GREETINGS MERCURY RISING “Reader”/”s”:  “Phoenix Woman”  (has anyone ever noticed that her and Ken “Avidor” Weiner have never been seen in the same place?) apparently thinks that any reference to Bradlee Dean is not only a) a wholehearted endorsement of every minute facet of his worldview, and b) since I am a Republican, proof that Bradlee Dean really really double-dog is is is is is an honest-to-Pete “GOP insider”.

And “her” “point” is that Dean and the “You Can Run…” crew aren’t really “obliquely involved in politics”.  Which I wrote because, in 2010, they were pretty, well, obliquely involved in politics.  Sure, they did a political talk show; but unless “Phoenix” can show us some evidence that Brad and Jake actually particpate and are involved in some sort of party activity on a regular basis, “she” is really talking out her ass – or as we conservative bloggers put it, “Phoenixing”.

Further proof that

a) if logic were gasoline, “Phoenix Woman” couldn’t drive around the inside of a cheerio, and

b) if you read Mercury Rising, you’ve either had  a stroke, or are trying to give yourself one.

On to the actual article

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With the backmarkers out of the way, it’s time to recognize the middle of the pack – the Minnesota conservatives that are the eleventh through twentieth most-hated by Minnesota liberals.

Just as explanation, I weighted all votes by their position on the voters’ lists.  Thus a first-place vote got ten points, second-place nine points, and so on down to tenth place, for a point.   I also calculated a “passion index”, which is just a fancy way of saying the average points the subject got per vote; the higher the “passion index”, the more high-point votes the subject got.  Rankings are in descending order of point totals.

So without further ado, here we go!

20. King Banaian: My long-time NARN cohost, conservative economist and candidate for the Minnesota House in district 15B, Banaian squeaked onto the Top 20 with three votes and the second-lowest passion index in the group, barely ahead of Erik Paulsen.  I suspect he’ll do much better in the election this fall.

19. AM1280 The Patriot: The station that broadcasts such controversial fare as Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt and Michael Medved – also the NARN – is hated by many for being a dissenter at all.

18. Taxpayers League of Minnesota: The group behind the “No New Taxes” pledge, the TPLoMN has been blamed for everything from the 35W bridge collapse to full wastebaskets in state offices. Tied for the highest passion index in the 11-20 group.

17. Bradlee Dean: Host of “Sons of Liberty”, minister at the controversial “You Can Run ButYou Can Not Hide” street ministry, and Andy Birkey’s constant stalkee, the regional leftymedia has turned Dean into a strawman representing all that is evil about Minnesota conservatism, notwithstanding the fact that he’s only tangentially involved in politics.

16. Scott Johnson: The Powerline blogger pummels lefty figures from Dan Rather all the way down to Nick Coleman without breaking a sweat.  Liberals hate that.

15. Rep. John Kline: He wins the Second District with the same kinds of margins Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison get in the Fourth and Fifth.  Unlike the dim McCollum and the always-frothing Ellison, Kline is a competent congressman.

14. Rep. Laura Brod: One voter commented “the left hates conservative women more than anything”, and Laura Brod has become one of the strongest figures in Minnesota conservatism – a “prairie Sarah Palin”, said one voter.  And that adds up to votes!  Youtube videos of her running verbal rings around DFLers in the house are a favorite among Minnesota conservatives.  Lefties hate fun.

13. John Hinderaker: My NARN cohost and Powerline contributor is widely, but mildly, detested; he got the most votes of anyone in the 11-20 group, but also drew the lowest passion index – lower than his blog partners Johnson and Mirengoff, lower even than Banaian or his NARN 1 co-host Brian Ward.  This is, however, a great base from which to improve for next year.

12. Phil Krinkie: Former “Doctor No” of the legislature and then head of the Taxpayers’ League, Krinkie has stood in the way of DFL spending, which is like getting in a Christian’s path to heaven, or a Packer fan’s access to beer – it’ll get people exercised.

11. Carol Molnau: Pawlenty’s lieutenant governor and former Transportation Commisioner, Molnau has been conservative and female – two words that act on liberals like holy water on vampires.

Tomorrow at noon – the Top Ten Minnesota Conservatives that Minnesota liberals hate!

Eric Pusey at Minnesota “Progressive” Project complains about John Kline:

Kline is notorious for rarely if ever appearing in public.  Kline only appears at events where the contact is either with pre-screened, conservative-only audiences or the questions are screened in advance.  Kline doesn’t debate.

Either do Keith Ellison – a prickly little man who can’t tolerate dissent – or Betty McCollum, who would be overmatched  debating Anna Nicole Smith.

Pusey is writing on behalf of “Powers“, the DFL’s endorsed victim in the 2nd CD.  Powers, a construction worker who beat Shelly Madore in the “unified” DFL in the 2nd CD, is on his way to getting maybe 30% this November.

“Plus, we’re getting lots of hits on our website after every parade or event,” he continued.  “People are checking me out further after they first meet me.”

To be honest, I’d like to see debates in every district for every race – but I can see why Kline doesn’t take the chance in a district where he has a crushing advantage, in a city where the media will wrench everything he says out of context.

Not sure that Ellison and McCollum have the same excuse…

Back during the 2008 race, a local leftyblogger called the NARN in a state of high-dudgeon over my statemenat Erik Paulsen was running a conservative campaign for the Third Congressional District.

The caller bellowed “You’re a Liar!!!”, which is leftyblogger-speak for “I disagree with you, but I can’t coherently articulate why”.

My point at the time:  the “Conventional Wisdom” (a fancy term for “the current of thought among the DFL and their friends in academia and the media”) was saying that the Third was “purple”, and that any Republican hoping to win would have to “run to the center” and be a “moderate Republican” (which is again DFL/media/academic code for “willing stooge of the DFL”) a la the departing moderate Jim Ramstad to have any hope of riding out the rising Obama tide – and yet Paulsen was solidly center-right on all the issues that mattered.

So it’s kinda fun to look at the American Conservative Union ratings of our current House delegation.   Betty McCollum, Al Franken, Keith Ellison all get “0” on a 1-100 scale; Oberstar and Walz tie at a nearly-Trotskyite “4”.

On the other hand, Michele Bachmann has a lifetime “100”;  “Extremist” John Kline also dialed up a 100 this past year, better than his lifetime rating of a thoroughly respectible 88…

…which happens to be exactly the same as Paulsen’s rating this past year.

Which is twenty points better than Jim Ramstad’s rating of 67.

Further proof that the only real information comes from the right.

There’s an old Soviet-era joke that I remember from when I was a kid.  A Soviet radio station in Minsk was broadcasting a talk show.  The host said “Minsk is the most beautiful city in all of the Soviet Union”.  

A caller rang in, and asked “what do you think of the story that the Americans will be targeting nuclear weapons at all of our biggest, most important cities?”

The host immediately chimed in saying “Smolensk is the most beautiful city on all of the Soviet Union!”.

Two years ago, when the DFL ran former sergeant Steve Sarvi against (retired Marine colonel) John Kline in CD2, and former Marine lawyer Ashwin Madia against Erik Paulsen in CD3, military service was high on the DFL’s list of qualifications.  Very, very high, in fact.

This past year – especially with former Navy fighter pilot Dan Severson running on the GOP slate for Secretary of State, and former Navy helicopter pilot Chip Cravaack running against Jim Oberstar in CD8, that particular meme has disappeared from all DFL chanting.

But I have a hunch it’s going to disappear a lot more:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Connecticut finds Blumenthal with just a three-point advantage over Linda McMahon, 48% to 45%. Two weeks ago, he led the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment by 13 percentage points. The New York Times story broke late Monday; the survey was taken Tuesday evening.

Blumenthal is the anointed replacement for Christopher Dodd in Connecticut.  The NYTimes ran a story busting him saying he’d been in Vietnam when he had not.

To be fair, he spent the last years of the Vietnam War in a Marine Reserve unit in DC.

To be even more fair, isn’t that the kind of thing that the left raked George W. Bush and Dan Quayle over for?

The below is not a fearless prediction.  Call it a hunch.

If you live in the Second Congressional District, you know John Kline is going to win; if Shelly Madore wins the primary, Kline – even in a bad year, like 2008 – would win by 15 points, conservatively, and this won’t be a bad year for Kline.  If “Powers” survives, it’ll be 30-40 points. 

If you live in the Third, it might be a little closer; Paulsen’s got a tailwind, and had a great freshman term.  DFL-endorsed candidate Jim Meffert is a solid 10 point dog, and I think that’s being nice.

Likewise in the Sixth; Michele Bachmann, who won two squeakers against a full court press from not only the regional left and media (pardon, as always, the  redundancy) but the national ones, during two terrible years for Republicans, is going to win by a comfortable ten points, no matter which victim the DFL nominates.

Of course, the DFL pays it all back in the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth districts were, even when the GOP comes up with a strong candidate (as the Fourth District GOP did in endorsing Teresa Collett this past weekend), the media colludes to make sure that Keith Ellison, Betty “Dissent Is Violence!” McCollum and Jim Oberstar are never held accountable for any of their actions, even if knowing them would convince the overwhelmingly-DFL constituencies to vote otherwise, which seems doubtful at times.

But in the First?  Tim Walz, who ran as a “moderate” DFLer to unseat moderate Republican Gil Gutknecht in 2006, but has spent his entire term in office as Nancy Pelosi’s ultraliberal lapdog, and voted for the Obamacare plan that is pretty sure to gut the health care for most of the First’s residents, and gut-shoot the Mayo Clinic, has got to be vulnerable.  Randy Demmer is a strong candidate who survived a bruising convention (seven ballots last weekend) for the chance to run against Walz. 

So here’s what I’m asking; if you live in the Second, Third or Sixth Districts, it’d be great to run up a huge score on the Dems.  Heck, it’d be great to knock ’em into third-party territory! 

But if you could see your way clear to spare a few bucks to send to the First, to help Demmer overcome his cash deficit, that’d be a great start. 

And if you have  few bucks to spare to help Teresa Collett in the Fourth, and Chip Cravaack in the Eighth

UPDATE:  Yep, I know – Randy Demmer.  I was thinking of another Demmer I knew way back when.  My bad.

It’s hard being a Republican in the Fourth District.  The Fourth is one of those places where the DFL could nominate a set of those novelty wind-up chattering teeth and get 55% of the vote; much of the district is first-tier DFL constituencies, government workers and union labor and people who depend on government in one way or another.  To be fair to the wind-up teeth, they’d be better representatives than Betty McCollum…

…but it makes it hard – some might say “mind-numbingly frustrating” – to be a GOP candidate.  I’ve seen excellent candidates get into the race, throw everything they had into it, and walk away happy to have been only 15 points off the pace; in the past few bids, it’s been more like 50. 

Now, I don’t believe in karma – but I do think what goes around comes around.  And just to the south of the Four, the DFL gets a piece of the same medicine.  They endorsed a candidate to run against John Kline.  And the Strib is so underwhelmed that they couldn’t even be bothered to copy-edit the story on the subject.

The lede:

Democrats chose a 45-year-old construction worker to challenge U.S. Rep. John Kline in the 2nd Congressional District.

That’s the lede.  And who is this “45-year-old construction worker?”

Powers, a newcomer to the state’s political scene, defeated former state Rep. Shelley Madore, DFL-Apple Valley, at a Saturday endorsing convention in Chanhassen.

Powers.

Powers?

Like, Powers Boothe?   Does the guy have a name?  Or is he like “Prince”, a guy with a one-word name?

That’d be a slick marketing gimmick, really.  Maybe Leslie Davis will try it.  He’s tried everything else. 

But seriously – does he have a first name?  Or a last one, maybe? 

Any hint in the Strib story?

“We plan on making hundreds of phone calls a day…” Powers wrote in blog post celebrating the announcement on his campaign’s home page.

Nope…

…despite Democratic difficulties at the polls, Powers said the Lakeville congressman can be defeated…Powers will campaign in a GOP-leaning district that has not known Democratic victory in a decade.

Even the Strib’s picture (in the online edition):

Powers

You have to go all the way to the story’s last paragraph to learn that Powers’ name is Dan.

Now that’s lonely.