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.<\/p>\n
The caller bellowed “You’re a Liar!!!”, which is leftyblogger-speak for “I disagree with you, but I can’t coherently articulate why”.<\/p>\n
My point at the time:\u00a0 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 <\/em>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.<\/p>\n So it’s kinda fun to look at the American Conservative Union ratings of our current House delegation.\u00a0\u00a0 Betty McCollum, Al Franken, Keith Ellison all get “0” on a 1-100 scale; Oberstar and Walz tie at a nearly-Trotskyite “4”.<\/p>\n On the other hand, Michele Bachmann has a lifetime “100”;\u00a0 “Extremist” John Kline also dialed up a 100 this past year, better than his lifetime rating of a thoroughly respectible 88…<\/p>\n