Parts Is Parts

Joe Doakes of Como Park emails:

“I, Pencil” is a famous Economics essay that makes this startling claim: Nobody knows how to make a pencil.

Consider the ordinary No. 2 lead pencil children use in grade school. No single person knows every piece of knowledge needed to make a pencil: forest management for the wood; polymer science for the paint; ore mining and refining for the metal and graphite; how to make whatever the eraser is made of; and the manufacturing process to bring the components together. A pencil is a simple tool but the result of a complex set of discrete processes, all of which must work in perfect harmony. If enough elements are removed, the result is not a pencil. If what you needed was a No. 2 lead pencil, removing some of the essential elements of a pencil leaves you worse off than you were before the changes were made.

President Obama’s recent “The First Time” campaign message uses a losing-your-virginity sexual theme to advise young voters that their first vote should be cast for someone who cares about women getting birth control, not somebody who studies in the library; in other words, someone cool and casual, not someone boring but permanent. The thinking underlying this ad is similar to the thinking behind the sexual revolution that led to the gay marriage movement and all are delusions dangerous to long-term societal stability.

 

The concept of marriage looks as simple as a pencil but it’s actually a complicated collection of rights and policies. Before 1970, the family was the fundamental organizational unit of society because, as Robert Heinlein famously noted, it was the most successful institution ever devised for protecting children while preserving family wealth. Marriage was hard to get into (blood tests, waiting periods) and hard to get out of (good cause required and alimony paid). But the incentives were good: sex outside marriage was illegal, children born outside marriage were denied rights, unmarried couples were denied tax breaks and were social outcasts.

The sexual revolution convinced us the individual should replace the family as the focus of society. Satisfying the desires of individuals became more important than sacrificing for one’s family. The changes to society were slow to manifest but breathtaking in scope. No-fault divorce made marriage temporary. Child custody assumptions turned fathers into powerless, occasional visitors. Abortion made casual sex outside marriage risk-free. Childhood illegitimacy and poverty rates skyrocketed while test scores plummeted and child abuse and neglect rates exploded.

A society focused on individual gratification at the expense of children’s futures cannot prosper long-term. By every economic and social measure, people raised in traditional families today are miles ahead of single-parent or never-married families. 40 years of evidence shows Heinlein was right. The sexual revolution removed some of the essential elements supporting traditional marriage and as a result, society is worse off.

Gay marriage advocates assure us that re-defining “marriage” away from one-man-one-woman won’t hurt the institution of marriage a bit. I can’t agree. I think we’ve already stripped the pencil of the eraser, metal holder and paint. If we strip the lead out, what’s left won’t be a pencil at all. That’s not a problem if we have ballpoints and highlighters and crayons to substitute for the pencil. But what’s the substitute system for protecting children and preserving family wealth? What’s the substitute for the next generation, and the one after that?

Joe Doakes

Como Park

More tomorrow.

Blast From The Past

While we get ready to vote for this next Presidential election, it’s good to remember what got us here.

Here’s a look back at the 111th Congress – the “Worst Congress”, the Reid/Pelosi one, the one that left office after Christmas of 2010, after the GOP sweep of the House – that I saved back in 2010.

Americans can give thanks in this Christmas season for an end to the reckless and destructive 111th Congress. This is the Congress that passed Obamacare, against the wishes of a substantial majority of the public, on Christmas Eve of last year. In the dead of night, Democratic lawmakers stuffed the monstrous 2,700-page bill with special-interest goodies and political payoffs like the “Cornhusker Kickback” and the “Louisiana Purchase.” As we have learned since, most members were still ignorant of the bill’s contents three months later, when it gained final passage in the House. No surprise that its immediate results — both intended and unintended — have been almost uniformly bad.

Similarly, odds are that not one member of the 111th Congress actually read the so-called “cap-and-trade” bill before it passed the House in June 2009. Even a speed-reader could not have digested House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman’s last-second, 309-page amendment, which read as clear as mud: “Page 14, strike lines 1 through 3 and insert the following. …” It was filed after 1:30 a.m. just before the vote on final passage. There is also serious doubt that any member of Congress understood the 2,000-page financial reform bill that Congress passed this summer. One of its two main sponsors, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., remarked, “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. …”

And Democrats wonder why Gallup found this Congress to be the least popular in the history of its polls?

After suffering a comprehensive and humiliating defeat in the midterm election, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the unfrocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led lame-duck congressional Democrats on a last-minute banzai charge for more federal spending, debt, earmarks, taxes and regulations. They unsuccessfully pushed for the biggest tax increase in American history, a yearlong spending bill loaded with pork, and a DREAM Act to award amnesty to certain children of illegal immigrants. We hope that voters will remember these misguided initiatives in two years.

 

As much as anything in the Presidential election, this is what’s at stake next Tuesday.

The Map

So let’s indulge in that most pointless of diversions, trying to predict the Electoral College.

Here – with the help of the good folks at 270ToWin.com – is the media and Democrats’ (ptr) conventional wisdom; Obama holds Ohio and the rest of the blue Great Lakes states, and ekes out 271 electoral votes – in this case, 277-261.

And if Obama loses Ohio?  That inverts nicely:  Romney 279, Obam 259.

(Note that I’m assuming Colorado and New Hampshire vote Romney in both scenarios.  I think they will).

So what about if Obama takes Ohio, but loses Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Colorado?  Romney 271-267.

Now – how about the perfect Republican storm, all full of challenger-breaking independents and cascading preferences?  If Romney takes Ohio and Wisconsin, and somehow hell freezes over and Minnesota goes red?

Romney 305-233?

Well, it’s fun to think about

There’s A Tape Deck Blasting “Home On The Range”

So after I wrote my piece on my suggestion that Bruce Springsteen’s “This Hard Land” was the song that best symbolized where America is at today, I actually got a call from ’em – they liked my submission, and interviewed me for the show.

It ran last night at 9PM – and it was a fascinating listen throughout. The MPR people did – and I mean no offense by this – a more balanced job than I expected. And the production job of getting my ten minute interview cut and pasted to slot into gaps in the song itself? From one radio production geek to another, well done.

Here’s the whole thing. I’m early in the second half of the show.

I’m around 34:30 into it, although the whole thing is worth a listen.

Help Wanted

I think this is going to be a humdinger of an election.  Alongside my predictions from this morning – GOP holds both chambers of the Legislature – I think Chip Cravaack will stave off Rick Nolan, setting the stage for what could be an epic realignment in Minnesota politics.

Beyond that?  I think Lee Byberg has laid the groundwork for what could be – let’s be conservative, here – a result that is unexpectedly good, and disconcerting for Collin Peterson.  And I think it would have happened even without his improvident slander of pro-lifers.

And while I think it’ll take a complete economic collapse and mass civil disorder to make Minneapolis anything but a DFL playground, I think Chris Fields is going to surprise people with his results on November 7.  He’s run a masterful campaign; in a just world, there would be no contest; in a district that wasn’t a one-party thug-ocracy, the statesmanly Fields would make short work of the whiny, petulant Ellison.

As to the 4th CD?

Here’s where we need your help.

Redistricting shaved Betty McCollum’s advantage down, but it didn’t gut it.  The 4th Congressional District was as blue as the Oceana Ministry of Truth’s uniforms before redistricting, of course; and it absorbed a lot of purple territory in Stillwater and Woodbury (as well as a few bright-red districts full of Real Americans up in Grant Township).

Which is a huge improvement, don’t get me wrong.

And so Tony Hernandez has been fighting this campaign to win.  And along with that, there’s been a solid effort by a lot  of candidates at the legislative level.  I think we’ve got a solid shot at four or five new seats in the legislature, either flips or open seats, as well as defending the seats we already do have.

And – this is huge – I think Blake Huffman, Dennis Dunnigan and Sue Jeffers have a solid shot at getting on the Ramsey County Commission.  And if that happens, the Ramco Commission will have a conservative majority!

If there’s a habit from the Old Fourth that we need to put to rest, it’s the idea that Saint Paul and Ramsey County Republicans only turn out when they think it matters – competitive Presidential, Gubernatorial and Senate races.  The media has done a painstaking, and fraudulent, job of trying to convince them that the Presidential and Senate races are foregone conclusions; they do it to try to convince Republicans not to show up at the polls.

This is where you come in.

The Hernandez Campaign is organizing a phone bank – along with several other campaigns and BPOUs in the 4th CD – to Get Out The Vote, starting tonight and running up until the election.

And we need people to sign up by clicking here and picking a time

Whether you’re a Paleocon, a Neocon, a Ronulan, a LIbertarian, or even an old-school Eastside Kennedy Democrat who’s had enough of the current regime, this is your chance to help convince people that this election makes a difference, and to help cajole them to the polls.

The fact is, Romney has a chance.  Tony Hernandez has a shot at shocking the world – perhaps by winning, perhaps by showing the state that the Fourth is not a safe sinecure and convincing Betty that a nice cushy six-figure gig with a non-profit is a lot less work in 2014.  And if we stick the landing on all five (or more!) of the legislative opportunities and the Ramco Commission, this will have an immediate and lasting effect on politics at the state level.  .

Frequently Asked Questions – VI

These things always pick up around election time:

The ReTHUGliCONs in the Legislature did teh terrible job; shutting down teh state government and not doing anything other than teh culture war!:   Yep.  Nothing!

Oher than eliminating the “deficit” without raising taxes, of course. Or keeping the state’s unemployment rate a point or two below the national average, or enacting some key regulatory reforms in the face of a dilatory and disingenuous governor?

FYI, Dayton chose the shutdown, not the GOP, which was negotiating with him ’til the last second, and observed that there was really nothing they could say or do that’d prevent Dayton from shutting down except completely caving in.  Which, for all of you who remember Dayton’s palaver during the campaign about “reaching across the aisle” and “bipartisanship”, should ring a bell or two (and don’t even think about saying the GOP didn’t give; the GOP gave on between two and five billion dollars in spending, depending on the budget proposal  you look atl.

And it was only when the “Governor” went to “rallies” in Albert Lea and St. Paul, sparsely attended by dispirited government union employees, that he retreated to Saint Paul and dealt on the deal.

Of course, his PR cover – from the Strib all the way down to Minnesota Progressive Project – has been running cover for those facts ever since.

Didn’t you say you thought Obama would win?:  Until recently I figured it was fairly certain he would.  Incumbency is a tough nut to crack.  Incumbents who have the entire mainstream media serving as their Praetorian Guard are even worse.

But the full statement, remember, is “I think the President will win; in fact, if the President doesn’t flip twenty seats in the Senate and 75 in the House, it’ll be a pretty humiliating exercise”.  It’s at least partly smack-talk, partly commentary on the dreamy millenarianism of Obama’s original support.  After four (?) years, our economy sucks worse than ever, our standing in the world is diminished (except among chuckleheaded media and social elites, in a few cases), and our society is on the brink of a fiscal cliff I’m not sure Calvin Coolidge could ward off.  So yes, “light worker”; work your freaking magic!

You Are Teh Heppocreet! When Polls were showing Democrats ahead, you said “look at teh partisan breakdownz!”  But now that Mittens is leading, you are quiet about them!:  Have you looked at the partisan breakdowns?  They still have Dems in the majority.  Not “Bigger and badder than 2008” majorities, like the Minnesota Poll, but majorities.  And yet Mitt is closing in on all the polls where he’s not ahead.

Tell you what – you don’t like the polls, you go ahead and do the analysis.  Note:  “Rasmussen is teh ReTHUGliCON, ZOMG” is not “analysis”.  I don’t care what the Daily Kos says.

In these “Frequently Asked Questions” posts, you frequently show your as pre-literate trolls with bad spelling.  Why?  I blame Twitter.  It’s exposed me to way too many lefties who are not only wrong, but both depraved and illiterate.  The best thing the Democrat Party can do is bar its members from being on Twitter unless they pass an intelligence and literacy test.

Don’t believe me?  I invite you to a day in my Twitter world.

Rom-Neeeeeeeey!

Joe Doakes emails:

I know modern elections are poll-driven, Barak Obama’s more than most. And I get that the Benghazi attack is a black eye. But can it truly be the case that more Americans would prefer to elect Sergeant “I-Knew-Nothing” Schultz instead of Harry “The-Buck-Stops-Here” Truman?

Joe Doakes

This was the episode where Sgt. Schultz got promoted above his Homeland Security Director Klink, right?

Simply Fierce

Suffice to say that if this is true…:

…the fashion world has remained particularly quiet on the Ann Romney fashion front, with many questioning whether or not outspoken Obama supporter Anna Wintour is keeping stylists and designers away, silently threatening their standing should they endeavor to promote their outfitting of the wife of a Republican presidential hopeful.

…then I will be boycotting Anna Wintour and all of her endeavors.

Over the past year, the Vogue matriarch [Oh, snap – Ed.] – who many say has enough power to make or break fashion careers – has become one of President Obama’s leading financiers. Wintour has raised over half a million dollars for the incumbent, hosted numerous lavish dinners in his name and even enlisted designer pals like Marc Jacobs and Thakoon Panichgul to design pro-Obama products.

Whatever will Republicans do?

Hot Dishes Are Great For Smuggling Rat-Tail Files

Remember when Amy Klobuchar, former Henco Attorney, tried to paint herself as “tough on crime”?

Apparently only if the criminal was poor and black:

Perhaps because of the lure of [legendary Ponzi schemer] Petters’ campaign cash or his deep connection to Minnesota Democratic politics, Klobuchar used the power of her office in 1999 to ensure Petters was not charged with financial crimes. And despite significant evidence against him, she cleared the way for Petters to build his multibillion-dollar illegal empire by prosecuting only his early co-conspirators.

One of those co-conspirators, Richard Hettler, told The Daily Caller that Klobuchar was aware of what Petters was doing, yet willingly accepted campaign donations from Petters’ company and its employees.

“She took Ponzi money to get elected,” he insisted.

Read the whole thing.

Because goddess only knows you won’t read it in the Strib until they’re dragged to the story kicking and screaming.

Effective

The by-no-means-right-of-center Saint Cloud Times endorsed our old friend King Banaian in his re-election bid in Saint Cloud:

 Given an effective first term, Banaian deserves re-election. He authored the Sunset Commission law and helped college students with textbook prices. His expertise in economics also is a strength.

They also acknowledge that the district is full of government clients who would happily sell the state as whole down the river for extra bread and circuses for state employees:

DFL challenger Zach Dorholt presents a formidable challenge in large part because Banaian’s allegiance to hardline GOP fiscal and business principles might not sell well in a district that’s home to a public university and many public-sector employees.

The paper’s right – King won by 10 votes after a recount, down from a couple dozen on election night, in 2010 – but redistricting was, by most accounts, kind to King.  While some commentators call this race a toss-up, I think that between redistricting and the fact that Obama will have all the coattails of a hunting vest, King will start to pull away this round.

Chanting Points Memo: Slouching From Fargo

How do you measure success in a politician?

If you’re a liberal, it’s likely in terms of sheer volume of legislation created and money moved about.  Because to a liberal, government is about creating reams of paper, rules, laws, stuff for government to do.

If you’re a conservative, it’s probably more a matter of princple; of getting government out of the way, of taking pointless laws and needless regulations off the books.

We’ll come back to that.

———-

Mike McFeely is a talk show host in Fargo.  He’s the current house liberal at KFGO, which was at one time the WCCO of the Fargo area, and like WCCO has shrunk greatly since its heyday (and since I left North Dakota).  He fills the role Fast Eddie Schultz used to play on the station, the token lefty.  Like Schultz, he’s apparently a former small-market sportscaster; like Schultz, he sounds like it.

And like a lot of liberal D-list pundits and pseudo-celebs, he’s got a jones for Mary Franson, GOP incumbent in District 8B and, like most uppity female and minority conservatives, the same sort of catnip for lefties that Michele Bachmann has been for the past decade and a half.  It started  a few weeks ago, with McFeely’s Schultz-like chanting of rumors that even some of the smarter regional leftyblogs long ago debunked.  McFeely came across in that case as a small-town crone abusing the “power” of his radio bully pulpit (and as much as KFGO has atrophied, it’s still not chicken feed)

I’ll give the guy kudos for at least trying to go legit in this letter to the editor in the East Otter Tail County Focus last week.

Rep. Mary Franson does not represent Greater Minnesota values and, by her own admission, will not have a strong voice for her constituents in House District 8B if she is re-elected.

Now, whenever a critic says their target has said something “by their own admission”, you can usually be pretty sure someone’s trying to play a rhetorical card trick; they admitted nothing of the sort.

While Rep. Franson has made embarrassing headlines nationally and statewide for, among other things, comparing her constituents who receive food assistance to wild animals (a claim she repeated even after “apologizing” for it on social media)

Now, when you’re a sportscaster, you can pretty much babble any kind of crap you want – because it’s just sports.  McFeely – like Schultz before him – seems to think politics is about the same.

But no – the smart people dispensed with that meme, too, and months ago; Franson pointed out, correctly, that long-term dependence dehumanizes people, and casts government in the role of the benevolent, responsible pet owner.   The remarks were taken out of context during a fractious session by a DFL noise machine that exists only to provide grist for their campaign mill.

And like a lot of D-list talk show hosts – and yes, my NARN pals and I are better than this – McFeely and “context” are never really on good terms:

At the event during which she repeated her comparison of assistance recipients to wild animals, Rep. Franson admitted that members of her own party did not support her and distanced themselves from her.

Yep.  During the “Animals” fracas, the House leadership shamefully backed away from Franson – one of several “ready fire aim” moments in a trying session for GOPers.

But teapot-tempests come and go; at the end of the day, always, “it’s the economy, stupid”.  McFeely takes a brisk dip into actual fact:

Despite low unemployment in Douglas and Todd counties

Wait – back up.  This Republican corner of the state is doing pretty well, you say?

Huh.

So let’s take a quick breather and set up some actual, factual history:  Representative Franson was…:

  1. …elected in the Tea Party wave in 2010 on a conservative ticket…
  2. …to represent a traditionally conservative Republican part of the state…
  3. …that’s doing relatively well, and apparently – by dint of having sent a conservative freshman legislator to the legislature in the middle of a grueling recession – wants to keep it that way.

Just so we’ve got that straight.

McFeely:

Instead of spending time in St. Paul fighting for issues specific to her constituents – such as lowering property taxes for farms and small businesses in rural Minnesota – Rep. Franson spent her two years in the Legislature authoring bills that accomplished nothing.

Perhaps McFeely would favor us by showing us the bill where Franson raised – or declined to lower – property taxes.

Go ahead, Mike, We’ll wait.  Cough up that bill.

[Mr. McFeely – don’t look at this next statement.  Scout’s honor?  OK – all the rest of you know that property taxes are the role of county commissions and city councils.  The legislature doesn’t set property taxes.  Now, the Democrats have spent the last two years babbling about how lowering Local Government Aid inevitably raises property taxes.  McFeely would have you believe that on Franson’s watch, taxes rose as a direct, cause-and-effect consequence of lowered LGA.  It’s one of those chanting points the left throws out there to gull the ill-informed.  But, again, that’s the job of the counties and cities.  Assuming LGA was cut.  Was it?  We’ll come back to that – but I’ll give you a little spoiler; McFeely makes Ed Schultz look smart and ethical].

Got that bill, Mike?  Hint:  It’s between the snipes and the half-round squares.

———-

Next, McFeely botches history – and by “botch”, let’s be charitable and assume he just doesn’t know the actual facts involved; if he does, then he’s just lying:

In her two years in St. Paul, Rep. Franson authored 36 bills. None became law. Very few were even discussed or forwarded. Even her own party wasn’t interested in the agenda Rep. Franson was trying to push. That is the definition of an ineffective legislator.

Wait – authoring laws that don’t get passed “defines” “ineffective?”

Let’s go back to the beginning of the post; conservatives don’t believe generating new laws defines success.

But let’s go by the left’s – and McFeely’s – definition of “effectiveness”.  None of Franson’s 36 bills passed into law.

Which is exactly the same record as House Minority Leader Paul Thissen; none of the two bills he authored passed into law, either!

Or how about a more rank-and-file member?  Ryan “The Intellectual Id Of The DFL Caucus” Winkler chief-authored 22 bills.  None passed; none even came close.

And do you know what?  Neither Thissen’s 0/2, Winkler’s 0/22 or Fransen’s 0/36 are even below average – because in a typical session (for example, 2008, the latest one with statistics) over 4,000 bills are introduced, and around 100 get signed.  That’s about 1 out of 40.

In other words, McFeely tossed out a number that is in itself meaningless without context.  Just like the “Animals” comment and his “property taxes” comment; either he doesn’t know what he’s taking about and doesn’t care, or he does and he’s hoping nobody checks his facts.  Like all Democrat campaigns, he – and by extension, the Cunniff campaign that McFeely is supporting – is hoping people aren’t curious enough to poke at those numbers.

Oh, we’re not done.

———-

McFeely turns next from misleading context to just-plain-ignorance:

At the same time, Rep. Franson consistently voted to raise taxes on residents of Greater Minnesota. She supported elimination of the Market Value Homestead Credit, raising property taxes on all Minnesotans and particularly those in rural Minnesota.

MVHC was a subsidy of metro-area housing; it kept metro-area property taxes artificially low, and subsidized spending by the wastrel DFL governments in Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Duluth.  Like LGA itself, it transferred money from the parts of the state that support themselves to our basket-case metro areas.

But at least that was a chanting point with a coherent argument.  Next, McFeely wafts away into fantasy-land:

Rep. Franson sided with metropolitan legislators by failing to fight for an increase in Local Government Aid, a tool that provides property tax relief primarily for Greater Minnesota cities and towns.

Local Government Aid, as we’ve discussed in the past, was originally a way to transfer money to poor, outstate towns from the wealthy Metro, to allow them to buy some of the amenities of modern life; modern schools, roads, water treatment plants and the like.  It’s turned into a subsidy of Minneapolis, Saint Paul and Duluth (although Iron Range towns get the most aid per capita).

(And while McFeely doesn’t name, and I suspect doesn’t know, the “metropolital legislators” with whom he claims Franson sided, it’s worth noting that the Metro is divided between cities that are constantly begging for more aid, and suburbs that largely receive none).

The GOP ran in 2010 on a platform of returning LGA to its original purpose – supporting smaller towns that don’t have the tax base to buy the necessities of modern government. And how’d that work?

State funding for LGA has been cut 25 percent over the last 10 years and has remained flat since 2010.  Eliminating or reducing LGA will seriously weaken regional centers like Alexandria and small cities like New York Mills.

McFeely gives a statewide number – but since McFeely’s writing about Franson’s performance in re her district, 8B, let’s ask what are the district’s specifics?

Let’s track LGA payments in 2008 and 2011 – payments, not pledges – for the three counties in Rep. Franson’s district, as well as the state averages and the metro areas (measured in per-capita dollars actually paid to the various jurisdictions).  All figures come from that noted conservative tool, the State of Minnesota:

City or County 2008 Payment ($/capita) 2011 Payment ($/capita) Change
Douglas County 123 118 -5
Otter Tail County 237 245 +8
Todd County 262 273 +11
State Average 101 98 -3
St. Paul 178 175 -3
Minneapolis 178 166 -12
Duluth 321 321 Bupkes

Ah.  So that’s why McFeely gave a statewide number!  Because since 2008 – the only period Rep. Franson had any control over as a legislator – LGA actually rose in Otter Tail and Todd counties; it shrank by an insignificant amount in Douglas County, where Alexandria is. and where as McFeely himself admitted, the economy is doing better than the state average.

So if you’re a liberal?  District 8B’s LGA was steady to slightly up.  More money!  Franson was effective!

And if you’re a conservative?  LGA spending in the district was in line with the GOP’s platform, raising payments to smaller out-of-state jurisdictions that actually need it, and were the original intended target of this spending.  Franson was still effective!

And if you have a functioning BS detector?  Mike McFeely is out of his depth writing about anything that doesn’t involve throwing a ball, and is serving as a trained chimp reciting DFL chanting points he may not understand, and certainly hopes you, the voter in District 8B, won’t.

Like the following:

Under her watch, property taxes have risen sharply…

Although, as the state’s figures show, not because of anything the legislature did, least of all in District 8B.

…while she has embarrassed her constituents with controversial national headlines.

Which were cowardly manglings of context by people who are getting more and more desperate at their prospects in two weeks, and for whom female conservatives are like red capes in front of bulls.

Franson did get an 86 from the Taxpayers League, among many other spiffs from conservative groups.  She was one of the freshmen “Tea Party” class that held the line on things like spending, tax hikes, and giving money to Zygi Wilf, while erasing the deficit, reforming regulations, keeping Minnesota’s unemployment rate way below the national average, and working to reform our state’s business climate.

In short, she did what the majority of (pre-redistricting) District 11B’s voters – mostly Republican, mostly conservative – sent her to do.

And if this is how desperate her opponent, Bob Cunniff, and his campaign are getting, it looks like she’ll do the same for new district 8B.

And if you live in the area, feel free to let the East Otter Tail Focus – and Mike McFeely – know I said so.

———-

So we started the article by asking how you measure a politician.  The answer – whether you’re left or right – most likely involves doing what one is sent to the Capitol to do.  Has Mary Franson done this?  That’s for the people in her district – not talking heads from Fargo or the Twin Cities – to decide.

So how about a media figure, an uninvited pundit?

Getting one’s facts straight, or at least being honest, would be a great start.

We’ve Heard This Before…

…and at any given time, it might even be correct; according to Battleground Watch,  the numbers and the demographics indicate Minnesota just might be in play in the Presidential race this year.

We saw some sketchy evidence of this in the last Star/Tribune “Minnesota” poll, of course; if you rolled the turnout model from its’ absurd +13 Democrat split even to 2008 turnout numbers, Romney was within two points.

Read the whole thing, naturally.

All the more reason to get out there…

Gallup-ing Towards The Finish

They don’t call it a horse-race for nothing.

As a rule in polling, outliers tend to get ignored.  Or you can choose to believe that Bush won Hawaii in 2004, Alf Landon won a 1936 landslide, or that Clinton v. Dole was a nail-biter.

But it becomes harder to ignore an outlier when it’s A) close to the election and B) one of the oldest and most respected polling outfits in the nation.  Thus as the media enters Campaign 2012’s home stretch, the narrative of a nip-and-tuck contest looks decidedly jeopardized by Gallup showing Mitt Romney with a 7% lead – and such an outcome apparently has to be challenged:

With a record of correctly predicting all but three of the 19 presidential races stretching back to 1936, Gallup is one of the most prestigious names in the business and its outlier status has other polling experts scratching their heads.

“They’re just so out of kilter at the moment,” said Simon Jackman, a Stanford University political science professor and author of a book on polling. “Either they’re doing something really wacky or the other 18 pollsters out there are colluding, or something.”

The caveats to Gallup’s polling (as with any pollster) are well-versed.  But to find an answer as to why Gallup posts a major Romney lead while the Real Clear Politics average of pollsters shows essentially a tie has nothing to do with credibility or collusion.  It has everything to do with turnout.

Take the recent IBD/TIPP poll as Gallup’s doppleganger with Obama leading by 5.7%.  Democrats are outsample Republicans by 7%.  The UConn Courant showing Obama up 3%?  The sample shows Democrats with an 8-point advantage.  Gallup plays their cards close to the vest, not showing the partisan affiliation of their likely voter model.  But their registered voter breakdown still shows a Romney lead, albeit of a modest 3% and is likely based on their party affiliation polls showing Democrats up 4 points.

Gallup says it determines its “likely voters” by asking whether they have voted in the past, if they know where their polling place is located, and other similar questions. The formula has been tweaked this year to take into account the increasing prevalence of early voting.

Gallup’s Newport pointed out that the firm’s likely-voter formula has more accurately predicted the election results than its wider poll of all registered voters going back to the 1990s and, in fact, the likely voter prediction tended to slightly favor Democratic candidates.

The idea of a single pollster being simply a part of a larger trendline is accurate, even if most media outlets tend to overlook that fact to trumpet their own poll to the exclusion of competitors and thus create news rather than report it.  Yet even if we exclude Gallup’s results, the trendlines have to be concerning for Obama’s camp.  Despite wielding turnout margins better than what propelled him into office four years ago, many polls show Barack Obama at best narrowly ahead – and more commonly tied or behind.

Gallup might be overstating Romney’s support, although the pollster’s worst estimations of support were in the 5-6 point range and happened in 1936 and 1948.  In the modern era, if anything Gallup has consistently overestimated Democratic support at the polls, giving Obama 2% more, Kerry 0.7% more and Clinton 2.8% and 5.7% more in his campaigns.  Which may mean that despite a 7% lead causing headaches among the media, Mitt Romney may…hold for dramatic effect…lead by more.

Killing

Mitt Romney at the Al Smith Dinner last Wednesday:

My favorite line:

Campaigning is exhausting.  President Obama and I are lucky to have someone on our side that helps us get through the day.  I have my lovely wife Ann.  He’s got Bill Clinton.

And the last one – about politics not being the most important thing in the world?  Yeah, that one too.

Dumbing Down

Last night on Twitter, I twote “Binders” is so Big Bird.”

This morning on Hot Air, Ed points out that Mark Halperin – no conservative tool, he – points out the same thing at greater length; we’re under three weeks to the election, and Obama is still trying to pin his hopes on sophomoric “gotchas”:

As Ed notes, it’s a sign of political exhaustion from a campaign that

…won’t run on his agenda, because he either doesn’t have one (and he certainly hasn’t published one or pushed it at either debate, choosing to attack Romney instead), or because, as Mickey Kaus writes, any honesty about his second-term agenda would cost him the election

Binders!

Big Bird!

Contraception!

Squirrel!

Bonus question:  If Obama loses – and if Alita Messinger’s similar campaign ends up falling short of flipping the legislature and bogging down both Constitutional Amendments here in Minnesota – do you suppose the Dems will re-evaluate their strategy of the past few years of going all-in for the low-information voter?

When Out And About On Monday

Don’t forget – Monday night is the final debate.

And along with that debate itself, we have one of the Twin Cities great political traditions:  the Final Debate party!

We’ll be at the Blue Fox in Shoreview:


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Brad Carlson and I will be  kicking things off just before the debate, and having a quick Q and A afterwards.  There’ll be a special-price menu for the event .

And don’t forget – starting at 6PM, just before the debate, the North Metro Tea Party will be holding a silent auction to benefit Senate candidate Kurt Bills.  Come on out!

8:52

That’s how much more time the President and VP have had than Romney and Ryan so far in the debates.

That’s just a shade over 7% more time on average; Crowley actually allowed the President 11% more mic time than the challenger.

According to the CNN debate clock, President Obama spoke at greater length than Mitt Romney during both debates, as did Vice President Biden during his debate with Paul Ryan. In the first debate, Obama spoke for 3 minutes, 14 seconds more than Romney — which means he got 8 percent more talking time than Romney. In last night’s debate, Obama spoke for 4 minutes and 18 seconds longer than Romney, giving him 11 percent more talking time. Obama talked for 52 percent of the time when either man had the floor, while Romney talked for 47 percent.

No media bias!  None!

Just So We’re Clear On This…

…The One apparently “won” the debate last night…

…where “won” apparently means “showed up with a pulse”, “forestalled mass suicide among liberals” and, with a little help from Candy Crowley and the assembled mainstream media, didn’t get too many lies and fabrications called out.

The definition apparently had little to do with wooing undecideds, though.

I’m all about the clarity.