I have been crazy busy with my business (more later), so I haven’t been blogging nonstop about the primaries like I might have a few years back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I’m about as excited as I allow myself to get, under the circumstances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I’ve got Republican friends who are upset that the GOP-endorsed candidates got pretty much ignored this time around. \u00a0After the convention, Walter Hudson had a great question: \u00a0what is the endorsement worth<\/em>? \u00a0If it doesn’t come with advancing name recognition and funding in the primary, then to what exactly is one being loyal?<\/p>\n Anyway – let’s talk about the races:<\/p>\n Senate<\/strong><\/p>\n I’ve got Republican friends who said Michele Tafoya was a non-starter because of her stance on abortion. \u00a0<\/p>\n These are also die-hard MAGA voters who want Trump to run for a third term. \u00a0<\/p>\n They have the same stance on abortion. \u00a0 Identical.\u00a0<\/p>\n And neither Senator will vote on any abortion related issue – because\u00a0Donbs\u00a0<\/em>three the issue back to the states. \u00a0 The only abortion related vote that’s on the Senate’s docket is the hearings for whoever replaces Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas when they someday leave the bench. \u00a0Who would you rather have voting on that – the “imperfectly” conservative Tafoya or the DSA-adjacent Flanagan?<\/p>\n Choose wisely.\u00a0<\/p>\n And it’s nice to have a Senate who’s not “Dead Candidate Walking” right out of the gate for a change – remember Royce White, Kurt Bills and Mike McFadden? \u00a0No? \u00a0 After a decade and a half of watching the top of the ticket drag the down-ballot races, it’s fun seeing a race where the top\u00a0might just\u00a0<\/em> have a shot at\u00a0lifting\u00a0<\/em>the rest of the field. \u00a0<\/p>\n Governor<\/strong><\/p>\n Is Lisa Demuth a perfect conservative? \u00a0No. \u00a0 And as Speaker for two years with an evenly divided House and a DFL Senate and Governor, it’s a given that she’s got her name on some bad votes. \u00a0Divided government leads to horse-trading. \u00a0There’s a frightening share of MNGOPs that think yelling loudly about the purity of ones principles wins races and slashes DFL power.\u00a0<\/p>\n She wasn’t the\u00a0most conservative\u00a0<\/em>candidate in the primary. \u00a0But I think she’s the most conservative\u00a0who can win<\/em>. \u00a0<\/p>\n Who was the last statewide elected GOP official? \u00a0Tim Pawlenty. \u00a0<\/p>\n The haters called him “RINO”. \u00a0<\/p>\n The rest of the state called him “Governor”.\u00a0<\/p>\n Remember that – having a GOP governor? \u00a0 Able to veto bad laws and sign good ones, and use the bully pulpit for fiscal sanity\/. When Minneapolis was a beacon and the streets were safe?<\/p>\n All the evidence available showed Mike Lindell would have dragged the ticket (even before his self-immolation on immigration). \u00a0And there’s a solid chance to flip the Senate, with 1-3 DFL seats feeling. pretty squishy (Kupec, Seeberger and\u00a0especially\u00a0<\/em>Hauschild). \u00a0If we don’t lose a bunch of other seats because of\u00a0yet another\u00a0<\/em>self-inflicted wound at the top of the ticket, we could flip the seat, take CD2 back, and be I a good position for the 2028 races with, hopefully, a presidential bump. \u00a0<\/p>\n Why would we want that, after all ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have been crazy busy with my business (more later), so I haven’t been blogging nonstop about the primaries like I might have a few years back.\u00a0 But I’m about as excited as I allow myself to get, under the circumstances.\u00a0 I’ve got Republican friends who are upset that the GOP-endorsed candidates got pretty much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[471,72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-26","category-mngop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90265","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=90265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90267,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90265\/revisions\/90267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}