Chanting Points Memo: The Green Issues Forum

The DFL and Media were in full dudgeon over the weekend, as Tom Emmer “missed” a gubernatorial candidates forum attended by the three DFL candidates and the Independence Party schlep.

It seemed so clear-cut coming from the Strib:

Emmer was invited but did not show for the event. But former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton and former House leader Matt Entenza, both DFLers, made sure that he wasn’t forgotten.

“I think it’s instructive who’s not here today, the endorsed candidate of the Republican Party,” Dayton said. “Environmental protection should be and used to be in Minnesota a bipartisan or nonpartisan concern, shared by everyone.”

Unexplained in the Strib piece:  Emmer had declined to attend because of an even that had been in the works for a very long time; his youngest’s first communion.  Emmer had respectfully declined to appear due to this rather important commitment in the life of any committed Catholic family.  Reporting this out of context would be like tittering about Keith Ellision’s refusal to eat pork as a slur against the Minnesota Pork Producer’s association, without mentioning that Islam forbids eating pork.

In fact, according to a source close to the party, Emmer respectfully declined the appearance, citing the reason, months ago; “My understanding is that the first communion was on the schedule for months and the campaign simply declined the forum due to the family event” said the source.  This was not news, and had nothign to do with whatever views Emmer has on the environment.

But the Strib article, the DFL candidates and the leftybloggers who wrote about the subject portrayed it as if he just blitzed on it, or was afraid.  Of Kelliher, Dayton and Entenza.

This portrayal is misleading and based on a mangling of context and selective omission of fact.

The Strib should be ashamed, and would be, if their role as a lackey for the DFL wasn’t pretty clearly set.

7 thoughts on “Chanting Points Memo: The Green Issues Forum

  1. I agree — Dayton thinks Emmer’s absence from this event is instructive. It is, but hardly in the way Dayton thinks it is.

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  3. Even so… why should Emmer submit himself to a forum where he has to face three opponents, two of which he’s not even running against? Should Obama have had to square off with McCain, Rudy and Mitt – with all given equal time?

    I think not… unless of course the debate folks are willing to give him triple time or make the DFLers share the 5 minutes blocs… that would be fun to watch!

  4. Emmer’s whereabouts are mentioned on the current online version of the Strib–page TWO. Don’t know if that’s a correction appended later or not. Anyone see the newsprint version?

  5. I’m in the camp that thinks Emmer should avoid any forum with Dems until they get done rasslin with each other. Just sit back and enjoy the show.

  6. This seems like incredibly poor planning on the part of the group organizing the event.

    If they scheduled the forum right before the first State convention, then every serious contender would have an incentive to show up lest their rivals be able to gain an advantage over them before the delegates vote. This gives the group sponsoring the event more influence over who each party might endorse as their nominee.

    Or if they waited until after the primary (and much closer to the general election) when each party has finally picked its gubernatorial candidate, then it would have been a gubernatorial debate and they would have more public attention paid to the issues that were being discussed.

    Holding the event after the conventions and before the primary (when hardly anyone is even paying attention) only minimizes their influence on the final process and guarantees that any “news” about the forum is going to be about political sniping rather than actual “green issues.”

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