{"id":50447,"date":"2015-01-20T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-01-20T18:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=50447"},"modified":"2015-01-19T20:45:18","modified_gmt":"2015-01-20T02:45:18","slug":"how-to-get-ahead-in-minnesota-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=50447","title":{"rendered":"How To Get Ahead In Minnesota Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

So late last week, Governor Dayton appointed 34 year old Adam Duininck<\/a> to head the Met Council – the unelected, unaccountable body that has dictatorial control over metro-area land, transit and growth policy.<\/p>\n

Duininck is taking the job as the Legislature prepares to increase its scrutiny of the Met Council, which in 2015 has an operating budget is $936 million.<\/p>\n

But he said his top priority will be to define the role of the Met Council to local government officials.<\/p>\n

Over the next few weeks, Duininck intends to visit with citizens and local elected officials across the metro area aiming to allay their concerns that the Met Council isn’t listening to them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Actually, I suspect the best way to do this would be to actually listen to citizens and local elected officials.<\/p>\n

But this post isn’t about the Met Council, per se. \u00a0It’s about the workings of the DFL machine. \u00a0Emphasis added:<\/p>\n

Duininck 34, has represented Minneapolis on the 17-member Met Council since 2011, and largely focused transportation issues. He also has a career in DFL politics, serving as executive director for Win Minnesota<\/strong>, which raises money to help elect Democrats<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s be clear: \u00a0“Win Minnesota” is the fundraising arm of the MNDFL’s noise machine; it collects money from the usual DFL suspects – public employee unions, plutocrats and the like – and distributes it<\/a> to the likes of the “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”, the DFL’s attack-PR wing.<\/p>\n

Oh, yeah:<\/p>\n

Duininck also is married to Jaime Tincher, Dayton’s Chief of Staff.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which is, of course, becoming a bit of a Dayton Administration tradition; one of Dayton’s previous chiefs of staff was married to the boss of the Alliance for a Better Minnesota.<\/p>\n

This bit made me laugh:<\/p>\n

Dayton said he considered Duininck’s political and family ties<\/strong> before making the appointment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, I just bet he did.<\/p>\n

And to make it even worse?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the governor said Duininck was endorsed by plenty of people<\/strong> \u2014 including current Met Council members, Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges<\/strong>, several state lawmakers and U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison<\/strong>, who represents Minnesota’s 5th District…He was the overwhelming recommendation,” Dayton said. “So he got selected by me despite some other issues that I knew would be raised and are going to be raised \u2014 because he’s the best person for the job.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course he was.<\/p>\n

When the DFL says “jump”, he’ll say “off what?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So late last week, Governor Dayton appointed 34 year old Adam Duininck to head the Met Council – the unelected, unaccountable body that has dictatorial control over metro-area land, transit and growth policy. Duininck is taking the job as the Legislature prepares to increase its scrutiny of the Met Council, which in 2015 has an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-minnesota-politics","category-liberal-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50447","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=50447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50487,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50447\/revisions\/50487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}