{"id":31160,"date":"2012-10-18T12:30:57","date_gmt":"2012-10-18T17:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=31160"},"modified":"2012-10-18T11:29:56","modified_gmt":"2012-10-18T16:29:56","slug":"extremists-like-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=31160","title":{"rendered":"Extremists Like Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

MN 7th District representative Collin Peterson – generally regarded as a bit of a blue dog, representing a socially-conservative but farm-bill-money-hungry district – lost his long-time endorsement from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for LIfe, the state’s main pro-life group over his flip on Obamacare.<\/p>\n

And he’s done something that’s suicide for most politicians; he’s actually said what he believes<\/a>, in a video recorded at Concordia College in Moorhead of a conversation between him and a pro-life student:<\/p>\n

In the video, Peterson, speaking to Concordia junior Kate Engstrom after posing for what he believed was a photo with her, says the MCCL is \u201cbeing a bunch of extremists\u201d and the group\u2019s stance on the Affordable Care Act is \u201cthe end of them as an organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re now a completely partisan organization,\u201d he said in the video, in response to Engstrom\u2019s questions about the MCCL\u2019s endorsement decision. \u201cWhen you get into that position, you\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, yeah – remember when Jim Oberstar referred to his detractors as a “flat earth society<\/a>?”<\/p>\n

Peterson had a similar moment; he apparently believes his pro-life constituents are teh loosers and dummeys: :<\/p>\n

\u00a0He also said: \u201cThe only place it (the dropped endorsement) got reported is on MPR, and those people don\u2019t listen to MPR.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Further evidence of the same exact phenemonon that got Jim Oberstar tossed two years ago; he acts one way when he’s out and about in \u00a0his districit – but when he thinks he’s among friends, or back in DC (or when he just loses control, as Oberstar did), he turns into Mr. Hyde.<\/p>\n

Ms. Engstrom – who I believe I have actually met – would have a bright future as a reporter, if news organizations actually hired reporters rather than DFL stenographers (I’ll add a bit of emphasis):<\/p>\n

\u00a0Engstrom, 20, made the video with a friend. She said she approached Peterson after the event on campus featuring a handful of Democrats because she wanted to speak to him about the lack of the MCCL endorsement…\u00a0\u201dI knew that Collin would probably not respond or tell me his actual thoughts on it if he knew it was on camera,\u201d said Engstrom, a political science student who describes herself as a Republican. \u201cI just thought it was really important that people would know the truth of what Collin Peterson thinks<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Engstrom gets the “Mr Hyde” bit too:<\/p>\n

\u00a0She said she believes Peterson assumed she was a Democrat, \u201cso he felt like he could say whatever he wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she found the remarks insulting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made it sound like we were some sort of weird extremists,\u201d said Engstrom, who opposes abortion. \u201cHe always claims that he\u2019s a moderate, and in my eyes he\u2019s not really a moderate.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you live in the 7th CD, you know that Collin Peterson has been the unassailable blue-dog giant for a generation, now.<\/p>\n

But if there were ever a time to dig deep and give of your time and money to support \u00a0Lee Byberg<\/a>, this is it.<\/p>\n

Because you’re not “extremists”, and you deserve to be represented by someone who knows it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MN 7th District representative Collin Peterson – generally regarded as a bit of a blue dog, representing a socially-conservative but farm-bill-money-hungry district – lost his long-time endorsement from Minnesota Citizens Concerned for LIfe, the state’s main pro-life group over his flip on Obamacare. And he’s done something that’s suicide for most politicians; he’s actually said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,155],"tags":[165],"class_list":["post-31160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","category-mn-congressional","tag-mn-cd7"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31160","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=31160"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31162,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31160\/revisions\/31162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}