{"id":42068,"date":"2014-02-25T12:15:29","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T18:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=42068"},"modified":"2014-02-25T11:41:41","modified_gmt":"2014-02-25T17:41:41","slug":"that-sucking-sound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=42068","title":{"rendered":"That Sucking Sound"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2014 Legislative Session kicks off today.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The DFL controls both chambers of the Legislature, and the Governor’s office.\u00a0 It’s a little tiny bit less monolithic than all that sounds – Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk and Speaker of the House Paul Thissen hate each other with a throbbing passion, and Mark Dayton is madly triangulating between both in preparation for his re-election bid (appeasing Bakk on some issues, like gun control, while throwing bones to Thissen, like his Lieutenant Governor selectee, Frau Bl\u00fccher).<\/p>\n

But here’s really all you need to know; the DFL’s priorities for this election:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pay Off Their Sharks<\/strong>:\u00a0 This being an even-numbered year, the session will deal with bonding, not the budget.\u00a0 Look for an avalanche of “infrastructure” “investment” that may or may not be actual investments in infrastructure, but will <\/em>send lots of fiscal love to the DFL’s most important constituencies – the state employee unions.\u00a0 It will be a fiscal orgy.<\/li>\n
  2. MNSquirrel!<\/strong>:\u00a0 Look for anything – anything – <\/em>to distract the low-information “independents” from the complete debacle that is MNSure.\u00a0 Minimum Wage hikes?\u00a0 Vikings Stadium hearings?\u00a0 Medical Marijuana?\u00a0 Puppy Mill legislation, complete with tear-jerker footage on KARE11 delivered just in the nick of time?\u00a0\u00a0 Hell, all that and more.\u00a0 The sky’s the limit.\u00a0 Look for Tom Bakk to dance naked on the Capitol steps to divert attention from MNSure, if necessary.\u00a0 The media will do its level best to ensure it’s not necessary, of course.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The MNGOP’s mission?\u00a0 Same as last session; focus on fighting a rear-guard action while trying to gin up a message that resonates with the higher-information voters that actually pay attention, all the while focusing the tensions in the GOP in a creative<\/em> <\/em>rather than destructive direction, leaving the good guys with the electoral ammo they need to retake the House, and God willing the Governor’s mansion, this fall.<\/p>\n

    Simple, huh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The 2014 Legislative Session kicks off today.\u00a0 The DFL controls both chambers of the Legislature, and the Governor’s office.\u00a0 It’s a little tiny bit less monolithic than all that sounds – Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk and Speaker of the House Paul Thissen hate each other with a throbbing passion, and Mark Dayton is madly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mn-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42068","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=42068"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42075,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42068\/revisions\/42075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}