{"id":23959,"date":"2011-10-25T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T17:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=23959"},"modified":"2014-10-05T14:38:52","modified_gmt":"2014-10-05T19:38:52","slug":"the-plutocrat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=23959","title":{"rendered":"The Plutocrat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, Baird Helgeson at the Strib <\/em>did a piece – the first I’ve personally found – on\u00a0Alita Messinger<\/a>, the largest non-union bankroller of the various “progressive” pressure groups that have been doing all the DFL’s actual work for it this past couple of years. \u00a0As I’ve been reporting for the past year or so<\/a>, Messinger – an heir to the Rockefeller fortune – was the main funder of “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”‘s epic, toxic <\/a>sleaze campaign<\/a>\u00a0that was the dominant – indeed, only – substantive output of the Dayton for Governor campaign last year (because, as this blog and the entire 2011 legislative session showed, he really had no other proposals).<\/p>\n

Alida Messinger, an heir to the fabled Rockefeller fortune, has quietly given at least $10 million to candidates and causes over the past decade. Some recent gifts have been extraordinary: $500,000 to a group that last year backed her former husband, Mark Dayton, for governor. And before that, $1 million to help bankroll the ballot campaign for the Legacy amendment, which raised the state sales tax to create 25 years of new funding for conservation and cultural projects.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Once upon a time, the rich paid to improve life. \u00a0Alida Messinger pays to get government to get the improvements out of the taxpayer.<\/p>\n

Now, Messinger is preparing for a new showdown that will be expensive, contentious and, for the first time, public.<\/p>\n

She is vowing to do all she can to help the DFL regain control of the Legislature and get President Obama re-elected.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I’m wondering if all those libs who’ve been wetting their pants over the Koch Brothers and ALEC will get the, um, juxtaposition?<\/p>\n

Her millions could also become a force in the fight over the constitutional amendment on the ballot next year to define marriage as a union of man and woman — not gay couples. Messinger, 62, contends GOP politicians are harming Minnesota. “We are not a quality-of-life state anymore,” she said. “Citizens need to get involved and say we don’t like what you are doing to our state.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She’s got a point.<\/p>\n

Citizens; it’s time to get involved to blunt the influence of ofay, arrogant plutocrat\u00a0dilettantes\u00a0like Messinger.<\/p>\n

Read Helgeson’s entire piece. \u00a0And then get pissed off.<\/p>\n

They’ve got the dirty money – from plutocrats and the unions. \u00a0All we have is the desire to save this state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the weekend, Baird Helgeson at the Strib did a piece – the first I’ve personally found – on\u00a0Alita Messinger, the largest non-union bankroller of the various “progressive” pressure groups that have been doing all the DFL’s actual work for it this past couple of years. \u00a0As I’ve been reporting for the past year or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[115],"class_list":["post-23959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","tag-abm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23959","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=23959"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47828,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23959\/revisions\/47828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}