Teh Andee Appelkowskie I see<\/a>?\u00a0\u00a0 Why yes, it is!<\/p>\nStraight up 9 – Jeff Wiita, another Auditor candidate.\u00a0 He makes a bit of hay with the fact that he’s a CPA.\u00a0 His speech shows it; he talks like an accountant.\u00a0 That’s not a bad thing, but it’s very much in contrast with Gilbert and Anderson.\u00a0 On the other hand, he brought his daughter, who has the cutest delivery you’ve ever seen.<\/p>\n
9:04 – And Pat Anderson rounds out the group.\u00a0 She’s got the room pretty well organized, I think.\u00a0 Good speech; I’ve heard it before, of course, but it’s a good one.<\/p>\n
Talking with my BPOU chair Tom Lageson.\u00a0 It’s the first time either of us can remember having all our primary delegates show up for a CD convention; we have all seven, plus probalby eight alternates.<\/p>\n
9:12 – Marty Seifert and his wife are onstage now.\u00a0 He’s hitting the right notes; “I’m the chief zookeeper; I’m looking for elephants, not RINOs”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 “We need to stop the influx of thousands and thousands of people who come here to take advantage of the welfare system”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bangs hard on the Minnesota Federation of Teachers, calling for spending cuts, shouts out for the military, and their defense of liberty.\u00a0 “The second<\/em> line of defense is you in this room”.\u00a0 The small-l libertarian message is alive and well; the moderate Republican seems to be dead.\u00a0\u00a0 Good friggin’ riddance.<\/p>\n9:18 – Tammy Pust, candidate for Ramco Attorney, is asking to speak.\u00a0 It’s a “non-partisan” race, but he’s believed to be a DFLer.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There’s about five minutes of speakers (myself included) on both sides of allowing her to speak.\u00a0 She eventually won a vote to allow her a couple of minutes.\u00a0 She notes that she’s the only DFL RCA candidate who’s not running for the DFL endorsement.\u00a0 She’s speaking now; she’s stating a decent nonpartisan case, more or less; she notes that on the Roseville City Council, she was one of two that didnt’ vote for <\/em>a tax increase.\u00a0 I’ll give her points for cojones<\/em>, walking into the lion’s den when it’s in high conservative dudgeon.<\/p>\n9:30 – David Schultz, another Ramco Attorney candidate addresses us.\u00a0 Notes he’s a “very politically moderate Democrat”. \u00a0 Notes he’s never run for office, and that Ramco Attorney isn’t a stepping stone for him.\u00a0 Notes that he’s never been a party activist, and he hasn’t a chance of getting the DFL endorsement – but is asking for votes in primary and general anyway; notes he has “real legal experience”.<\/p>\n
Some of the delegates are audibly upset we’re allowing non-GOPers to address the convention; they make a good point.\u00a0 It’s an endorsing convention, not a campaign stop.\u00a0\u00a0 I hope CD4 revisits this at some point.<\/p>\n
9:36 – Greg Wuersel, judge candidate, is on now.\u00a0 He’s been out front on the issue of political judicial endorsements.\u00a0 He’s a very entertaining speaker, with some great points about reforming the judiciary.\u00a0 He’s speaking against the proposed amendment to bar endorsements; “tell them not just no, but hell no!”\u00a0 Drew quite a round of applause.<\/p>\n
9:41 – Tom Conlon, former St. Paul School Board member, now running for State Auditor again . Another great candidate; for many years he was the only elected Republican in the city of Saint Paul.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Really sharp guy, and he’s got great experience at winning quixotic quests; he’s running down his bona fides as a small-government warrior; the guy earned his stripes on the SPPS board.\u00a0 In a race without Pat Anderson, he’d be a very strong candidate.\u00a0 The GOP needs him to be in the game, somehow, somewhere.\u00a0 Notes that Rebecca Otto, the DFL incumbent, is basically a wind-up chattering toy for the DFL; not a bad line to take in this room.\u00a0 Also true.<\/p>\n
9:46 – Bob Carvey – a “moderate progressive Republican” – addresses the group.\u00a0 He’s running for governor.\u00a0 Looks like a quaker minister.\u00a0 I’m going to get some coffee.\u00a0\u00a0 So, it seems, is everyone else.\u00a0 He’s bagging on unallotment.\u00a0 Let’s just say this room won’t be carrying him to the governor’s mansion on their shoulders.\u00a0 Says he’ll be running in the primary against whomever gets nominated.\u00a0 His big platform item – bicycle <\/em>skyways.\u00a0\u00a0 I repeat; enclosed, elevated bicycle (and Segway) skyways.<\/p>\nOy.<\/p>\n
9:52 – Tom Emmer is on stage now.\u00a0 Seats are full again.\u00a0 “It’s a good sign that Democrats are coming to GOP conventions to ask for votes!”\u00a0 That draws a nice round of applause.\u00a0 Introduces wife Jackie, “my best friend in this world”.\u00a0 In two weeks, notes, we will be endorsing a candidate; notes we must all get behind that endorsee.\u00a0 Huge round of applause.\u00a0 Notes our party must be about perception of integrity.\u00a0 Standing O.<\/p>\n
9:57 – Andy Cilek of MN Voters Alliance gives update on Voter ID.\u00a0\u00a0 Tom Emmer still working the room – it’ll take him half an hour to get out of the place.<\/p>\n
10:02 – Twila Brase from the Citizens Council on Healthcare speaking for the petition on infant DNA privacy.<\/p>\n
10:06 – Bev Aplikowski notes that her novena got answered – her call for CD4 candidates was answered with seven <\/em>candidates to run against Betty “Rubble” McCollum.\u00a0 Field is down to probably three right now, and we’ll be deciding the endorsement today – but it’s a huge change in the Fourth.<\/p>\n10:12 – credentials report; it looks like almost all the primary delegates have shown up.\u00a0 This is kinda big news, actually.<\/p>\n
10:14 – Janet Beihoffer is looking for election judges.<\/p>\n
10:20 – Dan Severson, SecState candidate, former Navy fighter pilot, and sitting House Minority Whip, is on now.\u00a0\u00a0 “If you don’t think SecState is important, i gotta name for you; Al Franken.\u00a0 We elected a comedian; the joke is on MN!\u00a0 MN didn’t elect Al Franken; Mark Ritchie did”.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Aggressive.\u00a0 Good play in this room.\u00a0\u00a0 He presents a searing indictment of Mark Ritchie’s regime at\u00a0 State.\u00a0 He will be supporting voter ID.\u00a0 Look for scabrous claims of “racisim” from the DFL long before any issues raised.<\/p>\n
10:26 – Chair moves to push the gubernatorial straw poll up ahead of the Constitution Committee report.\u00a0 Resounding approval.<\/p>\n
10:29 – Michael Brodkorb, deputy chair, addresses the convention.\u00a0\u00a0 Notes that on May 1, all GOP candidates will leave unity breakfast as friends, all on same team.\u00a0 This is a huge thing.<\/p>\n
10:40 – My computer just in time for Leslie Davis’ speech.\u00a0 I’m not kidding.<\/p>\n
11:00 – We’ve spent the last 22 hours discussing some arcane point of CD4 central committee procedure as part of the Constitution Committee report.<\/p>\n
11:04 – I’m told it’s only been 22 minutes.<\/p>\n
11:09 – Finally calling the question for the Constitution Committee.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 It was a report that was supposed to take three minutes.\u00a0 Blah.<\/p>\n
11;20 – Straw poll happening now.\u00a0 Informal verbal poll of my tiny district (66B) – Emmer 5, Seifert 2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waiting for lunch.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess I’m not gonna get to vote for CD4 Rep endorsement.\u00a0 Bummer.<\/p>\n
11:28 – Tony Sutton, State GOP Chair, is onstage now.\u00a0 “All districts are winnable…but it’s going to take work.\u00a0 Can’t just watch Fox News and listen to Rush”.<\/p>\n
11:35 – I had to take off to do the show.\u00a0 Hopefully I’ll have results to pass along…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m out at Jimmy’s Convention Center in Vadnais Heights at the 4th CD Republican endorsing convention. I’m kinda impressed that I found Vadnais Heights.\u00a0 So the morning’s off to a good start. Well, it was; Bev Aplikowski tells us that we have a long list of speakers.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s just fantastic.\u00a0 I have to duck out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,72,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-10","category-mngop","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10150"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10152,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10150\/revisions\/10152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}