Why We Turn To Leftyblogs
By Mitch Berg
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:
- Emmer didn’t do smears. He didn’t counter-smear during the campaign, when his ancient DUI issues raised a brief kerfuffle.
- 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.
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:26 am
Emmer’s campaign has never released a single press release on a weekend.
Could it be because said campaign is too busy shaking hand around the state? Personally I think it’s more important for a candidate to have face time with the people of Minnesota than to be sending out press releases which few even give more than a glance.
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:18 am
I laughed out loud when I read the bit about the press releases. As an Emmer alternate, I was getting hammered by emails and other communications designed to make sure I kept the faith. The Emmer campaign focused their attention where it was needed, to shore up their delegates in the face of a massive disinformation effort, not from the left or the media but from various factions inside and outside the party. It worked.
It’s not a shocker that Jeff missed this. He’s not exactly Minnesota Republicans Exposed. He’s a wonk, not a pol. I doubt he has good inside Republican sources. He doesn’t appear to even have good DFL party sources most of the time. But on number crunching and data analysis, he’s actually very good. He should stick to that and leave the gossip blogging to others.
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:30 am
Margaret – you’re right. Jeff is good at number crunching.
May 3rd, 2010 at 8:23 am
Lots of Matt Entennza commercials on the tely this weekend. Lots.
And how did he become a milionare?
May 3rd, 2010 at 8:32 am
Saw those Entennza (like’s to spenza) commercials. He says Minnesota is down on our luck, so we need to tax and spend some more. Maybe he is funding by the Sioux Falls economic development agency.
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:11 am
And how did he become a millionaire?
He married exceptionally well.
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:36 am
To an exectutive of an evil health insurance company! WOOO HAAA HAAA!
May 3rd, 2010 at 10:33 am
At least he actually DID something to get his $$$ (just marrying mind you) unlike Dayton who was born into wealth. And has the people skills of a, well, limo-liberal. I still remember the 20 person Governor debate back in feb. I even asked Emmer if he was always this big of a jackass. He said yea. Remind me how this state elected that fraud to the Senate back in 2000?
May 3rd, 2010 at 11:39 am
To an exectutive of an evil health insurance company! WOOO HAAA HAAA!
Former. She doesn’t work here anymore.
I still found it interesting, when he was trying to run for Attorney General, the AG’s office was investigating UHG, while his wife was still working here. No potential conflict of interest there, nosireebob!
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Former. She doesn’t work here anymore.
That’s right. Now she is at the helm of Tysvar, a startup company that is designed to cash in on green initiatives. It would be exceedingly handy and lucrative if she could get her husband elected governor on a green platform. This is a scandal hiding in plain sight.
May 3rd, 2010 at 4:13 pm
The left Tysvar, sort of.
Quam, founder of Tysvar LLC in St. Paul, said Monday she will step down as CEO and surrender her equity stake in the company so she can work on husband Matt Entenza’s gubernatorial campaign.
May 3rd, 2010 at 4:30 pm
She left Tysvar (is what I meant )