A Message From Wade & Laura Brod

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MN Republican Party As The Bourbon Restoration

Tallyrand famously said of the Bourbon restoration that they learned nothing and forgot nothing. This classic description of fatal failure put me in mind of the Republican Party of Minnesota. After the roughly 18 month interim term as Chair by Pat Shortridge, we now have a full complement of party officers elected in the normal course of state central committee meetings. The early assessment of their performance is distressing.

Let's stipulate, first, that the bar is low for this evaluation. Everyone knows the trouble the party qua party has been in for some time. Yet the concerns I have don't focus on the usual problems: party debt and how to retire it, an actual function for the party given its abysmal record in statewide races and a last gasp attempt at making the endorsement worth the effort.

No, the trouble is that new leadership is off to a wrong start. Chair Keith Downey had an impressive dog & pony powerpoint presentation in the run up to his election. It can be reduced to the cold fact that republicans were out manned, out gunned and out financed at every turn last cycle, which came after a rather crushing defeat for the DFL in the 2010 election. I saw an impressive amount of data and nomenclature but no real understanding as to why republicans lost house and senate majorities in the shortest time possible. Except for that old, you know, didn't get the most votes thing. Isn't that why we're still in business? To win?

Downey rightly focuses on identifying republican voters, something as embarrassingly basic politically as indoor plumbing. But indoor plumb we must so I was encouraged by his unvarnished, unsentimental focus on that need.

Regrettably, he is directing approximately $100,000 of party money (no one I know seems to know the source for it) to the Civis Group, run by Mike Scholl, who is best known as Bob Cummins' gatekeeper and all around lackey. Cummins founded the Freedom Club and was instrumental in destroying the republican brand last fall through his pet project the marriage amendment ballot initiative. Cummins also started Civis Group so all current party roads lead to Bob. Right.

The Freedom Club wasted an enormous amount of money on Keith Downey's race for Minnesota state senate. Downey ran a poor campaign. Downey lost. The Freedom Club is dangerous precisely because it doesn't realize it is.

Is directing one hundred thousand dollars to Civis a manner of paying back the favor? Could well be and could be no big deal because things like this happen in party politics.

I understand, though, that Civis Group will keep all of the data for which the party is paying it to collect. Why should that happen? Such a condition should never have been agreed to and the contract should be modified at once.

Worse, the Civis Group is advising both the Emmer for Congress campaign as well as the Thompson for Governor campaign. How can a conflict of interest this obvious not be apparent to Downey? If Civis wants to corner the market on angry, white, male, out of touch republican has beens, fine. It should not be given party business as a simple matter of fairness & integrity for those other republicans running in those races. One wonders, in passing, who has provided what fake jobs to Emmer & Thompson with which to support themselves while they run for office.

Beyond sucking up to his benefactors, Downey has hired Bill Walsh as communications director. Walsh's record is one of abject failure in that very position but he's Keith's friend and so he got the job. Is my Bourbon restoration analogy making more sense now? After his shilling for Kurt Bills, I didn't think Downey's judgment could get worse.

On Tuesday of this week DFL Rep. Ryan Winkler tweeted that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was an Uncle Thomas. Calamity ensued and Winkler became a national story.

Where were Keith & Bill? Nowhere, apparently, as they couldn't even generate a press release on the matter, let alone pull together a press conference. This is simply unforgivable. The next day Downey sent out a badly written email rightly bemoaning the loss of 150 jobs in Minnesota. The idea, however, that both that email and something on the day of an exploding national story involving a rising DFL star couldn't both happen is ludicrous and pathetic. There was no excuse for missing such a rare opportunity.

Yesterday Downey published a quintessential Pollyanna op-ed in the Pioneer Press. You can read it by clicking here. Stamping his feet he decried name calling, and, tightly pursing his lips, demanded the DFL and affiliated groups cease their extremely well oiled, effective messaging machine. Because that's all it takes, you know: some half baked whining about a superior message machine and clucking about the by-now-embedded-in-our-political-culture Alinsky principles of political warfare.

As if this wasn't enough, MN GOP Secretary Chris Fields weighed in on Twitter that Tuesday of Winkler's self-immolation but only to squander the opportunity and make a hash of things. Fields tweeted that if Justice Thomas is seen as Uncle Thomas by Winkler then that must make Winkler poor white trash. I'm starting to think MN GOP personnel may be DFL plants.

Deputy Chair Kelly Fenton continued to demonstrate her lack of leadership with which she is synonymous by doing or saying nothing about the national Winkler story. No, tweeting doesn't count because, remember?, it started there? Yep! Then, you know, scooted out the door into national media pronto, 'member? That's where you and the rest of the party didn't chase the story. That's right: a national story you guys let go. Is anyone awake at headquarters?

Local media were more shameless than normal in their grotesquely sympathetic coverage of Winkler, the DFL's Eddie Haskell. They essentially took his dictation and left it at that. No questions from these poodles. The mind runs riot when thinking of their "coverage" had the political shoe been on the right foot. Everyone reading this knows I'm correct in that regard.

And yet--that damn yet!--who was going to call out media coverage when the Republican Party of Minnesota itself was dead to that story, itself failed to capitalize on it and, instead of doing anything effective, itself wrote juvenile & useless op-eds, wanting to be rewarded for it?

All anyone has to do to know what's wrong with the Republican Party of Minnesota is to simply look at it.


Image: Coat of Arms of the Bourbon Restoration

Media Must Intervene In Brodkorb Lawsuit

On Friday, June 6th, United States Federal Magistrate for the District of Minnesota, the Honorable Arthur Boylan, issued a protective order in the Michael Brodkorb v. Minnesota Senate lawsuit addressing how sensitive information and material should be treated now that discovery is set to proceed in earnest. For Brodkorb, getting to the heart of his gender discrimination claim has been a long time coming. Unfortunately for him, the protective order effectively renders his federal lawsuit invisible to the public. Worse, though, than one private litigant's discomfort, the protective order keeps the people of Minnesota from knowing how their elected officials handled this by now very public matter.

The reason for this is that the protective order breathtakingly allows one party to designate "confidential" anything they see fit. The only remedy to this egregious grant of discretion is for the other party to file a motion and hash it out before the Magistrate. This is called motion practice and it isn't cheap. Typically protective orders delineate those things that can reasonably be anticipated to be confidential as such, with provisions for one party to assert confidentiality as to others but with the burden of proof on that party.

The current protective order places no burden of proof, as an initial matter, on the party claiming confidentiality but, rather, allows it carte blanche and shifts the burden to the objecting party. In the posture of the current lawsuit, Brodkorb is tasked with fighting every disingenuous designation of "confidentiality" that Minnesota Senate lawyers will make, whether or not that strictly would be helpful to his case. This is grossly unfair but more to the public than to Brodkorb, as unfair as that is.

For a glimpse into the mindset of Senate counsel, hired unilaterally by the profoundly stupid then Secretary of the Senate Cal Ludeman, look at what $330 an hour attorney Dayle Nolan had to say about the protective order: "The press coverage has been fast but fact-free, and would support the idea that a protective order would be making the litigation be more normal litigation." Stupid squared.

The usual disclosures: I'm friends with Brodkorb and am an attorney, though I do not represent him in his federal lawsuit. Amy Koch is my client and friend as well. All this has been public record for some time but bears repeating for those readers of this post who may not know it. If I'm going to blog about transparency, I should try to embody it.

Put another way, the protective order keeps from, at least as an initial matter, the Minnesota public what both republican and democrat senators did in this matter. What possible public policy good could be advanced by such onerous provisions? Both the attorneys defending the lawsuit, as well as the Senate itself, are funded by the taxpayers. It seems the Magistrate gave the public no shrift, let alone short, in his decision making process. This is error.

Brodkorb has from the first moment of his lawsuit stated publicly and repeatedly that the names of the other relationships of which he is aware ought not and should not be become public during the discovery process. I understand he and his lawyers readily agreed to keep such information confidential. For anyone to suggest otherwise is dishonest and malicious.

No, the problem here is what is called in law "over breadth." Some confidentiality should obtain in this lawsuit. The problem is that what the Magistrate has ordered keeps from the public information legitimately in the public domain.

As one friend put it: "I think I'm entitled to know what Senator Senjem said to Senator Michel about this matter." Quite right. But the current protective order allows the senate to slap "confidential" on that discussion and leaves it to a private litigant with necessarily limited financial resources to strip that label from the information. I'd even put it another way: I'm entitled to know what Sen. Bakk has said to others about this lawsuit, including political calculations not covered by the attorney client privilege. I've always thought Senator Bakk should settle this lawsuit and hang it around Senator Hann's neck. But that's just lovable me.

Now then to the point: Minnesota media should intervene in this lawsuit for the sole purpose of challenging a shockingly over broad protective order. I'd feel the same way if the litigant was a democrat suing what was then a DFL controlled senate. Why do I suggest this?

Because the press, traditionally, has thought of itself as a safe keeper of the public's right to know. If I can put aside my cynicism on this point for a moment, you can too. That media in our age have become an arm of the Democratic Party should not prevent Minnesota media from doing their job in this instance. Whether bloggers would have standing to intervene is an interesting question. Maybe Powerline would like to become relevant again and explore that possibility.

The question is straightforward: why should the operations of the Minnesota Senate be exempt from public scrutiny in a public lawsuit? They should not. We simply can't depend on the meager resources of Brodkorb and his attorneys to vindicate this important point. Those are not his fish to fry, not why he filed his lawsuit. That point has, however, become directly implicated in his lawsuit.

Brodkorb's attorneys must file an appeal to the federal judge assigned to this matter, the Honorable Susan Nelson. At that point attorneys for any number of media outlets should seek permission to intervene in support of making the protective order less onerous, less broad, less an affront to those of the governed. If traditional media do not do so, I'm happy to gather a number of pro bono attorneys and solicit Aaron Rupar & City Pages to intervene. It would hardly be the first time they showed up local media. No matter how it happens, media must intervene.

It's showtime, folks.

The Michele Bachmann Denouement

Very early today we learned via email that Rep. Michele Bachmann had decided not to run for reelection in Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District. Anyone who said they got a heads up about this news is simply lying.

The reaction in Minnesota was typical and frenzied. The reaction nationally was typical and frenzied. Suddenly all of political life seemed exceptionally stupid. I spent most of the day next to my friend and client Andy Parrish, who, as twice chief of staff for Bachmann, was in high demand by the media. He, we, were both criticized on the Twitter by those without a clue for doing so. Validation by the stupid is both depressing and reassuring.

I can't imagine what it must be like to live in Minnesota and care what others think about you. This sets me apart. I watch what other people think about what other people think about them. I'm clinical about it now.

The Bachmann exodus from next year's race sets up a host of possibilities for republicans. Initial reactions were not reassuring. Those who had thought of running in CD 6 as a secondary or tertiary consideration now had that race advanced substantially in their thinking, if only to decline it.

Mostly, however, it emboldened the worst among my party to think that they, too, could be a Congressman. Even granting that the bar is low, what I saw today challenged my gag reflex.

First, though, why announce now? I have my theories, none of which violate attorney-client confidences. Bachmann bought a modest buy of airtime a few weeks back. Mostly that was seen as a sign she was running again and a warning to lesser talent not to challenge her in a primary. I'm amused by the idea we possessed any republicans at all with the onions to challenge this woman. We don't. To do so might even be considered mean.

Clearly something substantive has happened between that ad buy and today. Yet only Steve Perry of Politics In Minnesota asked me that question directly out of all the media calls I had today. I hope the story he writes isn't paywalled because sometimes you need a reason to get people to subscribe. The usual free PIM usually doesn't do that. But I'm no expert on their business model; maybe once in a while they could make an exception to it? For good business reasons, too, actually.

Bachmann fears legal consequences sometime down the road. View her video again: notice the not subtle segue from political blather to legalese, probably written by her $20,000 per month attorney William McGinley at Patton Boggs. Between the ad buy and this retirement announcement did he receive a "notice" letter from the FBI? That notice letter would have put him and his client on, well,  notice that she was now a target or subject of an ongoing FBI investigation.

This is rank speculation on my part. I have no knowledge or information to support my hypothesis. But, as Joseph Heller once titled a book, "Something Happened." A better book, by the way, than his famous "Catch 22."

Now then, to the grasping attempting the greasy pole.

Like so many Braudels of the French school of history, the Annales, local media counted. Look, look, they can count! How they can count and who! They made lists, yes, lists and this passed for journalism but time was short and local media are the definition of Minnesotans who care what others think about them. Especially within their own, dead, self-referential world.

Ken Martin, the DFL in general, Carrie Lucking, so many others did themselves no favors in their glee to see Bachmann leave. I'm completely undercut by their conduct when I say to my fellow republicans that we should at least get to know each other a bit. Well, given what was tweeted today, where's the attraction in that? I really do want to lead, with the help of the sublime Amy Koch, a contingent of republicans to next year's Minn Post Roast. I'm hoping this is forgotten by then. Yes, yes, politics ain't bean bag but don't whine when my side questions media objectivity or the marital status of Carrie. & to whom. I keep looking for a circuit breaker to this nonsense but I've not yet found it.

On a national note, one would have thought Bachmann had inserted a cigar into the vagina of her intern, taken it out, put it in her mouth and said "Mmm. Tastes good."

No, this man they praise, Bill Clinton, who did precisely that. Media wonders why they're hated?

On to the list of possibles:

1. Tom Emmer: said by some to be a field clearer. Mostly by those not paying attention. Yes, you can trot out the 2010 results but so what? So incompetent a candidate he could not beat Mark Dayton. But hey, you people are dumb enough to vote for Michele, why not me? That, in essence, is his campaign appeal. Don't kid yourselves: Emmer makes Jim Graves competitive. He should stick to saving David Fitzsimmons from the crazies.

2. Phil Krinkie: not even voters in the 6th are dumb enough to vote for him. No, a thousand times.

3. Amy Koch: yes. Friend. Client. Friend. She should run. Believe that it happens & it happens.

4. Tim Sanders: who? No.

5. Michelle Benson: great woman. Already said to have said no because of her young child.

6. Peggy Scott: no. We don't need a mini-me Bachmann candidate, thanks just the same. After tip credit Emmer, probably Jim Graves' favorite opponent.

7. Rhonda Sivarajah: I'm old enough to remember when Sue Jeffers said she couldn't pronounce Rhonda's last name. Rhonda is the best candidate we can field. The same stupid, ineffectual people who maligned Parrish for doing media today probably want a purity candidate. That candidate just retired, having come within 4300 votes of losing. Thanks but we're not going to pay attention to you.

8. Matt Dean: his wife's money isn't particular about the uses to which it is put. Matt's for sale.

9. Pete Hegseth: no. Still looking for someone to be somewhere, he has yet to digest the lessons of his loss in the senate race of 2010. The same people looking for work with him, their collective poor judgement, their sycophancy. That he can't tell a friend from a leech is troubling but I know something of this particular blindspot. That said, no Pete. Stop being a construct. You'll know which race is yours; you won't have to be talked into it.

10. Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer: Close but no cigar. OK not really but no. If I have to explain you don't follow Minnesota politics closely enough.

11. Pat Shortridge: that name made me laugh! He was crazy enough to be MNGOP Chair and thank you for that! Running in the 6th? You don't know Pat.

Where are we now, to quote the 66 year old David Bowie? I think we are in a state of enormous flux with early conventional wisdom the least credible.

Why is that?

Because I believe that the race in CD 6 is a definitive moment for republicans in Minnesota.

Not the same old stale men with their mediocre record of accomplishment only their wives can applaud.

No, republicans should nominate a woman to replace a woman in CD 6. I'm hardly a quota person but there is always a certain inherent logic to some things.

This is one of them.  The race belongs to a woman.

Which one shall we pick?

Stanley Hubbard Circles The Wealth Wagons

On Friday, May 24th at approximately 11:45 a.m. at the Town & Country country club in St. Paul, Stanley Hubbard will draw unto himself a number of people with money which, they believe, gives them insight--if not entitlement--into the political process in Minnesota to decide which republican candidate to support for governor.

You're not invited.

Norm "I couldn't beat a third rate comic" Coleman is, however. Someone should break it to him that he's a has been and his Minnesota Action Network the subject of widespread derision and scorn. I'd ask Laura Brod to do so but I'm assuming with the demise of National Popular Vote in this legislative session she's off to sell herself to whatever next cause pays best.

The problem with being a protege is always the mentor.

Jeff Larson, of FLS infamy and former Chief of Staff (who knew?) to the RNC (the rules of which from last August seems to make Jeff Johnson think he'll win the GOP gubernatorial endorsement) will also be in attendance. Nothing says fresh like this stale bought & paid for fish. "How may I help you help me make money?" He makes the talentless Greg Peppin look like the piker he is. One wonders if the "not waiving but drowning" Kurt Daudt will work again for P2B Strategies in between sessions? One hopes not; it was an egregious mistake for him to have done so in the first instance.

The senate isn't worth speaking about.

Weirdly, Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson is also expected to be in attendance. I haven't figured out why he'll be there unless it's to help show others with money that with dumb luck and a Tea Party speech you, too, can buy higher office. Don't get me wrong: democrats routinely buy higher office and we should as well. Our dumbest are smarter than their smartest.

Quite a number of other unremarkable people with money were invited to show up and are expected to perform as instructed. Trained barking seals come to mind. Like the mail clerk who marries the daughter of the creepy hearing aid founder and thinks himself something. Good enough to be finance director for the MNGOP. Yes, that and no further. Intelligence simply must count at some point. Given our track record in that regard, however, I'm not optimistic.

Besides falling in behind one candidate (does this mean they don't like Scott Honour?) the group seeks, according to the invitation, to channel their financial largesse into some sort of coordinated giving. Think of it as United Way for the white shoe crowd.

All of this begs the question why these otherwise (financially at least) successful people can't think for themselves. Or maybe they can and it just so happens that all their thoughts converge. Unlikely, that.

Maybe this is Stanley Hubbard's opportunity to shove aside the hapless "we are totally *not* Bob Cummins' plaything" Freedom Club? If that club knew anything about freedom, it would free itself from Cummins. But don't you know how much money he gives? Yes and that's another post for another day. It's unclear how many in the Freedom Club know about this upcoming gathering. Yet I find myself wanting both groups to lose. It's like that Cabaret Voltaire line: "money makes up for what you lack." Except in politics it doesn't because it cannot.

The in-gathering of Hubbard's buzzards rankles particularly when one thinks of the Cipher Candidate™ Mike McFadden, who has yet to announce but whom the DC establishment (read House banking scandal--125 overdrawn checks-- cur turned now life-long thick in the waist lobbyist Vin Weber) is set to foist upon the rank and file rubes as our senate candidate. McFadden has money (made in that ethical field of real estate) so why not play into the stereotype and support him? Our pre-positioned hacks will make lots of money. And whenever a lack of ethics is involved, Cullen Sheehan is never far behind. The rest of you can pretend to feel involved, without compensation naturally.





Image above: Lakshmi, Hindu goddess of wealth & prosperity. Click to enlarge. For Bill Krause, @KrauseBill

How Should We Judge Minnesota Media?

The idea of being judged at all, let's get that out of the way, is fairly anathema to Minnesota media. And why should it not be? They hardly police themselves because they're all in on the game, yo. And no organization or ad hoc collection of activists on a sustained basis exists from which to cast a cold eye upon the manner and style of that which they do cover, to say nothing of the infinitely more important topic of those things they knowingly do not cover. Their sins of commission pale in contrast to their sins of omission. What isn't covered is very important but it is akin to what hasn't happened to ourselves: very few of us awake grateful we didn't die during the night. Few indeed are those antiquated things known as letters to the editors railing about stories not given coverage. Most likely those letters never get published in the first instance by which the snake swallows its tail.

No, for some reason media in Minnesota have had a relative pass from scrutiny and, worse, accountability. Mind you, this has hardly made them better, sharper, faster, more serious. To the contrary, with notable exceptions, local media are stale, predictable, thin skinned and insulting to educated citizens. They don't mean to be, it's just whom they've become. With editors, to the extent they exist in any meaningful sense, obtuse and politically correct to a fare thee well, the average reporter will do as their "news" environment suggests. This is understandable; when it comes to examining media conduct a clinical, almost anthropological approach is best, less "Coming of Age in Samoa" than "Tristes Tropiques."

The small clutch of political reporters in Minnesota lean demonstrably left and most of them are nice people. In Minnesota, being certified nice has the effect of shutting down any criticism or substantive discussion. The effect of this is to leave us awash in mediocrity from our playwrights & theater to education to political leaders to food. Certain exceptions obtain but mostly to reinforce the overarching blandness. It's as if Minnesotans like what they know and know what they like and you can go back to where you came from, thanks, if you don't care for it. Minnesota nice is cultural propofol. The movie "Fargo" wrote itself mostly by the Coen brothers simply being awake.

Against this background Minnesota media criticism is fraught with peril. Egregious mistakes are welcomed to be pointed out because this provides a cost-free veneer of professionalism and objectivity. Anything more advanced is unwelcome despite what might be said by any given reporter on Twitter. And it is on Twitter that the need for corrective action in the content, style and subject matter of local reporting shows itself most acutely. I've previously written that Twitter is a kill box for journalists; that piece can be read here. The savviest use of Twitter by a journalist, in my view, is Jim VandeHei's. He co-founded the once promising, now lazy redoubt of yet another liberal media organ Politico. He follows no one and the number of his tweets is zero. Why bother? VandeHei monitors the environment of Twitter without allowing it to reveal himself. His peers would have done well to emulate his example early on but it's far too late now, the admixture of being where it's at and ego proving far too seductive to resist.

Consequently, traditional reporters and journalists are a bit aghast at being called out. They haven't realized how much of themselves they have given away on Twitter. But there you have it and things aren't going back to a time where they--and we--were not on Twitter. Careful observers can practically predict what individual reporters will cover and the manner, slant and style of their product. Interaction with them on Twitter is a milieu all its own, at times having self-abasing protocols that rival those at court of the Sun King. It's an article of faith among republican staffers that if they suck up to reporters they'll get better coverage. No. Of course everyday common courtesy should be the norm. Amusingly, one reporter told a mutual friend that I was mean. This has to be decoded from the Minnesotan: I say what I think. I know myself well enough by now (and at the risk of appearing Stuart Smalley-ish) to have no doubt that I'm a nice guy who genuinely likes other people from either side of the aisle and possesses something of a sense of humor. So, like her reporting, I didn't take her remark seriously. Hope that doesn't sound mean!

Local media, then, should be judged by the same standards we judge national media but, perhaps, with an allowance for just how peculiar the state is; few others have an iconic film made about them but then this leads us into what I've termed Lars Leafbladism™: a mindless, feel good, uncritical regard for ourselves and all things Minnesota nice whose political default position is shallow, received, unsophisticated liberalism. Leafbladism™ is the nurse who administers the propofol.

The debate and passage of same sex marriage showed local media at their worst: cheerleading, fawning of those (five) republicans who supported it, saddled with lazy stories about Bob & Ted, Carol & Alice. If the personal is political (a category error of enormous magnitude but a conventional premise among the left) and they report on the personal they've just committed political journalism. Right? Except of course they haven't but they can't see that. This explains why they cover with relish the sad sack stories trotted out before various legislative committees: it's all of a piece. How foreign to them, then, is criticism that says they aren't really doing their job. Or at least not well, not with vigor and rationality and a bit of skepticism toward the narrative served up by democrats. Admittedly, though, it's hard to criticize one's own.

Local political television is its own tale of woe. "Almanac" and "At Issue" routinely offer nothing new, nothing edgy, nothing that engages a viewer in search of intellectual stimulation. The same guests, the same format, the same talking points, the same lack of vitality in questioning week in and week out. One only needs to know the name of the "guests" (most of whom by now probably have their own reserved-by-name parking spot) to know the arc of the show and to know that, yet again, they'll miss nothing by not watching. I also believe, call me crazy, that producers deliberately get the weakest representatives from the republican side and, to be fair, they are legion. Perhaps producers should take a risk (the concept is foreign to them) and have others on their shows. The result might actually be interesting, worth watching.

There is a dark side to the local media's reflexively tilted coverage in Minnesota and that is their complicity in not covering stories that would reflect badly on the DFL, democrat politicians or the general progressive narrative. It's as though they think the rest of us believe that what is covered actually constitutes, pace Walter Cronkite, "the way it is." The loss of media monopoly is admitted but not recognized by them. Gov. Dayton's lecture to the Humphrey School last fall is a telling case in point. I appeared something of a mad man in asking for the video that local television stations possessed but deliberately chose (but for 15 seconds) not to air or make available to the public. Then again, local media are strangely incurious about Dayton's routine, sudden, one day illnesses that are announced at the last minute. If he were unfit to govern, or even partially so, our friends in the media would be the last to let us know. Because, for the slow of thought, he's a democrat. Were he a republican, local media would puff and preen and insist that their inquiries were perfectly reasonable, no! demanded by their obligation to the general public to inform, truth to power and all the other myths they tell themselves.

Sustained coverage of the coverage is long over due in Minnesota. I have some ideas in that regard but the point now is simply to establish a marker, a standard, some sort of benchmark. Unfair criticism of media is welcomed by them because it is used to discredit fair criticism. This is an old trick but an effective one.

No, the focus must be on media product which can consist of a few elements examined repeatedly over time: story choice, angle, use of sources, failure to disclose important facts (liberal funding of "studies" is a good one), and that not-so-ephemeral quality known as even handedness. Forget about quality of writing (there's a fool's errand) or production values (suicide inducing) and center on what is now lacking in Minnesota media coverage: balance and fairness. I don't expect media per se not to consist mainly of liberals. I do hold out hope that by being observed in public in a sustained way they will internalize notions of those things to which they only now give lip service: neutrality, objectivity and honesty.

What I Saw At The Minn Post Roast

Last Friday evening I attended the MinnPost Roast 2013 as the guest of former republican Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch. Koch is both a friend as well as a client. She was one of several individual and ensemble acts that performed throughout the night. As republicans there was something of the "in the belly of the beast" feel to the evening but nothing that wasn't able to be surmounted by good will and a sense of humor. The evening couldn't have been better if I had learned Israel bombed Iran.

Koch had humor in spades. Going onstage relatively early at the Pantages Theater in downtown Minneapolis, she was effortlessly unselfconscious and completely hilarious. People might say I'm not objective about this because we are friends but I have many friends about which I've remained objective, including in a public way on this blog. Koch, as I tweeted that night, brought down the house with her funny, perfectly pitched routine which she wrote herself. She alone out of everyone who appeared onstage that night did so without notes. People know when they are in the presence of a natural and last Friday night the elite of the DFL knew it as well, many not for the first time. I consciously but at times with difficulty pushed away thoughts of "what if" and stayed in the moment.

Other DFL politicians and activists performed and I found myself smiling at them and otherwise having something of an out of body experience. Sen. Franken was but two seats away; he was oddly flat onstage and tethered to notecards he seemed to be racing to get through. I did manage to get a nice picture of him & Koch, though. Sen. Klobuchar was quite self-deprecating to my mind but I know her personally not at all. Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak performed well as did St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman, each with their very different demeanors but both being themselves and enjoying it. Governor Mark Dayton came on toward the end of the show, together with his press spokesman Katie Tinucci and did a perfectly adequate job of speaking a few lines while Tinucci essentially performed--quite well--a one woman show.

The after party at the Chambers Hotel was equally fun, giving us more time to visit with the loyal opposition. We happened upon Tom Horner and Jim Graves which proved amusing in an altogether different way than the stage show. Graves took a sudden, strong interest in me when I located myself in the political firmament by saying I was Andy Parrish's attorney. He asked to have lunch, instantly pressing his card into my hand. I look forward to it but am wistful about what is surely a downward slide in my fortunes: trafficking in Andy Parrish's reputation. On the upside, if you can't have good food at lunch with Jim Graves you can't have it anywhere in the Twin Cities.

We also had an opportunity to visit with former Sen. Ember Reichgott, a frequent commentator on local Twin Cities political news shows. She was as pleasant and nice in person as she appears to be on tv and radio. In passing she expressed admiration for Brian McClung recently coming out in support of same sex marriage and termed it courageous. She was fascinated when I said I didn't think taking such a position now involved much courage. Other republicans had done so when it was risky--Jake Loesch is probably the best example--and then, some time after, came Sen. Branden Pederson and Pat Anderson. I said taking a position in favor of traditional marriage was now the courageous thing, given the shower of praise from media any given republican receives for supporting same sex marriage. She believed me, believed I was serious in my observation but was struck nonetheless.

What must Reichgott think of my party, I wondered after our discussion ended, moving further amidst the beautiful people dressed mostly in black? Is it all Torquemada all the time? Does she think there's a certain suffocating orthodoxy imposed and from which deviations are acutely punished? We all understand the stereotypes of both major parties. What was striking to me was that as sophisticated an observer of the scene as Reichgott was surprised by a not particularly surprising revelation of how things actually are in the Minnesota Republican Party. How off base, then, am I and many others about the DFL? Maybe we need to get out more together? Within reason, naturally.

We don't, though, and there's the problem. Republicans are routinely sought for the Minn Post Roast and its organizers have great difficulty finding any. Yes, Minn Post is filled with a lot of retired Star Tribune and Pioneer Press employees but our absence isn't going to do anything to help them think about issues (or republicans) somewhat differently. Schmoozing isn't going to change policy positions; it might help us understand each other better and on our own terms, the best kind of understanding.

I thought the same thing when the week prior I attended the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival to watch Mira Nair's movie adaptation of the well regarded book by Mohsin Hamid "The Reluctant Fundamentalist." Screen after screen of sponsors were shown before the movie began. Not one of them was remotely conservative. What, the Freedom Club couldn't have sent $500 to get a spot?
It's not that hard; the bar is very low. Still we republicans fail.

The point is that by ceding so many fields we play on very few and increasingly just to ourselves. Democrats do that to some extent but to the degree the larger cultural arena is friendly to them (if not owned outright) our absence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of increasing marginalization.

Minn Post deserves congratulations on putting together a splendid evening of fun and enjoyment. Perhaps next year, instead of one talented, brave, and delightful republican on stage, we could provide several. Doing so would surprise both sides of the aisle.

Margaret Thatcher: The Lady Doesn't Vanish

Margaret Thatcher was buried today in a funeral ceremony at renowned St. Paul's Cathedral in London attended by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The Queen last attended the funeral of a non-royal in 1965 when she was present for similar rites for Winston Churchill.

Thatcher was an extraordinary political figure whose place in history is assured. That place is one of honor and accomplishment.

Her most vicious detractors do not warrant a response or serious engagement. It is apparent to all but the most invincibly ignorant or ideological that 2013 Great Britain would be impossible without her election in 1979 and subsequent governance through 1990. The unremarkable, unimpressive men who followed her in No. 10 Downing were but variations on her theme, the theme known loosely as Thatcherism. They, and each of them, suffer by comparison to her.

This is not to say she was beyond criticism: no elected leader is and Thatcher would have been among the first to say so, to welcome criticism and debate about how to keep a free people free, how to unleash their economic power for their own well-being and how to avoid suffocation by bloated, crushing government set up by mandarins pretending to know best while deliberately putting themselves out of reach of the programs they enact and foist on others.

Some ideas are right; others quite wrong. It's not just in America that the banality of compromise and meeting half way holds sway. Some ideas and the consequences of them needs must be rejected outright. Thatcher's genius was having the courage to speak the truth to the governing, corrosive, poisonous lies of her domestic political milieu.

The peoples of Eastern Europe are especially in her debt and readily, gratefully acknowledge such. The end of that monstrous, wicked, thoroughly evil enterprise known as the USSR would have been impossible without her. Of course, she is grouped with President Reagan and Pope John Paul II in this regard and rightly so. Those three helped bring freedom to more people in one general time than ever before in human history.

Thatcher stands as an enduring rebuke to all things collectivist, in personal or public life, except for the collective action of free peoples where ever they may be found in the world in support of maintaining and defending that freedom. The mute presence of her Sovereign at today's farewell is the most eloquent testimony possible to that fact.


The entire ceremony may be viewed by clicking here.

Click on the above photo to enlarge.

Parting Genius: Shortridge Unites MNGOP

Tonight I attended as a guest of Gov. Julianne Ortman (NQY: not quite yet) the Lincoln Reagan dinner hosted annually by the Minnesota Republican Party. Remember them? It was held at the hotel which most resembles Stalin, the Minneapolis Hilton Hotel. NO floor contains a bike path. Can you believe it?

The dinner represents pretty much the people who don't necessarily need nor want to get into the State Central Committee but influence it as much as possible. Think of the Minnesota Republican Party a fish out of water, gasping.

Yet it was anything but tonight.

The highlight came without warning from a man most of the crowd had either written off or didn't know of really to begin with. With my friend Pat Shortridge, I'm somewhere in between. However, he'll most likely return my calls whenever for a decent time in the future. Send the bill to Golnik.

But Shortridge didn't make his place in party history tonight by talking about the future. He talked about the recent past.

Shortridge rubbed our noses in it.

Almost without knowing it, Shortridge said outloud about ourselves publicly what his audience had been saying to each other for some time.

I tweeted the following about what Pat said:

"Standing ovation when Pat Shortridge calls out republicans for allowing our divisions to cause Coleman & Emmer to lose #Truth #LincolnReagan"

My friend, the most competent non-elected Republican woman in Minnesota, Leslie Rosedahl and I discussed who stood first for that comment.

Shortridge suggests he'll have more to say Saturday, when press are allowed in.

I'm doubtful. Tonight's significance escaped even him.

Why Can't Minnesota Republicans Message?

I've been meaning to write a blog post on this evergreen topic for some time. What causes me to do so now is my accidental discovery last night that some house republican communications staffers (and their equivalent) stopped following me on Twitter. I don't use a program that tells me how many people have unfollowed me or how many have decided to follow so this bit of delightful news was completely an accident. Some of them had unfollowed a rather well known friend of mine which bothered him. We have both noted on Twitter, pointedly at times, the messaging failures of the republican house & senate caucus. I'm serenely indifferent to who does or does not follow me on Twitter in the same manner I'm unlikely to care if people take umbrage at what or how I blog. All within reason, of course: your true friends tell you what you may not want to hear. They don't grow many people like that in Minnesota for some reason, to the perpetual astonishment of those of us who move here from other places. My previous blog post brought that truth home again to me with spectacular clarity.

At any rate, cutting off those who critique you probably isn't the best route to improving your job performance but of course that presupposes one wants to improve rather than tread water. The evidence is demonstrably thin in that regard when it comes to republican messaging. As I quipped on Twitter not too long ago: to point out our abject messaging failure is to become the problem. It's as though getting a job on the basis of friendship should not come with the obligation of being competent for the job so given. Friendship should be no bar but being able to get the job done--and being held accountable when it is not--should count just as much at a minimum.

The problem with house communication staffers isn't just (or even mostly!) with them: it's with their bosses. What should this group of young adults do regarding messaging when they can't get an accurate, ongoing read from them? It's too easy--and manifestly unfair--to focus only on minority leader Rep. Kurt Daudt. There are others in leadership and we see nothing from them concerning consistent, strong messaging. Do they think the DFL simply sat on their hands while they were in the minority? The opposite was the case. Where's the rest of house leadership? You don't deserve a future or a position further up the greasy pole by doing nothing and acting virtuous about it. Disheartening as it may be to the rest of leadership (including the failed, disgraced leadership from last session), people are watching. Is it going too far to suggest they are happy to see Daudt up front and struggling in difficult times while doing little or nothing to support him? No. Indeed, that seems to be the very case.

Maybe our messaging problem is cultural, a republican political culture poisoned by the unspeakable mediocrity of Tim Pawlenty such that every republican south of 40 thinks appeasement, pandering and "what's in it for me" is the way to stay in place if not get ahead. If that's all you know, that's all you know. Many want to be the next Brian McClung, as preposterous as that may sound.

Unfortunately, this amounts to a unilateral surrender on our part against a very well messaged, well funded machine on the other side, replete with union strength which tends to repel me but also commands my respect for sheer effectiveness. If I had to call myself out on the matter, I'd confess to liking conservative unions (they used to exist) as opposed to liberal ones; hence the problem isn't with unions per se.

Perversely, in the absence of decent, effective messaging we get nightmares like Rep. Glen Gruenhagen shooting off their deeply ignorant mouths and becoming for a news cycle or two the face of Minnesota republicans. I can't fault entirely the younger set for wanting to be somewhat cautious in the face of such embarrassments. All this does, of course, is underscore the lack of leadership during these dark days of one party, paleo-liberal rule.

The Bellevue Hospital that is the senate, of course, makes the house leadership, caucus & staff look like Madison Avenue on the Mississippi. Sen. David Hann is too busy thinking about running for governor to bother to lead or formulate a consistent message. His right hand man possesses a junior title to the head of senate communications but she seems consistently outflanked by him and by his closeness to the man in erstatz charge. This is a genuine pity because she actually does know how to message. Just our luck the old boys club freezes out yet another talented republican woman. Sen. Dave Thompson is also running for governor so there is no natural interest in the overall welfare of the caucus and its messaging. Apparently being deposed in the Brodkorb lawsuit gives him no pause. That, of course, would take thoughtfulness. Sen. Dave Senjem, having made a hash of the Brodkorb situation and his federal lawsuit, is content to wander the halls being photographed sharpening his pencil with a pocket knife. This isn't entirely true: like Annette! Meeks, he seeks to force taxpayers to fund yet another development boondoggle, this time in Rochester with the destination medical center or whatever horrid moniker the consultants came up with. One assumes she's getting paid now while Senjem will be in some form or another further down the line. Throw in those supporting the corrosive National Popular Vote and we have a party devoid of principle and integrity.

Gov. Dayton is falling in popularity but you wouldn't know it from his supporters in the media. It took Ben Golnik to ferret out the polling data from the middle of yet another disengenuous Star Tribune story. What did republicans do with this important information? Not much. The next time someone criticizes political consultants to my face I'm going to hand them a class picture of the republican caucus in both chambers.

How do republicans start messaging effectively? Thinking is a start and hopefully not too high a hurdle. What do we stand for? Admittedly, after our time in the majority it's not as easy to articulate as it once was. But we can get back to a few solid principles that need not be trotted out here.

How about contrast? The DFL is overreaching in ways that disturbs many on the other side with whom I speak in confidence. It simply isn't difficult to craft a sustained message that this isn't what Minnesota voters were asking for last November. Gov. Dayton got 43% of the vote and many 2012 legislative races were quite close. Couple those facts with the Governor being under-water in the polls and it takes a particularly incompetent group of politicians, staff, activists and hangers-on not to come up with messaging that works.

Timidity, though, may be the biggest obstacle. Even if a good message is created, it has to be used. The image above is a case in point. I first saw something like it on Twitter from a UK Conservative party politician I follow. It had different faces, naturally, and text but the idea was excellent. I brought it to the attention of Derek Brigham & Nancy Laroche who worked their magic and came up with what you see. Succinct. Accurate. Immediately effective.

Naturally the senate and house caucuses did nothing with it. It appeared on the True North blog, was tweeted a few times but never really was utilized.

Too mean, too aggressive we were told. The Pawlenty effect, shall we say. Obviously one graphic does not make for a messaging campaign. Effective messaging requires attentiveness to the other side and its missteps, taking immediate advantage of them in order to discredit them and then pivoting in an advantageous way to one or more of our strengths.

Rep. Sarah Anderson gave me the metaphor of those inside the fishbowl of the legislature (members & staff) and those outside of it. It's a useful metaphor because the mental image is so immediately apparent.

Those of us outside the fishbowl want those on the inside to succeed, do well, achieve. We believe our ideas and policy proscriptions are not only right but good for Minnesota. We are desperate to take back the majority in the house so as to act as a brake to the stale, outdated, failed, nay ruinous liberal ideas being foisted upon us.

Those inside the fishbowl tend to think too highly of themselves and resent it when their glaring failures are pointed out. If an idea doesn't come from within the fishbowl, it will die a lonely death like the graphic above. I have no doubt that those of us on the outside fail at times to appreciate the unique environment in which they work; I say this with all genuine goodwill. I will also hazard a guess that we outsiders cut them more slack and understanding than they do with us. In fact, I've been regaled with tales of what they think and say about us. Really, those with such thin skins & insecure psyches ought not to be anywhere near politics.

Fishbowls are transparent, however. Those inside appear oblivious to the fact that we see what they do and don't do. This seems to be one of those hard truths those guppies can't quite accept.

Here's another: it's you who are accountable to us, not the other way around.