The DFL’s Morning After
By Mitch Berg
Last November’s election was, in many parts of Minnesota, like a drunken night out when you’ve been having a rough time with your significant other.
You’re out on the town. You’ve had a bit too much to drink. You’re feeling sorry for yourself. Along comes a flashy, attractive (after enough drinks) stranger who talks a great game, and seems totally unlike that rat-bastard or cold-hearted wench you’ve been seeing.
Mistakes, as they say, were made.
Now it’s the morning after. You don’t remember much about the night before, except that you hit your ATM for a hell of a lot of money.
And through the hangover, you’re wondering if you are going to need to chew your arm off to get out of his/her place without waking him/her up.
Lori Sturdevant, loyal enabler DFL shill that she is, tries to explain away the drunken mistake of one Republican-leaning district
By the numbers, state Rep. Sandy Wollschlager ought to be one nervous DFL freshman about now.
There’s 28A, her Republican-leaning district in Goodhue and Wabasha counties, bordering beautiful Lake Pepin. Three, the number of times she had to run before finally winning her seat last fall. 51.36 percent, her skinny majority in the 2006 election.
To those scene-setters, add these: 10 cents, the per-gallon gas tax increase she voted for on March 24. 0.375 percent, the proposed bump in sales tax for natural resource preservation that she supports. And $433 million, the additional income tax the House proposes to collect from affluent Minnesotans in the next two years, and redistribute as property tax relief.
Wollschlager acknowledges she’s already hearing about it at her Rotary Club: All those tax increases!
Read: A district is realizing they hooked up with Coyote Ugly. They are putting tabasco sauce on their shoulder.
Sturdevant polishes the turd:
She demonstrated a body-language metaphor for risk-taking that she was planning for a presentation to a group of sixth-grade girls. She stood evenly on one foot, while playfully twirling the other. Standing on two feet would be more secure, but immobilizing. Elevating both feet simultaneously would be gravitationally ill advised. A one-footed stance nicely balances security and risk. That’s key to success, she said, in politics and in life.
Governing a state well requires a similar balancing act. Finding a defensible balance on taxing and spending seemed last week to be a theme for House DFLers…They showed no inclination to rush as they looked for positions to assume in the middle, between the Senate and the governor, where they believe their 29 first-term members can stand on at least one political leg.
One wonders if even Sturdevant believes this BS. I mean, she’s just pointed out that Wollschlager is taking flak from Mainstreet.
I suppose “finding a defensible balance” is the new “circling the wagons against an electorate that is gushing blood from its gnawed biceps”
She’s well aware that veto threats hang over the bills she’s supporting, and that she may come home with little to show for her political risks. But she’d rather keep twirling one foot than standing pat. “Part of being a politician is you have to be optimistic,” she said. That’s part of being a good one, anyway.
Where “Good” equals ensuring that government – every wasteful, cash-guzzling nook and cranny in it – is fed, first and best.
Look for more careful spin-doctoring from Sturdevant, as the electorate in many of these right-leaning districts (you hear me, all of you who voted Phil Krinkie out of office?) silently wonder if they have a bone saw in their wadded underwear…
April 16th, 2007 at 6:23 am
I find it amusing that Ms. Wollschlager is going to develop her liberal appologia before 6th grade girls. She apparently has taken the gauge of the DFL and gone right for the center.
April 16th, 2007 at 7:08 am
I see your point, especially for those bubble districts, but you nailed it here:
“”unlike that rat-bastard or cold-hearted wench you’ve been seeing.””
The best description of todays MNGOP I have heard in a long time. And it came for one of their own!!
Good show! OH . .what’s that, tongue in cheek . . . just kidding. Maybe so, but that doesn’t make the description any less accurate.
(and everything is back to normal following last Friday’s love fest *laughing*)
Flash
April 16th, 2007 at 7:49 am
On the other hand, you have to admit that sixth grade girls would have done a better job coordinating Iraq reconstruction, Kerm. And Katrina relief. Though Roberts is probably a better Chief Justice than Hannah Montana.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:01 am
There’s more to Iraq than Baghdad and Falujah. Reconstruction? 4/5 of Iraq is being constructed for the first time in centuries.
Katrina? Don’t make me laugh. You want to pin the corruption and incompetence of Louisiana Democrats on Bush? Of course you do. You and Rosie O’Donnell.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Now, Kerm; being Democrat means never actually having to answer questions.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:11 am
The next thing you know, the DFL will be claiming that these proposed tax increases are all Bush’s fault. 🙂 I swear, you can’t get them to claim irresponsibility for anything!
April 16th, 2007 at 8:18 am
I’m just happy to see we’re back to partisan arguments. Friday freaked me out, man.
Although it was amusing to watch RickDFL disappear in a puff of bipartisan machine gun fire.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:21 am
puff of bipartisan machine gun fire
And like all “odd couple” alliances, it couldn’t last. But it was fun to watch while it happened.
April 16th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Well Kerm, once again you have ably defended your president against charges of incompetence in Iraq and New Orleans (“There are some places in Iraq that *aren’t* chaotic hellholes” and “At least he’s not as bad as some New Orleans City Council members,” respectively.) But you haven’t addressed the central issue: how would Bush’s performance stack up against a hypothetical administration of sixth-grade girls? Both have their plusses and minuses, of course. But Angryclown’s taking the side of the girls.
Sixth-grade girls, for example, know how to sell Girl Scout cookies. Bush, by contrast, failed at every business venture and turned a huge budget surplus into a huge deficit. Advantage: Sixth Grade Girls.
On the other hand, Bush likes baseball. Sixth Grade Girls prefer boy bands and attractively groomed horses. Advantage: Bush.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Col. Catcart enthused: “I’m just happy to see we’re back to partisan arguments. Friday freaked me out, man.”
It was only a matter of time before you reverted to form, “Flowers for Algernon”-style.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:18 am
I never said Bush was better or worse. I was merely pointing out the obvious, that it’s hard to fix problems by remote control when there are massive impediments in place.
I suspect the sixth grade girls would have ended up frustrated and crying in their pillows. It’s a trait shared by many on the Left.
April 16th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Conrad DeFiebre does a little defensive spinning of his own re: “Compared to history, our current gas tax is relatively low percentage-wise”.
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1122583.html
April 16th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Kermit alibied: “I was merely pointing out the obvious, that it’s hard to fix problems by remote control when there are massive impediments in place.”
True, Kerm. Bush can’t really be held responsible for anything that takes place outside the White House grounds.
Most of the pillow-crying has been coming from you wingnuts, especially since the midterms, Kerm. You were *so totally counting* on that Iraq merit badge.
April 16th, 2007 at 11:01 am
When Bush claims reponsibility people like Angryclown jump up and down shouting about his avoiding such. When he sends billions of dollars to Narleans, the whine about the government not doing enough. When he agrees with them on a particular issue they immediately begin asking “What’s Rove up to?”. When these and other facts are pointed out they begin to chant “I know you are, but what am I?”
April 16th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Damn. I was carrying a pile of comments from Editing down to Production, and I dropped them.
Crap. It was a fascinating conversation, too.
Gone forever. Blast the luck.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
KERMIT IS A POOPY HEAD
April 16th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
You missed one.