I just got done interviewing Jan Schneider – the GOP-endorsed candidate to run for the US House against the Sturdevant-endorsed RINO Neil Peterson in District 41B.
Jan sends me this:
This November, 122 State Legislative campaigns will go before the voters and help cement the decision-makers in St. Paul for the next four years. And despite the wild swings of the electorate in 2002, 2004 and 2006, still relatively few seats will be truly in play. But a handful of voters can decide the direction we take.
This is one of those seats – not just for the State but the Republican Party.
I’m Jan Schneider and I’m the endorsed Republican candidate in House District 41B. In my race, unlike almost all 121 others, the critical election isn’t in November (although that’s going to be very competitive too), but in September. And most certainly unlike most of the other races, the impact of who emerges to run in November will be felt far beyond the borders of my district of Western Bloomington and Southern Edina.
My opponent is probably well known to most of you – Rep. Neil Peterson. And between now and September, you’ll likely hear that the opposition to Rep. Peterson is based solely on his transportation vote – as is my candidacy. But those of us who live in 41B known the fuller picture. For four years, Rep. Peterson has put his voice and his vote to such projects as the Twins Stadium, a clothing sales tax, the Dream Act and, originally, in opposition to eminent domain reform. In 2007 alone, according to the Journal of the Minnesota House of Representatives, Rep. Peterson voted with the DFL 52.1% Surprisingly, I agree with some of Rep. Peterson’s defenders – one vote shouldn’t define a record.
But I’m not running simply to “oppose” Rep. Peterson anymore than I’m running because of one vote or issue. For 25 years, I’ve operated my own small business as an executive business consultant, working with small companies as well those listed among the Fortune 500. I’ve made my career out of striving for greater efficiency and effectiveness and it has long aggravated as many of our legislators, Democrat and Republican, have chosen the path of least resistance by “striving” for more of the same.
I have also served in civic government, sitting on the Bloomington Planning Commission and being elected Chair by my fellow commissioners – many of whom held diametrically opposed views to my own. I’ve long believed in reaching across the aisle, but not walking across it. Much like Thomas Jefferson, I believe that “in matters of style, swim with the currents. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.”
The statement that the delegates and alternates of 41B sent when they endorsed my candidacy in early March reflected more than one vote. It also reflected more than frustration with Rep. Peterson or support for my candidacy. It reflect a desire felt in every corner of our State that the status quo that we have accepted – be it from our politicians or in the policies they create – is no longer sustainable or tolerable.
Should Rep. Peterson prevail this September, that message will be lost and replaced not just by the same old standards, but those standards on steroids. When a candidacy dedicated to innovation and principle is stopped by a career politician who has a 52.1% voting record with the DFL – in a Republican primary – who will believe that Republicans, let alone Minnesotans, are serious about change? .
I need your support. Please contribute to my campaign and help sent a message that will reverberate across Minnesota in both parties. Let the powers-that-be know that while we may “stand like a rock” in our beliefs, we will no longer just stand idly by. I invite you to visit my campaign website at www.ElectJanSchneider.com and get involved any way that you can.
Jan Schneider
Jan needs your help, of course; Peterson is supported by a phalanx of big unions, including the construction unions that’ll be the big beneficiaries of the Transportation Bill.
Check out the website, and help out any way you can. Defeating the DFL is important; knocking off the Override Six is almost even bigger, since the long-term viability of this state is so closely tied to the viability of the GOP.
I was living in 41, when Peterson first ran for office. I repeatedly contacted him asking for his position on the shall-issue carry law. He never responded.
I talked to him personally, at SD41 full committee meetings. He waffled, never giving a straight answer.
After the election, at as SD41 full committee meeting, he stood up and told us with a smirk that he opposed “concealed” carry, and always had. Perhaps he had, but he’d done a very careful job of concealing that fact until after the election was over.
He’d been mayor of Bloomington, which is a “non-partisan” position. From him I’d clearly gotten the sense that he ran as a Republican only because he’d be more likely to win, in West Bloomington and South Edina, than running as a Democrat. That he had no allegiance to either party, and no sense whatsoever that by accepting the endorsement of a party he was committing himself to support its platform.
Ron Abrams in 41A was always consistently anti-gun, and he has always been concerned about transportation funding. He’d been advocating for an increase in the gas tax for many years. The Republicans of SD41A endorsed him, knowing this. The voters of SD41A elected him, knowing this. Nobody who knew him was surprised by his position on the tax increase. It was only his vote on the veto override that was an issue.
But Neil Peterson did not have Abrams record of consistently and openly disagreeing with the Party on this issue. And he was not just serving as a GOP legislature. He was assistant minority whip. It was his responsibility, it was his job, to work to enforce party discipline. To work to convince members of his party to vote the party line.
For him to vote to override the veto isn’t a matter of conscience, it’s a matter of his failing to meet his freely-accepted obligations. He seems to have accepted the position of minority whip considering only what it could do for his career, with no sense whatsoever of what obligations it might place upon him.
He should have, had he had an ethical bone in his body, resigned as minority whip prior to voting to override the veto, had he found it impossible to not vote to override. Because it is impossible to vote to override while fulfilling the duties of whip.
Had he done so, I’d have disagreed with him, as I disagree with Ron Abrams. But I would not consider him to have show himself entirely unfit to hold public office in any capacity, as he has.
“Defeating the DFL is important; knocking off the Override Six is almost even bigger, since the long-term viability of this state is so closely tied to the viability of the GOP.”
You’re right, of course, in that the viability of the GOP requires brand dependability, basic core principles the general public can come to rely on.
Any chance you’d care to extrapolate that to the presidential race?
I have been.
It doesn’t track perfectly.
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