Ken Martin, chair of the MNDFL, has a tough row to hoe.\u00a0\u00a0I gotta say, I feel sorry for the guy.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, the\u00a0NYTimes<\/em> – the PR agency for the Democrats at the national level – released an article disparaging the blue-collar workers of northern Minnesota<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201c[the blue collar guy the Times starts the interview with] drives\u00a0<\/strong>to the mine in his truck, comes home and watches TV, and he doesn\u2019t know this world exists,\u201d says [retired Twin Cities real estate lawyer and environmentalist] Becky Rom, a 68-year-old lawyer who returned to her childhood home after retirement and now leads the environmental campaign<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n And…<\/p>\n “Resentment is the primary driver of the pro-mining crowd here \u2014 they are resentful that other people have come here and been successful while they were sitting around waiting for a big mining company,\u201d [Rom’s husband, retired Twin Cities corporate lawyer Reid] Carron told me. \u201cThey want somebody to just give them a job so they can all drink beer with their buddies and go four-wheeling and snowmobiling with their buddies, not have to think about anything except punching a clock.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The elitism rolls off this piece like the fog hovering above a lake on a brisk morning.\u00a0 (UPDATE<\/strong>:\u00a0 Although once the uproar started hurting the DFL, Rom and Carron were sorry they got caught<\/a>).<\/p>\n Trouble is, these people are traditional DFLers (although that’s been eroding in recent years).\u00a0 \u00a0So Martin’s gotta defend ’em – right?<\/p>\n Not so fast.\u00a0 Martin’s leash is largely held by Metrocrat environmentalists – the Roms and the Carrons – with deep pockets.\u00a0 The people behind Minnesota’s biggest environmental groups are the same as those behind Minnesota’s biggest “progressive” money pools, like “Alliance for a Better Minnesota”; indeed the law firms that spawned the likes of Rom and Carron are, themselves, among the DFL’s biggest donors.<\/p>\n So let’s spare a thought for Ken Martin; he has to defend the virtue of workers – the vestiges of the “Labor” in Democrat Farmer Labor party – in an industry that his party’s big money hates, from the depredations of the national Democrat party’s Praetorian Guard.<\/p>\n\n
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