Trump: The Transformation of Minnesota Politics

I've watched, fascinated, as the magnitude and depth of Donald Trump's victory in Minnesota has been absorbed by establishment republicans and democrats alike, with Minnesota media playing its traditional role of trying to catch up with the present, to say nothing of the future. Be sure to catch them on the next TPT Almanac media panel because I surely won't. Not that you'll learn anything: they saw none of this coming but will pretend to know what it portends. Fake news, local version.

I had planned on writing about Speaker Daudt's disastrous step too far in calling, just last month, for now President elect Trump to withdraw entirely from the race. Not even Rep. Erik Paulsen did that. Yah Allah, as my muslim friends would say. No, alone among a wide array of elected and influential Minnesota republicans only Speaker Daudt demanded to-be-President 45 quit. Please clap.

Why this extravagant display of panic, of bad political instincts? Worse, why pretend no one noticed? An article last week in MinnPost, and a master class in throne sniffing, attempted the painful, intellectually insulting task of making the Speaker look good on this score. He doesn't and he shouldn't. But this, apparently, is what the inner circle of the Speaker thinks will still work.

The planted article was more alarming to me than the original mistake. The Speaker should admit in whatever fashion he can that his call for Trump to leave the race was a mistake and move on. Even privately will do; no one expects him to call a press conference about it. But continuing to insult those who were paying attention (he wasn't: Trump almost won the state and is now president elect) by suggesting this display of vacillation is indicative of leadership skills, won't help him, either in the upcoming legislative session or in any future plans he may have, by which I mean his run for governor. Everything coming from the house next year must necessarily be seen through this prism. No one expects bold leadership.

Daudt made a hash of things with his senate colleagues by colluding with DFL Sen. Tom Bakk in taking out Senate Minority Leader David Hann, the man who gave Minnesota republicans its senate majority for the next four years. They didn't expect republicans to flip the senate. Only Minnesota republicans are disappointed in their own success.

It's above my paygrade to suggest how the Speaker is now seen as loyal and a man of integrity by the superior chamber's republicans. As an aside, I hear rumors of a place for Hann (if he wants it) in Trump's Washington but beyond that I couldn't possibly comment.

Republicans in the Minnesota house gained seats this election and the Speaker more or less took sole credit. As a friend remarked, that's just doing his job. But good for him in any event. This is one conservative who'll never tire of republicans in Minnesota winning. The caveat is that they should actually make a substantive difference with those wins, something I've yet to see materialize. A real opposition party instead of a speed bump en route to a one party state, to quote myself.

Trump fired Paul Manafort when he realized his advice and counsel served him badly. Whether Kurt Daudt can draw the necessary inference, and possesses the requisite self-assurance and political skills, from this heavy handed reference of mine isn't really, well, in doubt. Still, the analogy was too good not to suggest it. Are you not entertained?

* * * * 

Weirdly and not weirdly, Minnesota democrats seem better positioned this early on to take advantage of how well Trump did here than republicans. To be sure, democrats are none too happy with the great unwashed who voted not to become a Third World country accustomed to corruption as usual given the Clinton Crime Family's sordid history. After all, those voters used to be theirs and Trump is likely to continue to steal democrat issues and then (more) of their voters.

From my initial observations, they seem to understand the transformation of Minnesota politics that the Trump results herald. By contrast, Minnesota republicans, resentful at being shown up as comprehensively clueless by those results, appear poised to double down in their fantasy that the next two years will be politics as usual, hence the MinnPost article that essentially argues we should go back to sleep once woke. No can do.

* * * * 

With swamp creatures Norm Coleman & Vin Weber still controlling Minnesota republican politics (go to GuideStar and input American Action Network or Minnesota Action Network for the former--the 990's is where monetary truth is revealed--or Google Mercury Partners for the latter, I can't do all your work for you), the election of Donald Trump as president means slim pickings for the politically dependent class here at home. Sorry those Ignatius of Loyola banners or Darelene Miller campaign things didn't work out for you. No DC job for you. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh. Oscar Wilde was Irish. 

* * * * 

Minnesota republicans have a once in a lifetime chance to fashion themselves into a permanent majority in Minnesota. That chance is wholly dependent upon them realizing and capitalizing upon Trump's amazing performance here. Perhaps the most noxious idea from the MinnPost puff piece about the Speaker was that Trump supporters constitute the purity faction when the facts of this election prove precisely the opposite. 

Very few establishment republicans supported our next president and I mentioned them by name in my last column. The overwhelming majority did not and it is they who are in control of Minnesota republican politics. Talk about flying blind.

Get ready, as Sue Jeffers said yesterday upon her return to radio, for a litany of excuses from MNGOPe as to why republicans shouldn't expect much to get accomplished with them controlling the legislature: we don't have the executive branch. Sound familiar?

It was the mirror opposite, of course, when Pawlenty was governor with a DFL controlled legislature. He had to "work with them," something democrats never say.

Preemptive surrender by Minnesota republicans isn't so much an article of faith as a way of living. Old habits die hard (especially when monetized) and the opportunities presented by Trump winning 79 out of 87 counties seem destined to be ignored, lest republicans become politically sentient.

* * * * 

Wisconsin republicans are far superior in every regard to Minnesota republicans. I've often wondered why that is the case and why we can't learn from them.

Then again, I realize they don't have the suffocating, self-interested presence of Vin Weber or Norm Coleman to sacrifice themselves on the altar of their clients. Everything here is subordinate to them. Follow the money; the political incompetence follows in short order.

Only the money didn't work this time, nor did our corrupt media, national or local. Donald Trump heralds the end of political business as usual except amongst the captives of Minnesota republican apparatchiks.

Tom Bakk, it seems to me, understands perfectly well Trump's showing in Minnesota and is most likely already moving to use it against Tina Flint Smith, urban out of touch liberal, handmaiden to our zombie governor and Our Lady of the Curette, to quote myself once more.

The political reality at the present moment is that one of these two will likely be our next governor.

Unless and until Minnesota republicans understand and avail themselves of the president elect's transformative opportunities, from whom they have foolishly distanced themselves, the election of 2018 will mark an even dozen years in which they were unable to win a statewide race.

Unlike our country, through the election of President Trump, this will mark a point of no return for Minnesota.





Image credit: MinnPost. Click to enlarge and you really should.

President Trump & The End of the MNGOPe

"There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

--Leonard Cohen 1934-2016

Requiescat In Pace

The day Donald Trump's rally in the Twin Cities was announced, to be held the Sunday before the election, a variety of people were skeptical and said so. One well known political observer, who knows a fair amount about the Minnesota political process, tweeted that he thought Trump was making a huge mistake, suggesting that the event would take away needed volunteers from other critical republican races in the state. Many others joined in that assessment. I don't think I'm being unfair to characterize them as not Trump supporters. Still, what would make sense in any other political cycle didn't end up making sense in this instance, as has been the case for so much of the presidential race of 2016. Then again, I've been a much mocked and derided outlier this entire season, until I wasn't.

I also knew at the time of the announcement that Trump's internals had him behind by a polling error of 3%. If you never swing, you can't even miss. Lonny Leitner and Andy Post understood this and made the glorious Trump rally happen. As Coleridge would say, it was one of those "spots of time."

Approximately 25,000 people turned out for Trump on 24 hours notice. Only 5,000 could fit in the airport hanger with me. Even Trump, when he took the podium, mocked our crowd, saying the rally should have been held outside to accommodate the far greater numbers. "What genius was in charge of this?" he asked. We all laughed, knowing that we were going to win.

The Trump rally was like no political event this state had seen before. Even local media were forced to report it honestly, something of a rarity for them. The crowd was exuberant and legitimately diverse. Race baiting Minnesota democrats would have had a field day checking their identity politics boxes, only, paradoxically, this group had moved far past that failed, poisonous mindset.

Two days later America had to wait until the day after the election to find out how Minnesota voted for president. Kindly name me the last time that happened. Trump lost this bluest of states by a mere 40,000 votes or approximately 1.5%.

Astonishingly Trump won the iconic, Iron Range located, DFL stronghold city of Hibbing, the first time a republican has done so since Herbert Hoover. Yes, it was only by seven votes but ask Rep. Mary Franson the value of a vote. Don't look for the Minnesota republican establishment to appreciate what that means. I call them the dumbest republicans in the nation for a reason.

* * * * 

Trump won the presidency in the greatest electoral upset in American history. My own low point last Tuesday night came outside "Golden Chow Mein"on West Seventh Street in Saint Paul, idling in my car waiting for vegetable fried rice. Florida looked sketchy, even bad. I was fed poisonous information from the RNC that it was lost. Then again, Jeff Larson, (there's a local angle here to be explored further, lazy media) was hardly supportive of Trump. Like Pat Shortridge, former Chair of the Republican Party of Minnesota, he and his cohorts have been entirely displaced by the Trump phenomenon. Don't get me started on the odious Rick Wilson, eagerly willing to lose the Supreme Court, and indeed the nation, to line his own pockets. All republican consultants are the same and all deserve to end up on Fifth Avenue, shot. We could retire the national debt by raffling off the pleasure. 

* * * * 

I went to bed early Wednesday morning at a time I usually awake, which is early. When I awoke to an appalling amount of emails, texts, voice mail messages and DM's on Twitter, I learned I was some sort of political genius. Please. I'm Irish and we're congenitally allergic to complements. Here I'd arrived and I was irritated because arriving has never interested me. Especially in Minnesota, the bar is low for discerning the obvious and I was having none of it. I didn't respond to any of the communications save for one text from a PR professional who asked if I was still alive, to which I responded "silence, cunning and exile." I stayed off Twitter the entire day, a record for me and a wise move. 

* * * * 

When I forced myself to pay attention to the high school level of Minnesota politics, I learned republicans expanded their majority in the house, which was expected, and regained the senate by one seat, which most had not expected, much like Trump becoming President elect. Conventional wisdom has a certain symmetry, one supposes. 

House Speaker Kurt Daudt, and his consigliere, Ben Golnik, apparently moved up the food chain to be defeated by either Elena Ceaușescu, as I call Lt. Gov. Tina Flint Smith, or DFL Sen. Tom Bakk, for governor in 2018. For Minnesota republicans, it's never about winning a statewide race so much as who makes money while losing. If you're looking for a succinct definition of Minnesota republican Never Trump, I've just given it to you.

Republicans regaining the state senate was the real story in Minnesota politics. What wasn't reported were the efforts by Speaker Daudt and Golnik to actively work against Sen. David Hann, the minority leader. Numerous sources regaled me with time and place instances of them lobbying personally against Hann, flatly declaring his race lost weeks before the election and encouraging lobbyists not to donate. Minnesota republicans are so obtuse they are forced to win despite themselves, not because of them.

The senate caucus was encouraged, so to speak, to find a more moderate leader than Hann whether he survived or not. To its credit the caucus responded to this unseemly, gubernatorial race driven pressure, by electing Sen. Paul Gazelka as majority leader. When that news broke I thought "both hands have a middle finger; if you don't like one, have the other."

Patrick Cooligan wrote a somewhat perfunctory story (understandable, his party lost) about the senate win. Credit to Hann was given but more of the story was given over to process, because that's all media, state or national, care about most. It spares them thinking or having to deliver substance.

David Hann alone identified the senate seats that could be flipped and personally recruited high quality candidates who could work hard, who did work hard and who won. No Hann, no senate republican majority. His reward was to be actively done in by his so called colleagues in the other chamber.

Norm Coleman's group "Minnesota Action Network," led by a talented woman, was cited by Cooligan as being outsourced by the senate to message in the race and you'd be forgiven for thinking the senate wouldn't have flipped without it. You'd be wrong, of course.

When Cooligan's story broke on Twitter the usual suck ups sucked up to her. They're all variations on Tracy Flick from "Election." None of them congratulated Hann, the man who made this actually possible, of course. To a person these people are Never Trump, politically clueless but sucking on the right political or lobbyist teet, the one that generates a paycheck.

* * * * 

Trump won every county in Minnesota save eight. Because the political machinery in this state on the republican side is in the mediocre hands of the Never Trump people, the significance of this achievement will be downplayed at best and ignored altogether as a matter of habit. Trump scrambled Minnesota politics but we don't possess a republican party capable or willing to capitalize on it. Believe me.

MinnPost reporters Greta Kaul and Tom Nehil have a fascinating story of how Trump did and where in Minnesota. Iron Range DFL activist Aaron Browne, to my mind the most thoughtful and insightful observer of that part of the state, was quoted as saying “Really as far as the future goes, we need ideas to solve the problem, whether they come from Trump or someone else, or Democrats or Republicans, people want solutions.”

This is true but a clear understanding of what the problems are is essential to fashioning effective solutions. The problems are the result of Democrat policies but I'm uncertain timid Minnesota republicans will act on that fact. It doesn't have to be this way, that entrenched mindset of weakness should be capable of being changed. As a friend of mine said "you can only eat so much oatmeal."

Kaul & Nehil's excellent story can be read by clicking here.

* * * * 

Jason Lewis won election to Congress in his first attempt from Minnesota's CD 2. Stewart Mills lost his second attempt to go to Congress from Minnesota's CD 8. The expectation from MNGOPe was precisely the opposite.

After the Trump landslide, no other win gave me as much pleasure as did Jason's. His republican detractors were embarrassingly small minded, thinking themselves politically sophisticated by bleating "one word destroys a campaign," alluding to Lewis' previous career as a radio talk host. Lewis ran an underfunded but message strong campaign in the age of Trump and won. It's a lesson his critics aren't bright enough to learn from. 

By contrast, the race was Stewart Mills' to lose and he alone lost it. There was no excuse for such a narrow loss given Trump's historically strong showing in his district. He can now grow his hair long again and go back to playing bong cribbage.

* * * * 

I watched online the republican panel from last Friday's TPT's Almanac. Is there a dumber Minnesota republican than Andy Brehm? The competition is stiff but still. He makes Jeb! look like Trump. His father is wealthy but he's no Trump offspring: competent, capable, hard working and smart. This man has no idea what just happened in a transformed America. 

I positively wanted to lick my computer monitor when Sheri Auclair spoke. With grace but a deadly acidity, she put Brehm in  his place. It's a new day and he has no place in it. Former state senator Julianne Ortman ran a close second to Auclair, emphasizing the permanent damage electing the corrupt Hillary would have inflicted on this great nation. Slow off the mark but coming rapidly up to speed was Marty Seifert. Kudos to the three of them. Andy is a relic of the status quo decisively rejected by the voters. 

Unfortunately the MNGOPe is Andy. 

* * * * 

Kingdom of Saud lobbyist Norm Coleman, and Putin lobbyist (Gazprom) Vin Weber, essentially control and shape Minnesota republican politics. Trump destroyed their types this cycle, delivering a comprehensive rebuke the likes of which they not only didn't see coming but never thought possible. Both Coleman & Weber were mindlessly Never Trump and their fetid world of influence and immorality is threatened to the point of extinction by a Trump presidency. They'd have made out like the bandits they are had Lady Macbeth become president. When Trump says he wants to drain the swamp, these are precisely the people he has in mind.

The problem with the MNGOPe is that the loathsome Coleman & Weber lobbyist types, and their state analogs, are the role models for the younger set.

Can we recruit actual talent or are we stuck with the self-selected? Because that's not working out too well and holds no promise of seizing upon the new, transformed, realigned political realities of a Trump America. Most of the good republican talent under 40 have fled the state to be quickly hired elsewhere where their skills are recognized and rewarded, leaving us with simpletons who obsess on craft beer, burgers and inconsequential issues like Sunday sales or to run for no account city councils.

There's never been a wave election Minnesota republicans have failed to ride completely. Trump's election offers a never-to-come again chance of reversing our slide into a cry bully Democrat one party state.

That chance will have to be seized upon by the Trump voters of Minnesota--democrat, republican, independent--who didn't want our country turned into the Third World or our state to become a cold California.

Like Trump before them, they'll have to fight both parties in order to succeed.






Photo credit: President elect Donald J. Trump, Facebook

Muslims & Minnesota Media: First in a Series

I hadn't planned on launching this series of blog posts quite yet but recent events left me no choice. Indeed, they define the very reason such a series is needed. Consequently this initial post will be shorter than those to come.

Scott Johnson of Powerline recently reported astounding news that, by rights, should be front page news in Minnesota, as well as covered extensively on television and on radio. He found evidence that makes it appear highly likely that Ilhan Omar, who recently defeated a long term Jewish DFL incumbent in the House, married her brother, thereby committing immigration fraud as well as bigamy.

His explosive reporting can be read by clicking here.

Shamefully, not a single Minnesota media outlet as of this writing has carried his story. Other social media accounts have done so and there's reason to believe some national outlets might get around to covering this.

But Minnesota media? Nothing so far and they have a very high regard for themselves as some sort of truth tellers and the like.

Johnson tweeted earlier today at Tom Hauser, who hosts the stale and banal weekend political talk show "At Issue," whether he'd be reporting the story he broke. (Hauser is not the problem with the show, its producers are.)

At any rate no response from him to Johnson's request for coverage. I asked on Twitter a variety of other reporters from various "news" outlets the same question. No response.

Hauser shouldn't be picked out from the pack, in my view. The rest of the (mostly Twin Cities based) Minnesota media likewise are ignoring the story. That they consider themselves to have any integrity or credibility is a sign of group psychosis.

I'll be launching Minnesota Media Monitor: Accountability Starts Here™ later in the year but I needed to post on this subject immediately.

I've been struck for some time how limited local media's understanding of all things Islamic and Muslim is. They approach the topic(s) as another non-white victimology story, of which they are accomplished dissemblers.

But where is their coverage of reform Muslims? Do they know of Tarek Fatah? Irshad Manjii? Maajid Nawaz? Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Probably they've heard of the last one but only to ignore what it is she is about.

White, guilty, liberal and lazy is the best summary I can give of Twin Cities media. These past few days shows them complicit in dishonesty because such advances their political ideology.

When Johnson approached the Omar campaign with his questions, he heard back not from it but a criminal defense lawyer. As he rightly said: "Yet the response was also newsworthy for what it said, or rather didn’t say. It didn’t deny any relevant fact. Rather, it falsely disparaged my motives as bigoted. I find that disgusting."

Scott Johnson deserves some kind of an award and Minnesota Media Monitor™ is precisely the organization who may give it to him. Or we may just name an ongoing award in his name. Either way, it will stand for honesty and courage in the face of media corruption.




Photo: The world's most famous Somali, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

© 2016 John Hugh Gilmore & Minnesota Media Monitor™ All rights reserved.

Mike McFadden Embarrasses His Supporters

Remember: you're something of an idiot, or a political Neanderthal, if you're a republican in Minnesota and you haven't lined up behind, or been bought off by, Mike McFadden, the establishment candidate currently being forced upon us by Norm Coleman, his retread underlings, disgraced former Congressman turned lobbyist for the old Ukrainian government Vin Weber and the usual parasitical class which controls republican federal races in Minnesota.

Yesterday McFadden gave the second news conference of his ill-fated campaign, which resembled the famous train wreck at Montparnasse in Paris, above. I don't know how many fatalities were caused by that accident but any more performances like yesterday's and McFadden's campaign will flat line, to the extent it already hasn't. Listen to the audio for the first 5.30 minutes here and then switch to the YouTube video which captures the balance of the event here.

If his question and answer period could have gone worse, it's beyond my Irish powers of imagination. His prepared remarks focused on the shopworn trope of wasteful government spending. One should have expected such banality from the team that came up with his campaign tagline, a rip-off from A Better Minnesota of all groups, "Believe in Minnesota." Still, the essential nothingness of the topic is dismaying, displaying a poverty of political acumen and the campaign's essential directionless nature at the same time.

Al Franken is against government waste, for God's sake. Not even Phyllis Kahn would come out in support of it. How that issue is played makes all the difference. "Are food stamps government waste? Why does Mike McFadden want to starve people?" You can see the DFL jujitsu now. Apparently no one on Team McFadden does.

Wasteful government spending. Really? McFadden paid tribute to retiring Sen. Tom Coburn, whom he called a "servant leader." Servant leader is evangelical gobbledygook meaning he's one of them, the true believers. Non-fundamentalist Christians need not apply. Why is he using that code? Worse, is he even aware he is?

At any rate, McFadden thought it keen to pick up the "Wastebook" that Coburn was known for publishing. It worked for Coburn because he'd actually vote against republican leadership from time to time, something no one could ever see McFadden doing should he luck into the Senate. At this point, only Al Franken dying seems likely to accomplish that trick. Then, of course, the Coleman-lite candidate could eek out his win just like the original artifact: by beating a dead man. Once.

After talking for less than six minutes, in a vocal style that most resembled speaking while sleepwalking, the hapless McFadden opened up the press conference for questions. His public speaking style got worse but his substantive response should embarrass his supporters, who tend to be rather full of themselves while oblivious to that fact. Evasive, rote, repetitive and canned, the man behind the podium wasn't simply not ready for the Senate, he wasn't ready for his own press conference. He has only so many tapes to play before they start to loop.

Am I the only one who cares for the actual person of Mike McFadden? What I saw and heard was simply cruel to inflict on another human being. I hope Vin Weber's K Street connections pay off in spades for McFadden if he's our nominee, because he'll lose decisively but not before more, and even greater, humiliating performances.

McFadden failed to answer almost all questions put to him by local media. Surely one of his five figure staffers told him that there was an outside chance of questions being asked by media at a press conference? You know, the kind you call yourself, signaling to the world you're ready to answer them?

When asked about the alleged gender based wage gap (which even Slate has called "a lie") he somehow meandered into talking about the XL Keystone pipeline. This was a dissociative moment worthy of Mark Dayton. When asked if he'd have voted for or against the wage bill the Senate took up just the day before, he declined to answer, claiming it was the "wrong question." That bodes well for the general election, the debates especially. Readers owe it to themselves to see the video, linked to above, in order to appreciate just how disadvantaged McFadden will be face to face with Al Franken, an unfunny and not particularly likeable guy but who will win over viewers by sheer dint of a pulse.

Remember: this is your guy, Minnesota republicans. Even though there's still room on the lifeboats, the ship's crew is keeping you in your cabins at gunpoint. Or worse, you're happy to stay there of your own accord, years of training having done their trick. McFadden's performance should have embarrassed if not outright shamed you. No amount of money can make up for what was, and wasn't, on public display yesterday.

McFadden also whiffed on questions concerning, beside the minimum wage, the personhood amendment (why is that even being discussed?) and Minnesota's disastrous Obamacare implementing exchange MnSure (how hard is that?). A neutral observer was left mystified as to why the campaign would call such a press conference in the first place. A republican hoping to defeat Al Franken was left knowing this guy could never do it. Republicans will continue to fool themselves for a bit longer, though, with the pixy dust of money. It won't work but the parasitical ones will have made their money regardless and will be off to other races, descending like hungry political locusts. Or staying right here, where they always feast regardless of our election night famines.

McFadden's supporters should be most offended by what he offered in lieu of substance: the ridiculous idea that voters will know his "philosophy" and that that will be good enough. What is this campaign? An Andy Kaufman-like exercise to test the political audience's toleration of being profoundly insulted before throwing chairs at the stage? Do my fellow republicans think so little of themselves that they think this is acceptable and hence say nothing? It would appear so.

MPR's Mark Zdechlik quotes the cipher candidate as saying:

"What I think is really important with politicians and leaders [is] you understand their overriding philosophies--how do they make decisions?" said McFadden. "And so I've been very specific in this campaign as to how I make decisions."

No, no you haven't, sir, and I've been paying attention, forcing myself at times. Unless taking a call from Norm or Vin constitutes making a decision and then you might be onto something. But that's not what republicans--or voters in general--in Minnesota are looking for, nor is it a plausible way to win; insulting the intelligence of the voters usually isn't.

What we saw yesterday was a man with no presence, no convictions, no style, no sense of purpose.

Nowhere man. But I repeat myself.

The Political Martyrdom Of David FitzSimmons

Last weekend Rep. David FitzSimmons failed to be endorsed by republicans in house district 30B, which he has represented for the last two years when it became an open seat after redistricting. He has said that he will not run in the primary, thus bringing his office holding career to an end for the time being. He withdrew from the race at the last possible moment before facing a shellacking at the hands of a popular challenger, Eric Lucero, a respected member of the Dayton city council. Before the vote FitzSimmons spoke to the delegates, praising himself and then, crying due to feeling sorry for himself, fled the building after saying he was withdrawing from the race. It's difficult to respect such conduct. He owed it to the delegates he made stay all day to see the vote through, to lose with dignity and to appear on the same dais with the eventual winner for the sake of party unity. He did none of this. His true character was laid bare.

By contrast, Marty Seifert, who FitzSimmons helped defeat for the republican endorsement for governor in 2010, stopped the counting of the third ballot during that endorsing convention and threw his support behind Tom Emmer, who he asked to join him on the dais to unite the party (Emmer would have been incapable of such a gesture, had the vote gone the other way). This is what a man of integrity does; this is the behavior of a leader. This is what David FitzSimmons could not muster the capacity to do and that's unfortunate.

The dispositive issue that cost him the endorsement was said to be his vote in 2013 to legalize same sex marriage in Minnesota. The majority of his constituents who participated in the endorsement process felt strongly enough about that vote to effectively remove him from office. FitzSimmons represents one of the safest, and most conservative, districts in the state. The result should have surprised no one but the reactions I witnessed (well before the vote and after) demonstrated yet again that republicans are incoherent to themselves, with little understanding of how unappealing that makes them to general election voters.

Recall at the time of the vote FitzSimmons, and the four other republicans who voted for same sex marriage, were the toast of the town. Is there anything easier than fitting in with the liberal mindset of Minnesota, in particular the Twin Cities and its media elite? This isn't to say that the five did not believe in the merits of their vote; assuredly they did. The point is that at the time the vote was taken it was cost free, with discussion of subsequent fallout mentioned mostly in passing, an after thought to the "courageous" vote of "conscience" that they had just taken. As if principled opponents to genderless marriage were simply the bigoted caricatures that mean spirited opponents kept insisting they were; as if "don't limit the freedom to marry" was a substantive argument instead of a way station bumper sticker en route to grievous cultural problems; as if once marriage was no longer defined as between one man and one woman, other equal protection challenges would not be forthcoming, as indeed they have been and will continue to be, from, among others, polygamists. The argument was never as specious as same sex marriage proponents put it, that wanting to marry a dog or a horse would be laughed out of court. The argument advanced is one that will continue to advance: if the state has no compelling interest in the gender of marriage, previously essential for millennia across all cultures for all of recorded human history, then it has none whatsoever in the number of people to a marriage.

Current discussions of FitzSimmons' predicament take place as if the stakes back then were not high, for both sides. They were, of course. How surprising, then, can it be that politically active republicans in house district 30B would wait for their next opportunity to express themselves? Why is their sense of betrayal somehow of less account than the media generated profiles in courage of not just Fitzsimmons but the other republicans who helped democrats vote in same sex marriage? It was laid on extremely thick at the time. You can Google their names individually and note their uniform response of "Aw shucks, who me? A hero? Well, if you insist."

Media approval is a beguiling thing, especially for Minnesota republican politicians who are rarely used to it.

Here, though, we have something else: hitherto staunch defenders of the endorsement system wondering out loud about its continued relevance. Yet before Fitzsimmons was at risk, through his volitional act, they eschewed any notion that the endorsement process was outmoded, captured by unrepresentative activists who all too often selected candidates who could not win Minnesota general elections. How many times do republicans have to lose every state-wide race before this begins to sink in?

With FitzSimmons, we were treated to truly bizarre and demonstrably false headlines from right-leaning blogs like "Gay Marriage and the Political Lynching of David Fitzsimmons" and "David Fitzsimmons: Being Wronged For Doing Right." This is complete nonsense, bereft of evidence and written for reasons best known to their authors. FitzSimmons meets his constituents; to whom else is he responsible? If they select another to represent them, such is neither a lynching nor being done wrong. This is politics at work, democracy which, had not their preferred ox been gored, those same critics would have celebrated.

FitzSimmons said at the time that he voted his conscience. I have no reason not to believe him and there is a certain integrity in that. On the other hand, his constituents felt badly betrayed. Their feelings are the most under-reported aspect of this story. They actually count more than FitzSimmons', though you'd be hard pressed to find that sentiment expressed in the coverage which followed his defeat. He preened at the time that his vote might cost him his job. When his bravado chickens came home to roost, he wasn't man enough to stay for the vote that would defeat him but cried and ran off like a coward. He is no one's idea of a martyr except to the most craven, of which, apparently, there are more of in the activist base than I realized before last Saturday. An elected official lied to his constituents and was held accountable by them for it. If this bothers you, you might want to rethink the purpose and nature of elected office.

Baird Helgeson, the Star Tribune's best political reporter now that Kevin Diaz went to the Houston Chronicle, gives an outline of the talking points of both sides, with an obvious bias against Lucero, in his reporting that can be read here. Unfortunately, while Helgeson mentions it, he does not link to FitzSimmons' email essentially lying to a constituent about marriage. That email can be seen by clicking here. If you like to be lied to, David's your man. I've long known liberals don't mind it but until last weekend I didn't realize that was true of republicans.

The most obscured fact of this endorsement story is that FitzSimmons betrayed the trust of his constituents by campaigning on and promising repeatedly to oppose same sex marriage. It was the betrayal, as much as the issue per se, that animated the attendees to give Lucero 74% of their vote on the first ballot (sixty percent is required for endorsement). If the situation were reversed and house district 30B was thoroughly pro same sex marriage, and its representative voted to block it, the same critics would applaud the district's move to replace him. We'd be lectured on accountability, transparency and the need to respect the will of the delegates. What has just been described, of course, is the definition of hypocrisy.

The worst analyses of this matter were those that predicted doom for the entire republican party in Minnesota; who insisted that denying FitzSimmons the endorsement was a return to divisive social issues that will drag it down, now and forever, world without end. There is simply no evidence to support this contention and much to contradict it. Far from reverberating across the state and within the party, it will be forgotten about with the speed it deserves as we focus on surviving what--please God--could be the last session of the legislature run entirely by leftists.

On the same day house district 30B voted its preference, Rep. Pat Garofalo (HD 58B) was endorsed at his convention. He voted for same sex marriage, just like FitzSimmons. If a party-wide desire to re-litigate same sex marriage existed, one would think it would show up in that district as well. Rep. Jenifer Loon (HD 48B) has no announced opposition and her endorsement convention is upcoming shortly. She, too, voted for same sex marriage in Minnesota. Again, nothing to support the gloomiest of predictions which at times, on and off Twitter, seemed to be in competition with each other for Most Dire. Such group hysteria gets tiresome quickly. One supporter hoped the democrats picked up this seat. Now there's a politically sophisticated person! Others emphasized FitzSimmons' hard work for candidates and his giving of money to the party and various races. Both admirable qualities but do those pointing them out really think they give a politician a pass from betraying his constituents?

At the end of the day, David FitzSimmons is just another politician who lied to his constituents about one of their most important issues, about which, had he been honest, he would never have been elected in the first place. Having shown his previously hidden true colors to them, the delegates in house district 30B had every right to send him packing.

As my friends on the left would say, this is what democracy looks like.





Above: The martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by Il Sodana, c. 1525 

Nowhere Man: Mike McFadden's Empty Candidacy

Political neophyte Mike McFadden, selected by Norm Coleman, Vin Weber and the inside the beltway group of usual suspects, is running for the Minnesota republican nomination to contest against incumbent Sen. Al Franken this fall. McFadden has no particular qualifications to bring to the Senate but, then, neither did Franken so the point can't fairly be held against him. Congress, most of us could agree, is not filled with luminaries.

What can be held against him, and why I cannot and will not support him for Senate, is the fact that he is a wholly contrived candidate who says and does precisely what his patrons and handlers want him to say and do. He gives astroturf a bad name.

His candidacy is simply being forced upon republicans in the state who are expected to fall in line. Far more of them than is healthy are eager to do so, apparently in the belief that anyone with money will be our best candidate against Franken. This is a lazy analysis, on one level, and a perfectly understandable one on another. What it isn't, on balance, is acceptable.

It's not acceptable for two political has-beens with lobbying clients to pre-select and then impose a cipher candidate who will parrot the policy issue positions most in line with those paying clients. McFadden has no connection with the republican base and has gone out of his way not to develop one. He's well known now for avoiding debates with the other republican candidates or even engaging with the base in a meaningful way. Lately the campaign has tweeted him out and about with hapless republicans badly staged around him, unable to wipe an indifferent look off of their faces. One thinks of those "Kim Jong Il looking at things" Tumblr accounts only here it's "Mike McFadden meets the unwashed activists." His consultants have told him all he needs to know about those types. Who can blame him? The hoi polloi can scrape about in support of Julianne Ortman, Chris Dalhberg or others for the endorsement (quaint) but he and his wallet are going to bigfoot the primary and buy the nomination outright. It worked for Dayton, didn't it?

His initial rollout to "the troops" was particularly painful. Invented reasons for a guy who was very successful in the private sector were put in his unconvincing mouth as to why he suddenly felt the pull of "public service." His videos were better produced than, say, Scott Honour's, but at least with the latter you could get some sense of a personality; you really could see yourself having a beer with him. With McFadden's videos, you have to get past his daughter "introducing" us to someone who leaves us cold; you could see yourself as the subject of his next vivisection. McFadden's essential quality thus far is Robo Candidate.

But shortcomings as an actual candidate are one thing, a thing most republicans can, and do, get past. McFadden's positions on the issues, however, are an abomination; that is, when you can pin him down on one.

McFadden's website has no "issues" page. None. Contempt doesn't come any more clearly expressed unless you prefer "F you," which also works.

The republicans who are supposed to support him because Norm & Vin & Karl picked him are not held in sufficient esteem to have even boilerplate language on routine issues. No, this guy has to be uncommitted to many things because his value to their lobbying clients increases as a result. Need a senate candidate to parrot your position on something? You know who to call and who to pay. The number of activists duped by this vaudeville show is depressing.

Last summer, McFadden told the St. Cloud Times he supported the then recently passed Senate immigration bill. That legislation is a disaster for the future of the republican party and provides for amnesty for illegal aliens despite all protests to the contrary. The base knew this; the base was blown off. McFadden is given his positions and republicans will know them when and as he chooses to reveal them. The idea Mike McFadden will, in any meaningful sense, reflect the wishes of the base is unwarranted. Instead, the base should be glad he was scrounged up by their betters and put forth to give the appearance of a competitive race.

McFadden also recently declared that he would close the gun show "loophole" that few in the base believe exists or wish to close. Amnesty and support for gun control: isn't a democrat already running for this office? McFadden is clearly doing what his consultants tell him to and when. It's a sign of what bad advice he's already getting, however, that well before clinching the nomination he's running a general election campaign. Lovely: you lose the base before you try to woo it and you give a general election voter no reason to vote for DFL-lite. Haven't we seen this movie?

Last month the campaign announced a hilarious "steering committee" of republicans from whom the future in this state will never, nor should, come. An unimpressive lot, these people do what they are told. They would have been tickled to be on any candidate's meaningless steering committee if offered or ordered. Hypocritically, many of them demand that the endorsement be followed when it comes to the race in CD 6 because they support Tom Emmer but are perfectly happy with McFadden "not respecting the will of the delegates," as the phrase goes, and going to a primary. Integrity.

Yesterday Eric Black, formerly of the Star Tribune, now of MinnPost (like so many others there), held forth in somewhat inflated terms and declared that "expectations" have been "altered" in the Senate race because of McFadden. This is laughable. Short of Franken drowning a woman, people have written off McFadden beating him. The motions, though, must be gone through. Right. Black's analysis is conventional although consistent with the scripted nature of the empty McFadden campaign. Black focuses on the chimera of competition given a well funded candidate versus an underfunded one.

He avoids entirely just what a poor candidate qua candidate McFadden is; this will only get more noticeable in direct comparison to Franken who, say what one might, can't be accused of lacking personality. Black's article is long on process (which too many mistake for actual political analysis) and short on substance. This didn't stop people who want a job, or a different one, from crowing on Twitter that "even" the paleo liberals at MinnPost agree McFadden is our most formidable candidate. Of course MinnPost is pioneering "sponsored journalism," which is simply another term for paid content or advertising. I half expected to see a disclosure that Black's article was sponsored by the McFadden campaign.

The manager for Mike For Senate was parachuted in from Florida via political friends to Minnesota, a state with which he had no prior connection. He comes well regarded by friends whose opinion I value but, nothing personal, I'm sure he's already thinking about the next gig, after Mike loses to Al. Of course, this guy's employment is yet another manifestation of the fact that Minnesota republicans don't have an excess of local talent. People get snippy when you point out this obvious fact; they get put on steering committees, or its equivalent, and consider it some sort of achievement.

Minnesota republicans have to decide if they want to continue to be treated like stooges and children by formerly active republicans who have lost elected office and who now dine out like pigs on K Street, the Business Roundtable, American Action Network or some other self-serving organization. That more of my fellow republicans cannot see what a deus ex machina farce the McFadden campaign has been since its beginning is discouraging. They humor me by saying this is the way things go in federal races in Minnesota; that's there no reason I shouldn't understand this by now.

Except I do understand and I object. They seem to think that in doing so I'm making a big mistake. Actually, it's the other way around.

Twin Cities Media Bias & Race Reporting

Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen moechte 

I can't eat enough to puke as much as I want to

—Max Liebermann

In June of this year the United States Supreme Court ruled a section of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional. Without getting into the legal weeds about the subject, this decision had been coming for years. In fact, in a prior case involving similar issues, the Court fairly begged Congress to look at its statutory scheme in light of its apparent constitutional infirmity. This is called deference to a co-equal branch of government; it's the opposite of judicial activism.

Congress did nothing and so, in due course, the Court ruled accordingly.

Demagogues were quick to jump on the decision and characterize it as five Supreme Court justices finally having gotten their way to hurt African-Americans in this country. Because, on the Left, if you disagree, you aren't just wrong, you're racist, bigoted, homophobic, you name it. The majority may as well have worn white robes on the bench instead of black according to these hacks.

Locally, DFL Rep. Ryan Winkler made The Drudge Report by tweeting that Justice Clarence Thomas was an Uncle Tom. Often over-looked was his equally repulsive claim that the other four justices in the majority decision were "accomplices to race discrimination." Twitchy has a good run down of the tweet and various reactions that can be read by clicking here. Full disclosure: I hadn't realized until researching this post that one tweet quoted is mine. Ah, the glamor.

I noticed at the time that our local media treated this otherwise career ending move with exquisite care. In effect, the local media took down every insincere, ass-covering word Winkler uttered in a panic to salvage his career and left it at that. DFL handlers handled their Eddie Haskell, and otherwise fierce seekers of truth and power holding accountable types merely repeated what was said. No hard questions. No outrage. No suggestion that the tweet betrayed a mindset unfit for public office.

Mission accomplished: one could feel the reluctance of local media to cover the story but they did the minimum. Democrats can't be racist; that's the opposite of the narrative they advance at every opportunity. One guy on their team screws up but no problem: they had his back.

The Star Tribune story, which can be read by clicking here, shows as much. The word racism never once appears. That's not an accident. The most honest the story gets is saying "racial slur" which really, when you think of it, isn't quite the same, is it?

As telling, the reporters supinely feed the demagogue from their team a soft question: will use of this term on social media "hurt his future political career?" Winkler is given as much ink as he likes to say no, he's really a good guy. The article could not have been easier on him than if he had written it.

To show you how pathetic the coverage was, the article states at one point "Winkler soon learned just how offensive the term is to some. . ."

To some? Would those reporters say that of the word niggar? Of course not. Their job was to save Ryan, the ersatz educated democrat, whose political ambition is in inverse proportion to his talent. Consequently, only "some" could take offense at the use of Uncle Tom. See how that works?

City Pages was equally quick to give Winkler political cover while pretending to journalism, the outre, brave kind. To City Pages, he was in "hot water" for using a "racially insensitive term." No use of the word racism in this reporting either. Go figure. You can read its coverage by clicking here.

City Pages too largely lets Winkler write the arc of the story. No challenges from that quarter. No: will you resign? Perish the thought! They save that for their political enemies. When Winkler repeated for the umpteenth time the preposterous claim that "there seems to be some debate" about whether calling a black man an Uncle Tom is racist, you'd think he'd be challenged simply for taking his journalistic interlocutors for abject fools. But no. You're all in when you're all in.

FOX 9 News did manage to use the word racist but wrapped up its reporting that gave the last word to Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels who ignorantly claimed the decision destroyed the advances of the civil rights movement. Had FOX 9 any desire to educate its audience (a dubious proposition given that we're talking television) it would have said that the majority pointed to the very success of that movement for making the 1965 based statutory criteria obsolete to the point of unconstitutionality. Another disclosure: I had originally been asked to be interviewed for that story but declined. Given the inarticulateness of who they scrounged up in my absence, I regret the decision. FOX 9's reporting can be viewed by clicking here.

Politics In Minnesota covered the story by reporting on coverage of the story. If you're not paying attention it's almost enough, if done well, to make you think such constitutes actual coverage. Which, of course, it is not. By repeating the coverage (think of journalism at 35,000 feet) one would be surprised indeed if the story sought anything new or asked out loud whether Winkler should resign. Naturally, it did neither. Its water bug journalism™ can be read by clicking here.

The local Associated Press coverage was a masterclass in bias, both factually flawed and ideologically tilted. Guess what word is never used in that story either? That's right. The story claims "[t]he ruling makes it tougher for federal officials to prevent states and localities, primarily in the South, from adopting policies that add barriers to voting." That's simply, breathtakingly wrong but said with an unearned air of factual authority. Reading the press these days actually makes people dumber.

The story quoted no republican, made no mention of the national attention brought to the tweet and couldn't bring itself to use "racial slur," instead demoting Uncle Tom to a "connotation." Viola! Democrats must have a peace of mind republicans will never know by having the Associated Press in their back pocket, although, to be candid, it's a mighty crowded media-filled back pocket. Of course, national and local media were largely silent when we learned that President Obama had secretly obtained telephone records of reporters for the national Associated Press. You're all in when you're all in.

Compare this forced coverage, then, by local press to the laughable hysterics over a posting of a tasteless analogy to slavery by a hapless Chisago County republican activist to the county's Facebook page. We've all seen the grotesque bumper stickers that bark: "Don't like abortion? Don't have one." The Facebook page had an image of a slave auction making the same non-sequitur point: don't like slavery? Don't own a slave. Stupid.

Ah, but here was something per se racist because any mention of slavery by a republican makes it so and local press was keen to jump on it. Jump they did. To my dismay, almost no republican rebuked the race mongers on foundational grounds: the analogy to slavery is always tasteless and wrong. It does not constitute racism itself. Of course, this was lost in the flood of faux outrage which local media both reported on and added to. I'm pro-life and am always careful never to call abortion "another Holocaust." Well meaning types on my side of the issue who do so are wrong but not anti-semitic.

The same holds true for the posting by the Chisago County Republicans. We can't seem to learn how to push back, question premises and start another narrative. To be sure the media will fight us in that but that's how the game is played. "There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn," said Camus, and so too is it with the dishonest, biased media, despite seeing them die by degrees in the internet age.

The Star Tribune's coverage was typically hyper ventilated: "Local Republican Group's Facebook Page Sparks Firestorm."

Really? Why firestorm? Oh right, it fits the reporter's and the newspaper's narrative. The story goes on to note national coverage about the posting, including the number of views and other analytics. There was no such notice of the Winkler Uncle Tom remark, no reader was informed his tweet was covered by BuzzFeed and then The Drudge Report.

Wouldn't that qualify as a "firestorm?"Any honest person would think so. The story included quotes from Republican Party Chair Keith Downey who wouldn't know how to message if his party's life depended on it. Which, by the way, it does. DFL Chair Ken Martin sanctimoniously weighed in, all full of concern despite liberal policies which have proved ruinous for blacks in America. Martin never condemned Winkler's Uncle Tom tweet, something the article made a point not to mention. You can read the vastly different coverage of this incident by clicking here.  

Only Republican Party Secretary Chris Fields, himself a black man, made the sensible point that a poor analogy does not make the maker a racist, an anti-semite or whatever the subject matter of the analogy.

City Pages, naturally, was not to be outdone in the faux outrage department. They have low information readers to pander to! "Chisago County Republican Party Publishes Extremely Racist Facebook Post." Where to begin?

Is there a secret, brain-dead liberal stylebook that could be shared with us knuckledraggers so we know when something is: 1. a racial slur, 2. a racially insensitive term, 3. a connotation, 4. racist and 5. extremely racist. Actually, we've no need of it. We know how the terms are applied. We just remain amused at how well media regards themselves. It's like they don't think anyone is watching. As someone said, journalism is the only business where what the customer of the product thinks is unimportant. You can read the City Pages article by clicking here.

You can read the brief coverage given by the Pioneer Press by clicking here. The Pioneer Press used an Associated Press story when it covered the Winkler Uncle Tom tweet.

It's not often that Minnesota republicans and democrats both have a racially tinged story with which they must deal. Here, each had one within five months of the other. The vastly different ways local media handled each instance tells a reasonable person all they need to know about the state of play for republicans in the local media market.

Republicans in Minnesota are particularly inept at messaging. When they find themselves in a jam, unfortunately usually of our own making, they cannot rely, like our friends on the other side, on the good graces of the media to tamp down the controversy, to have our backs.

Like national media, local media have taken sides. We pretend otherwise at our peril.

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?

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.