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<\/a><\/p>\nThey’re playing a pair of “fours” this election. \u00a0 But they’re playing them for all they’re worth.<\/p>\n
Intellectually and politically, the DFL is running on fumes this year. \u00a0The closest thing they had to a legislative agenda – “tax the rich!” – stalled and died in the legislature. \u00a0The regional economy is slowly (sloooooowly) obsoleting their “We have to tax our way out of deficits!” meme. \u00a0They’re looking at Obama’s eroding popularity and hoping that the President’s coat tails are like the ones on a tank top. \u00a0 And redistricting, for all of the partisan media’s backing and filling, looks to be mostly a wash in the near term, and reflects long-term demographic changes that can not bode well for the DFL (other than the progressives’ great long-term fairy tale, “lots of potential liberals are immigrating to the US”, which is of course true provided that we allow generations of new Americans to stay ignorant about what this country’s about – which is, of course, Democrat policy).<\/p>\n
In response, the DFL really has only a few points to run on:<\/p>\n
“Aren’t Those Republicans Awful People?”<\/strong>\u00a0 In 1998, when the Democrats had a skirt-seeking missile in the White House, they responded by teaching a generation of American teens that oral sex wasn’t really sex at all, and demanding that we all just Mooooove On. \u00a0The French were laughing at us after all.<\/p>\n Now, after a low-grade “sex scandal”, Mary Fransion’s manufactured gaffe and a few other minor incidents, expect the Party of Infanticide to plead “family values”, making me wonder if all those teenagers from the Clinton era – now pushing thirty – will need years of therapy to sort out the mixed messages.<\/p>\n “Just Look At The Economy!” <\/strong>Minnesota’s economy is doing better than most. \u00a0Not North Dakota-good, but not bad. \u00a0The DFL and media (ptr) will work overtime to convince Minnesotans that correlation – Mark Dayton is governor and the economy sucks less than the rest of the US – equals causation, scrupulously ignoring that it’s the GOP majority in the Legislature that have done all the positive work this past few years (and, likely as not, eight years of Pawlenty’s leadership and four years of his stymying of the DFL that set the stage for the relative level of health we have).<\/p>\n “We Saved The Vikings!”<\/strong>\u00a0 And they’ll save snowmobiling and binge-drinking, too, if they have to!<\/p>\n The mainstream media – especially the Strib<\/em>, which profits from the current Dayton\/Bakk plan – spun this as a partisan issue (and part of it was; principled conservatives joined a few principled liberals, like John Marty, in rejecting Wilfare), playing up Dayton and Senate Majority Leader Bakk’s “leadership”, and only incidentally scratching the surface of their plan, which seemed to rely on money borne down from heaven on the backs of unicorns<\/a>. (You can go to MPR to read<\/a> what I was reporting on two weeks ago, if you’d like).<\/p>\n Of course, with the Senate tabling the bill, that’s looking a little dodgy. \u00a0But no worries – the Dems still have the big daddy of them all:<\/p>\n “It’s Inevitable!” \u00a0<\/strong>One of my favorite aphorisms is an old Hungarian saying: “the best way to become wealthy is to appear as if you already are”.<\/p>\n The DFL apparently read it too.<\/p>\n