Nate Silver talks a little history, noting that well into the 1980 campaign, Jimmy Carter seemed to be defying the bad economy.  Carter was…:

…holding his own against Ronald Reagan. Some polls, even well after Labor Day (that’s Labor Day 1980, not 1979), showed the horse race to be tied or even had Mr. Carter with a slim lead.

Mr. Reagan would win overwhelmingly, however, claiming 44 states (even Massachusetts and New York) while limiting Mr. Carter to just 41 percent of the vote. He surged in the final week of the campaign after he posed the following question to Americans in the presidential debate of October 28, the first and only such event in which he and Mr. Carter participated together:

Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Where was the unemployment rate four years ago? Four points lower.

Where was our national debt? Bad, but not this bad.

Where was our budget? Settled, and while waaaaay too big (Bad Bush!), much smaller than today.

How was our standing in the world? Leftymedia yammering aside, about the same as it’d always been.

One could argue in a macroeconomic sense that I’m better off because my house doesn’t have all that mortgage-bubble-based false valuation on it. Someday I’ll look back on that had laugh.

Otherwise?

Nope. Worse off.

One day last winter, I went out to eat at this Vietnamese joint I’ve been eyeing for years.

The next day, there was an epic earthquake in Japan; the quake led to a tsunami killing thousoands, and the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactor.

I guess I won’t eat at that restaurant again.  God only knows what’ll happen.

In related news, Joan Walsh at Salon “reports on” yesterday’s tenth anniversary of the Bush Tax Cuts:

I know, a congressman confessed to Tweeting a crotch shot to a woman who is not his wife, along with other online indiscretions that may wreck his marriage. That’s big news. [Or is it? – Ed.] The 10th anniversary of tax cuts that helped wreck the economy? Not so much.

That’s been the left’s chanting point. I heard Dick “Turban” “Let’s Bring Back The Fairness Doctrine” Durbin saying much the same yesterday, something to the effect of “you want tax cuts?  Look at how the Bush Administration turned out!”.

And Durbin, like Walsh, does it in terms that make just as much sense as the connection between the Vietnamese restaurant and the Japanese earthquake:

But it’s worth remembering how badly tax cuts worked in stimulating economic growth, as Republicans continue to claim more tax cuts will revive the economy. Most big economic indicators moved in the wrong direction since then, some horrifically.

Under the Bush-Cheney administration, the U.S. saw a series of historic economic lows, and overall, the slowest overall rate of economic growth since World War II.

Right.

Bush cut taxes.

The tax cuts were responsible for the violent deflation of the tech bubble (which seemed like a big deal, back before the Housing bubble), which began months before Bush was even elected.

Meanwhile on another continent, 8,000 miles away, Osama Bin Laden, outraged at the invocation of Reaganism, organized a revenge attack that, three months later, would kill 3,000 Americans and stick another fork in the economy, driving another recession (whose effects were muted by the tax cuts – Ed).

And of course, two years before Bush was elected, the tax cuts prompted the Clinton administration to impel Fannie and Freddie to socialize the risks of the mortgage industry on the backs of the taxpayer while simultaneously easing up home-buying credit.

The lesson is clear.

Stop eating Vietnamese food.

Yid with Lid on the big winner of the Wiener kerfuffle – Andrew Breitbart:

After ten days of being vilified by left wing media reporters, those same reporters were tripping all over their underwear trying to ask him questions about the story they had doubted until today. Not only that, but at the behest of the same reporters who trashed him personally and his stories, Breitbart stood where Weiner was about to stand and demanded an apology from the slanderers in the press, and from Congressman Weiner himself.

Breitbart, like all of us in the center-right alt-media, knows that the gesture is just for show.

Andrew shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for their apology (and he knows that). You see, the progressive agenda-driven mainstream media looks at Andrew Breitbart and sees the devil himself.

Breitbart and his team of editors and contributors (of which I am one) are everything that the press hates. We find the facts that either they don’t find or they choose to ignore, and we reveal them to the public. As the guy whose name is on all the sites, along with being the content director and a reporter, Breitbart’s job is to publicly take the body slams directed at all the writers including himself.

Breitbart and his organizaation actually are what a lot of us in the center-right alt-media have been dreaming about for nigh on a decade now; a well-funded, motivated, conservative alt-media powerhouse that eats the bigs’ lunches consistently enough to cause the Big Media Machine serious problems.

Let’s face it, Breitbart’s “Big” sites not only shoot down the progressive media’s political idols, but they make the press seem incompetent for not reporting those stories themselves.

I’m already having fun with the 2012 cycle.

ABC/WaPo poll shows Romney in a dead heat with Obama:

New Post-ABC numbers show Obama leading five of six potential Republican presidential rivals tested in the poll. But he is in a dead heat with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who formally announced his 2012 candidacy last week, making jobs and the economy the central issues in his campaign.

Among all Americans, Obama and Romney are knotted at 47 percent each, and among registered voters, the former governor is numerically ahead, 49 percent to 46 percent.

As with all leftymedia polls, the results need to be scrutinized; the mainstream media will always try to build up the GOP contender they think they can either beat outright, or effectively marginalize (see McCain).   Romney is weak among the conservative base…

…although pressure from the likes of Gingrich, Palin and Bachmann in the primary chase can only help that.  And given my belief that “perfect is the enemy of good enough”, I think a Romney that’d had to move hard to the right, a la Pawlenty in 2002, would be a huge step up from what we have.

This bit – the one in bold – puzzles me:

In another indicator of rapidly shifting views on economic issues, 45 percent trust congressional Republicans over the president when it comes to dealing with the economy, an 11-point improvement for the GOP since March. Still, nearly as many, 42 percent, side with Obama on this issue.

Who are these people? And do they read the news…

…oh, yeah.  Never mind.

The DFL and media (pardon the redundancy) have got a new buzz phrase, “quality negotiation”.  It’s what they supposedly want out of the current impasse in Saint Paul.

Let me just say for the record that if the DFL aren’t whinging like a bunch spoiled ten year olds, it’s not a “quality negotiation”.

Speaking of which, the Strib adds to the “quality” of the negotiation – my definition of it, at least- with via Min this piece by one Brian Rusche, the “executive director of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition”, a group that is to religious group what the association of chiefs of police or Alliance for a Better Minnesota are to cops and Minnesotans – a DFL pressure group.

Rusche apparently thinks his churches own the trademark on “princple”:

Minnesota’s legislative leaders are locked in a protracted dispute with the governor, not about the quantity or quality of government output, but out of devotion to a single number: $34 billion.

Legislative leaders insist that all other policy considerations must take a back seat to the singular goal of keeping general-fund revenues and expenses at that amount for the next biennium.

Bla bla bla.

This next bit is the irritating part, the part that needs to be refudiated with prejudice; the part where Rusche abuses his cachet as a “religious ” leader:

This is numerology without principle. It treats one general-fund number like an idol, a number to be prized above the concerns and needs of our citizenry.

This is a mind-numbingly, corrosively stupid statement.

The GOP is operating from set of principles. To be fair, these are fairly new to Minnesota government; government is our servant, not our master.  Government needs to live within its means; it needs to prioritize, just like we taxpayers need to.  If “citizenry” “needs” some parts of government, we need to cut back on the parts the “citizenry” doesn’t need.

Rusche illustrates – no doubt unintentionally –

Finding a worthy general-fund baseline number with which to base all policy decisions is very, very tricky. Minnesota has relied on one-time strategies to prop up general-fund revenues, especially during recessions.

We’ve drained reserves, cashed out the tobacco endowment and spent federal stimulus dollars in efforts to address a structural deficit that has haunted us for a decade. Add accounting shifts and gimmicks, and we’ve been able to disguise revenue shortfalls and delay a true reckoning, until now.

That’s because government has been run by people – Republicans as well as Democrats – who regarded government as a big  fun machine with lots of levers and knobs to play with.   A big huge benefit machine where, if you hit just the right combination of those buttons and levers, you’d get all sorts of good and wonderful things for the people.

And after a generation or two of that, we’re broke.

And the principle has changed. It has to.  Government the way Arne Carlson practiced it – spending money like a crack whore with a stolen gold card during the cha-cha times, turning surpluses into permanent spending, and making up for it with taxes when things turn ugly – is utterly unsustainable.

And – are you listeniong, Mr. Rusche? – it’s immoral and stupid to carry stupid, thick-necked profligacy on the backs of the taxpayer.

I was out at Grand Old Day yesterday.  I took a stroll down the avenue from Fairview to about Victoria, and then back.  With about 200,000 people out there in high-80s heat and tropical humidity, it was warm out there.

But the Saint Paul GOP booth was set up in a nice bit of shade a block or so east of Lexington.  I stopped by to chat with the crew there, including the St. Paul GOP’s school board candidates Pat Igo, Lizz Paulsen and Kevin Huepenbecker.

Now, when you’re a Republican in Saint Paul, you expect a certain amount of flak; most of it rote and unimaginative, some of it just plain weird.  It’s normal, I suppose, when you’re in a one party town where the majority have never had to defend their assumptions.

It was, apparently, no exception on Sunday.  There were lots of people out on the avenue, and most, not unexpectedly, didn’t care about politics at all.  And most that did were perfectly polite.

Oh, there were some of the usual crowd, the ones we get at the fair; the ones that chant a few chanting points (“Single Payer Now!  Single Payer Now!”) and scamper away before anyone can engage them. And there was one nutter, apparently a former DFL candidate who’d lost an election, who came to the booth, sputtered for a bit, and when challenged, interrupted; “I’m not here to discuss with you; I’m here to tell you!”.

But while I was standing there, a couple of women – drawn, dessicated, haggard-looking fiftysomethings who’d clearly had a couple of Bud Lights at the beer garden – brushed past me.  “You people are cray-zee“, said the first woman, wearing a beer cap and a beer T-shirt.

“Really?”, I responded.  “How so?”

The woman, standing on the other side from me of a family, with a couple of small children, bellowed “you can’t run a government with no f***ing money!”.  Before we could point out that the GOP is offering to raise the budget, her and her friends waddled away, waving their arms like they were guiding aircraft in to a flight deck.  “You know, there’s kids here”, I yelled after her.  “Might wanna, y’know, watch the language…”

But they were gone.

And I thought – was this yet another symptom of the St.Paul DFL’s approach to everything?  Their ends justify their means?  Gotta break eggs to make a vegan omelette; your mania trumps everyone else’s rights?  If you wanna yell, then you’re gonna yell, and screw anyone in the way?

Or was it just a couple of drunks, babbling?

I kept 0n walking.

Lori Sturdevant complaints that “It’s hard to get a fix on today’s politics”:

Duane Benson — former NFL player, former state Senate GOP leader, former CEO of the Minnesota Business Partnership, now head of the Minnesota Early Learning Foundation (MELF) — was describing the “funny thing” he was experiencing this year as a lobbyist for smarter state spending on early childhood education.

He’d come to the Capitol with a passel of proven ideas that spring from traditional Republican philosophy. They had substantial business backing.

Among them: Don’t start a new government program. Make use of existing private-sector providers. Engage them in a purely voluntary rating system. Take advantage of market forces. Empower poor parents to be informed consumers. Trust them to make preschool choices, in the same way affluent parents routinely do.

So far, so good.

“I thought the Republicans would love this stuff,” Benson told me. “Instead, the Democrats are the ones who love it. A lot of Republicans don’t want anything to do with it.” In the new GOP view, government ought to have no role in the prekindergarten education of children, he explained.

I’ll make a not-very-long story short; Benson was plugging a tax-responsible, revenue-neutral way to push choice in early childhood education.  Better than a DFL proposal would have been – and either (from Sturdevant) very much against the current mood, a temporal temper tantrum that’s making children’s education its victims, or (for conservatives) pumping money into something that starts the process of weeding kids into educational haves and have nots – people who are adapted to the the academic chase and those who don’t – bright and early, and at best does no good.

If you read Sturdevant – or her many, many critics on the right – you know where this goes.  It’s a template, really:

1. Republican from the Carlson era and of the pre-1998 school of GOP state politics bemoans a change – inevitably in the GOP.
2. Sturdevant broadens it into a generalized conclusion on how our “state conversation” is being sullied by uppity conservatives.
3. By the way – did you know the DFL is really the center?

Let’s carry on here:

It’s often said that Minnesota’s two big political parties have grown more polarized because they have moved in opposite directions from an ill-defined midpoint.

Indeed, it is.

Not least by Sturdevant herself.

Benson got me thinking that the notion needs rethinking. A case can be made that the ideological shift of both big parties has been to the right, and that a lot of DFL ideas now occupy what not long ago was considered Republican territory.

DFLers seldom frame their policy arguments in social-justice terms. They talk about “jobs, jobs, jobs” and seem increasingly keen on employing market forces to do public work. Witness their friendly response to MELF’s early ed quality rating system and its plan to convert early childhood subsidies into (dare I say) a voucher program.

The lefty lines of an earlier era are heard no more. I can’t recall when I heard a DFL politician openly question the merit of capitalism.

Then Phyllis Kahn must not have happened by the press room lately.

On the one hand – ta daaa.  The state is getting more conservative, and even the DFL has to adapt.

On the other hand – Sturdevant is picking and choosing.  You can’t listen to the likes of the reps of the various unions and hear anything you didn’t in the 1970’s.  And the urban metrocrat left, while displaying the odd bit of pragmatic adaptation, is still your grandparents’ DFL (and, with the likes of Linda Berglin and Phyllis Kahn, is still sending your grandparents’ legislators to St. Paul).

If there’s a change, it’s this; the DFL is twigging to the fact that Minnesota is moving to the right under their feet.

The citizens of Grand Rapids, upset at being called a “dying city”, responded with the gift of music video:

If you’ve ever worked on a film shoot – and who hasn’t? – the wild part is the whole thing was done in one take.

Roger Ebert called it the best music video ever. That’s an argument that could take days – but I’ll certainly give ’em style points.

Ozzie envirofascist calls for tattoing “deniers”:

Surely it’s time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.

Not necessarily on the forehead; I’m a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ”Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?”

But he has a conscience:

On second thoughts, maybe the tattooing along the arm is a bit Nazi-creepy.

Did I say “conscience”?  I meant “rudimentary PR savvy”.

I’ve been off the grid for the past couple of days. I was shocked to hear from friends this morning that Joel Rosenberg has died.

Joel was accomplished at many things; a science fiction writer with dozens of book credits, he was best known to civil liberties advocates in Minnesota as the beating heart and the rapier wit of the Self Defense movement.  That’s where I met Joel, of course, close to 20 years ago, one of the small group of activists with a vision that led to the most successful bit  of pre-Tea-Party grassroots politics in Minnesota history, the passage of the Minnesota Personal Protection Act.  A long-time DFLer, Joel had a mission.  From his obit at the Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance:

Rosenberg became interested in guns and self defense more that 20 years ago, after receiving a series of anonymous death threats from a professed neo-Nazi. He applied for and received an unlimited permit to carry a pistol from the Minneapolis Police, a rarity at the time, when citizens had to convince an official of a need for personal protection before being allowed to carry a gun for self defense.

Not content with securing the then-privilege for himself, Rosenberg worked with GOCRA pass the Minnesota Citizens Personal Protection Act of 2003, and was instrumental in its re-passage in 2005 after it was suspended by a court challenge. His online forum, active from 2005 to 2010, was an electronic gathering place for activists, hobbyists, students and others interested in guns in Minnesota.

He was my carry permit instructor; he was also Ed Morrissey’s, and Ed eulogizes him for his response in a moment of need:

When a friend or even an acquaintance was in trouble, he’d drop everything he could to help. I know this personally, and I’ll tell a story here that I’ve refrained from sharing for some time. I have long supported individual rights under the Second Amendment, but had rarely owned or shot a firearm until last summer. I was made aware of a threat against my life by law enforcement that they considered credible (I won’t get more specific than that; the suspect is now serving a prison sentence), and it was made clear to me that I needed to step up my personal security.

The first person I thought to call was Joel. He had made many appearances on our NARN shows over the years, so I knew him a little, but Joel responded like I was a long-lost brother. He immediately trained and certified me for a carry permit, and then helped me select the best pistol for the job. He offered me continuing support while agreeing to keep the matter very, very private. As it turned out, thankfully, the need for the pistol has diminished, but I feel much more secure thanks in large part to Joel. My family and I are safer because of him.

Joel was a mainstay of the local libertarian alt-media; he and his wife Felicia Herman had attended, as I recall, every single MOB party; his various  blogs and forums were the electronic gathering halls for the local human rights movement.  He was, of course, a mainstay of this blog’s comment section.

Joel died of complications from a heart attack.  He leaves behind his two daughters, as well as Felicia; today would have been their 32nd wedding anniversary.

Joel’s long battle with Minneapolis’ soulless autocracy had already exhausted the family and, I can’t help but think, Joel himself. If you can help out, his site is accepting donations.

Today is Ian Hunter’s 72nd birthday.  We touched on this a couple years ago.

Of course, one of Hunter’s great proteges – Ellen Foley – will be 60 (huh?) on the 5th. I’ll reprise this piece on the subject from two years ago.

To observe ’em both?  Their greatest moment together:

Happy Birthday, Ian and Ellen!

Let’s go back in time:

2005: Confronted with a nonspecific threat of terrorism, then-Senator Mark Dayton shuts down his Senate office in DC, leaving the job of doing the nation’s business to the 534 other Congresspeople who, for whatever reason, didn’t.

His idea of leadership – to lead the run away from doing his job.

2011: Confronted by a GOP majority that outpolled him in the 2010 elections, and propped up only by a series of meaningless, potemkin polls, Governor Dayton does…

…well, more or less the same thing, asking for a “mediator” to work toward a compromise give him political cover for the fact that he holds absolutely no cards.

Remember – he’s been calling the GOP “obstructionist” (I’ve added emphasis):

At a press conference, Dayton said he has asked key cabinet members not to appear before the Legislative Commission on Planning and Fiscal Policy. The joint legislative panel is scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. today to seek details on the governor’s latest budget proposal.

Dayton said his administration was not given adequate notice of the meeting, and would not participate. He said there is no point in discussing the details of a budget agreement until Republicans agree to compromise on some kind of revenue increase to help balance the budget.

“We’re not at the beck and call of the Legislature. They’re not in session. They had their five months,” he said.

They had five months dealing with a Governor whose only concept of “compromise” is “I get everything I asked for even though I’m in the weaker position”.

By the way – ask your lawyer (or any lawyer) about the wisdom of “getting a mediator” when your opponent is dealing in bad faith.  There is none.

And fortunately, at least this time the MNGOP knows it.

Posting will be light-ish today.

Enjoy the breeze!

Number of federally-owned limousines Limous soars on Obama’s watcha;

Limousines, the very symbol of wealth and excess, are usually the domain of corporate executives and the rich. But the number of limos owned by Uncle Sam increased by 73 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of records by iWatch News.

In related news; Strib still biased.

I’ve written about this before; I think the bill requiring a referendum on a Marriage Amendment is…:

• …a bad idea because I don’t think it’s the sort of stuff that should be in the Constitution.
• …a great idea because it’ll undercut the DFL in the 2o12 elections.  “But you’re playing politics with civil rights, Berg!”  Yeah, I’m the first person that’s ever done it, too.  Cry me a river. The fewer representatives and the less power the DFL has, the better our state will be.  That is an unalloyed good.
• …and, finally, a good idea because it will, for the first time, force single-sex marriage activists to make a case for their cause to the people, rather than lawyers, pols and judges.  If there is any merit to the idea, they’ll have to be damn good at explaining it.

That last is an important one; the gay marriage activists I’ve been talking to are really, really bad at it.

Indeed – without exception, the best,most intelligent, most articulate cases I’ve heard for defeating the amendment have come not from liberals and gay marriage proponents, but from libertarian conservatives like Rep. John Kriesel and GOP Comms guy, Craig “Captain Fishsticks” Westover.  Without exception.

As to the libs? These are the arguments I’m hearing:

“Proponents Are Nothing But Bigots!”: Well, some no doubt are.  For the vast majority, myself included, it’s more a matter of  “you want us to fundamentally change an institution that, for all of humanity’s infinite variations, and all of the institution’s zillion permutations, has one consistent feature throughout every society on earth going back to when time was recorded verbally; they all feature a guy and a gal, sometimes at least one of each”.  There may be a reason to change our minds on that; being called a “bigot”, or any names, really,  isn’t one of of them.

“You advocate a Jim Crow , “separate but equal” law!”: We who advocate civil unions, but leaving the state out of “marriage” as a religious institution, have been getting this one lately.

It’s nonsense, of course; “Jim Crow” was about taking peoples’ rights away; civil unions do no such thing.  “Separate but equal” was about keeping populations from  intermingling; it’d be absurd to claim that civil unions do any such thing, unless they’re performed at a “Gays Only” courthouse and could be adjudicated and dissolved only by gay judges.

This one leads us to the closely-related…

“You’re all hung up on a word“: There’s a smidgen of merit,here – and at least it veers away from browbeating.  But it peters out just past “smidgen”.

Most of us who oppose, on some level or another, Single Sex Marriage do so on religious grounds – but not everyone cares about religion.

Atheists can marry in our society, and most don’t bother with churches or their traditions.  They get married by justices of the peace, or by “Elvis” in Vegas, or ship captains or bus drivers or whatever authority signs civil contracts.  It’s “separate but equal”; it’s indistinguishable in every way from a civil union.  It confers no different rights than a church marriage – or a civil union.

There is no difference.

So I’m going to suggest that both sides are “hung up on the word” pretty equally.

“We do not vote on civil liberties!”:  Now, we’re getting somewhere.  It’s a good principle, in principle.  It’s also rubbish; we vote on civil liberties all the time.  It took activists eight years of nonstop smashmouth organizing to get the human and civil right to keep and bear arms put into Minnesota law in a meaningful way – and that’s a right that’s in the Constitution.  The real one, I mean.

No, the big question is, is there a “civil right”  to marry at all,  much less someone of the same gender?   On the one hand, someone – the tribe, the church/Islam/your tribe’s witch doctor/government/whatever people believe in –  has always said who could marry, and how; outside of whatever the institution was, people pretty much just shacked up otherwise.  Like they do now.

On the other hand, rights are not granted by the state; they are endowed to us by our creator, whatever you believe our Creator is.  And if you are a Tenther, you know that rights not specifically granted to the Federal government are supposed to be reserved to the states and The People.  Individual states have always taken on the whole notion of “who can marry whom”.

And so while in principle “we don’t vote on civil rights”, we do observe laws; we are a nation ruled by laws, not men (that’s another principle), even, hypothetically, if those men are judges.  And so whether you believe it’s right or nice to vote on civil liberties or not, them’s the facts.  Make your case.

———-

Anyway.

I’m ambivalent about the amendment,for reasons I’ve spelled out over and over on this blog.  I support civil unions.  And I doubt I’ll ever bother getting a state license to marry, even if I ever do marry again.  I oppose real, actual hatred aimedat anyone, gays included – and I have put more on the line to back that up than most people, “progressive” or not.

And so when the DFL and the gay movement’s “best” line in support of SSM is “you’re a bigot”, “you support Jim Crow” and “you are a moron”…

…well, let’s just say they may need to work on their messaging before 2012.

Moving MN Forward just released an ad to counter “A Better Minnesota’s” latest round of Dayton family and union-fundeed “spend more or we kill this dog! ads:

Pass it around.

In anticipation of tonight’s game against the Detroit Tigers, who are ten games ahead of the Twins in the AL Central, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire gave a press conference early this morning.

“We’ve done our best to be bipartisan in the run-up to the game”, said Gardenhire, whose team has a .321 record so far this season.  “The Tigers need to compromise!”

As the team tries to avert a sweep at Detroit’s “Filth and Crime Stadium”, Gardenhire noted “the Tigers’ manager is being boorish and intransigent; the people overwhelmingly support compromise in tonight’s game”, he said, citing a Star Tribune Minnesota poll showing fifty random Minneapolis adults support the Tigers forfeiting tonight’s game.

“We’ve reached out and given enough”, Gardenhire concluded.  “It’s time for the Tigers to give a little”.

———-

Dayton’s case for “compromise” is about the same as Gardenhire’s.  Let’s get clear on a couple of facts here:

1. Dayton’s mandate is nonexistent:  Dayton backed into office with 43% of the vote (DFLers will respond “But Horner favored raising taxes, too!”  Perhaps, but you can not assume Horner’s voters supported him because of taxes; indeed, the DFL’s propaganda machine couldn’t stop reminding people what a “Republican” Horner was during the campaign; it’d be pretty funny for the DFL to try to have it both ways, but hardly unprecedented. It’s every bit as likely that 10% voted for Horner out of blind hatred of Mark Dayton as because taxes make them tingly), the second-lowest in history.  He’s weak.
2. The GOP ‘s mandate is real: The GOP majority in the Legislature, on the other hand, won big, with a broad mandate made even more lopsided by the fact that a disproportionate number of the DFL’s votes came from blowout races in the Metro.  There was no mistaking it; it was the biggest turnaround in state political history, from the dismal 2008 race to crushing majorities in both chambers.  The GOP is not only entitled to govern like they won – they’d be disingenuous not to.

The DFL’s only real support on this issue is astroturf, bogus polls, and endless browbeating.

Which is noisy and showy, but doesn’t mean a whole lot.

On the one hand, I guess conservatives should be happy the Strib actually published Michael Brodkorb’s a takedown of the Strib’s systematic bias in covering political rhetoric:

…I’m always impressed by the speed in which the Star Tribune editorial page will throw the foul flag on comments from [State GOP chair Tony] Sutton and me, while ignoring hyperbolic rhetoric from Gov. Mark Dayton, DFL Senate Minority Leader Tom Bakk and Minnesota DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin over a potential government shutdown (“Sutton’s boorish behavior,” editorial, May 28).

It’s nothing new, of course; exposing the Strib’s institutional bias and ethical perfidy has always been the seed corn of the Minnesota conservative blogosphere.

But the double-standard has shifted into high gear this year, as the Strib’s editorial board circles its wagons to try to protect Dayton.

In the final days of the 2011 legislative session, GOP leaders in the Minnesota House and Senate provided DFL Gov. Mark Dayton with an opportunity to speak directly to both legislative caucuses. It was a historic bipartisan meeting, filled with the discussion and debate that Minnesotans expect. In this private meeting, both Gov. Dayton and the GOP legislators were respectful of differing views.

How did Dayton reward this olive branch from the GOP leadership? He publicly attacked the legislators who politely asked questions of their governor by calling them “extremists” and by saying they “know little about government and care even less.”

Rather than using his powerful soapbox to rally Minnesotans together, he chose to take a swipe at the mothers, fathers, teachers, veterans, Cub Scout leaders and small-business owners who serve as citizen legislators. Dayton attacked, but the Star Tribune editorial page was silent.

Did I say double-standard?

Good:

[Senate Majority Leader Tom] Bakk, who earlier in the session flat-out refused to produce a budget solution, was speaking to the press, comparing these same hardworking GOP legislators to members of “cults.” It’s worth noting that while Bakk has time to stroll the halls of the State Capitol launching personal attacks on citizen legislators, his caucus hasn’t found any time to provide substantive budget solutions.

It seems the only “budget” work the Senate DFL Caucus has done this year is cashing in its legislative pay and per-diem checks. Bakk attacked, but the Star Tribune editorial page was silent.

Finally, Martin ended the week with a frantic news release, decrying Sutton’s and my political statements about Dayton’s “erratic” leadership style. This, of course, is the same Ken Martin who said on TV hours earlier that GOP legislators would have “blood” on their hands if state government shuts down. Martin attacked, but the Star Tribune editorial page was silent.

I’ve been writing this for months; the DFL is running the first-year law school play; “if the law is against you, argue facts; it the facts are against you, argue law; if the facts and law are against you, argue like hell”.  They’re stuck with a population that tossed them from office by the palette-load last fall, and a governor who has won awards for his political ineptitude.  They are desperate.

As home prices are falling, and as gas prices have risen to nearly $4 a gallon, Gov. Dayton is preparing to shut down state government for a tax increase that Minnesotans can’t afford — something that candidate Dayton said he wouldn’t do. I guess if I were the DFL, I’d distract, too!

As Michael points out, the GOP accomplished its mission – or close to it.  They raised the budget, without touching anyone’s taxes.  In addition, they passed some historic reforms to government.

What does the DFL minority and our isolated, embattled governor have to show?

Delaying.  Name-calling.

And the Strib is covering for them.