{"id":35175,"date":"2013-03-12T07:43:26","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T12:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=35175"},"modified":"2020-12-21T05:29:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T11:29:35","slug":"35175","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=35175","title":{"rendered":"Correlation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So what\u00a0<em>did\u00a0<\/em>all of that money from DFL plutocrats buy in the 2012 elections?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe a seat in the legislature, on the relative cheap?<\/p>\n<p>Guest writer Bill Walsh found a correlation &#8211; not a link, mind you, but a correlation &#8211; that might bear some looking into.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>DFL Receives Tremendous Return on Investment from Election Day Stipends<\/p>\n<p>The definition of correlation is \u201cthe mutual relation of two or more things.\u201d For today\u2019s discussion of the 2012 campaign finance reports, let\u2019s focus on the correlation of two things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Just days before the general election, the Minnesota DFL Party paid \u201ccanvasser stipends\u201d to 40 individuals who live on or near Minnesota Indian reservations, especially the Red Lake Reservation.<\/li>\n<li>The vote for president in the four precincts that make up the Red Lake Indian Reservation was 2,165 for Obama to 39 for Romney.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s nothing illegal about these two sets of facts, but they do make an interesting correlation.<\/p>\n<p>The canvasser stipends totaled $13,400 and ranged from $200 to $500. They were all paid on November 5<sup>th<\/sup> and 6<sup>th<\/sup>, the day before and the day of the general election. They included a $3,500 payment to Jamie Edwards of Brooklyn Center for \u201ccanvassing coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;\"><a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View Canvasser DFL on Scribd\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/129932359\/Canvasser-DFL\">Canvasser DFL<\/a> by<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_56405\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/129932359\/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" data-auto-height=\"false\" data-aspect-ratio=\"undefined\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Sixteen of the stipends were paid to people living in Bagley, Ponehah, Red Lake, and Redby, all precincts in and around the Red Lake Reservation. Six of the stipends went to the same street in Bagley: Wild Rice Loop. Four of the stipends went to the same house: 26681 Wild Rice Loop.<\/p>\n<p>Five of the stipends were paid to addresses in Naytahwaush near the White Earth Reservation. The rest of the stipends are divided between the White Earth Reservation and the Mille Lacs Reservation.<\/p>\n<p>So what did the DFL get for their money?<\/p>\n<p>The easiest way to analyze the effectiveness of this program is to look at the precincts in the Red Lake Reservation, where we know the vote is 100% Native American.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"middle\">Precinct<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">Obama<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">Romney<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"middle\">Ponemah<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">385<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">1<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"middle\">Red Lake Agency<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">826<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">17<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"middle\">Redby<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">606<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">15<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"middle\">Little Rock<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">348<\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\">6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"middle\"><strong>Total<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\"><strong>2165<\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"middle\"><strong>39<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In the four precincts that make up the reservation, the total vote for president was 2,165 for President Obama and just 39 votes for Mitt Romney. That\u2019s 98% for the Democrats. The overwhelming DFL vote pattern continued down the partisan ballot. In the Ponemah precinct, the vote was 385 to 1. Just one vote for Romney? You would think ten or fifteen voters would have voted for Romney by accident.<\/p>\n<p>These lopsided results can be seen on the other reservations but it\u2019s not as obvious. For example, the precinct that includes the town of Naytahwaush on the White Earth Reservation (Twin Lakes Township) voted 185 for Obama to 29 for Romney.<\/p>\n<p>The Native American vote only added to the victory margin for President Obama and Senator Klobuchar in Minnesota, but it had a more profound effect on the makeup of the state legislature. In House District 2A for example, DFLer Roger Erickson defeated Rep. Dave Hancock by 1,829 votes. His margin on the Red Lake Reservation was 1,916 votes. It\u2019s hard to win a legislative district when you lose four precincts by almost 2,000 votes.<\/p>\n<p>Again, I am not alleging anything illegal happened here. On its face, it is just a correlation. Historically, there is no reason to expect that Native American voters in Minnesota would vote in favor of the Republican ticket. But the 98% vote total should at least raise some questions.<\/p>\n<p>The $13,400 spent on this canvasser program is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions spent on the 2012 election by both sides. Certainly the tribes in Minnesota give more campaign money to Democrats than Republicans, but their advantage is not as lopsided as it is with the unions. And the political interests of the tribes down south with successful gaming operations don\u2019t always line up with the tribes up north.<\/p>\n<p>There are two approaches to this problem for the Minnesota Republican Party heading into the 2014 election.<\/p>\n<p>One approach would be to make sure we have poll watchers in all of these precincts next year to make sure the election is free from intimidation and voter fraud.<\/p>\n<p>But a better and more long-term approach would be to directly reach out to Native American voters and convince them our plans for economic opportunity, entrepreneurship, job creation and especially education reform deserve a stronger look. This outreach needs to be sincere and should include a two-way conversation that results in real proposals put forward by our leaders at the legislature. We can easily show the policies of the DFL have not benefited Native American families and they are taking their votes for granted.<\/p>\n<p>This outreach needs to start now, not just days before the election. And it needs to involve a commitment to make life better, not just $13,400 in election day stipends.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>MITCH: \u00a0More later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So what\u00a0did\u00a0all of that money from DFL plutocrats buy in the 2012 elections? Maybe a seat in the legislature, on the relative cheap? Guest writer Bill Walsh found a correlation &#8211; not a link, mind you, but a correlation &#8211; that might bear some looking into. &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;- DFL Receives Tremendous Return on Investment from Election [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-35175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","tag-a-klo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35175","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=35175"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76164,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35175\/revisions\/76164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}