UPDATE: Welcome “Bluestem Prairie” readers (via Politics In MN)! Hey, I’m a big fan of Sally Jo – but her article linking to this piece was a huuuuuuuge, unsupportable reach, as I pointed out in this piece here.
Just saying.
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A couple bits of background here:
The American Left is banking its future on “demographics”. The theory is, as America becomes less white and as American women bring home more of the nation’s gross domestic product, it will inevitably vote more Democrat.
But if they didn’t?
Berg’s Eighth Law states “American liberalism’s reaction to one of “their”constituents – women, gays or people of color – running for office or otherwise identifying as a conservative is indistinguishable from sociopathic disorder“. I originally wrote the law in response to the left’s ongoing case of Bachmann Derangement Syndrome. It works a little something like this; liberals see women, minorities and gays as their electoral property. Indeed, in the upcoming presidential election they are just about the only sure bets that President Obama has. And when minorities and women see that there are other viable electoral options? Well, that’s a knife aimed at liberalism’s heart.
Because without mindless, robotic electoral obeisance from women, minorities and gays, the left’s “demographic” future and the Democrat party are both finished.
Which explains, in large part, why the American left are so utterly demented around female and minority conservatives.
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I once noted that if politicians like Norm Coleman or Tim Walz are like engineers – making sure everything they say and do is as perfectly calibrated as a bridge gusset plate before they put it in front of the public – then Michele Bachmann is like a jazz saxophone player, winging it and improvising and going with what sounds right. In the past it’s made her flub-prone – but she’s also a politician who wears her heart refreshingly on her sleeve.
It’d be fair to call Mary Franson a little Bachmann-like. While she’s been the target of an almost Bachmann-like frenzy of dementia from central Minnesota’s leftyblog community ever since she took office, the freshman conservative from Alexandria is most famous for the teapot-tempest that blew up last year about her video noting that welfare treats people “like animals”. While Franson fairly clearly meant that welfare treats people like livestock or pets, dependent on their owner or master the government, the optics weren’t polished to a fine enough sheen to prevent the left’s noise machine from braying “Franson calls welfare recipients animals”.
They were wrong, she was right – but in the war for the low-information voter that is the DFL’s campaign this year, the headline is all that matters.
Franson is running for re-election in the new House District 8B. Her re-election doesn’t seem to be in too much danger – 8B is conservative enough that her opponent, Bob Cuniff, doesn’t even talk about his teachers’ union endorsement.
That doesn’t stop them from trying to make hay, of course.
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Vikings punter, musician, alt-media poitical dabbler and media celeb Chris Kluwe has been an outspoken supporter of gay marriage. As such, he takes a little flak.
He tweeted about some of that flak he’s taken – including a fairly nasty, if stupid, little cartoon.
Aaron Ley is a DFL activist and leader of the “North Star Project”, a McPAC funneling money into central MN campaigns. He’s also the son of Carol Wenner, who was an unsuccessful candidate for the DFL bid to run against Franson, and is currently running for County Commission up there. He chimed in, responding to Kluwe:
The link (let’s forget the unfounded accusation – which is Ley’s style, but like Ley, it’s of no real consequence) is to a piece that points out that Franson, like most conservative Christians, shockingly, opposes same sex marriage. Like most social conservatives, Franson refers to the “traditional values” involved in the current definition of marriage.
That brought Kluwe back into the, er, “fray”:
“Basically, I was pointing out the fact that it is very hypocritical of her to ask for a return to traditional values, when traditional values say she should have been in the kitchen, and not in office,” Kluwe told City Pages yesterday. “Traditional values doesn’t just mean what you want it to mean. It can also mean some pretty bad stuff.”
Now, by Kluwe’s logic, support for the enumerated powers clause of the Tenth Amendment means you also have to support slavery – because values, apparently, are tied to mores at various points in time, not the idea of what’s right and what’s wrong.
Kluwe says he’s been talking to Minnesotans for Equality — a group opposing the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage — about organizing a debate between him and Franson.
Yeah, I suspect Mary Franson’s busy on the campaign trail. Retail politics has a pretty crowded agenda this time of year, and debating media dilettantes doesn’t make the cut.
But hey! I’m a media dilettante! And I could scare up some free time!
So I’ll tell you what, Chris Kluwe – if you want a debate about the Marriage Amendment, let’s go! I’ll even spot you a couple of points. Read my writing on the subject if you don’t know what I mean.
Have your people call my people. By the way, I am my people.
Speaking of your people? You might wanna have a word with some of the people on your side of this thing. Eepy-cray.
More on that later.
UPDATE: I edited a bit of sloppy writing that left at least one leftyblogger enough wiggle room to make a real doozy of a leap. That’ll teach me to write before I’ve had coffee.