Time For A MN GOP Audit & Investigation

With the amazing story published today by MPR reporters Tom Scheck & Catharine Richart on the state of the Republican Party of Minnesota, particularly with respect to vendors and outrageous payments, the time has finally come for a full audit of the party's books and an investigation into related issues. Readers can find the MPR story by clicking here; follow them on Twitter at @tomscheck and @catrichart

Much of the information detailed in that reporting was previously known by MC and other activists. Some of it was new in its detail, causing no small amount of heart burn. Some issues were not mentioned at all, though this provides cold comfort to those who are aware of them. It's only a matter of time before they become known. Curiously, it doesn't appear to have occurred to "leadership" (however one wants to define that term) to get ahead of the story. There seems to be little appetite for accountability and, instead, a desire to distract by focusing on this election year. The irony is that this election year shouldn't serve as a distraction from reluctance to clean up the mess currently on our hands but, rather, be the focus outright and cleanly.

Instead of greater transparency, the base is treated to more of the same that got us into current difficulties. The perfunctory "examination" of the books by yet another committee appointed by the state executive committee was wholly inadequate. Why? MC friend and ally Jeff Johnson (full disclosure: whom MC supported as RNC committeeman) has suggested that an audit would necessarily take much needed money away from the upcoming elections. He's right, of course, but by now MC feels there isn't really much choice. The failure to take stock of matters only compounds donors' reluctance to give to the party. Until there is transparency and accountability, MC is certain contributions will remain anemic. It should not be thus. Pretending otherwise only delays the day when healthy contributions flow to the party.

MC has a number of observations:

1. Review the time sheets and invoices of Tony Trimble.

How on earth could the party have paid the man who cost Norm Coleman his senate seat over a million dollars? He must have video and not still photos for that kind of money. MC suggests lawyers from the base review all records and report to the party their findings. There may well be nothing that can be done about the excessive payments but surely there are lessons to be learned.

One such lesson is immediately apparent: who dishes out the legal work for the party? Who is the attorney of record for the RPM currently and how did they get the job? Does the party put out RFP's to get the best legal work for its dollar? What was done for more than $66K in 2011 alone? A demand for a refund should be considered.

2. Strother Communications/John Aanestad

It takes MPR to bring to the attention of (some of) the base this quarter-million dollar plus boondoggle? Could current leadership bother itself enough to determine what, precisely, was purchased by this outlay? MC doubts they'll find anything of substance or value. As an assist to them, the next question should be: why the outlay? Neither Strother nor Aanestad could speak to MPR, they said, because of confidentiality agreements with the party. Really? Who has seen them? Why not release them for full disclosure? The passivity of the party into looking into this and other troublesome areas is disturbing.

3. Sen. Dave Thompson's $70,000 No Show Job

Who on earth would pay Thompson seventy grand for communications consulting? Where is the evidence of his work? Can the party be bothered to look into this or should we let MPR do the heavy lifting? Again, let's see the invoices, the time sheets, the alleged work product. If anyone in the party is asking these questions, let alone actually getting results, MC and many others are unaware of it. In the absence of that, one can assume they are not. This is unacceptable. The focus should not be, unlike in the MPR story, a possible conflict of interest. The focus should be why Thompson, amongst so many other worthier choices, was selected and the concrete product obtained.

4. "And it stoned me:" medical marijuana

Really? The party spent $10,500 for a firm to look into the efficacy of medical marijuana? It's called Google and it's, you know, free. Somewhere Dusty Trice must be smiling.

What's odd about this expenditure is that Tony Sutton referred questions about it to former executive director Ryan Griffin, who declined comment. Should we assume Griffin had the power to enter into contracts? This doesn't seem right. If Sutton signed off on the contract, why the redirection to Griffin?

Is anyone in the party looking into this? Not that MC knows of, which is all of a piece.

5. New Leadership: Failure to launch

Stunningly, new RPM Chair Pat Shortridge was quoted in the MPR story as not much interested in looking into the problems brought to light. He claimed that most of the party (how would he know, given his recent arrival and reputation for not returning executive committee members' phone calls?) wanted to "drive ahead" and not "look in the review mirror."

Does he really think he was elected to avoid examining the dire circumstances of the party and the conditions that gave rise to them? Is he unaware of how jarring his blithe brush off was coming at the end of a litany of financial horrors?

His recent appointments to "leadership" (that word again) committees was widely panned in the activist and base communities which, in turn, was met with a request to shut up. Lovely. But if the idea of staffing what is essentially a diversity and outreach committee with four white males is thought of as competent, it's going to be a long year. Add to that the very recent appointment as secretary/treasurer a guy most in the base had never heard of but who is a business associate of a well known "liberty" activist who hopes to go to DC when their failed gubernatorial candidate wins election as a congressman from the sixth district.

On balance, the new chair is seen as pandering to the repulsive Ron Paul elements in the party, if he's not owned outright by them. He's lost an enormous amount of goodwill from the 70% of the state central delegates who elected him. It's uncertain whether he knows or cares about this. But he's in for a rude awakening if he thinks the base won't demand getting to the bottom of the problems set out in the Scheck/Richart article. Quaint as it might sound, it's their party.

The new deputy chair is kept busy with generating emails reporting about the winter meeting of the RNC and offering to run around the state talking to BPOU's. Well yes, that should certainly guarantee the republican majorities in the house and senate come this fall. Fortunately, no one ever believed that the party helped win the majority in the senate and preserve the majority in the house in 2010. No one MC knows is counting on things being different this time around.

Does the chair have the same signing authority as the previous one? Is any system in place new and different from that which didn't work out so well for us previously?

6. State Executive Committee Culpability

MC is alternatingly amused and appalled by pious public comments from members of the executive committee to the effect that they were shocked, shocked by gambling going on under their nose. They can't have it both ways and if there were any decency the committee en masse would have offered to resign given their failure of oversight. Instead, we're treated to comments that suggest some were hot on the trail of malfeasance. Right. They have an enormous amount to account for but with the rear view window being eschewed, it's doubtful this will happen. At least not now. Instead, MC expects that, CD by CD, current members will be replaced as the year unfolds. A reform slate needs to be run in each district to take back the party. More on this another time.

***

A full audit of the party should be commenced at once. An investigative committee drawn from each of the eight congressional districts should be empaneled (two from each district, elected at regular meetings of the CD's, not appointed by CD chairs) to explore what the executive committee knew, when they knew it and what they did or did not do. It would also monitor the audit process to make sure uncomfortable questions are not avoided.

MC hopes that the audit happens; it doesn't expect "leadership" to do anything by which it will be held accountable to the base by way of an investigative committee at this time. Fortunately, there are other upcoming opportunities which, by degrees, will allow that which needs to be done, despite the best efforts of those currently in charge, to actually be done.

Mitt Romney For President

Mitt Romney represents the best chance for republicans to beat President Obama and because of that fact MC endorses him for the republican nomination. If you're not in politics to win, you shouldn't be in.

MC has heard all of the criticisms of Romney and isn't about to recite the litany here. Suffice it to say they are unpersuasive on balance. And that balance is a field of imperfect candidates. Has it ever been otherwise?

The stakes for the country could not be higher when it comes to defeating the worst President since James Buchanan. Hence the candidate with the best chance of defeating him is by definition the best candidate. Various problems with this policy position or that can be addressed once in office but MC thinks there will be far fewer of those than his critics anticipate.

And it's not that Romney can't be criticized--who cannot?--but that his critics fancy themselves to be good judges of things political. They criticize him while arguing that Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann are viable candidates in the general election. It's enough, as the late Christopher Hitchens would say, to make a cat laugh. (That was a depressing sentence to write.)

Conservatives believe they have longer memories than their friends on the other side of the aisle and MC certainly believes this to be the case. How odd, then, for them to forget that RINO's like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin were praising Romney as the conservative alternative to John McCain in 2008. Stay with that for awhile, please. National Review also endorsed him that year.

The puzzlement is that Romney has moved further to the right since that time. This cycle he's been endorsed by Ann Coulter and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. New Jersey governor Chris Christie has come out strongly for him.

The activist base, not Mitt Romney, has been the flip-flopper this year. From Bachmann to Perry to Cain to Gingrinch, all that can be said about them is MC thinks they'll finally come round to Romney. Add in a vice-president candidate like Marco Rubio and people tend to settle down a bit.

One important subject that has not gotten much attention is the Supreme Court and the next president's nominations to it. Romney has the esteemed Robert Bork as his chief adviser in the realm of judicial appointments. It simply doesn't get any better. People in Minnesota may have largely missed it but months ago there was a small Leftist effort born of angst and despair to pressure Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg into retiring so President Obama could appointment her replacement. This didn't happen, of course, and President Obama made two mediocre appointments that pleased no one but the box checkers of faux diversity. The concern on the Left should please those of us on the Right.

The energy from the republican side was never going to come from our candidate himself. The energy is almost wholly from its well warranted allergic reaction to a far left, incompetent, not-really-so-smart president. This will still be the case with Romney at the head of our ticket. In purple states like Minnesota, it could well help republicans keep one or both chambers in the legislature, a not unimportant but imperiled goal given the latest developments.

Romney will bring strong conservative principles into the contest with President Obama. He's clearly aware of the slimy campaign Mr. Hope & Change knows is his only chance not to be thrown out of office on his ear and is prepared to fight back vigorously. He knows what it takes to win. His strength on things economic will likely prove decisive. He will also, MC believes, govern in a strong and effective manner once elected. For these reasons and more, Mitt Romney should be our nominee.

RPM: Crawling Out Of The Wreckage

Yesterday, December 16, 2011, was unlike any other day in recent Minnesota political history. One bombshell story after another fell upon the Republican Party of Minnesota in a manner that left everyone--left, right, center, media, bloggers, the Twitterverse--stunned and reeling. One could hardly keep up with the serial catastrophes that befell the party. Things got so bad that even avowed enemies of conservatism sent MC DM's of condolence. Even boxers stop punching after the other guy is down for the count.

The day before, Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch abruptly resigned her leadership post and said she would not run for reelection to her seat. The insultingly usual bromides were given as the reason. She said she wanted to spend more time with her family. Eyes were promptly gouged out. But what could one do? The $64,000 question was why and no one had the answer. Or, at least at that point, was willing to say.

Welcome to yesterday. It started with a shock by news that the hapless Brandon Sawalich was preposterously arrested on charges of his vehicle's license tabs being expired at the Mpls/St. Paul Airport. The campaigner in chief did not yet have time to wade in with his usual intellectual shallowness and declare: "The police acted stupidly." There was no need: even Minnesotans could figure this one out on their own.

Eventually the charges against Sawalich were reduced, appropriately, from a gross misdemeanor to a petty one. Having announced con brio on the preceding Monday that he was the leader ready to take the Republican Party of Minnesota out of it financial doldrums, he folded under very weak adversity which he could not apparently outsource. The lack of any discernible leadership skills was disturbing. Not everything in life is handed to one, a lesson Sawalich seemed incapable of grasping. The real reason for weakness came soon enough.

The AP reported that he settled a sexual harassment claim brought by a subordinate in 2003. It further reported that Sawalich had not replied to its inquiries before he withdrew from the race for Chair of the RPM. MC is a friend and ally of Sawalich; twice it supported him for Chair of the RPM before, twice, he withdrew before truly beginning. It would seem that his heart is just not in it sufficient to the fight in which republicans find themselves. Political observers seem unanimous that his political career in Minnesota is now conclusively over. This does not mean, however, that he cannot bring high donors back to the party and MC urges him to do so. There are many ways to serve and the stakes are high. Elected leadership may now be beyond his grasp but Brandon Sawalich has no shortage of other avenues in which to lead. Here's hoping he does for his party needs him.

The Lynchian tale of being arrested for stale car tabs was quickly surpassed by news that Senate Majority leader Amy Koch had been confronted by her ersatz peers with allegations of indiscretions with an immediate subordinate on staff. She neither admitted nor denied the allegations and her resignation from leadership came shortly thereafter.

Later in the day it was announced that Michael Brodkorb (former deputy-chair of the RPM) was no longer employed by the Senate Caucus. By this time the party establishment, elected or otherwise, was reeling. Twitter burst into flames; text messaging reached overload proportions and people went from one urgent phone call to another. Scraps of information were passed around like cheap wine.

Then, as if to mock sanity, four lumbering senators, full to overflowing with themselves, held the Hindenburg of press conferences. Sens. David Hann, Geoff Michel, David Senjem and Chris Gerlach decided that a press conference of apparently endless proportions would be the best response to the unfolding calamities. Michel spoke and far too much. All the men sounded like Rush Limbaugh's new castrati and the local premiere female conservative radio talk show host Sue Jeffers acidly noted today the lack of inspiration, push-back or general strength. Instead it was all hang dog and maybe the press will not flay us overly much. Please like us!

In real time, however, activists on Twitter were losing their minds. The press conference was being tweeted by press and their tweets fell like lashes as inane and tone deaf comments were made by the eunuchs. Readers were treated to tweets like: "Michel confirms the staffer with whom Koch had improper relations was male." Well thank God for that, no need to fear a lesbian fling or beastiality. Small victories while the RPM was being bulldozed by these idiotic senators.

Before the Hindenburg presser was finished, however, word came that Sen. Parry, for whom Brodkorb worked as a volunteer, was going to have his own press conference shortly after the conclusion of the ongoing one. By now normally rational republicans found themselves barking mad. Commitment proceedings were avoided only because Sen. Parry himself canceled the unwise press conference.

Thus the day ended, leaving observers of all stripes on stun and exhausted. The press itself was exhausted simply from attempting to competently cover the amazing stories that broke in eight hours or so. GOP activists spoke of taking cabs and hoisting multiple glasses to the late Christopher Hitchens or having their own private melt downs at home.

Today has been quiet although MC was reduced to tears when receiving a phone call in the middle of Costco detailing the human cost of these events. There's nothing quite like crying in public, is there?

The way forward is straight forward. The wounded must be tended to, with simple basic human decency. The selection of the RPM Chair takes on even more importance although everyone seems to be looking for a magic bullet of a candidate. That candidate doesn't exist. Senate leadership has much to account for; misdirection won't work this time. Expect more on this in the near future.

Once the upcoming State Central Committee meeting on December 31st is behind it, the Party must focus on money, messaging, recruiting quality candidates and retaining the majorities it now has in both the House and the Senate. As everybody knows, however, the future is unwritten.

UPDATE: This post has been changed since first published to reflect the fact that Senator Robling was never present at the Hindenburg press conference but rather Senator David Senjem. So, uh, no women were present other than Koch when the men went to speak to her. Got it. Kind thanks to Paul Demko of Politics in Minnesota for pointing out the error.

Premiere: The Michael Brodkorb Interview

Introducing The Minnesota Conservatives Interview Series

This is the first in what will be an ongoing series of interviews with people MC finds interesting and important. The format is unlike any other MC is aware of and readers should know about it in order to appreciate what is trying to be accomplished here. Crucially, the MC interview series is not and will never be about "gotcha" journalism. There may be a place for that but it isn't here. The ground rules are simple and transparent. MC generates all the questions readers will see in the interview. The answers to those questions are written by the interviewee without any changes of any kind by MC. What they write is what is published. MC does no editing and does not consult or suggest changes to what is tendered. The challenge for MC is to draft interesting, engaging questions (with its readers in mind, obviously) while the goal for the interviewee is to be direct and substantive. With those premises and goals in hand, MC sought out Michael Brodkorb, the former deputy chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, for its first interview. Opportunity not only makes the thief; it also makes the blogger. Or can. So special thanks to him, then, for being the first to try out this new format. With luck, these interviews will be seen as adding value to the political discourse in Minnesota and will include those from other parties with decidedly non-republican views. With no fear of "gotcha," we might actually start listening to each other more. MC is under no illusion that such an interchange will alter people's views or policy positions; a greater understanding, however, as to why people hold the views they do is nonetheless a worthy endeavor. This includes, especially at this premiere of the interview series, those of us within the Republican Party of Minnesota.


MC: You made explosive comments yesterday to Tom Scheck from MPR at the State Central Committee meeting that have been the talk of Minnesota politics. Can you explain to readers your rationale for doing so, what you hoped to achieve and whether going public hurts the RPM instead of helping it?

Brodkorb: The bulk of yesterday’s state central committee meeting was a discussion about party finances. As a former party officer who was actively involved in the 2010 elections, I believed a story needed to be told about how Tom Emmer’s campaign was run in the 60-90 days after the convention. It drained the party’s resources, terrified the major donor community from giving to both the party and the Emmer campaign and allowed an opportunity for republicans & independents to move to Tom Horner’s campaign.

I don’t believe most party activists realized how dire the situation was for the party. We couldn’t mention Emmer’s name in generic fundraising scripts for the call center. After the tip-credit debacle, candidates for statewide and legislative office didn’t want to campaign with Emmer. We also had a problem getting surrogates to defend Emmer, so it fell to then-Chairman Sutton and myself.

Just look at the polls: Survey USA released a poll immediately following the MN GOP State Convention and Emmer had an 8-point lead over Dayton. Survey USA released a poll in early August and Emmer was down to Dayton by 14-points – a 22-point swing. The messaging mistakes made by Tom Emmer in the months following the convention cost him the election.

Legislators and others who worked so hard to ensure Emmer was endorsed were suddenly unavailable to help defend Emmer from the attacks in the weeks after the convention. It was very disappointing. As a party officer, I was bound to be neutral during the endorsement process. But it seems in retrospect that some of the legislators that endorsed Emmer were more interested in preventing Marty Seifert from getting the endorsement than helping Emmer win the general election. Once Emmer was endorsed, some were nowhere to be found. It fell to Sutton and I to defend Emmer and we did it without question.

Imagine the impact we could have had on this state with a GOP governor and GOP-controlled legislature. We may have missed a once in a lifetime opportunity.

MC: Now that it is a day or so later, do you regret either saying what you did or do you in fact wish you had added something, which, of course, this interview allows you to do?

Brodkorb: I stand by my comments. My only regret is not speaking out sooner. If I had publicly spoken out earlier, maybe the 2nd campaign team to lead Emmer’s campaign could have come in sooner and had more time to rebuild the campaign.

MC: MC was a Seifert supporter then an Emmer supporter (MC is not unaware of its detractors who say any criticism of the Emmer campaign while ongoing was defeatist; MC simply has to disagree). Do your comments open up an old wound that should have been allowed to be healed? Is MC simply the blog equivalent of Rodney King: can't we all get along?

Brodkorb: Nobody is above criticisms in our party and in order to fix our problems we need to have a full discussion on the issues that impacted the party’s financial situation. Pawlenty was out-spent 2 or 3 to 1 in ’06 and was able to win. 2010 was the best year for republicans since Watergate and the party nominated likely the one republican who couldn’t win.

MC: What are your thoughts about the Minnesota House & Senate remaining in the hands of the party of sanity next November?

Brodkorb: First, let me state that I have complete faith in deputy chair Kelly Fenton. She will be an outstanding deputy chair and, for the next few weeks, she will lead our party and this will build confidence. My hope is that the legislative caucuses will work with the new chair and deputy chair Fenton and we will be successful in ’12.

MC: What do you think is the best approach to taking back the governorship?

Brodkorb: It’s very simple: endorse a candidate that can win the general election. This also means that our endorsed candidate for governor surround him or her self with a professional and prepared campaign staff that is ready to hit the ground immediately following the convention with a strategy to win.

MC: Given Citizens United, as well as the deleterious effects of McCain-Feingold, what's your take on the future topography of politics in Minnesota? Are parties almost beside the point given the rise of 501(c)(3)'s and (c)(4)'s and would it make sense to move to a primary system instead of the insider's game of the current caucus system?

Brodkorb: I support the caucus system and hope our party recovers and rebuilds. I will do everything I can to help make the party stronger. But there is no question that we are out-matched by outside groups and we need to build a similar coalition of groups.

MC: You're currently working on the Parry campaign in Minnesota's CD 1 (Parry seeks the GOP endorsement to run against incumbent Tim Walz). Politically, that's a short one-year cycle. Here's a possibly unfair question: what do you want to do in the future?

Brodkorb: I am a proud partisan Republican. I don’t need a big title; I’m just a simple republican activist. I’m going to work just as hard as I did as deputy chair to ensure the Republican Party of Minnesota is strong and that we win elections. I’m going to continue to be passionate about supporting our values and candidates. I’m not going anywhere. The fight still continues.

MC: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Michael.

UPDATE: Michael Brodkorb contacted MC to emphasize that the legislators who strongly and vocally supported Emmer for the endorsement were AWOL especially after the tip-credit debacle. MC: apparently they know who they are.

Hann Comes For The Archbishop

The most recent Roman Catholic catechism, promulgated against much liberal protest within the Church by the Venerable John Paul II, says at one point: "The Church is an expert in humanity."

MC agrees, in that Joni Mitchell "both sides now" kind of way. The Church knows sin both within and without. Benedict XVI has been excruciatingly clear about this for those paying attention. Non-Catholic readers will not be able to follow that the Church qua Church is outside human defilement. But that is a topic for another day.

What MC observes is the shameless use of the Catholic church and its teachings in the current debate over the Minnesota budget and the impending shutdown of state government. MC is amused that liberals like to quote what suits their political purposes while savaging the Church when it teaches moral positions opposed to their agenda. In this regard, liberals are the ultimate cafeteria Catholics. Of course, most liberals believe the Catholic Church in toto is retrograde, backward, oppressive. Everything South Park would caricature it as. Piss Christ, anyone?

Yet here come the minions of Governor Dayton, Bob Hume foremost amongst them on Twitter, claiming that Archbishop Nienstedt's letter about the budget is somehow trump. Yet when David Hann, an elected representative of the people, responds respectfully to the Archbishop he is pilloried by lazy DFL hacks and media hangers-on as somehow disrespectful. Seriously? As if that has stopped the left and their allies in the state controlled media from attacking the Catholic Church?

No. Senator Hann confronted the Archbishop with the teachings of his own very Church and with respect. Remember how the media hated the Archbishop for sending out DVDs on traditional marriage? All is forgiven for the latest expediency. Oh, and dismembering the unborn? Well, Catholics just hate women. Got it. Until, of course, the Left wants to use whatever Church teachings suits their immediate purposes. Who says the Democrats have no moral center?

Then again, American bishops are not held in particular esteem in the world-wide Catholic church. The Catholic future will never come from them. Remember their embarrassing support of the nuclear freeze? The bishops have no expertise in the land of the layman and the Church catechism says as much. Can anyone remind them? This is not to say they cannot opine about such things. It is to say: in things secular, and not moral, they are but another actor.

The Archbishop said in his letter that the proposed GOP budget increased 'the breadth and depth of poverty." You are deeply ignorant about things economic, Your Excellency. Catholics in the pew would hope you would go after your fellow Bishops who condoned the rape of our sons but perhaps you, like the American magisterium, can't be bothered for fear of being implicated. Not personally, but institutionally. Strangely, in light of what has not been repaired, you seem to think you act from a place of moral authority.

Look to the Dayton left to use and abuse the Catholic Church. Look to an intelligent Protestant like Representative David Hann to speak truth to both. Catholics thank him. Leftists no doubt will continue to revile him. One is known by their enemies.

Click HERE to find the most excellent letter from Rep. Hann. Thank you, sir.

The Budget: How Republicans Failed Themselves

The early warning sign that dealing with Governor Mark Dayton would not be as easy for the republican legislative majority as it assumed came early on: at a signing ceremony to foolishly opt in to federal Obamacare funds, he let the leaders of the assembled opposition speak. Call it Dayton's Twila Brase moment. Governor Pawlenty would never have done that nor, MC is convinced, would a Governor Emmer. Yet there was the first democratic governor in decades doing the unexpected. A small gesture but impressive.

Months later, republicans find themselves boxed into a budget corner of their own making. Having won both the House and Senate, the latter for the first time since the 1970's, they should have been able to advance their core principles in a manner that consistently gave them the upper hand, despite the executive branch being controlled by the opposition. Instead, republicans find themselves on the defensive and playing a poor hand largely dealt to them by themselves.

The shortest analysis is that the republicans erred badly in sending only one "this is it we really mean it!" budget to the Governor and expecting him to roll over. Even that truncated analysis, however, obscures other problems with the manner in which the republican majority has performed. For example, running uniformly on a platform of bringing down government spending while not increasing taxes, one might plausibly have expected them to produce a budget that actually cut spending. Not a budget that was signed into law by the Governor, mind you. No, one that actually required of the majority some intestinal fortitude and made cuts to the bloated mess that is Minnesota state government. The idea that there isn't largess is laughable. The fact that the Minnesota government is the state's single largest employer is shameful.

At any rate, a genuine effort at putting their principles into play was not too much to expect of the brave new majority. For whatever reasons, though, this never came to be. MC understands that ideas championed by friends like Sue Jeffers for a budget of 28 billion was never politically realistic. Yet couldn't the majority have fashioned a budget of approximately 31 billion? Submit it to the certain veto, craft another one closer to, oh, say 34 billion and thereby look reasonable? Governor Dayton has had to do hardly anything to outfox the republicans. He and his staff are savvy enough to get out of the way when political opponents are making a hash of things on their own.

To be sure, the DFL in both chambers was petulant and unhelpful. Why there should have been any expectation other than that escapes MC and it was painful to see republicans waste time and energy trying to call them out in this regard. A competent majority leads. It doesn't whine.

This calls to mind the feeble response from the MN GOP to Dayton's claim of extremism and new members being too far right for Minnesota. Instead of executing a jujitsu like move and characterizing the governor as a failed paleo-liberal who hasn't had a new political idea in his adult life, republicans stayed on the territory mapped out by him and bleated that they were not extremists. Readers not on Twitter are unable to appreciate how pathetic this was as an effective political response. One was treated to tweets along the lines of "I'm a mother of 9, spin my own cloth, practice yoga daily and have amazing sex with my husband of 32 years. I'm no extremist." MC jests but only slightly. Moreover, new members fail to realize that Twitter drives the conversation but only rarely is the conversation.

Republicans were appalled when they lost to Mark Dayton last November, though some saw it coming for months. Still, reality is always stronger than expectation. The offset was winning the legislature and having someone like Mark Dayton to kick around. MC doesn't mean attacks on character or personal issues; it does mean a large target of being clueless during a time of economic peril. And here is perhaps the single biggest deficit of political acumen all year.

Governor Dayton should have been painted out from day one as the quintessential tax and spend liberal. He literally knows no other approach to policy which, upon reflection, is a very real poverty of intellect. His robotic insistence on raising taxes at all should have been his undoing, his neutralization. In the hands of a competent political opposition, it would have been. Instead, he was allowed to position himself as reasonable (he only wants to confiscate some people's money) while calling attention to purported republican instransigence. Perversely, this was accomplished because he lowered the amount of taxes he wanted to raise while still raising them at all in a dire economic climate. Republicans could never seem to find their footing to reframe the issue and show the average Minnesotan how preposterous, almost delusional, very Marin county, this type of thinking was. The result is that issues are framed across the board in a way that favor the Governor. They didn't need to be and there's the political malpractice.

There was also, unbelievably, the incoherent republican response to their proposed budget being an all cuts budget. Elected on their own terms to cut government spending, republican leadership responded by saying they increased spending by six percent, thereby managing to disgust their own base while playing into the narrative set by the left at the same time. Well done. MC shudders at the thought of an encore performance.

Yesterday Rep. Mary Franson tweeted "Spent the entire day in meetings around the district. Some attendees disappointed that Republicans were spending 6% more than last biennium." Well, yes, in a word and why should they not be? How do republicans square their actions with their campaign promises? Incompetence? Waffling? Caving? General ignorance about effective political messaging and delivery?

MC was amused at the faux bravery of legislators who put on their office doors posters that had a pot of money and words to the effect "34 billion and not a penny more." The posters should have read: "6% increase is enough of a broken campaign promise and sell out of my principles." But that wouldn't have left them feeling smug, apparently the only point of the real posters.

Before the session ended Minnesotans were treated to political grandstanding and theatrics not seen in some time when the House took up and ultimately passed the traditional marriage amendment. What a debacle. The usual suspects got emotional and non-rational on the floor and supporters stayed mute, as if the guilty party somehow. While the hearing did allow a sitting Representative to call MC an obscenity on Twitter, not much else good came of it. How did the Senate manage to pass the same bill without the public meltdown?

With the budget vetoed, shutdown became the word of the day. The RPM responded strongly with . . . a website! Governor Shutdown, get it? Tacking back to the day when Dayton closed his senate office, the website perfectly captures the inability of republicans to get it. Universally panned as ineffective, the website is now mostly forgotten.

Proving there was worse yet to come, however, the republican brain trust decided that re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic would take people's attention off the cold water rushing in. House and Senate leadership ostentatiously offered to provide approximately 110 million dollars more in funding for, as they put it in baby-speak, "kids, cops and courts." In adult language: education, police and the judicial branch. This was claimed to be a compromise but it's terrible to insult people's intelligence regardless of party affiliation.

There was no movement from the 34 billion budget as a result of this offer. There may well be merit in focusing on particular areas within the overall budget for political and policy reasons. All well and good but to call it a compromise makes republicans look venal. Isn't there anyone thinking a step or two ahead in these matters? Where do republicans go from here?

MC understands from sources that the party and possibly legislative leadership meet once a week with a select group of activists for feedback and guidance. The only problem with this is that MC is lead to understand the group consists of those who thought focusing on the tip-credit issue during the gubernatorial race was a good idea. Weirdly, if this is true, why the legislative session unfolded as it did makes a bit more sense, though no less depressing. Perhaps these meetings are mere containment of the purity people; one is hard pressed to guess. What isn't hard to discern is the current state of failure.

Add to this the Alliance for a Better Minnesota going up on air with well produced but duplicitous ads. The republican response? Nothing, really, though MC was told by some that money was coming in after Memorial Day weekend to push back. So far there's been nothing but a poorly produced ad from the Taxpayers League and some web ads.

How does this end? MC doesn't gamble except in its choice of friends. It is difficult to see Governor Dayton accepting the badly played budget of 34 billion and avoiding a shut down. Does a shut down hurt republicans or democrats more? In one sense neither side wants to find out. This suggests that there will be no new taxes but there will be more money, the dreaded revenue word. Having abandoned their principles by agreeing to a 6% increase in spending over the last biennium, republicans will find it difficult to complain with a straight face about going to 7 or 7.5 percent. And let's not forget some of this revenue could come from racino, the issue which so unified the republican party in April. Yes, it's been a masterful six months for the majority party.

The criticism of RPM Chair Tony Sutton, however, seems a bit unbalanced. Is the party to have no influence over the legislators who ran under its banner? Sutton's public comments have been lambasted but MC forgives all for his giving us "bored dilettente" to perfectly capture the essence of wandering ghost Mark Dayton. Legislative leaders now appear to be distancing themselves from him but MC can only speculate how wobbly they would have been if not for Sutton encouraging them to stiffen what passes for spines. He was, after all, only reminding them of the promises they themselves made to the voters.

In the end, there will likely be a special session to pass the budget deal hammered out over the coming weeks. No republican legislator or party leader, however, should claim victory when this happens. Instead, they should explain why they performed so badly and what they intend to do to make sure such a performance is not repeated in the next session. It's their last chance.

The Moral Blindness Of The Star Tribune

The Star Tribune has never enjoyed a reputation for intellectual prowess, rightly so given the prominence of such mediocrities as Nick Coleman and Lori Sturdevant, to say nothing of its editorial board with its relentlessly stale, conventional paleo-liberal mindset. Still, MC was surprised that it nonetheless managed to best its own abject track record of moral blindness and desperate attempts at superiority with a badly written editorial titled "Celebrations of bin Laden's Death in Poor Taste " by Jill Burcum. No readers, it wasn't from The Onion.

For all the lack of thought and analysis, however, it may as well have been. And for the condescension toward America and average Americans, it was something out of the Susan Sontag playbook immediately after 9/11 of "Why do they hate us?" One would be hard pressed to find a better example of being out of touch with the zeitgeist and history. Burcum, no doubt, thought she was precisely the opposite.

She starts by saying there's "cold satisfaction" from conjuring up the burial at sea scene. Really? Why do liberals always speak in terms of stories? (Narcissism comes to mind; stories are usually about them, one way or the other) And isn't it the fact that Osama bin Laden can no longer kill innocents that's the source of satisfaction, not the manner of his burial? But that observation won't drive her insipid narrative.

She manages to say lamely "good riddance" and then this: "May the much-deserved bullet that ended bin Laden's life bring about eternal atonement for his sins." Is incoherence a prerequisite for being hired as editorial staff at the Star Tribune? Does Burcum have the slightest idea what the word atonement means? Here she has an inanimate object doing spiritual work for a mass murderer. Bin Laden alone could atone for his sins but not the instrument of his death. It's embarrassing but typical liberal tripe. Thought need not apply.

After granting a certain admixture of emotions to the hoi polloi, Burcum allows that a "sense of national accomplishment was earned." Well thank goodness for that or we'd all be in real trouble. Except that in Burcum's morally blind world, we are and for good reason.

There was "an uneasiness" that came from watching people celebrate (from whom? types like her?) and instead of "a moment of somber reflection" we suffered and writhed to watch "Flags, high-fives, chants of USA! USA!" The horror, the horror. Can there be anything worse for people whose first instinct in every political situation is to blame America first?

Continuing her unfamiliarity with the English language, Burcum labels this jingoism. It's not by any reasonable definition but that doesn't hold sway for such types in the moral cul-de-sac inhabited by Burcum. Those demonstrations are forms of patriotism, that dreaded word. Jingoism "refers to excessive bias in judging one's own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism." That an editorial writer at a (somewhat) major national newspaper can't or won't tell the difference is shameful. By her use of the word, celebrating VJ and VE day was jingoistic. Perhaps to Burcum they were; one can never tell. After all, she goes on to say that celebrating "Olympic hockey gold medals or professional sports teams championships" is also jingoistic.

Yes, by God, the reaction to getting rid of Osama bin Laden is precisely the same as the reaction to the 1980 USA hockey victory over the evil empire of the USSR. And liberals wonder why they are viewed with contempt and disgust?

Things got worse for our sensitive editorialist when she was brave enough to venture onto Facebook. Doubtless she spilled her cup of organic camomile tea when she read that some cretins had written "Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey goodbye." Oh the humanity. One could almost hear the jack boots in the street, the Zyklon-B hissing in the showers. However did she sleep that night? Perhaps a comforting phone call from Gwyneth Paltrow? Now there's an image.

Warming to her true subject--contempt for America--Burcum then escalates to fantasy, saying "[h]ad President Obama put bin Laden’s head on a pike and paraded it down Pennsylvania Avenue, we as a nation were ready to click as one on Facebook’s “Like” button."

No Jill, we would not have. But you want to think that's what we would do because that's what you already thought of Americans before you wrote this pathetic editorial.

She praises our military this way: "Our military forces' heroism should not be underappreciated." Underappreciated? Who writes this way? Apparently those who think this way and fit right in at the Star Tribune. She is unable to praise the armed forces in an affirmative, positive way. Might be jingoism, you know. One tries not to be enraged. Might be conservative stereotype, you know.

Finally, Burcum engages in that most quintessential of liberal ploys: moral equivalence. Americans celebrating the end of a mass murderer is precisely the same thing as the celebrations in some parts of the Arab world after 3000+ Americans were slaughtered. MC hates to be rude and is certain Burcum is a nice woman, fun at parties etc but: is it possible to be this stupid? This morally blind? Apparently so and in the course of making a living.

As someone on Twitter said about the same moral equivalency argument about celebrating crowds, the difference between theirs and ours is that Lara Logan would be safe in ours.

Stating, Obama strawman-like, that "this was not a game," Burcum quotes approvingly from a 9/11 survivor/useful idiot quoted in (where else?) The New York Times who says he's sad about any death. Sad. Spare us. But it's enough for Burcum and her self-serving moral smugness.

Weirdly, Burcum trundles on to lecture that "[t]he street celebrations also reflect an unfortunate and simplistic understanding of the war on terrorism." Why? What's the sophisticated understanding? We deserved it? That was Sontag's take, initially, and she was of a smart set Burcum couldn't ever hope to join. Yet those celebrations weren't about the war on terrorism per se; they were about justice, biblical or otherwise.

Pretending to insight, Burcum bleats: "Others inspired by him will take up his cause." Newsflash: they already did and will. Good grief. Also: "The fight is far from over."

The people celebrating Osama bin Laden's death already knew this. Already knew much more than this risible editorial writer with an overly favorable opinion of herself and others like her at the Star Tribune. Already knew that nothing justified or warranted the attacks on us on 9/11. Already knew that the struggle against Islamo-fascism is a long one, often set against the co-opted, morally blind and impoverished attitudes of bien pensants like Burcum. Already knew that the elites of America frequently despise Americans.

As with 9/11 itself, the killing of Osama bin Laden is a Rohrschach test that people like Burcum have failed for the second time running.


Hat tip: Jenna Zark. Follow on Twitter @ZarkWriting