In Lori Sturdevant’s world, there’s no recession. Money is just….there.

Government creates it. And its allocation is like a chess game between the good guys (the DFL) and those whose names must not be mentioned (Republicans who don’t act like DFLers, which these days is most of them).

Snug a her cube above the city (assuming she comes to the office at all anymore), it’s all just an academic parlor game to her.

I trust that Gov. Mark Dayton included $35 million for expansion of Rochester’s Mayo Civic Center in his proposed bonding bill solely because he shares economic futurist Richard Florida’s vision for Minnesota’s third-largest city.

You go right ahead and “trust” that a politician, playing politics, would allocate budgets based on a “futurist’s” yapping.

Still, things are looking rosy in Rochester:

Its mix of world-class medicine, computing and agribusiness positions it to become the Austin, Texas, of the north. All it lacks is a few smart public-sector sparks — like a bona fide convention center.

Actually, I think two things could be fairly said:

1. If the economy of this GOP-leaning city is, in fact, booming, then they don’t really “lack” those public-sector “sparks” at all, now?  Do they?
2. Right, Lori Sturdevant – what could possibly put the “spark”, the cherry on the sundae of a booming economy like public spending!

I’m sure that prospect, and not the chance to put new Senate GOP Majority Leader David Senjem in an uncomfortable spot, drove the DFL governor’s thinking.

Mostly, anyway.

Let’s stop for a moment, here.

This is the same Lori Sturdevant who charges at Republicans like an enraged schoolmam at the faintest hint of “political games” aimed at the DFL – like any bill that exploits a wedge issue that will put the DFL on the short end of the PR stick – and sniffs with the victorian vapours about the need for “bipartisanship” and “cooperation”.  As long as the DFL is losing.

And when the shoe is on the other foot (or she and her editorial board want the people to think it’s on the other foot)?  Behold, Lori “As Snarky As Sally Sorenson” Sturdevant.

Just so we’re clear on this.

Rochester has been coming to the State Capitol since 2008 to pitch a plan for a 180,000-square-foot, $77 million addition to the Mayo Civic Center. The city is asking the state to pay half of the bill.

I’ll just bet they are.

The City of Rochester does, indeed, make a case that the Civic Center could be a useful addition to the community; it could host more than its fair share of medical conventions alone.  In theory.

Which is fine, but when the state is fighting to get its outgo inside its income, choices have to be made. Nobody likes it when their choice gets the short straw – but you can’t have everything…

…unless you live in Lori Sturdevant’s little world, where unicorns bring money down from the clouds.

But in 2010, the Tea-infused GOP had lost its appetite for projects that could be cast as local pork. After approving planning money for the Mayo Civic Center in 2008, Gov. Tim Pawlenty vetoed construction funds in 2010.

He did the same to civic center proposals in Mankato and St. Cloud. Notably, all three places elected Republicans in 2010. The class of 2010 came to St. Paul convinced that austerity plays better with voters than do government-funded development dreams.

Right.

Because the Freshman class in the legislatue knows that money doesn’t comes from Studevant’s magic unicorns.  It comes from taxpayers – out of our incomes.

Of course, Sturdevant doesn’t mention that there is all sorts of money in the bonding bill that could go toward the Rochester Civic Center – which is the sot of development that could help make some money and be, hypothetically, of some use.

How many Rochester Civilc Centers could we float for what we’e pouring into another idiotic money-pit light-rail line?  Or the many other wastes of taxpayer money hiding in Dayton’s bonding bill?

Sturdevant is too busy giggling about how “bipartisan” she’s not to be interested in any of that.

“For me, it’s a question of mathematics,” [Senate majority leader Dave Senjem] said. “How do we make this work?”

Danger, Dave.  Math is hard.  The Strib Editorial board and the DFL, via their mouthpiece Sturdevant, can’t do it.

No, it’s in this piece that we see the exposed id of the DFL in big LCD letters, like on the outside of that other civic center built with bonds, the Excel:

The smaller the GOP bonding bill gets, the more Senjem will be torn between the pleadings of his city and the desires of his caucus. And the more Senjem caters to his parsimonious peers, the more Dayton can campaign this fall saying that if Rochester wants state government to help it grow, it should elect DFLers.

There it is – the exposed id of the DFL in full glory.  “Elect us, and you get your toys.  You want toys, don’t you?  BIg mommy State of Minnesota would love to buy you a toy – it’s just big bad daddy GOP that’s keeping it away from you.  Toys are nice!   The money will come from fluffy unicorns “The Rich”!   You like unicorns, don’t you?”

It is the only idea they have – “use cheap and empty rhetoric to gain, or regain, power”.

Sturdevant and the rest of the Strib editorial board like power.  Or liked it, back when the unicorns brought it to them, in their offices high above Portland Avenue.