{"id":1278,"date":"2007-09-06T11:51:10","date_gmt":"2007-09-06T16:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1278"},"modified":"2007-09-06T11:51:10","modified_gmt":"2007-09-06T16:51:10","slug":"imprimatur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=1278","title":{"rendered":"Imprimatur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Abe (who regularly writes<\/a> at Northstar Liberty) notes a bit of a milestone<\/a> for the NARN (Volume III “The Final Word” in this case) over on True North today…:<\/p>\n

\u00a0On last Saturday’s Northern Alliance Radio Network show, “The Final Word”<\/a> with King Banaian and Michael Brodkorb (broadcast on AM 1280 The Patriot<\/a>), Brian Sullivan endorsed Mitt Romney for president.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and explains why it’s significant for those new to the politics of our swingy state:<\/p>\n

Sullivan, the current Republican National Committeeman from Minnesota, ran against Tim Pawlenty for the Republican endorsement for governor in 2002, which culminated in a legendary, overnight ballot battle royale (ask me to tell you about it someday, it was my first state convention and I was a Sullivan delegate). He has maintained a behind-the-scenes profile since then, with occasional appearances on Almanac<\/a> as the conservative voice on the political panel. In spite of his unsuccessful endorsement bid, Sullivan is still a favorite son among many Minnesota conservatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Matt is right – and also too parsimonious with the details.\u00a0 Brian Sullivan played the most important role in Minnesota politics that I’ve seen performed by a non-elected official or candidate; his strong, well-organized drive for the nomination forced Tim Pawlenty – theretofore a fairly moderate, pragmatic legislative fixer – to the right.\u00a0 I think it’s fair to say that without Brian Sullivan, there’d have been no “No New Taxes” pledge, and none of of the fallout (almost all beneficial) from it.<\/p>\n

So Sullivan’s endorsement carries some weight in this state, especially on the eve of Fred Thompson’s presumed entry into the presidential race this week. Sullivan said that for him, it came down to two candidates, Romney and Thompson.<\/p>\n

“I feel both are good conservatives,” said Sullivan, “that would support the principles that I believe in, and I think that many conservatives in Minnesota believe in, it came down to who would I hire? Who is it that has actually accomplished something, made a difference, made progress against tough goals, it’s Romney.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Matt also catches one wry irony:<\/p>\n

“In some ways I think that Thompson has become the Republican Party’s [Barack] Obama, in the sense that not that much is known about him, he’s clearly a very good speaker, he’s an appealing personality, but his track record as a Senator, you could argue, isn’t very strong…he’s going to have to be able to be more than just a good candidate, but actually convince folks that he can lead the charge.”<\/p>\n

Interestingly, aside from his business experience, Sullivan’s critics made much the same arguements in 2002 about Sullivan, who never held elected office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Matt notes that many higher-ups in the MNGOP seem to be following the herd to Romney – which is at least an encouraging sign that the front office is starting to back away from its commitments to McCain that go back about a year or so:<\/p>\n

Brodkorb reported that joining Sullivan in endorsing Romney this week were former Republican National Committeepersons Evie Axdahl, Jack Meeks, and Republican Party of Minnesota Treasurer Tony Sutton.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Go to TN and read the whole thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matt Abe (who regularly writes at Northstar Liberty) notes a bit of a milestone for the NARN (Volume III “The Final Word” in this case) over on True North today…: \u00a0On last Saturday’s Northern Alliance Radio Network show, “The Final Word” with King Banaian and Michael Brodkorb (broadcast on AM 1280 The Patriot), Brian Sullivan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08","category-true-north"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278","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=1278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1278\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}