So here you go, DFLers. After three months of flinging poo at Emmer’s 20 year old careless driving conviction, at his utterly accurate statements on the cost of minimum wage law to both restauranteurs and lower-income food-service workers, and the free speech rights of corporations to combat the uncontested free speech rights of unions and plutocratic DFL supporters, we’re finally down to a real campaign here.
The astroturf campaign against Target really is emblematic of this campaign; like Target, Emmer is a home-grown guy whose mission is to bring people better stuff – bedding and appliances and groceries or government, respectively – for less money. Like Target, the DFL and its big-money supporters, the unions and the Dayton family, need to destroy the notion that a homegrown company or guy can do that without government’s explicit blessing.
And you, plural, the DFL establishment, need to destroy Emmer (and his supporters, from Target all the way down to the regular schmoes in the street who speak out in his favor), because at the end of the day you are all now married to…:
A candidate with only one message: Raise taxes: He (and, mostly, his supporters) gussy this up with talk of “fiscal responsibility” – but at the day the only responsibility it refers to is your “responsibility” to keep government fed, fat and happy.
A candidate who is lying about “The Rich”: If you’re in a two-income household with a successful auto mechanic and a nurse, or a cop and a store manager, or a computer programmer and a pharmacist, or a mid-level teacher and a project manager, or a successful salesman and an executive assistant, you may not think of yourself as “the rich” in the same sense as, say, Mark Dayton. But according to Mark Dayton’s plan, you are. You are the ripe sucks for his tax plan.
And to make matters worse, as we will explore in coming weeks, there is no way on earth taxing “the rich” – households making over $150,000 a year – will close the deficit; partly because there isn’t that much money in that pool, and partly because taxing that pool will drive down the revenue received. And so Dayton will, inevitably, have to drive down the definition of “rich”; in a few years, it’ll be households making $100K. And then $85K. You get the picture.
A candidate who is going to destroy Minnesota’s already-ailing business climate: Minnesota’s business tax rates are already hurting Minnesota business. Businesses have stayed here, more or less. But most of the big corporations, your Targets and Best Buys and 3Ms, have been building most of their actual production facilities outside Minnesota for decades; our tax rates have been a boon for Texas, Mississippi, Mexico, and the Dakotas. And many smaller business are on the bubble; they’re looking at this election and pondering moving to Texas, Arizona or the Dakotas if things get any worse than they are. You haven’t heard of most of these companies; they’re little operations that employ dozens, maybe a hundred or two. But those are jobs, especially outside the metro, that are slowly bleeding away and aren’t coming back anytime soon.
We’ll have more on this in the next week or so.
A candidate whose behavior has been, to say the least, erratic over the years: Mark Dayton has admitted to suffering from Depression. So did Winston Churchill.
Dayton has admitted to being an alcoholic. So were Ulysses S. Grant and George W. Bush.
Depression and alcoholism clearly don’t disqualify people from political office.
But the erratic behavior that accompany depression and addiction certainly need to be considered.
When one of history’s greatest terrorists threatened to bomb London (and followed through in spades), Winston Churchill didn’t shut down Parliament and flee to Kenwood. He stuck a cigar in his mouth and threw Hitler a rhetorical middle finger and fought, and won, the war.
When the Union cause got incredibly difficult, and the equation came down to trading horrific casualties for the wearing down of the enemy – a commander’s worst nightmare – Ulysses S. Grant didn’t relapse, throw his hands in the air, and walk away from the job. He gritted his teeth and won the Civil War.
So as Minnesota faces its biggest budget challenge in almost eighty years – maybe ever – can you honestly say you see that kind of response in Mark Dayton? In any facet of his thirty-odd year record as a dissolute playboy political hobbyist?
Is it fair to even bring up alchoholism and mental illness? Irrelevant; I’m not. I’m talking only of Dayton’s long history of just plain strange behavior. And since the DFL saw fit to make Tom Emmer’s two careless driving convictions from a generation ago into election fodder, it’s only fair that Dayton’s behavior be on the table as well. Of course, Emmer’s last problem was 20 years ago; he’s gone on to become a pillar of the community in every sense. What’s Dayton done?
What has Dayton done?
We’ll be talking about that for the next three months.
I stand by my prediction: after all of the Dayton family money is spent, and the unions have stomped and squealed, and all is said and done, Minnesota will atone for the madness of 1998 and 2008 and put Emmer into the Governor’s office by a four point margin.
Because I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it at least weekly until this election is tagged and bagged; when you meet Tom Emmer, even if you’re not fundamentally disposed to agree with him, you at least walk away liking the guy, and thinking he’s got something going on. When you meet Mark Dayton, you feel…just a little off.
Go ahead, DFL. Start defending the guy.
This oughtta be good.
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