{"id":28101,"date":"2012-05-24T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-05-24T17:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=28101"},"modified":"2012-05-24T11:26:52","modified_gmt":"2012-05-24T16:26:52","slug":"my-evening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=28101","title":{"rendered":"My Evening In SD33"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night I drove out to Wayzata to give a seconding speech for Dave Osmek and his candidacy for the MN Senate.<\/p>\n

For starters, I love driving from Saint Paul and its stifling, smug DFL rule to the parts of the state that actually work – and thus are governed by the GOP. \u00a0Places built by hard work, merit, frugality – conservatism<\/em>. \u00a0I love the smell of an R+20 district; it smells like…<\/p>\n

…freedom. \u00a0Freedom and liberty and prosperity and everything that makes America great.<\/p>\n

The inclement weather offered an opportunity…<\/p>\n

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

…as I’d hoped <\/em>there’d be a huge crash of thunder when I hit my big applause line.<\/p>\n

That was not to be. \u00a0But the rest of the evening went pretty well.<\/p>\n

My first clue I wasn’t in CD4 anymore?<\/p>\n

There were nearly 300 voting delegates. \u00a0In a Senate district. \u00a0That’s more than we had in all of CD4.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

It's a full house - almost 300 delegates That's retiring Senator Gen Olson speaking.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dave’s a long-time friend of the NARN, so it was absolutely my pleasure. \u00a0He was running against Connie Doepke, as well as longtime conservative activist Bonn Clayton (who, I did not know, is the father of Tea Party majordomo Mara Souvannasoth. \u00a0You learn something new every day!).<\/p>\n

It took four ballots – which was the maximum according to the convention rules – but Osmek pulled out to an early lead, and was within two votes of the 60% threshold at the third ballot. \u00a0Clayton withdrew and threw his delegates to Osmek after the third, which led to an 81-19% endorsement.<\/p>\n

Then the district split into two rooms. \u00a0I walked to the cafeteria to cover the House District 33B contest between incumbent Steve Smith and challengers Pam Langseth and Cindy Pugh.<\/p>\n

I got a sense of the tenor of the event; Smith, a moderate (who’s earned my personal ire by opposing Joint Physical Custody legislation for years) seems to have been districted out of much relevance, at least within the party. \u00a0He had a small clutch of supporters wedged between a large group for Langseth, and an even bigger group for Tea Party organizer Pugh.<\/p>\n

I had no idea how <\/em>much bigger, of course; when the first ballot came back, Pugh had about 68% of the vote, blowing past the margin for endorsement. \u00a0Langseth netted about 20 points, meaning that the incumbent Smith netted around 10% of the vote. \u00a0I was sitting next to his delegation; he did not look happy, and it did sound as if he was ready to go to a primary against Pugh.<\/p>\n

As, scuttlebutt had it, Doepke was going to do too, against Osmek; Twitter traffic painted her as still thinking about it.<\/p>\n

As to the A side? \u00a0That race – former Senate\u00a0candidate\u00a0Joe Arwood and another challenger – are going to the primary too. \u00a0 They came, literally, to a tie; 75 votes each, 35 shy of endorsement. \u00a0So to the primary we go!<\/p>\n

But that’s all for August. \u00a0For last night?<\/p>\n

It’s a great sign when a Republican <\/em>CD votes conservative. \u00a0While both Doepke and Smith \u00a0 made reassuringly conservative-sounding speeches, both seemingly got hung up by positions they’d taken in Saint Paul that weren’t so much; Doepke voted for the New Generation Energy Act and the Stadium, and against Stand your Ground; Smith voted with the Real Americans on Stand your Ground, but has caved on more than a few other issues. \u00a0The district didn’t buy it, clearly.<\/p>\n

And it’s gratifying to see a district that doesn’t give a crap what Lori Sturdevant’s going to say about it.<\/p>\n

It smells like…victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I drove out to Wayzata to give a seconding speech for Dave Osmek and his candidacy for the MN Senate. For starters, I love driving from Saint Paul and its stifling, smug DFL rule to the parts of the state that actually work – and thus are governed by the GOP. \u00a0Places built […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-mn-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28101","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=28101"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28106,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28101\/revisions\/28106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}