Doug Grow, Narrative Policeman

Surgeons do surgery.

Baseball players?  They play baseball.

And Doug Grow?

For four decades and change, generations of Minnesota voters know that Doug Grow is synonymous for flogging and fluffing the DFL narrative.

Yesterday’s MinnPost piece on the Severson press conference (which I wrote about yesterday) is one for the record books.

The DFL and media (ptr) narrative this year, by the way, is “DFL Victory is Inevitable”; keep that in mind as you read Grow’s description of the presser:

Finding the current election cycle a little boring?

The DFL sure hopes to keep it that way!

Unexpected:  Doug Grow leads off with one of those “too good to fact-check” claims:

As it turned out, the back-to-back pressers were actually back to back to back. First Severson. Then Martin. Then Severson again.

Unbeknownst to each other, Republican secretary of state candidate Dan Severson had scheduled a 10 a.m. news conference, while DFL party chair Ken Martin had scheduled his own 11 a.m. newser to talk about the secretary of state race. In the same room.

As it turned out, the back-to-back pressers were actually back to back to back. First Severson. Then Martin. Then Severson again.

It’s about as “unbeknownst” and unpredictable as, say, the MinnPost hiring a staff full of DFL shills.

Sources in the Severson campaign tell me that Severson had the conference room – where both pressers were held – booked from 10AM ’til noon.  When the DFL got wind of the presser, they swooped in and got the 11AM booking.

Initially, Severson had planned to devote his news event to the subject of voter participation among members of the military. Among other things, Severson contends that President Barack Obama’s administration, current secretary of state Mark Ritchie and DFL secretary of state candidate Rep. Steve Simon have all participated in efforts to suppress voting by members of the military.

And this, as I described yesterday, he did.  Mark Richie’s office sent county election officials a “how to” on finding ways to reject military absentee ballots; it’s there, in black and white.  The media was given a copy at the press conference – as they were given a copy of the absentee ballot reform bill co-authored by Simon that specifically exempted the military (who vote overwhelmingly conservative) from the reforms.

Amazingly enough, outside of the ofay mockery in the piece’s title (“Fraud! Suppression! Aspersions! Dueling press conferences wake up a sleepy secretary of state race”), the actual facts Severson brought up, the paper trail he presented supporting both Severson’s key allegations, never got mentioned.

“My Opponent Has Been Caught Masticating!”:  After Severson’s presser – whose actual subject you’d never know from reading Grow’s piece – Ken Martin took the stage.

I’ll say it again; “Ken Martin took the stage”.  We’ll come back to that.

But at 11 a.m., Severson moved to the back of the room in the state office building in St. Paul as the DFL’s Martin moved to the front…Martin said that at a Tea Party event in June, Severson claimed that Sen. Al Franken had won his 2008 election as a result of voter fraud. At that same meeting, Martin said, Severson claimed the DFL had re-captured control of the Legislature also because of fraudulent votes.

“The last thing we need is a conspiracy theorist as secretary of state,’’ Martin said. “I call on [GOP gubernatorial candidate] Jeff Johnson and [Republican Party Chair] Keith Downey to refute Severson’s unfounded and irresponsible allegations. I question Severson’s ability to be secretary of state when he makes dangerous allegations of crimes that don’t exist.’’

It was cheap theatrics.   And Severson answered them with the kind of burst of full metal rhetorical jacket that I wish a lot more Republicans were throwing back at the Media-Progressive Complex this year:

“I’m not casting aspersions,’’ Severson said. “I’m saying let’s solve the problem.’’

Now that’s a novel approach.

Cast This:  Of course, mentioning the problem is the problem, to the DFL and the media that works for it:  

But suggesting that DFLers win races because they cheat sounds a bit like an aspersion…But Severson said it’s not just his observations at campaign rallies that cause him to have doubts about the integrity of the system. He cited the “study” of an organization called Minnesota Majority that claimed there were more than 6,000 fraudulent voters in the 2008 Senate race in which, after a recount, Al Franken defeated incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman by just over 300 votes…Martin pointed out that in the recounts of the Coleman-Franken race and the Tom Emmer-Mark Dayton race of 2010, both parties “spent millions of dollars” as ballots across the state were recounted.

“Not a single instance of voter fraud was found,’’ Martin said.

Martin is lying, and Grow is just fine with that.

Doug Explains It All:  Anyway – charge met countercharge.  But here’s the interesting part; Grow elects to speculate:

Did Severson schedule his as a desperate bid to tie himself to the military and to inflame those in his GOP base convinced DFLers only win because they cheat?

The base is pretty inflamed already.

No – here’s the interesting part.  Here’s the part that undercuts Grow’s entire, snarky, dismissive premise:

Did Martin schedule his because the DFL is concerned that Simon needs to raise the profile of a down-ticket race?

Did who schedule it?

Steve Simon?

No.  Ken Martin, chair of the DFL.

Not Steve Simon, SOS candidate.

In fact, Steve Simon wasn’t present for the press conference.  About his own race. 

Martinized: Ken Martin did the whole thing.  Steve Simon was nowhere to be found.

Ken Martin, State DFL Chair, apparently feels the need to intervene directly in what is, in a normal election cycle, a boring, humdrum race that tracks, or sometimes lags, the top of the ticket.

Why would he do that?

I can think of a couple of reasons, by no means mutually exclusive:

  • Martin knows where Richie buried the bodies.  Corruption is as rampant in the SOS office as the GOP claims, and they need to do their best to keep a lid on the pot.
  • It’s Not A Humdrum, Sleepy Race At All:  I’ve heard two rumors from well-placed sources; first, that GOP internal polling shows Severson ahead.  Second, that Martin’s behavior in the past week shows that the DFL knows it.
  • That Air Of Inevitability?  Check It:  If Severson’s race is defying the “DFL is Inevitable” narrative, maybe other races are, too?  And if word gets out that the GOP has in fact defied the DFL’s “inevitable” victory, all electoral hell could break loose next month for the DFL.

Where was Steve Simon?

Why is Ken Martin intervening personally in this race, rather than sending some 22 year old communications minion, the way he normally would for the SOS race?

Stay tuned.

The Incredible Imploding Steve Simon

DFL Secretary of State candidate Steve Simon hasn’t had the easiest time of it.

First, he barely squeaked through his own DFL primary – getting 42% against a longtime perennial candidate and a future perennial candidate, in a primary race that should have been a coronation. 

Of course, he’s up against Dan Severson, a candidate with – alone among the MNGOP’s state office candidates – high name recognition, from a previous SecState and Senate run.  Severson is also the single prominent Republican who’s made a significant priority of reaching out to Latino, H’Mong, Somali and other immigrants. 

Rumors – and that’s all I have to go by so far, but they’re from fairly reliable sources – indicate that internal polling in both parties show that Severson is the only statewide GOP candidate to lead in the polls a month before the election.

The DFL reaction was predictable; the facts against them, they went for the sleaze.  The “progressive” alt-media’s attempt to paint Severson as a confederate sympathizer because of the color scheme on his lawn signs was not only idiotic, but transparently desperate. 

It’s only getting worse for Simon.

Vote Suppression! – This morning, Severson held a press conference in which he pointed out the known fact that 5% of Minnesota’s servicepeople and their families serving overseas get their votes counted – a travesty – and that…:

  • Mark Richie’s state department sent out a memo advising county election authorities on ways to legally reject military absentee ballots (active-duty military votes around 3/4 conservative Republican), and…
  • Simon – whose campaign lit says he wants to emulate Richie – co-authored a bill that exempted the military from an attempt to smooth out the absentee voting process.  In other words, a bill that made absentee voting easier for college students and other itinerant but reliable Democrat voters specifically left out the military. 

And unlike most press conferences for constitutional office races, the media actually showed up.

Perhaps because of one of the other attendees.

Captain Smith Leaves The Bridge:  MNDFL chair Ken Martin attended the press conference. 

Let’s let that roll around your head a little bit. 

The chair of the DFL party, who is working hard to find a way to keep the DFL from losing the House, but whose state office slate is purportedly already measuring the drapes in the Governor, State Auditor and Attorney General races, is taking time out to pimp for a candidate that should be a shoo-in. 

Why is that?  Because Simon is losing?  And because if Severson wins, we can finally get answers about the rot and corruption in the state’s election system?

We’ll find out soon enough. 

Oh, Martin’s whole line was claiming Severson is a “conspiracy theorist.  Of course, the numbers are real, as was the fact that Steve Simon is listed in black and white, as co-author of a bill that exempts the military from absentee vote reforms. 

And the media (!) actually pushed back on Martin, asking him if the DFL had erred in exempting the military from the reforms, which means the conspiracy is apparently on the DFL side of the aisle…

Anyway – more tomorrow.