Yesterday Is Now February

DFLer Kevin Dahle rode to disappointing victory in the SD25 Special Election yesterday, carried to the Capitol on a wave of college kids that drove over a Strib-endorsed, District-Leadership-approved, not-very-conservative Ray Cox, who proceeded (apparently) to phone in a campaign.

Drew Emmer calls it:

…the DFL has revealed a private side that is strategically superior to the GOP campaign mechanism. We should pay attention. Especially those of us that think being philosophically “superior” to our socialistic opponents is somehow going to carry the day in fall 2008. We can be as right as right can be on the philosophical arguments but as Wheelock Whitney said in his complaint about Pat Robertson’s takeover of the party in the late ’80s “Victory goes to those who show up”.

And the GOP didn’t show up – at least, not enough of them to counter the DFL’s play:

Local politics is finite math. The DFL found victory in coy manipulation of same-day registration and what is reported as a higher than expected student turnout in Northfield proper. There was no credible rallying alarm for the conservative base to respond to. That was largely because many in the conservative base felt somewhat excluded by the process whereby Neuville anointed Cox without the benefit of a grassroots vetting of the GOP endorsement.

Are you paying attention, Third District?  When you take an imperious, top-down process (see:  CD4) and add a “play it safe”, “Sturdevant-Approved (R)” “moderate” Republican who is “safe” for the party leadership (he was endorsed by the Strib!  I mean, what kind of warning sign do you need?) but puts out no reason to vote for him (because if you give the voters a choice between a DFLer and a DFLer-in-all-but-name, they’ll take the DFLer)…

…you lose the veto.

“We” were out-smarted, out-flanked and out-worked. For the record, I did nothing to help in SD25. How about you?

Didn’t think I’d need to, frankly.  I’ve got my own tide to try to turn in my own town.

Without the veto, the next session is going to look like the shower-room scene in Midnight Express.  Hang onto your wallets; if you thought you could escape the Komintern by fleeing to suburbia, hang on.

More – much more – on the NARN tomorrow, and in this space on Monday.

15 thoughts on “Yesterday Is Now February

  1. Pingback: THE FIRST-EVER MINNESOTA DEMOCRATS EXPOSED “MAN NOT IN THE ARENA” AWARD GOES TO… | Minnesota Democrats Exposed

  2. Mitch: I want to congratulate you on winning the Minnesota Democrats Exposed Man Not In The Arena Award, honorable mention.

    Please read my post regarding your analysis. I hope you’ll join me on air to claim your prize.

  3. Minnesota Democrats Exposed Man Not In The Arena Award,

    In other words, the GOP version of “Chickenhawk”?

    What, us mere peasants aren’t allowed to have an opinion about the workings of the party for which we work our butts off?

    See you tomorrow!

  4. Doesn’t a veto have to be over-ridden in both houses. The State House is only at 85, where 90 is 2/3s. Hold on to your wallet, still, just not as tightly as you thought.

    If the race was at all close, you may have something with the ‘higher than expected college turnout’ but, frankly, it wasn’t close (6,802 votes for Dahle (55 percent) to 5,225 for Cox (42 percent) Maybe, just maybe, this red district liked Dahle better.

    Flash

  5. Doesn’t a veto have to be over-ridden in both houses.

    I think the House is already veto-proof. I could be mistaken.

  6. Mitch:

    Minnesota Democrats Exposed Man Not In The Arena Award is an apt description of people like yourself and Drew who did nothing to help out with the Republican effort in SD 25, yet you have time today to point out how the people who were actually in the arena helping out with the effort stumbled.

  7. “”I think the House is already veto-proof. I could be mistaken.””

    The State House is only at 85 DFL, where 90 is 2/3s

  8. Oh yay. More whining.

    Like when Klobuchar said “A bridge in America just shouldn’t fall down” and MDE thought that was soooo politically profound he had to repeat it a few times himself. It’s really too bad that it sounded soooo stupid. And obvious. Every time she said it (they replayed it a few times), and every time MDE said it.

    When King didn’t join DunceFest 2007, MDE got a little huffy and “commenced with the whining”. It was bad radio.

    That said, I generally like to hear what MDE has to say. But the whining has to stop. *shrug*

  9. We don’t really have time for the festival of recriminations. It won’t help anyway. Long and short of it is pretty simple – we can’t do much about the Senate until 2010. But we can do something about the House. Where I live (50B), the task is pretty clear – find a good candidate to take out Kate Knuth, the silly 26 year old professional student we sent to St. Paul in November ’06. I’ll be on the case, and I know my pals at Boots On will be, too.

    Those of you who have bigger platforms need to stop arguing and start figuring out what to do next. That means you, Mitch, and you, Michael.

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