{"id":30584,"date":"2012-09-27T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2012-09-27T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=30584"},"modified":"2020-12-21T05:29:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T11:29:35","slug":"the-campaign-that-couldnt-shoot-straight-part-ii-how-ya-doing-belle-plaine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=30584","title":{"rendered":"The Campaign That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, Part III: “How Ya Doing, Rockford?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

On paper, the Minnesota Third Congressional District is “purple”. \u00a0And by “on paper”, I mean “In the\u00a0Strib<\/em>“.<\/p>\n

Yes, for decades the district was represented by moderate, IR-era Republicans like Jim Ramstad, Bill Frenzel and Clark McGregor.<\/p>\n

And Erik Paulsen has had to work with a lot of different constituencies to win in the Third; he’s done it by showing ample respect to the parts of his district that aren’t, perhaps, solidly GOP – places like Brooklyn Park, Edina and Bloomington…<\/p>\n

\"\"

The MN 3rd Congressional District<\/p><\/div>\n

…even as he’s worked hard in conservative strongholds like Maple Grove.<\/p>\n

And it’s worked. \u00a0Paulsen beat Ashwin Madia by something like eight points to succeed Ramstad in 2008 – a lousy year for Republicans – and\u00a0destroyed\u00a0<\/em>Jim Meffert in 2010 by over twenty.<\/p>\n

This year’s DFL candidate is \u00a0Brian Barnes. \u00a0We’ve talked about Barnes before; he claimed the Minnesota police unions were “extreme right-wing<\/a>” (they’ve endorsed Amy Klobuchar) and his campaign\u00a0misrepresented Representative Paulsen’s position on a controversial bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So far, Barnes’ campaign has “opportunities for improvement” – even compared with the non-entity Meffert, to say nothing of fhe relatively savvy Madia bid.<\/p>\n

More bizarre, perhaps, have been some of his back-office choices.<\/p>\n

We’ll come back to that.<\/p>\n

——————<\/p>\n

If you come to the big city from rural America, you get used to the cool city kids sniffing down their noses at you.<\/p>\n

And so seeing a tweet like this (which has since apparently been deleted from Twitter)?<\/p>\n

@JenE4rmTheBlock
\n<\/strong>Small town ppl seem to not understand how the real world works
\n8\/31\/12 7:54 PM<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\uf729Pretty run of the mill\u00a0provincialism – right?<\/p>\n

Sure, why not?<\/p>\n

Now, how about\u00a0this one<\/a>?<\/p>\n

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

This I’d be more prone to call “bigotry” – pretending to know the hearts and souls of people she’s apparently decided to disparage, or just filling in her own stereotypes, based on perhaps the least dispositive trait a person can have; where they live.<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s Twitter. \u00a0And if there’s a medium with a lower barrier of entry than blogs, it’s Twitter. \u00a0The format lends itself to breezy generalization and letting out one’s inner douchebag. \u00a0I’ll cop to it; it sometimes brings out the worst in me, too.<\/p>\n

But if you’re a candidate running for office in a district that includes towns like St. Michael, \u00a0Loretto, Albertville, Rockford and other exurban holdouts as well as burbs like Edina, Bloomington, Minnetonka and the like, you might think it’d be bad form to \u00a0employ someone who practices active bigotry toward a big, poitically-active chunk of your constituency.<\/p>\n

But Barnes does. \u00a0This is “JenE4rmTheBlock”‘s business card\"\"<\/a>:<\/p>\n

(I’m not going to post the Instagram link to the photo under the same name as the Twitter feed. It includes an email and what appears to be a personal phone number. If someone wants to claim “it’s not teh same person” by way of trying to impugn the story, I’ve got it. It’s her).<\/p>\n

But I’m not doing this to kick dirt on Ms. “4rmTheBlock”. \u00a0This is aimed squarely at Brian Barnes. campaign<\/p>\n

Candidate Barnes: \u00a0is it your position\u00a0that the people of Saint Bonifacius or Luverne “don’t get how the world works”, or that the folks in Minnetonka, Maple Grove and Bloomington are “Racists” and ‘Homophobes?” \u00a0 Your “political organizer” has just insulted two groups of people who, together, make up roughly 100% of the district you’re running for.<\/p>\n

Does this seem like a good campaign plan?<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

So we’ve got editing problems, some magical invisible freebie polling, and a “Free-spirited” staff. \u00a0What else could go wrong with Barnes’ campaign?<\/p>\n

More tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On paper, the Minnesota Third Congressional District is “purple”. \u00a0And by “on paper”, I mean “In the\u00a0Strib“. Yes, for decades the district was represented by moderate, IR-era Republicans like Jim Ramstad, Bill Frenzel and Clark McGregor. And Erik Paulsen has had to work with a lot of different constituencies to win in the Third; he’s […]<\/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":[208,162],"class_list":["post-30584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-mn-legislature","tag-a-klo","tag-mn-cd3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30584","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=30584"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76169,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30584\/revisions\/76169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}