Minnesota Conservatives' Year In Review

I cast about for something to say in summary fashion, as is the custom, for year end think pieces. Then I realized that I had said everything about the year just expiring in this space. Consequently, I review highlights of what I've written and decide whether those posts remain accurate or wide of the mark, along with some current observations.

January

At the start of the year I wrote "The Coming of Governor Tina Flint Smith." At the end of the year, she's still coming, carefully shielded from any MN Sure disaster fallout by Gov. Dayton and the media. Sen. Tom Bakk could pose a challenge to her if he's able to marshall to his side the issues that gave Trump a win in 78 out of 89 counties. Others have and will announce for the DFL endorsement but I don't see them as first tier candidates, with the possible exception of Attorney General Lori Swanson.

That post can be read by clicking here.

February

There was no more important story this month than the loss of Justice Antonin Scalia. His death put in stark relief the stakes at issue in this election. Loathsome Never Trumpers would never mention the Supreme Court was in the balance. To be fair, this was February, lots of time for the national version of Minnesota republicans to shove into the meat grinder of Hillary Clinton someone unexceptional.

I wrote about the loss of Scalia here.

March

The republican presidential debate that month should have been all the warning the cosseted, insular GOPe set should have needed to know that things were very different this election cycle. But they were cosseted and insular and remained so. Just like the MNGOPe only less so.

"The End of the Republican Party As We Know It" was my take.

That post can be read by clicking here. 

April

One of the most important things I wrote in 2016 was: "Do Minnesota Republicans Believe In Anything?"

I concluded: not much or all the wrong things. Take your pick. Nothing has changed since then, believe me.

I wrote about it here. 

May

That month I looked at Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek's appearance before the Minnesota Republican Party State Convention in my piece "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Stanek." Stanek, I ventured to say, could run for governor and win. 

Since that time, I've concluded he might be the only republican who can. 

My post can be read by clicking here.

June

Brexit was the only story worldwide in June and with good reason. I tried to apply its lessons to republican politics locally when I wrote "How Much Zeitgeist Can Minnesota Republicans Ignore?"

Turns out in the time since then, a great deal, which continues to this moment. 

My post can be read by clicking here.

July

Donald Trump accepted the republican nomination in Cleveland, Ohio that month. Virtually all conventional wisdom had said, time and again, such would never happened. Only it did. 

I wrote "Minnesota Republicans in the Age of Trump" as my sole blog post that month and for good reason: I had nothing else to say. 

My post can be read by clicking here.

August

Donald Trump held a private fundraiser that month in downtown Minneapolis. Upon leaving, his peaceful supporters were viciously attacked by fascist thugs on the left. I didn't attend the event but helped man the Twitter ramparts to get the news out. The story went nationwide in less than a day yet the then chair of the RPM didn't see fit to speak about it until three days later. Local media were more disgraceful than usual in covering it up or papering it over, with one newspaper headline claiming Trump supporters were "taunted." No one deserved to lose the presidential election more than media.

"Minneapolis Disgraces Itself: State Sanctioned Violence Against Peaceful Trump Supporters" would turn out to be my most read article. 

It can be read by clicking here.

September

I wrote nothing that month because I had nothing to say. More should follow the practice but I don't tell people how to blog or tweet. Perhaps I was getting ready for my trip to Athens, Greece the next month, when seemingly the bottom fell out of the Trump campaign.

October

Upon my return, I wrote about the release of the infamous, eleven year old "Access Hollywood" video and republican reaction to it in "The Stupid Party Outdoes Itself." It really did. Only Trump's furious counter-attack and excellent performance in the subsequent debate staunched the bleeding. 

It can be read by clicking here.

November

Donald Trump became president-elect that month, the 45th President of the United States. It was astonishing, thrilling and glorious all at the same time. What was said could never happen, happened, with worldwide consequences. 

I wrote "President Trump & The End of the MNGOPe" and followed it up with "Trump: The Transformation of Minnesota Politics." If I do say so myself, both are worth a reread at year's end.

The first can be read by clicking here. 

The second by clicking here.

December

I ended this fantastic year by writing "What I Saw At Pete Hegeth's Christmas Party" and it seems an unusually apt note upon which to end. My concern was that the Minnesota republicans in attendance had no idea how to capitalize on Trump winning 78 out of Minnesota's 87 counties. In the few weeks that have elapsed since, I'm convinced at this point they manifestly do not. New thinking doesn't come easily, usually at all, to these types. 

My post can be read by clicking here.

2017

I'd like to thank my readers for slogging through this extraordinary year with me.  

My best wishes to you for a happy & healthy New Year. It's going to be huge.

What I Saw At Pete Hegseth's Christmas Party

"They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom for trying to change the system from within. I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them." Leonard Cohen

Last Wednesday I attended the only political holiday party that was of interest to me and to which I really didn't need an invitation, as I don't get many of those these days. Sad! I went with no expectations and left feeling like I'd taken an acid bath.

It was Facebook come to life. At one point I half wanted Dolores from "Westworld" to appear and start shooting us all in the back of the head. Or anywhere, really. Just get it done.

I say this not because it was an entirely dour affair, it wasn't. I was genuinely glad to see a wide range of elected officials, activists, staffers, donors and miscellaneous hangers-on that I hadn't in some time. One wag later tweeted that it was a rare "shabbosgoy sighting," @shabbosgoy being my handle on Twitter. Not quite as valuable as a rare Pepe meme (the diamond Pepe appears only when does the savior of Western Civilization, which happened) but still appreciated because it involved humor, something sorely lacking amongst republicans of all stripes.

Hegseth is to be commended for hosting the event and casting his invitation with a wide net in a party fractured by ideological incoherence and petty personal political rivalries. I managed a few words with his wife, Samantha, before being cornered not three feet into the donor room. I met several interesting people I wouldn't otherwise have but this initial experience was but a taste of what was to come. When Pete sought me out we had a few moments, it was fun, but he was dragged away by the event organizer in order to speak on time. The organizer, a friend, was Barbara Malzacher, who ran a flawless event.

I was pleased to speak with Sen. David Hann, who single handedly brought republicans their majority in the senate while losing his own race. Sometimes you know when you're in the presence of a genuine human being and so it was when we talked. I apologized to him for getting that scandal a few years ago quite, quite wrong. The opportunity to make that apology was the motivating reason for my attendance and I should have left once I was ahead.

* * * * 

I was surprised at the number of Never Trump people who showed their face without qualm, as if they had been aboard for some time. "Shameless," apparently, is more than an unwatchable television show. Jack & Annette Meeks in the donor room embodied this best. There were others, of course.

I pointedly said hello to a few of them. I'm only human and it was irresistible. Mostly, though, we ignored each other, as though one of us hadn't been right for months, and paid the price, and the others were not and did not. So it goes and the clueless interest me only to the extent they'll fumble the opportunities afforded republicans in Minnesota by Trump winning 78 out of 87 counties. Neither Norm Coleman or Vin Weber were in attendance but plenty of people dependent upon their largesse were. You start to see the problem; think of fossils in amber.

* * * * 

Hegseth gave a fine speech, emphasizing the positive of a Trump presidency to a room largely filled with those who not only didn't support him but hope he lost. Everyone played along while I took notes. 

Congressman-elect Jason Lewis, perhaps sensing this and providing counter-point, gave a short but optimistic speech about the present and the immediate future. He rightly emphasized that name calling didn't cut it in this last election, something he shared first hand with Trump. He told the crowd to get ready for the first 100 days of President Trump. They weren't sure what to make of that, them being swamp creatures writ small. 

Sen. David Hann spoke and got a good round of applause, suggesting to me that even the guilty can still have a conscience. After the fact, of course.

Republican Party Chair Keith Downey said that Pete Hegseth brought the Minnesota republican party together, a remarkable and demonstrably false proposition. The crowd didn't gasp--that would be too overt for this group--but it fell flat with an audible thud. His, ours, is a political party torn asunder by one dimensional chess moves by those whose only principles are self interest and self enrichment, electoral, to say nothing of ideological, success coming in a distant second, unless they mesh of course.

Downey suggested more than once that Hillary's "basket of deplorables" comment united republicans, hence Trump's victory. Someone wasn't paying attention to the fallout from the Access Hollywood video or thought anything could be said, red meat-like, and the audience would applaud. It couldn't and they didn't. 

When we later engaged by accident, he congratulated me on becoming a regular contributor to The Hill, the news of which had broken earlier that week. I haven't written about it here because I don't write about myself here; I am myself here.

Downey was exceedingly gracious and I appreciated his comments. This was something I regularly encountered: The Hill imprimatur. Many others that night gave congratulations and I unexpectedly found myself behind the curve, only concerning me. That was different, mostly weird. 

I'll take it and am grateful for the new platform and audience but I was struck by how important ersatz credentials are to these people. It's not like I'm going to say anything new or different there than here. 

* * * * 

The Hegseth Christmas gathering showed me a political party unsure of itself, vaguely happy that the orange guy won but quick to add qualifications and caveats designed to make certain members deep enough thinkers to release flatulence into the Almanac couch as well as onto the airwaves. 

The people who attended this event did so because, however begrudgingly, they recognized there was no better show in town and so there they were. Or their surrogates, furtively texting their bosses about the large crowd.

But mere attendance can't paper over the divisions in this party, starting but not ending with the outright, and deep, animosity between senate republicans and house republicans. That's a story worth reporting but in keeping with their legendary laziness, I saw not a single reporter from our DFL-centric local media. 

* * * * 

The 2016 election was the last one and we were on to the new one, by which, of course, I mean the 2018 gubernatorial race. Everyone, or so it seemed, had an agenda to push and I was frequently on the receiving end of it, willingly or not.

This, I thought in real time, was odd, given what I know about what most of those people think of me.

But they were undeterred and I was mostly a captive audience until I could manage to squirm away. Plus I was now a contributor to The Hill, something, like Trump, that they didn't see coming and so now must be dealt with.

It was an evening of exigencies, including for me, to be honest. 

The usual candidates were discussed: Minnesota Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt, Hennepin County Commissioner and 2014 republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson, Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek--the metaphorical elephant in a room full of political ones--as well as Scott Honour, Sen. Michelle Benson, and many others. 

One was Mike McFadden, who I saw slip into the event halfway through the speakers portion of the night. He looked through me even more thoroughly than had the Meeks earlier in the donor room, which took some doing. I returned the favor with my by now practiced wan smile. It's a Minnesota republican form of madness that he thinks himself viable in 2018. 

I learned it was much worse than I already thought when a former staffer on McFadden's misbegotten run for Senate against Al Franken called me aside and jokingly berated me for not noticing him. I was dancing as fast as I could and told him so, nothing personal. He shared with me that he encountered heated discussions, recriminations actually, about the Marty Seifert/Tom Emmer split from the 2010 endorsement battle. I really should have left earlier. That was topped by another political hand saying he'd run into disputes about the Brian Sullivan/Tim Pawlenty endorsement contest. The word irredeemable came to mind. 

A party and its activist base that still can't get beyond those old battles is not one well positioned for the future, especially given how Donald Trump has scrambled old assumptions, political techniques and electoral strategies. This would be true even if a conventional, establishment candidate had somehow won against Hillary Clinton. It's all the worse given the political transformation the president-elect has wrought.

I was routinely teased, often mocked outright, on Twitter for suggesting a political realignment was coming but come it has, even including Minnesota. I asked everyone who talked to me as though I mattered, what we were going to do to capitalize on Trump's showing here? I got blank looks, or faux thoughtful pauses, before the individual plunged back into a narrative that showed no sign of noticing what we all just experienced. By this time I was reaching my limit of how many out of body experiences I could endure in a single evening. 

* * * * 

I run the risk of appearing naïve by recounting honestly my attendance at this Christmas party. It's a risk I'll take because the stakes are so high. The evening should have been a genuine celebration but the event celebrated came about largely despite, and not because of, so many who were there. Consequently the night was like a bad family reunion: no one really liking the others and attendance forced by circumstances that were inescapable.

That was the impermeable barrier I kept encountering despite being something of a standout because I attend so few of these events. My merely showing up was noticed and that discomforted me. I was more interested in knowing what we Minnesota republicans were going to do next. 

The answers to that query left me adrift. It was as though nothing extraordinary had happened. But it has and how we "lean forward" into it spells the difference between success--and keeping Minnesota from becoming a one party state--and failure, which ensures its advance. 

I have no dog in the gubernatorial fight. I want the candidate that can defeat who I think will be the DFL nominee: Tina Flint Smith or Sen. Tom Bakk. I don't think St. Paul mayor Chris Coleman can overcome the metro establishment support of the former but I've never worried overly much about being wrong. That way lies paralysis. 

Minnesota republicans have to heal themselves. If those old political wounds that were on display last Wednesday night still rankle, I don't know how they do so. Maybe, as I always have, talking about them in the open will help.

We owe that much to our voters, who happen to be real, live people. They voted for a flawed and a brilliant man for president, one whose personal shortcomings, much like their own, they saw past to a different and better future. 

How republicans make that future come about for the average Minnesotan is the abiding question of the next two years.

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

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.

* * * * 

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. 

* * * * 

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. 

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.

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.

MN Republicans & The Obscenity of 9-11 Truthers

Please click on the photo-above before continuing to read. I sometimes say, at the end of a post, that a photo can be enlarged. Here, however, it is crucial readers do first what I most often suggest last: click on the photo.

That's because there are human beings on those ledges, if you can call them ledges. Clutched onto the frames of windows never designed to be opened in buildings never thought to have been flown into.

Last Friday a local group brought in a Truther who had moved on since 9/11, as every good showman has since then. According to him & those like him, we killed those people you just looked at.

This charlatan's self-proclaimed mission is to be in search of the Truth. Aren't they all?

Google Ben Swann on your own.

It took me some time to realize that  preeminent Ron Paul supporters like Marianne Stebbins or Nathan M. Hansen, Esq., were not in attendance. Now why would that be? The groups that brought in this fraud seem to be different than the cultists who foisted the hapless Kurt Bills on us to run against Amy Klobuchar last year.

What appalled me last Friday wasn't that this infection of the Minnesota Republican Party finally brought to town their own political Cirque du Soleil, it's that republican candidates who think themselves serious and reputable attended, even sponsored this crime.

Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson was physically present before the VIP dinner but, from what I was told, didn't actually sit down to sup with the devil. Twitter has the photos. His campaign logo was featured on the scrim in the auditorium before the main event.

Also complicit was Phil Krinkie, who had a table in the foyer with literature and someone staffing it. Johnson did as well.

What's wrong with these people?

Not to be let off the hook is Dave Thompson, who I'm told had paid $200 in order to speak to the assembled believers of the theory that says 9-11 was an inside job. He only bailed out after those with a lick of common sense and some knowledge waved him off.  No points are awarded for the staggering poor judgment in wanting to speak in the first place. It is, though, in keeping with what Chris Van Guilder tweeted earlier in the week from the Carver County gubernatorial forum that Thompson fancies himself an "orator." Right.

I understand, if disagree, with candidates wanting to reach out to the so-called "liberty" people. If you want to infantilize yourself, knock yourself out. Johnson seems not to realize that the Ron Paul contingent is a shadow of itself. He misreads the zeitgeist continuously: get over it, he sanctimoniously lectured us in May 2012 at the MNGOP convention and then proceeded to complain forever about a rule change he didn't like at the RNC meeting that August in the hopes of ingratiating himself to the Paul faction.

It doesn't help that I admire Jeff personally and am grateful for his leadership for sound conservative principles on the Hennepin County Commission. Why he'd sponsor a 9-11 Truther gathering is simply beyond me.

The same can be said of Phil Krinkie and Dave Thompson: what were they thinking? Were they thinking? Yes, Thompson did not per se sponsor but had paid to speak. Krinkie didn't speak but had a table and recognition as a sponsor. It's all pretty much the same sin in my book.

I'm not like my liberal friends: I don't seek to extinguish speech with which I disagree. Let a hundred 9-11 flowers bloom. I do think, however, that lines can be drawn and cogently at that.

If you're offering yourself up for elected office as a republican in Minnesota, you have no business associating with ideas that make ourselves the murderers of ourselves, which is precisely what the Truthers believe. That you did so disqualifies you. Republicans should support anyone but them.



UPDATE/CORRECTION: I've been informed that Dave Thompson never paid anything when contemplating speaking at the event.

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?

What I Saw At The Minn Post Roast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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