Hitler Learns Mark Ritchie Loses Voter Photo ID

Yesterday the Minnesota Supreme Court decisively rebuffed the lawless political thuggery of Secretary of State Mark Ritchie in his attempt to subvert the role of the Legislature in fashioning constitutional ballot initiatives. Not only did it refuse to strike from the ballot entirely voter photo id as requested by the arrogant and now far left League of Women Bolshevik Voters, it required Mr. Ritchie to use the title for both the traditional marriage amendment and voter id.

Local press on Twitter let their masks slip as news of the decision broke. Laughably, few of them cared to explain--even in Twitter form--the holding of the majority decision and its rationale. Instead, lowest-common denominator like, they quoted from the most reactionary and intellectually unsubstantial justice on the court, Justice Page. I was surprised I was surprised.

The worst, of course, were the democratic politicians who preened and twirled, fainting onto their Twitter divans. The end of Minnesota was nigh, according to their none too persuasive analysis. I expect David Schultz to be trotted out as the fake neutral expert that he's been created by the media to be and hold forth in sonorous terms about how the legislature can now lie to the people of Minnesota. If you want an unserious justice, welcome to the shameful jurisprudence of Alan Page, from whose opinion this idea sprang, as it were.

I had the above video ready to go for the last week or two. I tweaked it today in order to take out some more colorful dialogue. Minnesotans will lap up "Fifty Shades of Grey" but feign shock at blunt language on blogs and in tweets. I'll have more to say about the Court's extremely important decision but for now, the hypocrisy of the DFL is sufficient. As I tweeted (in far fewer words) earlier: you might be a liberal if you approved of Chief Justice John Roberts deferring to Congress in the Obamacare decision but are upset with the Minnesota Supreme Court for deferring to the Minnesota Legislature.

Paulers Lose Rules Vote, Whine About Tyranny

Friday the Republican Party in Tampa, through its rules committee, voted to tie the selection of convention delegates to the results of each state’s Republican primary. How extraordinary is this? Not very to any balanced observer but to the Ron Paul zombie delegates and their toadies it was the definition of "an Establishment power grab." Please.

As the Washington Post put it: "Romney allies said primary voters expect national convention delegates to be loyal to the primary winner." Again, just how out of control is this expectation and now rule? Why have primaries at all if the results will not carry through to the convention delegates?

Unfortunately, the usual Ron Paul drones decried the move, effectively bemoaning that a political party acted in its own perceived interest to keep it for those who believe in its principles. The bastards! Ron Paulers, by their own admission, are not republicans. Am I the only one listening to them? Perhaps. At this May's endorsing convention I was called by The Weekly Standard the convention's "persona non grata." I was so pleased by that I could hardly stand myself (thereby joining many, no doubt).

Marianne Stebbins, the accomplished organizer behind the strength of Ron Paul in Minnesota, said last week in an interview that liberals had many good ideas. What would those be, pray tell? Partial birth abortion? Confiscatory tax rates? Oh, sorry: legalizing pot. Got it. This is a small, intellectually stagnant world. You're welcome to it. No Jews allowed.

Sen. Julianne Ortman rightly observed on Twitter that the rule change was a good thing. No, she was promptly scolded (what is it with scolding in the MN GOP?) by Chair Pat Shortridge. It's a bad thing. That was it. Ex Cathedra like. Why preventing the damage the Paul people have done to the state party is something he can't grasp is only a mystery until one realizes he was put in place with the help of Pat Anderson and just enough "liberty" types at last year's State Central Committee meeting. Here, however, the national party had to step in because of the manifest incompetence and shameful collusion of the state party (Minnesota isn't alone, however). I suppose it's natural that children whine when adult supervision appears.

Both Anderson and Shortridge asked me to stop tweeting about Ron Paul and his insane supporters for the two weeks before that meeting in order to woo enough of them to put Shortridge over the top. I did because I wanted Shortridge to be chair. Nothing has changed in that regard despite the two of us slapping each other around a bit on Twitter last night. I personally loathe Twitter fights so I feel I've let myself down. And Shortridge doesn't have a proper forum to explain why he thinks this is bad for the future of the Republican Party because he's busy in Tampa. I would invite him to write something for this blog about his perspective and I will publish it unedited. I ask only one thing: has he forgotten all the non-Ron Paul people in the party? Anything for us from leadership?

Stebbins tweeted a link to the laughably left-wing Buzz Feed (which probably has the most disliked "reporters" on Twitter) that carried a story which was negative against the change generally and against Ben Ginsberg in particular. Go figure.

Fired RNC Committeewoman Pat Anderson tweeted that the vote was "fairly close." The vote was 63 to 38. Words must have different meanings when you're high on liberty and in Tampa.

She also said that "this was a states' rights issue." Stop and appreciate this comment.

What does Anderson think is a states' rights issue? No matter her response, the self-regulation of any political party of any political creed is not a matter of states' rights by definition. Political parties, this just in, are not sovereign states. Anderson plans, I'm told, to vote for Ron Paul. Q.E.D.

Pat, a bogus 10th Amendment bromide to the tribe is best directed to the Tea Party. Your melting base in the MN GOP are the Ron Paulers. You do know, don't you, what they say about Answered Prayers?

Equally pandering but considerably more constipated was Jeff Johnson. Jeff. Johnson. Tweeted he:

"Convention Rules Cmte supports allowing RNC to change Party Rules w/o convention vote. Terrible change."

He never elaborated but hopefully he's taken his own smug advice condescendingly given out to the state convention in May and gotten over it. Get over it, Jeff. How does it feel?

I understand MN GOP Deputy-Chair Kelly Fenton flew to Tampa on Saturday. She's used to figuring out which way the wind blows so I'm not worried about hurricanes. 

Herewith how she, Kurt Bills, Doc Severson & Pete Hegseth appeared on your television Thursday:


John Gilmore & Barbara Malzacher. Yes, this is what its come to. We're as alarmed as anyone.


I was contacted late Wednesday evening and told Kurt Bills would endorse Romney the next day. Delegates and Alternates were being sent an email that night and media the next day would be alerted with a "kick ass" statement. A written statement was all that was being planned. I could hardly believe my ears.

I hung up and called Mike Osskopp, campaign manager for Kurt Bills. I stressed that this was a perfect earned media opportunity that should not be missed. Hold a press conference, please. I could feel the heat of the light bulb going off over his head through the phone. He thanked me and said he needed to talk to David Fitzsimmons and Dave Strom. Right. Before the call ended, I encouraged him to edit the press conference video, embed it in an email and send it Friday morning to every republican in the state asking for ten dollars.

When Hegseth arrived for the press conference he noticed there was no signage. He contacted Malzacher for help who in turned contacted Kelly Fenton. She was at the state fair. No one had contacted the party to alert them of this endorsement and press conference. She dropped everything and got there timely. Signage appeared as well.

So while Pat Shortridge can sneer to me on Twitter that he'll put his time in the trenches up against mine any day, I was trying to help the senate campaign as best I could, as was Barbara Malzacher. We're not exactly fans of Kurt Bills but his endorsement of Romney was an overdue and welcome development. One could say we got over it and jumped in--unpaid and scrambling--to help pull off an unremarkable press conference. The bar is so very low.

Obviously I can appreciate Shortridge's view that people who blog and tweet don't really do much for the party, although messaging is always important. Speaking of which, it would have been nice to have had some push back when our imbecile of a Vice President, Joe Biden, came to town. But no, nothing. When Romney came, the vapid mayor of Minneapolis pushed back and the usual tattered group of people happy to be dependent on government were trotted out for a fake protest near one Romney fund raising event. See how this works?

The fund raising was enormously successful from what I've heard; close to four millions dollars. Or eight Alida Rockefeller checks. Still, such is the state of republicans in Minnesota that Jack Meeks was unable to successfully beg for a mere $25,000 to stay behind. I can't blame the Romney people; why waste money?

Today the whining by the fake republicans reached fever pitch. In a press release that is the, shall we say, gold standard of sore losing, Stebbins complained that "Liberty Republicans" were being frozen out. Excellent. Ron Paul and his supporters are a kook fringe element that have no place in mainstream, conservative republican affairs. Instead of showing leadership in opposing them in Minnesota, Pat Anderson, Jeff Johnson, Pat Shortridge and Kelly Fenton, each in varying degrees and kind, accommodated them with disastrous results. They should be the last to complain about matters being set right, having made a hash of things themselves. Your narrow self-interest is not synonymous with the party's.


Nauseatingly, Stebbins claims the high road of principle when she's never addressed Paul's long, well-documented history of anti-semitism, belief that 9-11 was an inside job and other odious ideas. Instead, she brays that “[e]ven non-Ron Paul delegates and MNGOP party officials recognize the significance of the RNC actions goes beyond its direct effect on Liberty Republicans."

Even? That's telling. Don't be fooled, Marianne, that the Gang of Four with you in Tampa represents Minnesota republicans. Does 51.5% ring a bell with you?

Even Craig Westover was dragooned into Stebbins' press release [or maybe even wrote it; something about the tendentious style was familiar], obediently saying that Romney might just be as bad as Obama. Now there's a mainstream republican sentiment! At the end of the day, the Ron Paul people, as befits any cult, are simply tiresome.

Apparently Paulers are getting the vapors on that thing known as Face Book and predict some sort of dramatic floor fight over these changes. Rest assured the rest of the convention delegates loathe you even more than the substantial majority on the rules committee. The changes will be approved in a flash. Minnesota republicans thank Ben Ginsberg and the other adults at the RNC for solving a problem our local leaders not only refused to confront but collaborated with for their own gain. I hear housing prices in Tampa are cheap. Perhaps the Minnesota delegation should think of buying. There's nothing here for them should they return.

Those Conservatives Who Put Winning Second

One person on Twitter reduced the fatal statement of Todd Atkin about rape, pregnancy and abortion to this observation: "Conservatives don't really help themselves when they attack their own.” Why yes, that's what this is all about.

How about conservatives who are terminally stupid and wield campaigns of utter incompetence but whose self-promoted high moral courage is more often spoken about than lived?

Todd Atkin, winner of the Missouri republican primary, challenger of Claire McCaskill, essentially said that if raped women have a biological function that is triggered to prevent pregnancy. Does the reader have any idea what it's like to have typed that sentence as a conservative?

If he hadn't missed a one-shot groveling apology with which he could truly abase himself, Atkin could have gone to ground, quietly raised money, shared his psychiatric records with potential donors, and have been rolled out in late September or early October for a decent win. Claire McCaskill is the electoral opposite of Amy Klobuchar. This seat is one of four US Senate seats needed to retake the majority by republicans. Everything that could go amiss, did.

First, Todd Atkin won the primary. In this, MO resembled MN in offering up its weakest candidate because oh look, over there, purity. See how it shines, my precious?

Next, Atkin gave an interview in which, somehow, he said what is summarized above. Baffling, to be honest. How does one invoke the abortion topic in such a profoundly ignorant manner?

Realizing the mistake if not its enormity, Atkin's issued a weird, non-apology apology, both underlining his original misstep while apparently trying to repudiate it. When conservatives have a hard time discerning what a conservative is saying, rest assured the media will run even more riot with it than is their usual shameful custom.

Sean Hannity, whom I find impossible to listen to, as opposed to Rush Limbaugh, fairly begged, from what I could read, Atkin to realize the gravity of his mistake and to leave the race. No he said, for reasons I've yet to grasp.

Then came the surreal news that this train wreck was going to appear tonight on Piers Morgan. More bafflement but by this time the temperature of conservatives on Twitter was quite high. Enough. This is the balance of the US Senate and we know full well what is in that balance. Must we nationally come down like the proverbial ton of bricks and change the state of affairs?

Yes.

Next, it was let be known that the hapless Atkin would not, after all, be appearing on Piers Morgan. The mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging conservative collective let out--what else?--a collective sigh. Alas, no taxpayer funded Heart of the Beast puppet masks were available to us in which we could celebrate. The oppression of The Man lay heavy on our hateful shoulders.

Morgan's producers, of course, were not about to let a good ratings thing get away and so they embodied the American national press by interviewing an empty chair. Who was dumber, we conservatives on Twitter wondered, Piers Morgan who personifies the louche state of American media, or the chair, who, with that lighting and all, did, one could say, have more dignity than Joe Biden?

I could, I must confess, see Don Shelby, our Ted Baxter, in that empty chair. Talk about meta. 

Previous to this money had been vanishing all day for Atkin. It's a very odd experience to see money for a campaign disappear like that on Twitter. Perhaps some dull witted but self-esteem heavy layabout could apply for a Minnesota Legacy Grant to explore that further someday.

The next act in the scene was out of Star Trek: he's dead, Jim.

It seemed too late in the news cycle, especially after the spectacular bungling all day long, for the Atkin campaign, if anything was left of it, to say it was over.

Would anyone in America not begrudge Todd Atkin the best sleep he is possible to manage? No. Then quit in the morning with our thanks that you will not be forgotten.

Amazingly, some "name" conservatives were wondering if sanity wasn't really a ruse for madness? Who knows, once you travel to the intersection of Crazy & Purity street? Atkin should stay; their tone-deafness making them all the more convinced. Comparisons were made with democrat scandals where the curr managed to survive. But this is like pointing to a cadaver and imploring him to realize others were not dead.

Erick Erickson. Dana Loesch. Both bemoaned wanting to win, which requires removing Atkin, with eviscerating conservative principles, which it manifestly does not.

Do they need to get out more? Leave the post-Breitbart (I die a bit every time I write that) cocoon and talk to others?

I don't know. 

Primary Day: Kurt Bills Falls Into The Abyss

Tonight Ron Paul hand picked first time candidate for statewide office and cheesy high school teacher Kurt Bills put in one of the worst performances of a Minnesota Republican Party endorsed candidate in tonight's primary election. As of this writing, the results show Bills received a naked 51.31% of the vote in his race for the US Senate. David Carlson, a veteran of thre tours of duty in Iraq, received 35.21% of the vote while the very strange wayfarer Bob Carney, Jr. received 13.48%. Both competitors were invisible, for the most part, before today's primary.

How does the crackerjack Bills campaign respond to such a calamity? By bluster and bravado in a press release issued while its candidate was being made a national laughingstock. Here is that press release:

Kurt Bills Wins Big in MN Senate Primary

Posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2012 at 11:21 pm.

Written by Kurt Bills for US Senate

Kurt Bills Wins Big in MN Senate Primary

Tea Party, Ron Paul, and “Paul Ryan” Republicans Unite Behind Bills

BLOOMINGTON, MN—High School economics teacher Kurt Bills soundly trounced his Republican primary opponents, setting up a contest between Bills and incumbent Senator Amy Klobuchar.

It was a contest between the Tea Party/Ron Paul wing of the Minnesota Republican Party and their establishment opponents.  Bills, a political newcomer, is a high school economics teacher who first ran for office only 4 years ago; he won a city council seat in 2008, defeated a Democrat incumbent for a state legislative seat in 2010, and won the Republican endorsement to run against Klobuchar in 2012.

Bills has run unapologetically standing up for free enterprise, for a common sense foreign policy, and against monopolies and crony capitalist ventures such as bailing out wall street banks.

Bills’ meteoric rise in the Republican Party coincides with the growth of the Tea Party and Ron Paul movements in Minnesota. As an economic teacher, Bills has run as an unapologetic proponent of ending government intervention in the economy, and scaling back US military interventions. He is a strong opponent of the Federal Reserve.  Bills’ campaign theme is “Econ101.”

It’s a message that resonates in populist Minnesota. One of his opponents, David Carlson, ran a harsh television advertisement directly taking on Bills’ ties to Ron Paul; it backfired.

“Don’t underestimate the Tea Party energy out there,” said Bills.

“Grassroots Republicans aren’t just angry at Democrats for mortgaging their future; they’re angry at Washington DC.,” argued Bills.

“There is a prairie fire of populism in the Midwest. Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan for VP is feeding that fire. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa are now all in play in the presidential race. That same energy will carry my own campaign across the finish line,” Bills concluded.

-30-

Which stoned intern wrote this fiction? Does the campaign think the reader doesn't notice a lack of numbers in the release? Soundly trounced? A 51 to 49 win is not trouncing, even for the marginal liberty denizens. Bills has run a lousy campaign, going to safe areas (parades!) and never reaching out to moderate democrats and independents. Indeed, Bills has made no overture to the base of his own party which he and his unserious, moronic Paul supporters pretend he represents. Tonight the base told something the Bills campaign didn't, apparently, understand until tonight: we're not that into you.

And a backlash against David Carlson's completely true ad about Ron Paul? Toke up! Andy Parrish asked me if I had a hand in that ad and I told him no. This happens to be the truth and the truth about Ron Paul is available to anyone with an internet connection. Carlson had exceptional production values and was up on TV air before Bills. Who do they blame for that? The Jews again? 

Amusingly, the Paul supporters on Twitter tried to blame the base for not endorsing the alien transplant who has done nothing to make himself a real republican instead of a living sock puppet of the failed, odious Ron Paul. One friend of mine, a candidate this time actually, blamed the embarrassing primary numbers on low turn out. How do you educate such a mind set? Then again, she thought Emmer's tip credit idea was a teachable moment so I may as well never try.

The amazingly stupid & out of touch "film" 'Staring Into The Abyss' the campaign released weeks ago introduced Bills as a fool and illegitimate candidate. He's running for the Senate. There are only 99 others. One might wish to take note.

The second attempt at video coherence was incoherence bordering on plagiarism: Busy Kurt, also known as ripping off the dead Paul Wellstone. This was a frame by frame remaking of Wellstone's video showing him in fast motion having government control every aspect of our lives. OK, I jest but the idea was terrible. That no one killed it, instead of green lighting it, shows just how poor the talent is on the Bills campaign. But really, is it any worse than the candidate himself? No.

Bills' legislative supporters were noticeably absent on Twitter tonight (shades of the legislators who supported Emmer but ran away after his endorsement because, well, they're losers). Party leaders, such as they are, were mute in their praise of this smashing win. The requisite MN GOP press releases were issued so one is at least comforted that the mechanics of a functioning state-wide party were in order. But Shortridge, Fenton, Johnson & Anderson lead a fool's brigade to Tampa. They made a conscious decision to align themselves with what they thought was the ascendant movement in the party. Yes, the very definition of leadership, that. Someone should break it to Jeff he'll never be governor. One assumes the other three know how to dog paddle.


Bills' abject press release attempts to co-opt both the Tea Party and Paul Ryan. Sorry, the first is legitimate, organic, decentralized, not crazy or Jew hating and doesn't think 9/11 was an inside job. Paul Ryan has, literally, nothing to do with Kurt Bills but, given that he voted for TARP, would not the Paul zombies have problems? Yes. No matter. When you almost lose your own primary in a party that heretofore respected greatly the endorsement process, you ought look to yourself for fault instead of, Obama-like, blame others who have nothing to do with your incompetence.

Kurt Bills demonstrably cannot do this. That he let the above press release go out shows he knows nothing of personal responsibility or any understanding of the fundamentals of politics. This augurs poorly for the general election against Amy Klobuchar, who is Minnesota mediocrity incarnate. But, as the saying goes, you can't beat something with nothing.

My friend Maggie Mulvaney coined the Twitter hash tag #TwentySevenPercent. It's a way of saying, on Twitter, that we don't think Bills will get above that amount of the vote come November. All of us who use that hash tag would be delighted to be wrong. After tonight, though, we might have to lower our expectations to comport with the new reality that set in. And the idea that the Bills campaign will take down just those who are on it is fanciful. Too many were involved in stepping aside at every level of the MN GOP for this spasm of Paulism to have taken place. We actually know who you are because you told us so to our faces.

I'm told elephants don't forget.

Graphic: http://www.wrywingpolitics.com/missing-kurt-bills/

 

 

Correction: This post initially said, incorrectly, that David Carlson had served two tours of duty in Afghanistan. It has been corrected to reflect three tours in Iraq.

The Unsurprising Return Of Michael Brodkorb

Today Michael Brodkorb announced the launch of his new website: www.politics.mn With this he announced in no uncertain terms his return to the world of politics, both locally and nationally. I am a close friend of Michael's, as he is of me. We make no apology for our bad judgment in this regard.

What is interesting is the reaction to the launch of his website: almost universally praised, even by his ersatz opponents. Minnesota politics became milquetoast without his presence and republicans generally missed his leadership with, yes, Amy Koch. His lawsuit proceeds apace and it is for him to speak to that, when and where, not I. This isn't what happened today.

What happened is one of the sharpest, albeit bald, minds has return to Minnesota politics. For my side, this is a cause for celebration. For the democrats, it's an object lesson in the transitory nature of morality, of whom they are its least defenders. Republicans understand human nature; democrats deny it. I know full well who has the better of the argument.

His website was launched in a timely manner given that state primaries are tomorrow. Who has better insight into those DLF and GOP races than Brodkorb? No one, especially the lazy Capitol Hill reporters he used to spoon feed and with whom he still desires a good relationship for purposes of spin and mutual manipulation, unlike this writer. Someone has to tell it like it is.

So I do. Gone is the third person of Minnesota Conservatives.

Welcome back Michael.

"The future is unwritten."

Hubert Humphrey: The Happy Failure

On August 4, 2012, in quintessential Minnesota fashion, a statue to Hubert Humphrey will be unveiled at the Minnesota State Capitol. No measured reflection on his failed legacy has appeared to date in local media. To the contrary, puff pieces on the Institute for Mediocrities, also known as the Humphrey Institute, have popped up in local and national press. How unsurprising.

Let's review this failed life which will shortly be honored for all the wrong reasons by the unctuous perjurer Bill Clinton and numerous lesser lights, which makes for dim viewing indeed.

First, the one, unqualified moment of excellence in Humphrey's life came rather early, in 1948 when as Mayor of Minneapolis he bravely spoke before the Democratic convention and addressed segregation and anti-semitism. Fine and well but hardly substantial and long lasting enough in and of itself to warrant a statue and the resulting adulation. One should keep in mind, though, the penchant of the Left to lie to itself (current presidential polls come to mind but the examples are legion).

Humphrey then went on to burnish his liberal credentials in the 50's only to sell out to Lyndon Johnson by becoming his vice-president. The arc of this failure and eclipse is set out succinctly in "Remembering Hubert Humphrey" at The Heath Post. It can be read in full here.

What is lost in this feel good nonsense is that liberals of the day turned on Humphrey. This inconvenient fact will be ignored by the oleaginous politicians who gather two days hence and pretend to be the successors of HHH. MC is certain they fail to understand how this damns them. But look for reflexively positive media coverage of the event; to write anything else would take courage.

Having hollowed himself out on matters of core principle, Humphrey's slide into disgrace was complete after his loss to Richard Nixon. As the Heath Post notes, he left no great speeches, no great written works. Liberals will have no body of thought that will sustain the legacy of Humphrey except for their own self-serving need to promote dependency on government and redistributionist policies that have failed everywhere. But that's all they've got so they will go with it, confident in their belief that the media will advance the chosen liberal narrative.

What won't be covered is that Humphrey's contemporary was Ronald Reagan (damn it) who like chuckles was born in 1911. If Reagan had died in 1978, as Humphrey did, the Heath Post notes tartly, conservatives would be quoting and referencing him for several generations, so great was his written body of work by that time.

Hubert? Nothing of the kind. There is liberalism and its inheritance. Actually, one can legitimately see Humphrey as the compromised hand maiden to big government, social engineering and failed public policies which still plague America and which those gathering before this cheesy statue seek to bolster.

The local repository of Kim Jong Il-ism of the Humphrey variety is, of course, the Humphrey Institute ensconced in the increasingly mediocre University of Minnesota. One would be hard pressed to think of a leader that that institute has produced. Instead, those wishing for perches on the upper branches of state bureaucracy flock to its programs. Haven't you always wanted to be senior management at MN DOT?

The Humphrey Institute offers a veritable progressive dim sum of choices, however, from which to choose. One can get a degree in Civic Engagement (whatever that is), Community Building & Neighborhood Revitalization (the jokes write themselves), Energy Policy (environmental wackos form the borg here), Politics & Governance (think Nanny Bloomberg; we know better than you rubes), Race & Social Justice (the laziest minds will be found here), and State & Local Government (in which the Institute becomes the feeder of choice to the parasitic state bureaucracy where the only diversity that is lacking is that of thought).

The Humphrey Institute is to political leadership what the Iowa Writers' Workshop is to good writing: superfluous if not outright damaging. Don't look for it to fade, though. The statue dedication is liberalism's way of telling itself it still matters, has not failed spectacularly by any objective metric and is not destined for a comprehensive rebuke November 6th.

Pauline Kael & The Minnesota Constitution

Pauline Kael, film critic for decades at The New Yorker, and, arguably, the single most influential film critic during her lifetime, famously is said to have remarked of the 1972 Nixon landslide reelection:

"I don't know how he won. No one I know voted for him."

MC was put in mind of this smug obliviousness when recent polling results were announced for the traditional marriage amendment that Minnesotans will be voting on this November. Since the last poll was released support for the amendment has grown from 47% to 52%. This increase in support comes despite an extremely well financed "No" vote campaign by opponents. The poll results must have come as a shock to them given that everyone they know is against it. Herein the problem.

The no campaign has set out to convince those pre-disposed to vote no to say so publicly. This time, apparently, corporations having a political opinion are just fine because it is left of center. Got it. But still, amplification of a message is not the same as broadening support for the message. Very little, from what MC can see, has been done in that regard by the no proponents. Trotting out a wayward Catholic priest or nun on Twitter to deviate from Church teaching is hardly new or convincing; Flannery O'Connor & Walker Percy had many hilarious things to say about those one-offs in their letters and writings.

No, the problem, as with so many liberal sentiments, is a failure to believe others can disagree with them in good faith. They must be haters, bigots, knuckle draggers & mouth breathers. Well great, then what? Anyone capable of being swayed (and there are more who are so capable than the liberal left or progressives think) is instead put off. Why? Because they've been insulted, not drawn into a discussion that values their concerns and reservations but instead puts those admirable qualities to shame. Liberals are axiomatic. Life is not. Voters with reservations about any particular liberal policy, let alone fundamentals like marriage, should be approached with respect, listened to and not shouted at and certainly not, from some unwarranted a priori vantage point, be called bigots. How can the obvious be so difficult to them?

Every state that has given its citizens a voice in the matter has supported the definition of traditional marriage. My, that's quite a lot of mouth breathers! Even California could not be persuaded. There, however, the left could not bring itself to face reality (would they be liberals if they could?). The outrage of progressives was directed against the Mormon Church, whose position on this issue is no different than the Roman Catholic Church, Muslims both Sunni and Shi'ite as well as Orthodox Jews and the world-wide Orthodox Christian Church.

Who made the real difference in the California marriage vote? Blacks and Hispanics. Don't look to the left to take them on. That would take courage and integrity and this is a crowd who excuses without much reflection he who took Mary Jo's life. Please adjust your expectations accordingly. 

Worse than the marriage amendment people though (MC sees young men & women wanting to marry their lovers; that motivation is impossible not to respect even if their tactics could be better) are the opponents of voter photo id, also on the ballot this fall. MC will address later the legal resolution of challenges to both amendments when the Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled on them. Hint: both will remain on the ballot in some form.

Those against voter photo id employ essentially the same tactics against their opponents with essentially the same results. No one who thinks presenting a valid, photo id in order to vote also thinks: "Great, the poor and minorities will be shut out now." That's a construct of the liberal left, unable to posit good faith in opinions with which they disagree.

The extremely liberal former Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority decision for the US Supreme Court which upheld as constitutional the use of voter photo id. The other side really can't have it both ways, despite their desperate attempts. Amusingly, it takes umbrage when asked why it turns a blind eye to voter fraud. Usually it insists there is none, causing people to not take them seriously.

Polling shows even higher support for voter photo id than the marriage amendment; somewhere along the lines of 62 or 65%. There can be little doubt that this ballot measure will pass. Secretary of State Mark Ritchie has attempted to skew the language of this and the traditional marriage amendment against passage by re-writing the titles to each that will appear on the ballot.

If a conservative Secretary of State had been so naked in his partisanship, the left would have been joined by conservatives in condemning that action. Here, though, because the left is afraid of the people it tiresomely insists it best represents, they are silent. They allow Mark Ritchie to disgrace his office, and by extension the people of Minnesota, because they want the outcome he seeks. Between Ritchie & Gov. Mark "let's give out half a billion tax dollars to millionaires" Dayton, the left in Minnesota is without integrity but don't tell them; they think they've cornered the market on it. Instead, Obama-like, they attempt distractions: Look! Mary Franson! Look! Michael & Amy. Sorry, voters are still not as dumb as the left always but always takes them for.

MC predicts both measures will pass and the same political spectrum that lacks the courage to either engage their opponents or condemn the thuggish Secretary of State will lecture the rest of us argumentum ad nauseam. Having tuned them out now, however, due to their arrogance and logical fallacies, the voters of Minnesota will pay them no mind November 7th.

They're Over It: Ron Paulers Abandon Kurt Bills

Don't look now but that invasion of fake republicans, also known as Ron Paul supporters, have largely abandoned the hapless school teacher they corralled into the MN GOP endorsement for US Senate, Kurt Bills. MC happens to love people who say they told us so, especially because in this instance MC fairly led the charge against these politically unserious people who temporarily seized control of the endorsement mechanisms to hijack the party. But many others also saw the danger and sounded the alarm.

We told you so. Oh, and the endorsing convention wasn't even two months ago but who's counting.

How can one tell if the Paulers really have abandoned their hand picked candidate? Possibly by noting that the person who did the hand picking--Marianne Stebbins--has effectively withdrawn from politics due to what might more or less be called a civil war within the Paul zombie community. Yes, that's right, Stebbins isn't "doing" politics because her consignment shop business has suffered while she toiled in the vineyard of liberty. She has deleted her Facebook account and created a private one. She's going all Greta Garbo.

Thanks for the damage & abdication of responsibility, Marianne. You're leaving another campaign in the hands of David Fitzsimmons? What happened to that army of boots on the ground? What happened to Minnesota being electrified by headlines of "GOP nominates school teacher for senate race?" Where *is* that Ron Paul money bomb for Bills that we were told would raise a million dollars in one day?

Well? All of this is nowhere because Ron Paul supporters were interlopers, unconcerned with Minnesota politics generally and republican interests specifically.

One can see pictures of the Bills campaign as they are tweeted: the forlorn locations, dearth of supporters and those ridiculous buses that first premiered as props at the state convention in May. His campaign is without focus or purpose. Parades and attendance at insular fund raisers indicate a campaign that has failed to transition to a general election. Kurt, you've won the endorsement. Stop running for it.

Anyone in the party, the House or the Senate, want to take responsibility for the current state of affairs? No, of course not. They'll all pretend they didn't enable this train wreck to get the endorsement. They "had" to go along, you know. They worked behind the scenes to make things as good as possible. The rest of us were just "missiles" that needed to be "guided."

More than a few elected officials have deliberately sidled up to the remaining Paul supporters thinking they will be important in the next cycle for governor, senator, state-wide races and such. Perhaps they will but the obvious lack of principle shown this cycle hardly endears them to those of us who will be there in the coming two years. The real base will return but filled with disgust at those who occupy office with an "R" after their name. If they are counting on what they failed to do this year being forgotten, they are in for an unpleasant surprise. For some reason, the word quislings comes to mind.

RNC committeeman Jeff Johnson infamously scolded the state convention by demanding that people "get over it." He's going to have to make some sort of Checkers speech to rehabilitate himself among the non-Paul party base. Yet who knew that so soon after the debacle that was the endorsing convention, the very faction of the party he and others thought ascendant would forfeit the field, leave the game, make fools of them?

Well MC & many others did, to no avail obviously. The coming months will be excruciating to watch given the lack of money and volunteers that plague the Bills campaign. The Ron Paul supporters, leaving even sooner than could have been expected, will move on to Tampa, or raw milk, or hemp, or redecorating Mom's basement. They won't be an effective political force to help Bills win.

As for the regular, currently displaced, republican activist base?

Silence, cunning & exile.



Update: Stebbins apparently has her Facebook page back up after making the statements indicated in the above post. A reader also indicated she recently marched in a parade with the hapless Bills. Well good for her; one would think it's the least she could do for the risible revolution she spearheaded.

The point remains that neither in numbers of volunteers or in the surge of dollars have the Paulers come through for Bills. The window-dressing of a volunteer here or Facebook page there to one side, the Paulers have, effectively, abandoned Kurt Bills.

In Praise of Alida Messinger's Millions

The bored dilettante ex-wife of bored dilettante Gov. Mark Dayton recently wrote a $500,000 personal check to a political pac supporting democratic women in elected office, the usual litmus tests applying, of course. Much was made of this by those on the right, given the endless hypocrisy of the progressive left when it comes to money in politics. Mostly the local left was silent on Twitter and MC saw no blogging about what would otherwise appear to the sanctimonious set as an egregious example of why suffocating government regulation of speech is essential to what they conceive of as a fair and open political system. It remains an astonishing truth that the left never learns from experience or mistake; how else to explain their continued support for the failed Obama presidency?

At any rate, Alida Rockefeller Dayton Messinger's contribution is to be praised, not clucked about or worried over. The professional left,  to quote Robert Gibbs, will faint when MC claims that money in politics is not a problem. Post-Watergate the group think was that money indeed was very much a corrosive element in politics and the First Amendment could be compromised because of good intentions. It's ever thus on the left. And yet there is no empirical evidence that the cloying web of regulations (Minnesota, typically, is ridiculous in its micro-managing of political speech) has had any positive effect on our political discourse or system. Of course, Obama declined to accept public funding in 2008 and the usual do-gooders were of a piece in their silence. The right consistently critiques itself far more than the left, another indication of the strength of its ideas.

Liberalism is profoundly simple: a few axioms and off you go. Trim and adjust as needed but never actually modify your thinking. This brings to mind what Talleyrand is said to have remarked of the Bourbon restoration: "they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing."

Money in politics is, after abortion, the best example of this. Without intentionally trying to do much violence to their positions, liberals mindlessly believe that more money in politics is very bad (please ignore the lack of evidence on this point) and hence they are on the side of the good, the true and the beautiful in trying to limit it. Except they are not.

Money does not buy political office. Ask Governor Whitman or Senator Fiorina. Or does it? Someone check with Gov. Dayton. MC jests.

Those on the right, generally speaking, do not share the low opinion of the voter that, generally speaking, those on the left hold. They are not robots or idiots, swayed like so many consumers of products advertized on television. Again, speaking generally, people value their vote and make the best decision possible. Sometimes this works for republicans, other times for democrats. But kindly spare us the insufferable meddlers who insist they know best how to fashion the type of system in which the rest of us should exercise our political freedoms.  Alarmingly, and all too often unrealized by them, their approaches resemble an incumbent protection racket. Ranked choice voting, which allowed the loathsome Dave Thune to remain on the St. Paul City Council, is but one example of their misguided foolishness.

Naturally, a distinction has to be made: contributions to candidates are still limited in ways that donations to causes are not. Messinger could not have given half a million dollars to Mark Dayton's campaign outright. That's fine; unlimited campaign donations raise questions in ways that funding issue based causes simply do not.

MC, however, wants to hear nothing more from its friends on the left about ALEC, the Koch brothers or Citizens United.

The disclosure canard is another failed response to the mistaken idea that money in politics is a problem. People have a right to donate to the causes of their choice without forced disclosure designed to do nothing more than inhibit that right in the first instance. Who funds the deeply unrespected Common Cause Minnesota? No one knows because it does not have to disclose. Nor should it. Nor should any other group if it does not wish to if allowed by law. Those laws should not be changed by those who wish to silence others under the rubric of transparency.

The left has long since lost its moral bearing from years past. Not so long ago it would be repulsed at judging people by race. Now it insists on such as a matter of getting past race. It would support the defenseless; now it insists the humanity of such is but a personal choice. Not so long ago it would see government dependence as bondage, a form of prison. Now it sees such as the very role of government and is annoyed with the backlash from such indentured servitude. They know better, you see.

In 1958 the state of Alabama attempted to force the NAACP to disclose its members and donors. Is there any question where the left would have been then? Now, however, it would appear that they would take a different approach. Not out of principle but out of expediency. Expeditious but unprincipled is a handy summary of the current day left.

Senator Mitch McConnell recently wrote in the Washington Post about such matters. Click here to read it.

Alida Messinger's right to write a check of any amount to any cause she pleases should be supported by those in both parties who understand both the constitutional rights in play and the stakes involved. The reaction of silence and embarrassment on the left shows just how much work remains to be done.




Hat tip to Tony Sutton for having created, circa 2010, the eternal phrase "bored dilettante."

Agenda 21: Because There's More Room For Crazy

Thought hemp, raw milk and ending the Fed was the sum of craziness currently infiltrating the Republican Party of Minnesota? Think again. Agenda 21 is the next big thing in making a political party entirely irrelevant in Minnesota. Why can't it ever be the DFL, though?

Wikipedia defines Agenda 21 as follows: "Agenda 21 is an action plan of the United Nations related to sustainable development and was an outcome of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. It is a comprehensive blueprint of action to be taken globally, nationally, and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans directly affect the environment."

In other words, another meaningless gesture by the most useless organization known to man in its long history. Think of the Club of Rome & how we were all supposed to be dead now because of starvation due to overpopulation. Think of the tiresome climate alarmists who, in the 1970's, said we'd be dead because of another ice age. Yet some are now taking laughable liberal panic premises seriously?

At the MN GOP state convention in May there were several individuals handing out flyers (chaos is in the eye of the beholder, apparently) warning about Agenda 21. This is the type of detritus that accompanies the fringe Ron Paul movement. MC awaits the rush of scared party officers, spineless elected officials and unprincipled future candidates to pander to the Agenda 21 lunatics. After Ron Paul, the bottom's the limit!

Readers can Google Agenda 21 themselves and digest the information available before coming to their own views. What concerns MC is that the topic increasingly crops up in various Tea Party gatherings to which republican officials are asked to attend. Not clapping in the face of a crowd of trained seals is hard to do, even for those few Minnesota republicans with principles. MC isn't optimistic that they will call out this group for the bat guano crazy types they manifestly are. Not only has MC seen this movie before, it's like some malevolent deity has put it on loop tape.

But don't take MC's word for it. For the first time ever, MC links to The Blaze. Yes. An entry just this day was posted there that can explain so much. Click here to see, not stop, the insanity.

A lack of courage, awareness & what the Republican Party does and does not stand for has brought us to this sorry state. What the "get over it" accommodationists fail to realize is that by standing idly by, mutely observing what the new feral political cats have dragged in, we cease to be a party capable of winning elected office and, instead, become hostage to the denizens of the Star Wars bar.