the most, was a less-useless partner, even then, at a time when there was still such a thing as a moderate Democrat.  Nobody can say the same thing about today’s DFL.

Minnesota needs a new miracle.

We need the kind of miracle that Jersey City, NJ had in the nineties, when a conservative mayor, Brett Schundler, slashed taxes and regulation and focused his city on growth, security and education on a responsible budget.  Jersey City throve.

We need the kind of miracle that Texas – with its conservative government and hands-off approach to the market – is having; most of the jobs that are being created in the entire country are being created in Texas.

We need the kind of miracle they have in North Dakota as we speak, where a conservative government is cutting spending and rebating excessive tax collections.  (“But they have an oil boom going on!”, the lefties whinge.  How many states with boundless oil are sucking budget pond water right now?  What was the bumper sticker in Colorado – “Dear Lord – thanks for another oil boom; we promise not to screw it up this time?”  How many states have squandered limitless oil wealth on entitlements and are begging for more today?  Can you say Louisiana?)

We need the kind of miracle that Indiana is experiencing today, with government tightening its belt and getting out of the way of a market that is growing even as those of its surrounding, Democrat-controlled states, are reeling.

Government doesn’t give us “Miracles”, at least not when it comes to free market economics.  Government, at its very best, screws them up less.

Do I believe Tom Emmer’s plan will lead to another Minnesota Miracle – a miracle of the free market?

If the time is right, yes.  I do.  And at the very least, it will do vastly less harm than the Horner plan, to say nothing of Dayton’s hare-brained “plan”.

Professor David Schultz says it’s time for the DFL to tag it and bag it as re the Tarryl Clark campaign (I’ll add emphasis):

The poll reports that the lead is unchanged from the previous survey. Since then hundreds of ads and hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars have poured into the race. Yet nothing has changed. If anything, the poll suggests opinions and voting preferences are fixed and with 5% undecided, there is little in terms of swing votes to move.

The race is over. About a week ago I blogged about how Democrats are wasting money on this race and need to stop pouring money into it and shift it to the Third Congressional District (Jim Meffert) or other races across the country.

I’m gonna suggest that Meffert is not going much further, either.  I’m predicting Paulson will win by at least the same margin Bachmann does.  Granted, I’m less connected to the Third District than the Six, but I’m comfortable in saying Meffert shouldn’t start measuring drapes anytime soon, either.

Nick Coleman tweeting MinnPost writer David Brauer:

You picking Emmer? God, Winnipeg is looking good.

Yes, it is, isn’t it?

Hey, Fargo people!  I talked with Rob Port about the Emmer budget proposal, and the huuuuge gap in the Dayton budget “plan”.

See y’all next week!

I’m going to be on Rob Port’s “Say Anything Morning Show” on AM1100 The Flag in Fargo in about (checks watch) one minute.

Join us!

You’ve seen her ads:  Tarryl Clark bags on Michele Bachmann for not voting for a congressional tax cut.

I saw the ad, and nodded, and moved on; something about it didn’t pass the sniff test, but I couldn’t quite make out why.

Yesterday in the comment section, commenter Gundog76 put his finger on it.  Not only is Bachmann in the party that is not in power – so any legislation on any issue that she presents starts off at a handicap – but in fact the party in power doesn’t want to vote on pay cuts:

In a letter sent Thursday afternoon, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) pressured Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) to hold a vote on her bill to cut congressional pay by five percent and save taxpayers $4.7 million next year before Congress breaks for its fall recess.

“For months, and despite multiple requests to move it forward, the bill has not seen any progress in the House,” said Kirkpatrick in the letter. “It seems that it is being swept under the rug.”

Kirkpatrick’s letter comes in the wake of a Rasmussen poll released two weeks ago which found that 75 percent of the 1,000 people surveyed wanted lawmakers to reduce their salaries until the federal budget is balanced.

So in other words, if Michele Bachmann were drooling at the prospect of cutting congressional salaries (which she might be, we don’t know), it wouldn’t matter, because the leader of Tarryl Clark’s party in Congress has spiked any vote on the issue.

The Minnesota DFL; if they’re moving their lips, they’re lying.