{"id":11527,"date":"2010-06-21T12:03:23","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T17:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=11527"},"modified":"2014-12-12T14:52:54","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T20:52:54","slug":"specifics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=11527","title":{"rendered":"Specifics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, we discussed <\/a>the media flap over what amounts, in the end, to Tom Emmer’s not releasing details on\u00a0how he plans to change Minnesota government\u00a0until he actually has an opponent.<\/p>\n

Politics In Minnesota Weekend <\/em>summed up the details:<\/p>\n

On Monday, Tom Scheck<\/strong> reported\u00a0a piece for MPR<\/a> <\/a>that digs into Emmer’s publicly stated plans to downsize state government.<\/p>\n

The Emmer campaign\u00a0responds<\/a> via an “Emmer Truth” section of its website, implying that claims made by Sheck’s story are inaccurate and cherry-picked.<\/p>\n

Enter Dave Mindeman<\/strong> (mnpACT!) and\u00a0Eric Black<\/span><\/strong> (MinnPost), who call EmmerTruth “pretty weak<\/a>” and “winging it<\/a>.”\u00a0Jon Tevlin<\/strong> at the Strib also gets his two cents in,\u00a0basically repeating the cries<\/a> for Emmer to get specific.<\/p>\n

Mitch Berg<\/strong> (Shot in the Dark<\/span>) and\u00a0Gary Gross<\/strong> (Let Freedom Ring<\/span>) hit back, generally with two points: Scheck’s and Black’s reports\u00a0were<\/em>inaccurate<\/a>\/mangled the context<\/a>, and it’s a legitimate and sensible strategy for Team Emmer not to\u00a0give up the “master plan”<\/a> so early in the campaign season.<\/p>\n

Charlie Quimby<\/strong> (Across the Great Divide<\/span>) comments on Berg’s blog: “I think if you put Emmer’s full statement in front [of] 100 voters, not many would find it definitive or conclusive or clarified.” And Berg in reply: “As to how 100 random users would perceive Emmer’s statement … I don’t disagree; presentation counts … But is it the media’s job to relate the actual facts, or to reinforce confusion?”<\/p>\n

A terrific question, if a little antagonistic in the wording.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Antagonistic?\u00a0 Moi<\/em>?<\/p>\n

The piece, by…well, I never got the name, but it’s someone on the Politics In Minnesota staff – summed up the issues pretty well, so far.<\/p>\n

But perhaps more to the point, there was nothing confusing in the MPR piece. In fact, both EmmerTruth and the conservative blogs skip the entire point of Scheck’s reporting while digging around in the semantics: Emmer, as a candidate, has promised major redesigns of government, but the programs and agencies he’s highlighted so far are playing with thousands or millions of dollars, not billions. The “could not should” distinction is sort of absurd.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To be fair to Gary and I, we were reacting to the presenting issue; we had leftybloggers and the media chanting “Emmer said he’d hack a third of State Government!”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the real issue is the beef.<\/p>\n

Now, to most of the Twin Cities media, that question is…:<\/p>\n

\u00a0If the media’s job is to relate actual facts, then it’s perfectly reasonable \u2014 no, responsible \u2014 for the media to ask Emmer, the candidate for Minnesota’s highest office, what he\u00a0would<\/em> do if elected. If the answer is, for now, that he’s not sure, then it’s the media’s responsibility to say so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

True.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it’d be useful for the media to also note that Dayton (and Kelliher, Entenza and Horner’s, not that it matters) plans are no more articulate; if Emmer is saying “Cut Cut Cut!”, as John Tevlin wrote, then the Four Stooges are responding “Tax Tax Tax!”, with no more articulation.<\/p>\n

I hate to repeat myself, but I think I summed up my most serious response to this in my response to Erik Black last week:<\/p>\n

Black:\u00a0 And [Emmer] owes the voters of Minnesota some straighter talk, not about what he could do, but what he would do to balance the budget. (Not to say that all the other guv candidates have been clear abut how they would do it. They haven\u2019t.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me get this straight:\u00a0 the DFL candidates have been \u201cunclear\u201d, but Emmer \u201cowes\u201d everyone an explanation now<\/em> …?<\/p>\n

Why does the MinnPost <\/em>hold Republicans to a different standard than the DFL?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Mark Dayton and the other three soon-to-be-chum contenders appear on Midmorning with Keri Miller, <\/em>will Miller press any of them for details on how their “Tax, Baby, Tax!” agenda is going to lead to more (non-public-employee union) jobs?\u00a0 How they lead to recovery?\u00a0 How they will defy history by actually improving<\/em> the economy?<\/p>\n

Will Nick Coleman and John Tevlin and Lori Sturdevant demand more details amid their inevitable victorian vapours?<\/p>\n

Will Erik Black and Tom Scheck write pieces noting how vague they’re<\/em> being?<\/p>\n

So there are two questions for everyone that’s demanding answers from Emmer, the Tom Schecks and Erik Blacks and John Tevlins and Charlie Quimbies:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Where is the scrutiny of Dayton and the other three?\u00a0 The double standard was plain as day in the Black quote above; why do you, as a group, observe it?\u00a0 Or does supporting the status quo (only more of it) get one a pass with the media?<\/li>\n
  2. I asked this before, I’ll ask it again:\u00a0 What is in it for Emmer to put his entire platform out there six weeks before the DFL has a candidate, for the DFL-leaning media to spin and soften up while the DFL goes through its primary contortions?\u00a0 How would that benefit Emmer and the MNGOP <\/em>in their quest to win the race?\u00a0 Because this race isn’t about making the media’s job easier, or making the DFL’s job easier; it’s about saving Minnesota.\u00a0 Why does <\/em>Emmer “owe” Minnesota any more than his opponents do?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u00a0A listening tour is a fine populist idea, but with Minnesota accumulating red ink in Deepwater Horizon-like volumes, a candidate \u2014 from any party \u2014 should be able to talk state finances in real terms. We don’t buy the idea that campaigns for office build policy proposals around a master plan that remains absolutely secret until the last possible moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    “Last possible moment?”\u00a0 Of course not.\u00a0\u00a0 What’s unreasonable about waiting until he faces the real <\/em>opponent, as opposed to the opponent’s legions of ringers?\u00a0 Because Mark Dayton isn’t his only, or even his most serious, opponent in this race.<\/p>\n

    The Tea Party and the avalanche of dissatisfaction that are\u00a0at Emmer’s back\u00a0are driven by a fairly articulate demand for real answers; if Emmer doesn’t do better than the “Tax Baby Tax!” crowd, that’ll be a big problem.<\/p>\n

    I”m pretty comfortable he will have the goods on August 11, when Mark Dayton finally starts his campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last week, we discussed the media flap over what amounts, in the end, to Tom Emmer’s not releasing details on\u00a0how he plans to change Minnesota government\u00a0until he actually has an opponent. Politics In Minnesota Weekend summed up the details: On Monday, Tom Scheck reported\u00a0a piece for MPR that digs into Emmer’s publicly stated plans to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[326,60,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-alt-media","category-campaign-10","category-media","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527","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=11527"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49868,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11527\/revisions\/49868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}