Minnesota Republicans In The Age Of Trump

Donald Trump delivered what was required of him last Thursday night: the speech of a lifetime in which he accepted the Republican Party's nomination for president. It was a remarkable climax to a year in which every bit of political wisdom was discarded outright or turned on it's head. The acclaim for his speech was near universal: even critics praised it before condemning it. Of course, the media were quick to see its effectiveness and branded it as dark, possibly dangerous.

In a 76 minute performance that never flagged, Trump leveled with the American people, telling them that the time for lies was over, that he'd talk about those things they never see on television or in their newspapers.

He then set out in systematic and devastating fashion to describe our current condition. Afterward, a CNN instant poll found 75% of those who saw it had a positive view of the speech. This was not what media wanted and they commenced to redouble their efforts to talk it down. Too late: the American people liked what they heard.

Earlier in the week Michael Moore told Bill Maher that Trump will win the election. The despair on the left was almost complete. It's worth seeing the video when Moore speaks the truth few democrats will utter: click here.

Ivanka Trump introduced her father and herself delivered a thoughtful and well received speech. Having his children speak each night of the campaign was Trump's idea and highly unusual for a political convention. It proved to be a masterstroke. Fashion mavens pointed out that the modest but beautiful dress Ivanka wore was from her own collection and cost $138. I'm told women noticed: millennial women in particular.

Remember: Trump has no idea what he's doing.

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For the most part, the Minnesota republican delegation to Cleveland acted consistently with how I've branded them: the dumbest republicans in the nation. Again, in case you're not a regular reader, I mean this collectively and on the political plane, not in any individual case or ad hominem manner. Political acumen, or its absence really, is what I'm speaking about. 

It would be easier to explain if most of the delegates weren't bright but that's just not the case (well, for the most part). Accordingly, the mystery as to why Minnesota republicans seem unable to grasp the times in which they live this political cycle and use it to their advantage only deepens. 

The delegation made a fool of itself Monday night when it joined, then withdrew, from a last gasp Never Trump effort to have a roll call vote on issues that had been addressed in the Rules Committee, which met the week before. Apart from that, Minnesota was largely invisible nationally, fit only to be the subject of stories by the hapless local democrat reporters who were sent to cover them. In typical grifter fashion, a couple MNGOPe types thanked them for their coverage. 

But Minnesota media's coverage of the convention was uniformly mediocre and unimaginative, although the cover of that Friday's Star Tribune made up for it somewhat, eliciting complaints from liberals that the coverage wasn't tilted toward them for a change. Click here to see the front page of the Star Tribune the morning after Trump's speech. 

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I don't know how republicans in Minnesota will do this fall but I'm fairly certain it will be less well than should be the case. The mentally retarded political reaction to Trump in this state by the republican establishment was simultaneously nauseating & infuriating. They forced me into calling them the dumbest republicans in the nation: I had nothing to do with it.

Initial reluctance to embrace Trump was completely understandable. People forget I started out as a Scott Walker supporter. His shrewd decision to leave the race early only helps his stature now. I moved to Trump by degrees, by fits and starts really. I hadn't seen anything like him before either.

There was no one moment I can recall being the tipping point. It's like how dreams have no beginning: we're just in them, that's all we recall, never the beginning.

At one point I understood. The Trump "red pill effect"some call it and there is something to that. Outside of up and coming apparatchiks, can anyone take the "rising stars" in the party seriously? Can anyone avoid the obvious influence of donors who make indentured servants out of those laughable "stalwart conservatives" who preen but never deliver?

The majority of Minnesota republicans didn't get it, preferring virtue signaling instead of substantive engagement. These types get taken down by their provincialism every time. The problem is that they have so much company at the bottom.

They're so Minnesota-centric it's no wonder we miss out on national wave elections.

Now we have crouched down Minnesota republicans, unknowingly used by local media to play into their anti-republican narratives, republicans who are spooked by not knowing what they stand for.

How could such a hollow group not be threatened by Trump?

* * * * 

When I look at Minnesota republican politics I never see a plan, a strategy, some sort of political IQ over 85. Instead, I see a disparate set of often conflicting policy positions, reflecting its ad hoc nature which is one neither of principle nor certainly of competence, engaged in by people who know each other but who just aren't very good at politics.

Trump opened enormous opportunities for a variety of republican interests in Minnesota to message against the dominant culture here. The themes were endless and could be tailored to any particular locale  in the state. 

Virtually no republicans have picked up on this amazing chance. Democrats in this state wouldn't win at the rates they do if we had a competent opposition party. We do not. 

Sham Winton

Cam Winton, pictured above shilling for Ashwin Madia outside a 2008 Obama rally in Minneapolis, this week announced his candidacy for the mayor of Minneapolis. Far too many local republican activists were taken in by his claim to have suddenly--and without any evidence--become a republican. Except he hasn't, really, and has said so depending upon which news outlet he is speaking to at the moment. Dissembling, it's good to know, will be a priority in this charlatan's campaign.

Winton fought hard to defeat republican Erik Paulsen in 2008 as democrat candidate Ashwin Madia's treasurer. Hideous Nancy Pelosi was brought to Minnesota's third congressional district in the left's strenuous effort to defeat Paulsen.

A scant two years ago Winton was moderating a debate between two far left loons vying to run against Paulsen, one of whom responded to a question as to how to get the American economy going again by demanding we immediately get off our "oil addiction." Intellectual bankruptcy is the sine qua non of Winton's provenance. The debate can be viewed by clicking here but be prepared to lose some brain cells. These are his people; he's one with them. And no, nothing has changed except perhaps the quality of snake oil now being peddled to credulous Minneapolis voters who should know better.

What, precisely, has happened in the last two years for this banal progressive to have had a political epiphany? A buyout of the "wind energy" company for which he was a lawyer and the introduction of ranked choice voting in the mayoral race. Having seen up close with Madia how little it takes to get ahead in democrat politics, Winton doubtless thought he could position himself as some sort of new, fresh face in the mayoral election, taking advantage of ranked choice voting (RCV) being used for the first time. Cornering the market on those ignorant enough to self-identify as republicans would be crucial in him slipping through to victory. They're so hungry, why not feed them? It's not like they'd expect him to keep his word or be a conservative in any meaningful sense.

Had Cam Winton remained a far left progressive, or tacked to some sort of ersatz independent position, all would be well. Dishonesty, however, should not be rewarded and he has dishonestly and repeatedly claimed he is now a republican. Oddly, he just as frequently claims he's not a member of either party. If that doesn't bother you then check your integrity meter.

He recently has parachuted into Rough Riders meetings and said what that audience wanted to hear from him. He's done the same with the Freedom Club. Maybe we can get him as a featured speaker at an upcoming Elephant Club luncheon and republican foolishness will be complete? Kelly, call Cam! A photo opportunity awaits. Our republican future, of course, won't come from either three of these useless groups but in the thinnest of rebranding attempts one supposes they are essential to the slight of hand. Desperate times, Mrs. Lovett and all that.

Winton trots out three letters to the editors as somehow tracing the arc of his political realignment. He must think republicans are as stupid as democrats if he believes they do anything of the kind, at least persuasively. The first, in September 2010, can be read here and deals with his objection to a 7.5% property tax increase. Winton himself characterizes this letter as showing he realized he no longer fit in in the DFL. Naturally it does no such thing. The second, in November 2010, deals with the same subject in the context of eliminating, essentially, some fat or non-essential programs from the budget funded by said property tax increase. Winton doesn't characterize this letter as anything in particular, which is true. It can be read by clicking here.

Anyone reading these two letters and waiting for a "scales from the eyes, how could I have been so ignorant lo these many years j'accuse" will be left waiting.

The third letter, in July 2011, is characterized by Winton as occurring when he'd fully made the transition to the GOP. No, really. Read this letter by clicking here. [It's the second letter; the first is, comically, about pedestrians and bike paths.] He writes that he disagrees with most of Gov. Dayton's political beliefs. So do most outstate DFLers. He asks for name calling to stop and expresses admiration for Jim Walsh, reporter of things locally musical for several decades now. I'm surprised he didn't quote The Boss in a spasm of enthusiasm.

Let's give Winton an enormous benefit of the doubt: by July 2011 he'd fully migrated to the GOP. What did he do next? It's hard to tell as the record is bare. Usually converts of any kind get caught up in the new environment which they've embraced. There is one $500 donation to the RPM in late 2011 and another of the same amount in late 2012. He's been thinking of running with republican support for some time, apparently, bought rather cheaply. But hey, they're buying it!

Nowhere on his Facebook page does he identify himself as either a new republican or an old DFL hack. The race is non-partisan, you see. Right. Click here to see his FB page.

Nowhere on his campaign website does he show the slightest republican belief. Vapid even by Minneapolis standards, the website is thick with cloying phraseology and Portlandia sentimentalism. This isn't the website of a leader with a principled center; it's one for whom anything can or will be said to anyone in order to exploit ranked choice voting. It's not that I don't admire cunning; I do.

His Twitter account shows a whopping 64 tweets to date. Of the three in 2012 only one deals with politics: "Thanks to all #mngop12 tweeters - very helpful for those of us who couldn't be there today."
You're welcome Cam: you did nothing to stop the destruction of the republican party by Ron Paul supporters but perhaps you weren't fully parasitical yourself yet.

Did Winton do anything for any republican in 2012? I'd love to know. I've found nothing. I know virtually all of the republican activists in Minneapolis and CD 5.

Remember conservative & liberal outrage over red light camera legislation? Cam's ok with it because, you know, longer yellow lights and a dash of due process. Here's Mr. Leadership's answer to a question on Twitter about the subject: "MN Supr. Ct. ruled unconstit. in '07 so moot if no new law. If so, make sure yellow longer & non-driver owner can contest. U?"

See? He's a technocrat and these things can be tweaked. No principles are involved. I especially like how he asks the questioner what they think. The word oleaginous comes to mind.

He flatly stated in a radio interview that he was not a republican. You can listen to it by clicking here. Letters to the editor & talking to elected officials pretty much constitutes his prior political involvement, he says in a moment of less than candor. Weirdly, no mention of wanting to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker again by being Madia's treasurer. Go figure. He's said elsewhere he's not a republican and usually hides behind the nonpartisan nature of the Minneapolis mayor's race.

He is. He isn't. Dessert topping. Floor wax.

Winton's friend, mindless liberal Joe Bodell, whom I've debated on FOX 9 before (when he wasn't interrupting viewpoints he disagreed with) wrote about his entry into the mayoral race with a headline: "Minneapolis Mayoral Race Gets Its First Republican. Kind Of." It can be read by clicking here and republicans really should make a point of doing so. Liberals know their own kind and what it takes, in Joe's opinion, for Cam to get the endorsement he now claims not to want is instructive.

Cam Winton has a lot to prove and resents being asked to do so. His thin skinned supporters on Twitter are of a piece with the attitude that someone who worked for years to take out a popular, moderate republican congressman should somehow not be required to do, say and show more than he has thus far. In this world, I'm the problem.

I'm fully aware of those who Winton claims support him: Pat Shortridge, Zack Freimark, Janet Beihoffer, Jeff Johnson, Bill Guidera (who makes Paulsen look decisive), Sheila Franey, "mega-donor" Ron Schutz & "mega-donor" Scott Honour.

I could care less. Groupthink is a hall mark of liberals and one Winton is hard wired to invoke.

David Mamet famously wrote an article titled "Why I Am No Longer A Brain Dead Liberal." Winton could benefit from reading it but could never write one of his own. Because, at heart, he still is.


Correction: The first version of this post, which was up only a few minutes, incorrectly referenced Erik Paulsen as the republican incumbent in the 2008 race. In fact, the congressional seat was open and the post has been corrected to reflect this. Hat tip Peter Glessing.

Kulturkampf? Rush Limbaugh Channels Breitbart

"The progression of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea and between the idea and the observer... To achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood" Mark Rothko 

Faster than one would have thought possible, serious conservative thought after the presidential election loss has centered around reengagement in the realm of American culture. Andrew Breitbart famously said that politics was downstream of culture. While this is undoubtedly true, Breitbart had not laid out his vision of how to be engaged in that battle before his untimely death this year at age 43. The loss was bitter but Breitbart identified a key component in the war of ideas, one where conservatives had been largely absent, or invisible, which is the same thing in that realm.

No less than Rush Limbaugh echoed Breitbart last week when he said that conservatives needed to realize the current battle is cultural rather than strictly ideological. He said on his radio show:

"I really think that we've gotta adopt a very, very long game if we're going to recapture the country, and we have to do what the left did.  And I don't know how yet.  But we are going to have to recapture the public education of this country, because that, folks, is where decent, honorable, really good, normal people like Mitt Romney end up being thought of as despicable human beings.  It is through 30 or more years of public education run totally by liberals and the way they have characterized their opponents.  I see it every day."

He's right to focus on education where "tenured radicals" have held sway for some time. After the disgusting 1960's generation lost in the street, they went into the classroom. One underestimates their influence in that world at their peril. But to catch up with them is indeed "the long march." Better not to delay, I imagine, but to think of this as a quick fix is fanciful. Limbaugh, to his credit, does not.

He's also a bit adrift in fashioning solutions or recommendations. To be fair, his realization of what needs to be done was an exercise in thinking out loud. Why should he be requisitioned to come up with our solutions? It's up to us. Remember us, the people who can't quite fathom the worst, most incompetent President in the Republic's history being reelected? Can't fathom a return to one party rule in Minnesota and a media that pretends, badly, to neutrality?

Media are a symptom, not a cause. Unless conservatives fight in the cultural realm of ideas, this nation will continue to decline. Yet this is easier said than accomplished: so much of our culture is debased, vulgar and ignorant. And parasitic: behold the democratic base. Education is the key because it permeates the rest of our society, for good or ill, mostly the latter. The collapse of the family is hardly new and I'm not exactly the first to note it. All people are equal: all cultures are not. The same obtains for "families" no matter how un-PC that may be perceived. Women cannot socialize men: ask Robert Bly. Are we past the point of no return?

Conservatives in Minnesota are in a particular fix: we have a culture that rewards eunuchs and there's no end to them in our party. There have been numerous opportunities for self-professed leaders to lead. So far, nothing. Apparently I'm not supposed to notice this, at least not in public.

The republican party itself should be euthanized but the impending take over by the Ron Paul destroyers may effectively be the same thing. Its endorsement is worthless and Minnesotans should get used to a primary system going forward. Here's hoping House Minority Leader Rep. Kurt Daudt can work with his peers across the aisle and in the Minnesota senate to implement a primary system as quickly as feasible.

Will that yield any better candidates? Only time will tell. What ideas do we have to offer voters? If we offer DFL-lite the voters will select the real thing time after time. Why wouldn't they?

Do we know what we're about? I don't trust us: the people who thought an unnecessary, poisonous marriage amendment that cost us seats in the legislature are still around, still not taking responsibility for the debacle. It's appalling, frankly, and I worry about a party base that sees any attempt to hold them to account as somehow being an obstacle to renewed political success. Isn't it the other way around and don't we have empirical evidence of it?

I quoted Mark Rothko not because I used one of his most famous works as an image for this post but because he makes an essential, critical point: clarity is a prerequisite for understanding. A party that doesn't know what it's about, a party that allows interlopers to take over and dismantle its own infrastructure, a party that can't pay its bills and is expecting another huge fine from the FEC, a party that loses an historic majority in both chambers of the legislature in record time, a party that congenitally fails to hold leaders to account, is a party that possesses no clarity about itself whatsoever. Until we regain clarity of purpose in a systematic manner we will not be understood by Minnesota voters. They are not stupid; who votes for that which they don't understand?

"Know thyself" was said to be engraved over the entrance to the oracle at the temple of Delphi. Until it does, the republican party of Minnesota is destined for permanent minority status. It doesn't have to be this way but pretending we're not lost is a good way to guarantee we never find the road back. If we're our own worst enemy, there is nothing but a lack of honesty, courage and will keeping us from being our own saviors.




Above: Mark Rothko's No. 1 Royal Red & Blue (1954)

Those Conservatives Who Put Winning Second

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't know. 

Hubert Humphrey: The Happy Failure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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