{"id":11719,"date":"2010-07-01T12:00:57","date_gmt":"2010-07-01T17:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=11719"},"modified":"2011-11-13T11:00:17","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T17:00:17","slug":"who-do-minnesota-liberal-hate-the-pack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=11719","title":{"rendered":"Who Do Minnesota Liberals Hate:  The Pack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>GREETINGS <em>MERCURY RISING <\/em>&#8220;Reader&#8221;\/&#8221;s&#8221;: \u00a0&#8220;Phoenix Woman&#8221; \u00a0(has anyone ever noticed that her and Ken &#8220;Avidor&#8221; Weiner have never been seen in the same place?) apparently thinks that any <em>reference <\/em>to Bradlee Dean is not only a) a wholehearted endorsement of every minute facet of his worldview, and b) since I am a Republican, proof that Bradlee Dean really really double-dog <em>is is is is is <\/em>an honest-to-Pete &#8220;GOP insider&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And &#8220;her&#8221; &#8220;point&#8221; is that Dean and the &#8220;You Can Run&#8230;&#8221; crew aren&#8217;t really &#8220;obliquely involved in politics&#8221;. \u00a0Which I wrote because, in 2010, they were pretty, well, obliquely involved in politics. \u00a0Sure, they did a political talk show; but unless &#8220;Phoenix&#8221; can show us some evidence that Brad and Jake actually particpate and are involved in some sort of <em>party <\/em>activity on a regular basis, &#8220;she&#8221; is really talking out her ass &#8211; or as we conservative bloggers put it, &#8220;Phoenixing&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Further proof that<\/p>\n<p>a) if logic were gasoline, &#8220;Phoenix Woman&#8221; couldn&#8217;t drive around the inside of a cheerio, and<\/p>\n<p>b) if you read <em>Mercury Rising, <\/em>you&#8217;ve either <em>had <\/em>\u00a0a stroke, or are trying to give yourself one.<\/p>\n<p>On to the actual article<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>With the backmarkers out of the way, it&#8217;s time to recognize the middle of the pack &#8211; the Minnesota conservatives that are the eleventh through twentieth most-hated by Minnesota liberals.<\/p>\n<p>Just as explanation, I weighted all votes by their position on the voters&#8217; lists.\u00a0 Thus a first-place vote got ten points, second-place nine points, and so on down to tenth place, for a point.\u00a0\u00a0 I also calculated a &#8220;passion index&#8221;, which is just a fancy way of saying the average points the subject got per vote; the higher the &#8220;passion index&#8221;, the more high-point votes the subject got.\u00a0 Rankings are in descending order of point totals.<\/p>\n<p>So without further ado, here we go!<\/p>\n<p><strong>20. King Banaian<\/strong>: My long-time NARN cohost, conservative economist and candidate for the Minnesota House in district 15B, Banaian squeaked onto the Top 20 with three votes and the second-lowest passion index in the group, barely ahead of Erik Paulsen.\u00a0 I suspect he&#8217;ll do much better in the election this fall.<\/p>\n<p><strong>19. AM1280 The Patriot<\/strong>: The station that broadcasts such controversial fare as Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved &#8211; also the NARN &#8211; is hated by many for being a dissenter at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>18. Taxpayers League of Minnesota<\/strong>: The group behind the &#8220;No New Taxes&#8221; pledge, the TPLoMN has been blamed for everything from the 35W bridge collapse to full wastebaskets in state offices. Tied for the highest passion index in the 11-20 group.<\/p>\n<p><strong>17. Bradlee Dean<\/strong>: Host of &#8220;Sons of Liberty&#8221;, minister at the controversial &#8220;You Can Run ButYou Can Not Hide&#8221; street ministry, and Andy Birkey&#8217;s constant stalkee, the regional leftymedia has turned Dean into a strawman representing all that is evil about Minnesota conservatism, notwithstanding the fact that he&#8217;s only tangentially involved in politics.<\/p>\n<p><strong>16. Scott Johnson<\/strong>: The Powerline blogger pummels lefty figures from Dan Rather all the way down to Nick Coleman without breaking a sweat.\u00a0 Liberals hate that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>15. Rep. John Kline<\/strong>: He wins the Second District with the same kinds of margins Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison get in the Fourth and Fifth.\u00a0 Unlike the dim McCollum and the always-frothing Ellison, Kline is a competent congressman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>14. Rep. Laura Brod<\/strong>: One voter commented &#8220;the left hates conservative women more than anything&#8221;, and Laura Brod has become one of the strongest figures in Minnesota conservatism &#8211; a &#8220;prairie Sarah Palin&#8221;, said one voter.\u00a0 And that adds up to votes!\u00a0 Youtube videos of her running verbal rings around DFLers in the house are a favorite among Minnesota conservatives.\u00a0 Lefties hate fun.<\/p>\n<p><strong>13. John Hinderaker<\/strong>: My NARN cohost and Powerline contributor is widely, but mildly, detested; he got the most votes of anyone in the 11-20 group, but also drew the lowest passion index &#8211; lower than his blog partners Johnson and Mirengoff, lower even than Banaian or his NARN 1 co-host Brian Ward.\u00a0 This is, however, a great base from which to improve for next year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>12. Phil Krinkie<\/strong>: Former &#8220;Doctor No&#8221; of the legislature and then head of the Taxpayers&#8217; League, Krinkie has stood in the way of DFL spending, which is like getting in a Christian&#8217;s path to heaven, or a Packer fan&#8217;s\u00a0access to beer\u00a0&#8211; it&#8217;ll get people exercised.<\/p>\n<p><strong>11. Carol Molnau<\/strong>: Pawlenty&#8217;s lieutenant governor and former Transportation Commisioner, Molnau has been conservative and female &#8211; two words that act on liberals like holy water on vampires.<\/p>\n<p>Tomorrow at noon &#8211; the Top Ten Minnesota Conservatives that Minnesota liberals hate!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>GREETINGS MERCURY RISING &#8220;Reader&#8221;\/&#8221;s&#8221;: \u00a0&#8220;Phoenix Woman&#8221; \u00a0(has anyone ever noticed that her and Ken &#8220;Avidor&#8221; Weiner have never been seen in the same place?) apparently thinks that any reference to Bradlee Dean is not only a) a wholehearted endorsement of every minute facet of his worldview, and b) since I am a Republican, proof that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,155],"tags":[161,162,164],"class_list":["post-11719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-mn-congressional","tag-mn-cd2","tag-mn-cd3","tag-mn-cd5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11719","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=11719"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11725,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11719\/revisions\/11725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}