Speed Gibson has probably the best summary I’ve seen of the DFL’s endorsed slate in the primaries tomorrow.

Granted, Speed’s a conservative – but even with that understood, he’s not impressed:

In a game of poker looking at these five jokers, I’d draw five.

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (Governor):  “Margaret” as she seems to be calling herself now is just plain inauthentic.  She certainly didn’t learn her big city liberal values from that farm upbringing she keeps mentioning and that’s the point.  She doesn’t want us to think she’s a big city liberal.  Neither does Matt Entenza, whose campaign is following the same theme, poor boy from Worthington.  Mark Dayton is also a big city liberal, but at least he doesn’t deny it, in fact, doubling down by promising the largest tax increase by far of these three Primary contenders.

Finally – a pundit who correctly uses the phrase “doubling down”!

Dayton has two other advantages, family money and superior political skills.  Margaret is a big city liberal, but not quite yet at least, a big city liberal politician as she’ll likely find out this Tuesday.

John Gunyou (Lt. Governor): You’ve met this type of individual many times I bet even if you haven’t met Mr. Gunyou or seen his presentations as I have.  These people make lists of problems, then sit back and wait for you to solve them.

No kidding.  Watching John Gunyou talk reminded me of watching former Saint Paul mayor Jim Scheibel, after he’d left office to become a “housing advocate”.  I sat for half an hour watching him speak; his message was “the poor need attractive, comfortable housing near mass transit”; when asked “Um, how do we afford it?”, his response was basically “If you care, you’ll figure it out”.  The audience cared deeply enougn, naturally, to universally endorse spending other peoples’ money on it.

Mark Ritchie (Secretary of State): In just one term, Mr. Ritchie has undone this office’s sterling national reputation built by Joan Growe (1975-1999) and Mary Kiffmeyer (1999-2007).  He was soon caught lying about misuse of his office’s resources, then went on to be materially involved in swaying a tight election toward now Senator Al Franken.  Mind you, former Senator Norm Coleman deserves full blame for losing this election.  It shouldn’t have been this close against an arrogant buffoon like Franken.  But most damning for Mark Ritchie is that he has done absolutely nothing since then to tighten up the many lapses and inconsistencies that left many on both sides concerned about our state’s ability to run fair elections going forward.

The next liberal hamster who chants “our electoral system is the best in the nation” is going to wish they hadn’t.

Rebecca Otto (State Auditor): Let me put it this way: if Rebecca Otto can competently perform these duties, the office should be abolished.

Hah!

Lori Swanson (State Attorney General): The sudden opening with then incumbent Mike Hatch running for Governor in 2006 probably thrust the decision to run upon Lori Swanson sooner than she wanted and it has certainly showed these past 3+ years.  The staff was unhappy day one.  She had to bring Hatch back initially because she so obviously couldn’t handle the job initially.  Those things have settled down, but she remains a Hatch clone who envisions her office as primarily consumer protection bureau.  It’s easier work and you get to fawn before the media, right or wrong.

I used to think our DFL constitutional officers were underachievers.  I was wrong, of course; they were just overpromoted.

This is the weakest slate of state office candidates the DFL has put up that I can remember, all of them people who can’t or won’t competently do those jobs.  I’ll include Dayton and Entenza when I further clarify that raising taxes in this economy alone is job-killing inc

Wednesday morning is going to be Day One of the golden age of Minnesota conservative blogging.