{"id":21006,"date":"2011-07-11T11:01:28","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T17:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=21006"},"modified":"2012-01-06T14:01:21","modified_gmt":"2012-01-06T20:01:21","slug":"the-dayton-dustbowl-the-gucci-marionette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=21006","title":{"rendered":"The Dayton Dustbowl: The Gucci Marionette"},"content":{"rendered":"

People ask “why is Dayton squiggling so hard to avoid any form of negotiation with the GOP? \u00a0He’s clearly beaten; public opinion largely opposes his “all taxes” approach to the deficit, and the GOP isn’t getting browbeaten into submission anymore?”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It makes no sense, if you assume that Mark Dayton is making any kind of decision at all.<\/p>\n

So it only makes sense that he’s not making the decisions.<\/p>\n

Mark Dayton is a marionette.<\/p>\n

Think about it.<\/p>\n

He’s A Rental:<\/strong> Mark Dayton had less to do with his own election than any governor in Minnesota history. \u00a0He owes his election to four things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. An immense infusion of cash from the unions, and liberals with deep pockets, including himself and his family<\/a>, which funded…<\/li>\n
  2. …the most toxic, sleazy disinformation campaign in the history of Minnesota politics, which outspent the Emmer campaign by a minimum of 3:1 and foisted upon Minnesotans a drumbeat of half-truths, untruths or thirty-year-old, context-deprived twaddle about Emmer, which combined with…<\/li>\n
  3. …a suddenly deeply-incurious media that couldn’t bring itself to write about Dayton’s record in the Senate, much less his known issues with alcohol abuse and mental illness, which meant that…<\/li>\n
  4. …the 43% of Minnesota voters who don’t think very critically about politics didn’t have any of their assumptions challenged.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Let’s face it; Dayton is less a governor than a delivery man for an agenda set by the special interests that helped him into office; the public employees unions, deep-pocketed liberal plutocrats, and the non-profits that feed off the entitlement culture.<\/p>\n

    And like Dayton, those stakeholders know that…<\/p>\n

    Progressivism Desperately Needs A Win: <\/strong>It’s been a horrible year for big institutional progressivism. \u00a0The Tea Party tsunami in 2010 has rocked “progressive” government in former strongholds like Ohio, New Jersey, Michigan, and even New York and California, where the likes of Andrew Cuomo and Jerry Brown have become spending hawks all of a sudden. \u00a0 And Wisconsin – the home of LaFollette, the buckle in the public employee union belt – was a gut-shot for progressives. \u00a0If the progressives’ “support government at all cost” creed can crumble in New York, California and Wisconsin, where is <\/em>it safe?<\/p>\n

    Which is why…<\/p>\n

    Minnesota Is Progressivism’s Last Stand: <\/strong>The prognosis for progressivism isn’t good. \u00a0Sure, the GOP suffered setbacks in 2006 and 2008 – precisely because <\/em>the Bush Administration and its attendant GOP caucuses didn’t act like a conservative government. \u00a0The economy is making progressive entitlement programs unsustainable – and, even moreso, undercutting the idea that they must be sustained at the cost of the viability of the sector that pays <\/em>the taxes. \u00a0The conservative parts of the country are growing; the liberal ones are largely shrinking. \u00a0And with even the biggest showcases of “progressivism” defecting from the gospel, “progressivism’s” big stakeholders – unions, non-profits, plutocrats and the like – are faced with a stark reality; they need a win to stanch the bleeding.<\/p>\n

    Those stakeholders put him in office. \u00a0They will get their money’s worth.<\/p>\n

    And as the Administration itself telegraphed weeks ago<\/a>, they don’t care who they hurt to get it. \u00a0Government employees? \u00a0Entitlement recipients? \u00a0Consumers of “services” like jobs at Canterbury? \u00a0All just eggs to be broken for the greater omelet.<\/p>\n

    So are you a citizen, or are you an egg?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    People ask “why is Dayton squiggling so hard to avoid any form of negotiation with the GOP? \u00a0He’s clearly beaten; public opinion largely opposes his “all taxes” approach to the deficit, and the GOP isn’t getting browbeaten into submission anymore?” It makes no sense, if you assume that Mark Dayton is making any kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[186],"class_list":["post-21006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dayton-dustbowl","tag-shutdownpocalypse-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21006","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=21006"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21014,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21006\/revisions\/21014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}