{"id":55048,"date":"2015-09-08T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=55048"},"modified":"2015-09-08T10:16:43","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T15:16:43","slug":"game-afoot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=55048","title":{"rendered":"Game Afoot"},"content":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is prowling the aisles at Fleet Farm in Lakeville, looking for .22 Long Rifle ammo. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

He rounds a corner, and runs into\u00a0Bill GUNKEL, former Republican and now chairman of the Inver Grove Heights chapter of \u201cFormer Republicans for Ron Paul\u201d,<\/em><\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Hey, Merg!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Hey, Bill.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0The RINO statist John Kline is retiring from office!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Yeah, Representative Kline wasn’t the most conservative congressman we’ve had.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0He may as well have been a Democrat!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Enh. \u00a0And in an R+2 district…well, bygones is bygones. \u00a0The real question is who’s gonna replace him? \u00a0 I’ve heard talk of State Senator Dave Thompson, Mary Pawlenty…<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Why elect another RINO?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Um, what? Dave Thompson is a RINO?<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0He never criticized Kline!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Er, why would he do that?<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Why\u00a0not<\/em>?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Violating Reagan’s 11th commandment by attacking other conservatives, even imperfect ones? \u00a0Alienating Kline supporters in his own district, to no benefit to himself? \u00a0Spending political capital on something that gains him nothing?<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Gains him nothing? \u00a0He’d get the respect of the Liberty voters!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0You mean the people who bum-rushed the 2012 State Convention to send a slate of delegates to Tampa to make a symbolic vote for Ron Paul, and then largely went home and never came to another GOP meeting? \u00a0Who pushed Kurt Bills to the nomination, then abandoned him when he actually acted like he was part of the party that endorsed him? \u00a0A group that seems more focused on bashing Republicans than winning elections?<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Principle!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Right. \u00a0OK, so Dave Thompson is insufficiently pure. \u00a0Gotcha. \u00a0So who do you support?<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0David Gerson. \u00a0The\u00a0only\u00a0<\/em>candidate to support if you care about Liberty!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0 Gerson says all sorts of things I support. \u00a0I’ve got no problem with him. \u00a0I’d love to have him on the show. \u00a0 It’s just that last go-around, he raised less money than a typical Saint Paul Republican legislative candidate.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0So? \u00a0 Money isn’t everything.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Right. \u00a0But it’s a leading indicator. \u00a0If someone can’t raise money from supporters to run a campaign, it’s a fair question to ask whether they can raise votes.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Well, it’ll be different this time!<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Well, that’d sure make the race more interesting! \u00a0 I think a\u00a0solid, credible\u00a0<\/em>challenge from the Libertarian wing of the party would be a very good thing. \u00a0 But the candidate – and especially his campaign – have got to ramp up the game.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0Oh, we will, by the time of the election on March 1.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Um, what?<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0 We’ll get the support out in droves by the time the battle for all the marbles, on March 1, happens.<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Um, March 1 is the caucuses.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL (looking confused<\/em>): \u00a0Riiiight?<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0Not the general election.<\/p>\n

GUNKEL: \u00a0 (Shrugs extravagantly, indicating non-comprehension<\/em>)<\/p>\n

BERG: \u00a0March 1 is when he’ll try to knock off other GOP…Oh, never mind.<\/p>\n

And SCENE<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SCENE: \u00a0Mitch BERG is prowling the aisles at Fleet Farm in Lakeville, looking for .22 Long Rifle ammo. \u00a0 He rounds a corner, and runs into\u00a0Bill GUNKEL, former Republican and now chairman of the Inver Grove Heights chapter of \u201cFormer Republicans for Ron Paul\u201d, GUNKEL: \u00a0Hey, Merg! BERG: \u00a0Hey, Bill. GUNKEL: \u00a0The RINO statist John […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,72],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-55048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-16","category-mngop","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55048","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=55048"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55062,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55048\/revisions\/55062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}