While the Shooties are the premier local blog award ceremony, Dave Mindeman of MnpACTed! is making a game effort at mining the same material from the left. 

And I always love crashing other peoples’ parties.

…it is hard to look at 2007 in a very positive light. Despite a very hopeful election swing in the 2006 cycle, we still:

A. Have Iraq stretching out indefinitely.

“…and, damn the luck, improving”

B. Couldn’t get any substantial Congressional legislative changes through.

That’s because, despite the fact that the DFL/Democrats won a bunch of elections, all they got at the end of the day was a bunch of Democrats. 

C. Despite big majorities in the Minnesota State Houses, we didn’t get any major legislation outside of a “Pawlenty” approved environmental package.

Ibid. 

D. A Bridge fell down.

 And that’s a political story…how?

(Oh, I kid.  I’m a kidder.  Everything’s political these days). 

E. And we have a deficit looming….again.

Damn those economic cycles!  They make all those spending increases so untenable! We oughtta pass a law!

10. Rep. Marty Seifert — The question about Seifert is… can he make a point without props? Master of the one-liner and the NO vote, Seifert has managed to maneuver his little minority caucus into a potent obstructive force when coupled with Pawlenty’s veto pen. Unfortunately obstruction is all he does — issues of transportation, health care, property taxes, education…. nothing gets accomplished. Seifert is the master of doing nothing — and he does it oh, so well.

Which is, as it happens, about the only option left to him when he’s the leader of a party that’s in an almost-prohibitive minority.  (For now).

In other words, he’s a Republican doing the job his voters sent him to Saint Paul to do.

And Democrats just hate it when Republicans act like Republicans, and work toward Republican agendas. 

8. SOS Mark Ritchie — Well, well, looks like we are going bi-partisan this year. Ritchie let his ambition get in the way of….smart politics. Always looking for another way to raise money, Ritchie ventured into the forbidden territory of mixing campaign funding with his government job. He truly made Brodkorb’s job way too easy.

Well, to be fair, Ritchie made it easy for all of us.  And, lest anyone forget, some of us predicted this.

Still, in spite of his transgression, Kiffmeyer was far worse.

 Because she sold, er, what?  To whom?

Any ol’ time here.

7. Sen. Dick Day — …Funny how Dastardly Dick hardly ever mentioned immigration during his Senate career

In case the writer hasn’t noticed, Minnesota doesn’t have much of a border with Mexico, nor much immigration enforcement responsibility.

I’m not sure what Day’s position has been, traditionally, on “Sanctuary Cities” or using state resources to enforce immigration laws, but I’m gonna guess neither does the author.

Just a hunch.

6. Rep. John Kline — I have been trying to figure out what it is, John Kline does all day. He takes all of his foreign policy votes from White House memos.

Which was, to be fair, one of the points he was elected on. 

He doesn’t hold any district meetings for constituents.

Really? 

And now he won’t sponsor any 2nd Congressional District funding projects.

Which, inasmuch as he attacked “pork” and “earmarks” in his campaign, in a campaign where the GOP base was audibly disgusted by porkmongering Republicans, is a good thing. 

We could stick any mannequin in a uniform up there in Washington and accomplish the same thing. Gasp! You don’t suppose……

…that he’s really Betty McCollum?  No, I don’t!

5. Minnesota Majority/Tracy Eberly — …Eberly’s screed about Native Americans titled “Dirt Worshipping Heathens” got a lot of attention and was generally condemned on all sides of the spectrum. It is still on the “Anti-Strib” blog, although some comments have been added to “explain” it somewhat.

15:38 and counting. 

Then there is Minnesota Majority, a new right wing group promoting their idea of “values”, which had this on their website:

“Black women, for a variety of reasons, are more prone to underweight babies than are Caucasian and Asian women. It is not surprising that Sweden has a lower infant mortality rate, or that Japan has a longer life expectancy than the United States does. They are nearly racially pure: we are not.”

You won’t find the “racially pure” reference any more; they softened the language but the underlying innuendo remains.

The only “innuendo” is that someone at the MNMajority needs to buy a thesaurus; leave out the waterboarding of context, and they were pretty clearly shooting for “Homogenous”, not “minority-free and all-white”.   

Racism is simply not acceptable in any forum.

And digging to create it where it wasn’t intended is right behind it.

4. Tim Pawlenty — Pawlenty’s veto pen has put Minnesota in a quandry.

Also a quandary – although probably not the one the author intends. 

Without new revenue…. education, health care, and especially tranportation issues… are not keeping up with the need.

Or, alternately, the “need” is being inflated well beyond this state’s means. 

Pawlenty is waiting for the next economic boom to fix it for him but his policies are reducing jobs and economic activity…

A statement that is simply too obtuse to even bother fisking. 

 .creating deficits and uncertainty. He and the legislature have opposite agendas which is not conducive to compromise.

Lori Sturdevant?  What have you done with Dave Minderman?

The DFL has never worked toward compromise.  The DFL works toward enacting its agenda, no exceptions; their idea of “compromise” is to get GOP politicians to acquiesce.  And the fact that Pawlenty and at least part of the new generation of GOP leadership won’t knuckle under to the browbeating is scaring them silly. 

3. Michael Brodkorb — The MDE (Minnesota Democrats Exposed) blogger was #1 last year but moved down this year because his act is getting a little old…Still the main stream media picks up on this stuff and makes everybody comment on it…. so Brodkorb gets his wish. Throw enough mud and some of it is bound to stick.

Alternately – keep eating the DFL’s lunch, and eventually the DFL is going to come home very hungry at supper time.

We have a tie for #1 this year. Couldn’t figure out who was worse, so they will share the “honor”:

T-1: Michele Bachmann: The evangelical and right wing darling lived up to her unpredictable description in 2007. From the Presidential kiss to the “secret” plan for Iraq from Iran,

Which has been less secret lately, since the Iranians have been getting caught all over Iraq moving weapons and Special Forces more efficiently than rush hour on 494. 

Bachmann found her way into the news over and over. She has been less controversial lately because she has kept her comments to herself, but she has let her votes do the talking. Votes against SCHIP and for the Iraq War dominate her partisan outlook.

Which, let us not forget, was what she promised in her campaign.  

To an even better assortment for ’08!