Go Ask Alice, When She’s Ten Feet Tall

I’m amusing myself at the moment by pondering this question: How would Lori Sturdevant describe a leader among conservatives, one who was unswerving in his devotion to conservative first principles and in their forwarding in the Legislature?  Someone like, say, Michele Bachmann or Phil Krinkie were, when they were in the State Senate?  Or like Marty Seifert is today?  I’m guessing words like “divisive” and “extremist” would pop up.

Just a hunch.

Naturally – being a DFL hack in all but name – Sturdevant can be expected to provide the same treatement to their opposite numbers in the DFL – if you’re in opposite world. 

So she shows, in yesterday’s column featuring my “represenative”, Alice “The Phantom” Hausman:

When state Rep. Alice Hausman of St. Paul rises to speak on the House floor, I’ve noticed, chatter quiets and paper rustling stops. 

If the chatterers and rustlers live in District 66B, they’re probably amazed to see that she actually exists.  Hausmann is not known for returning phone calls, or for that matter being seen around the district, unless there’s a photo op.   

Oh, but Lori thinks she’s just dreamy:

She commands attention — never with bombast, but with the calm, collected reason of the Kansas farm girl, former teacher, Lutheran minister’s wife and 10-term legislator that she is.

It was said after a closed House DFL caucus meeting on Sept. 11 that when Hausman vented her frustration about legislative unproductivity, a hush fell.

“We just moved through this time of crisis,” Hausman said not long afterward, “and we didn’t do a thing. … People are fed up with us.”

Heh.

A freeway bridge fell, and the state still can’t find a way to invest more in transportation, she lamented.

Actually, she “lamented” that the state wasn’t investing in a hell of a lot of things; the bridge was just a handy cover.

 Property taxes are spiking — especially in her St. Paul district — and there’s no boost in state aid for cities. The Legislature will help rebuild flooded southeastern Minnesota, but it couldn’t pass a bonding bill to meet other infrastructure needs.

Unmentioned by Sturdevant (presumably because it’d make her hagiography of Hausmann less…hagiographic; the bonding bill failed because Hausmann tried to use it to float a raft of DFL pork into the budget, and Local Aid to Cities is nothing but a subsidy of Hausmann’s and the DFL’s failed urban policy that is best amputated.

Hausman heads the House Capital Investment Finance Division — the bonding panel. That should give her a lot of say about broken bridges, stalled traffic, polluted water and the like.

It should — but too often, she said, it has not. Too many decisions, bonding and otherwise, have been left to a discordant trio — the Republican governor, the Senate DFL majority leader and the House DFL speaker.

That must change, Hausman said. “The day of three leaders sitting in a room making decisions for us is over,” she said.

We will not let gridlock between three leaders be the defining point of government in Minnesota. We all represent our constituents. We don’t represent our leaders.”

Interesting, isn’t it, that Sturdevant presents Hausmann’s statement in its full populist glory, without noting that that is exactly what Governor Pawlenty is doing.  Representing his constituents; the majority in Minnesota, the one that elected him and his tax-hawk platform. 

So it’s fair for Hausman, but not fair for Pawlenty?

(Just a rhetorical question.  We all know the answer…)

The column gets worse. 

You’ve been warned.

16 thoughts on “Go Ask Alice, When She’s Ten Feet Tall

  1. Ms. Hausmann is right! Enough of this having leaders nonsense. In fact, the whole notion of “representatives is declasse. Let’s eliminate the Legislature altogether and have direct rule by referendum. Wouldn’t that be fun?

  2. “and Local Aid to Cities is nothing but a subsidy of Hausmann’s and the DFL’s failed urban policy that is best amputated.””

    You’re kidding, Right. It was OK when DINO Kelly was riding the LGA and freezing Prop Taxes and when it is gutted, forcing Fiscally Responsible Mayor Coleman to make tough decisions that becomes bad. Yeah Right!!

    “”that is exactly what Governor Pawlenty is doing. Representing his constituents; the majority in Minnesota, the one that elected him and his tax-hawk platform. “”

    You were absent when they passed out the election results. Gov TPaw did NOT receive a majority. 53.31% of Minnesota REJECTED his tax hawk platform. So the word you are looking for is plurality, if you want to be accurate. Be we know that has never been your mission.

    Flash

  3. I remember years ago at the Republican Convention during one of the breaks between one of the many ballots in the Sullivan/Pawlenty race. I was coming up the stairs and saw Eric Escola and Lori Sturdevant coming down the aisle. This was after a bunch of ballots and everyone was getting weary, I said to the two “boy, this is exciting, being right in the heart of the beast!” I wish I had a camera to record the frown on Lori’s face.

  4. Read that column on line yesterday. Heh, laughed at that line…about how the room becomes so quiet when Saint Alice speaks. Quite the drama queen.

  5. You’re kidding, Right. It was OK when DINO Kelly was riding the LGA and freezing Prop Taxes and when it is gutted,

    No, it was not OK. LGA was always a stupid idea, going back almost forty years. Every Minnesota politician for a generation has used LGA to lull urban residents into thinking they were “paying for a better” metro, when in fact they weren’t.

    forcing Fiscally Responsible Mayor Coleman to make tough decisions that becomes bad. Yeah Right!!

    That’s the new talking point among St. Paul DFLers – mixing “spending like a crack whore with a Gold Card” with “raising taxes” and calling it “fiscally responsible”.

    You were absent when they passed out the election results. Gov TPaw did NOT receive a majority. 53.31% of Minnesota REJECTED his tax hawk platform. So the word you are looking for is plurality, if you want to be accurate.

    Distinction, in this case, without a difference. He won. Hatch and that other gimp lost. That’s how it’s done.

    Be we know that has never been your mission.

    And yet I accomplish it flawlessly.

  6. Let’s see…when the DFL comes out with “Happy to Pay More for a Better Minnessota” lawn signs/campaign…the DFL lackies are all too happy to jack taxes so they can peel off LGA for their towns.

    But when DFL lackies has to raise taxes in their OWN DFL cess pools (see: St. Paul and Mpls), they squeal like pigs and demand money from the State.

    Hip-O-CRITS!

  7. What tough decisions has Mayor Coleman made? Has he cut any programs?

    It never seems difficult for liberals to raise taxes. Also it’s never difficult for them to point fingers at other people, in this case the Govenor.

  8. “And yet I accomplish it flawlessly.”

    Only in ‘mitchville’, not in the world where the rest of us live!

    Mayor Coleman has made the tough choices involved with fiscally responsible individuals who recognize that it is their responsibility to pay as they go, not to push that burden onto the future. Kelly butchered the budget and than used LGA to keep property taxes flat. A classic GOP smoke and mirror trick.

    The Right is scared to death of winning next go around cause they have given the rich what little money is left and cut the budget, ‘cept for defense to the bone. The top 5% and China are the only ones ahead on this deal so far. Somethings got to give. So they call a mulligan, play dead the next cycle, let the Dems come in and clean up their mess ‘again’ and then shout tax raising SOBs to get the government back . . lather rinse repeat!

    You guys are too predictable. Some day you’ll actually want to work together to make this place better, but that doesn’t fit your ‘all or nothing’ style!

    Flash

  9. Mayor Coleman has made the tough choices

    Really? Which ones?

    The only “tough choice” he’s made is whether to spend money like a crack whore or like Paris Hilton. The other bit – raising taxes – slid through like gin through Atomizer.

    involved with fiscally responsible individuals who recognize that it is their responsibility to pay as they go, not to push that burden onto the future.

    Real “fiscal responsibility” would have involved slashing spending.

    Kelly butchered the budget and than used LGA to keep property taxes flat. A classic GOP smoke and mirror trick.

    Let’s assume for a moment that you’re right. So what? You’re niggling about four years worth of symptoms; I’m talking about a forty year disease.

    Speaking of accuracy, Flash – I’d be interested in seeing how you call Kelly’s activities, in a city in which the DFL has an absolute stranglehold on power at all levels, a “GOP smoke and mirror trick”. This oughtta be interesting.

    The Right is scared to death of winning next go around cause they have given the rich what little money is left and cut the budget, ‘cept for defense to the bone.

    Flash, I bet if I copied that last bit and pasted it into Google, I’d get 500,000,000 hits.

    Where have you been? Bush jacked up domestic spending more than Clinton did! He teamed up with Ted Kennedy on his 2001 education budget!

    You guys are too predictable. Some day you’ll actually want to work together to make this place better, but that doesn’t fit your ‘all or nothing’ style!

    Where “work together” means “do what the DFL wants, and nothing but”.

    Sorry, Flash.

    Oh, and given the way the last session went, exactly how do you say “all or nothing” is our style with a straight face?

    Oh, yeah – because it’s all talking points! 🙂

  10. Who is predictable?
    DFL hack #1: “George Bush and the Republicans are spending like drunken sailors!”
    DFL hack #2 “George Bush and the Republicans have slashed the budget to the bone and gave the money to their rich friends!”
    DFL hack #3 “Yeah!!!”

  11. Kermit, that is so funny, but true. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a liberal DFL almost within the same sentence say those two things (Bush and Republicans spend too much…..but they are cutting budgets).

    Also have heard this on: “9/11 happened on Bush’s watch. He should have done more to prevent it…….Bush is doing too much in the name of stopping terror. He should just pull back and talk to……….”

  12. Kerm:

    Where “DFL hack #1” = mitch “”Bush jacked up domestic spending more than Clinton did! He teamed up with Ted Kennedy on his 2001 education budget!””

    That is funny!

    Flash

  13. flash, when were the Republicans in control of St Paul last?

    Forgive me if I am wrong. However, it seems to me that the Dems have had control of the Mayors office and the city council my entire life.

    If in St Paul fiscal responsibility means getting somebody else to pay for your city’s fiscal mismanagement then your arguement about LGA to St Paul makes sense.

  14. For those who actually pay attention to an officials ideology and not some acronym after their name, Norm Coleman through Randy Kelly. Call ’em Dems, DINOs or GOP Lite, but it was their classic GOP like “freeze taxes spend anyway and leave the mess for someone elses” mentality that got us here.

    As for LGA, I don’t want someone else to pay, I just have an expectation that those that use the services chip in a bit. And the services in St. Paul are used by a lot more than just us St. Paulites.

    But why do I bother, you guys expect all the services and don’t want to pay for them anyway, so I may as well tell the wall, I’ll get a better response.

  15. But why do I bother, you guys expect all the services and don’t want to pay for them anyway…

    Oh, there are plenty of services that the leftists force everyone to pay for (mass transit funding WAY out of proportion to mass transit usage; insane social welfare subsidies; insane alternative fuel technology subsidies; just to name a few), that conservatives don’t want and don’t want to pay for. The things we DO want (more roads, less wasteful spending, more police to capture (and more jails to lock up) the product of 40 years of the failed war on poverty and other social experiments) are “backwards”, “uncivilized”, and “oppressive”. So sayeth the self annointed illuminati.

    You can remove that inaccurate talking point from your portfolio forthwith.

  16. Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » Clawing Our Way Out Of The Memory Hole

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