It wasn’t the outcome I expected.<\/p>\n
In some ways, it was better.<\/p>\n
Top stories from last night:<\/p>\n
No Tails: <\/strong>Lord Fauntelroy will spend his term – one, singular – holed up in the Governor’s office, facing a legislature that is not only GOP, but is focused way <\/em>beyond Mark Dayton. \u00a0 Holed up in the office, quivering in fear and supported only by the media, will be his cronies; Mark Ritchie, whose few remaining shreds of legitimacy got double-counted in Hennepin County last night, once they finally got the ballot-counting machines to work; Lori Swanson, who is going to have a day of reckoning with Darrell Issa shortly; and Rebecca Otto, a “there” where there is truly no “there”. And he’ll have to try to enact his vapid, untested agenda against a Legislature controlled by a MNGOP…<\/p>\n This Is Not Your Grampa’s Minnesota GOP<\/strong>: …that really doesn’t give a rat’s ass how the Independent Republicans “reached across the aisle” forty years ago. \u00a0The GOP caucus that stood on the stage with Tony Sutton last night was young, smart, and the product of two successive waves of rebirth in the MNGOP – the Ron Paul surge in ’08, and the Tea Party, neither of which “took control” of the party, per se, but both of which energized it, culled it of some deadwood, and gave it a focus that it has lacked at a party level for quite some time.<\/p>\n The West Is Red<\/strong>: Remember all that talk about the Third District being too blue for Erik Paulsen, and that the Third would punish the freshman Rep for being “too conservative”?<\/p>\n That’s all getting filed under “yesterday’s news” along with “Representative Oberstar”. \u00a0Paulsen won by – adjectives fail me – 21 freaking points. \u00a0I predicted 10 or 12, and “knew” I was being a point or two hyperbolic.<\/p>\n Twenty one points! \u00a0Twenty one freaking points! Twenty one howling flag waving red-white-and-blue-waving moon-landing carpet-bombing .44-magnum-shooting tax-slashing points!<\/p>\n Suck it, Lori Sturdevant. \u00a0The Third District is Red.<\/p>\n An Analyst Would Say You Have Twice As Much Glass As You Need For The Water<\/strong>: King Banaian won by 28 votes last night. \u00a0Some call it “a razor thin margin”. \u00a0I call it “impeccable economy of effort”. \u00a0Put him on the budget committe, stat.<\/p>\n Michele, Our Belle<\/strong>: Point this at your whackdoodle ultralefty friends: Michele Bachmann has power power power power power <\/strong>today. \u00a0Watch them jump with fright, and maybe wet their pants.<\/p>\n She’s in the majority. \u00a0Better yet, she is to the new GOP majority what Mike Singletary was to the ’86 Bears defense; the face, the soul, the wit and the teeth. \u00a0There it is, DFL; after four million your PAC dollars and Soros Bucks, you have helped make Michele Bachmann the Top Mama Grizzly. \u00a0And she’s coming for you<\/em>! \u00a0BOO!<\/p>\n