Month: September 2010
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Horner: Tag It And Bag It
When Dave Schultz at Hamline University calls it quits on a “DFL-Lite campaign like Tom Horner… It looked all so promising only two weeks ago. Momentum and buzz suggested Tom Horner was gaining ground and he had a real chance to be governor. Polls showed strong gains, he was ahead of where Jesse Ventura was…
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Chanting Points Memo: “The Wrong Candidate”
Let’s be clear on this right up front; Tom Emmer’s gonna win this thing. I still say three points. Nothing I write below should be read in such a way as to imply I really think anything else. It’s just not true. Some of my DFL acquaintances occasionally jibe “If you’d only picked Seifert, you…
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15:53
James O’Keefe is officially yesterday’s favorite conservative pseudo-pundit, after cooking up a stunt too stupid even for Michael Moore.
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Chanting Points Memo: 2+2=Fudge, Winston
MNDFL chair Brian Melendez sent this out to the faithful yesterday: The more Minnesotans hear from Tom Horner, the clearer it becomes that he is just another Republican insider, and his only plan is to continue Governor Pawlenty’s failed policies. Insider? A guy who hasn’t darkened the doorstep of a GOP caucus since Arne Carlson…
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Kaiser Less Permanente
Or the debt to end all debts. If November 11th is Armistice Day, then will September 26th now be known as Debenture Bonds Day? 92 years after the WWI officially ended — Germany made her last payment of $94 million in reparations “to private individuals, pension funds and corporations holding debenture bonds as agreed under the Treaty…
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Just Hypothesizing, Here
Again – I eschew conspiracy theories. I really, truly do. But let’s look at some possibly (?) unconnected factoids: Who’s The Outlier? The Rasmussen Poll has been broadly accurate, nationwide, for the past couple of years. This past year or so, it’s been chronicling a rise in GOP sentiment nationwide. It’s been especially interesting watching…
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Their Masters’ Voices
The new MPR/Humphrey Poll shows Dayton at 38, Emmer at 27 and Horner at 16. Fishy? Oh, yeah; Brauer writes at MinnPost: One of the wacky things about the 750-voter, landline-only, five-day survey is how much partisan ID shifted in just a month. August’s poll was 46 percent GOP, 41 percent Democrat — the only…
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Chanting Points Memo: All Moo, No Cow
It’s been two months now that the Twin Cities and national left has been flexing its proverbial muscles over Target’s donation to MNForward. It got to the point over the summer where the Twin Cities left and media (pardon the redundancy) thought they’d made a huuuuuge dent on Target’s market capitalization. Indeed even today you…
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Meet The New Poll, Same As The Old Poll?
Yesterday, I dubbed the Strib/”Minnesota” Poll “The DFL Morale Booster”. Not for the first time, of course. David Brauer writing at the MinnPost responded, more or less: So with the new Star Tribune poll out showing DFLer Mark Dayton with a 9-point lead over Republican Tom Emmer, it’s the right’s turn to howl over alleged bias.…
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It Was Twenty Years Ago Today, Part CXXI
It was twenty years ago today that I most likely noticed that it’d been five years since I’d decided to move to the Twin Cities. Did I remember that booze-fueled night in September of 1985? My drunken promise to a table of college friends at a homecoming party that I was leaving North Dakota in…
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Odd Confluence
I could think of all the Bruce Springsteen songs I’ve covered in one band or musical lashup or another – “Born To Run”, “Born In The USA”, “Atlantic City”, “Cadillac Ranch”, “Darkness on the Edge of Town”, “The River”, “Thunder Road”… …or the songs I just noodled demos of way back when I still had time…
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Exaggerated Relevance
The Independence Party has had, since the departure of Jesse “the Mind” Ventura, a serious challenge; proving its own relevance. The Twin Cities chattering class desperately wants the IP to be relevant; the party is compposed of, and largely appeals to, wonky people who are fascinated by the mechanics of govenment, people who love to…
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Soon To Be Part Of The U Of M J-School Curriculum
I used to be a technical writer, working in software, science and engineering. And this piece from the Guardian made me howl with laughter. Your mileage may vary.
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Chanting Points Memo: Much Ado About Bupkes
Remember last week? When former Emmer campaign chair Mark Buesgens was arrested for suspected DUI? The biggest offense that had the local leftybloggers howling, naturally, wasn’t the alleged DUI; it was that although Buesgens had left (or “Emmer claimed he’d left”, according to the local leftyblogs) the Emmer campaign, it could not have been, said…
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Just The Facts
The City of Mound is the kind of place we in places like Saint Paul and Minneapolis dream about; a town with a conservative city council that has done a great job of controlling spending, weaning itself from “Local Government Aid”, and balancing its budget by being fiscally responsible. And Sue Jeffers is the kind…
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Updates
There’s a new Northern Alliance Facebook page. Go and “like” or “Friend” or whatever you do with this newfangled social media stuff. Podcasts from the weekend shows are up!
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The Dayton Dustbowl: For The Record
On the show on Saturday, I talked about how the Dayton “2.0” budget – his second shot at the budget, after his first attempt came up three freaking billion dollars short – was still one freaking billion dollars short. Someone called off the air asking for proof; I’d gotten into an interview, so couldn’t answer…
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Chanting Points Memo: “Emmer Lied About LGA!”
Some background: Local Government Aid was started in the late sixties/early seventies to help poorer cities in outstate Minnesota afford some of the newer infrastructure – schools, roads, police, water treatment, etc – that they couldn’t have on their own tax bases. The local leftyblogbuildup has been carping about this piece in Polinaut, which “fact-checked”…
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Leftybloggers Through History
Last week, DFL bloggers thought they’d caught Tom Emmer “lying”. The putative “lie”, of course, was that the Emmer Campaign didn’t notify the Campaign Finance Board that Mark Buesgens had left the campaign until a week later, after Buesgens had been accused of Driving While Intoxicated, and the campaign figured “well, no time like the…
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Dissent Must Be Stifled
Flunkies attack a blogger/cameraman at an appearance by Oregon Democratic candidate for governor John Kitzhaber: There is apparently an avalanche of violence by Democrats against Republicans. (I mean, everyone’s declaring avalanches these days…) (Via Rob)
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Her Master’s Voice
Betty McCollum – Nancy Pelosi’s lapdog: Hey, Nancy Pelosi’s a consensus-builder!
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The DFL Morale-Builder, 2010 Edition
With the news that Tom Emmer has pulled to a tiny, inside-the-margin-of-error lead in the latest Rasmussen poll, I’ve joked that it’s about time for a Star/Tribune “Minnesota Poll” showing Mark Dayton leading by an improbably huge margin. And sure enough, here it is. It shows Dayton leading Emmer 39-30, with Horner eating up 18…
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I Heard It On The NARN
Reid Johnson is running for Minnesota House District 45B. Lee Byberg is running for the US House against Collin Peterson in MN CD7 – the northwest side of the state. Andy Noble is running for Ramsey County Commission.
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A Leaf Out Of Everybody’s Book
Today, the Northern Alliance Radio Network brings you the best in Minnesota conservatism from 9AM-3PM. Volume I “The First Team” – Brian and John or some combination thereof kick off from 11-1. Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed is out on assignment. I follow from 1-3PM Central; I’ll be talking about the big news of…
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Betting On Futures
If Joel Demos doesn’t win the MN CD5 race – and let’s face it, he’s a dark horse – at least someone should hire him away from his day job to do political ads. (Or whomever is doing the ads for Demos – and as tightly-budgeted as Demos’ bid is, I can’t imagine he’s got…