Marty Seifert For Governor

I believe only Marty Seifert can defeat Mark Dayton. Because of that belief, I'm announcing my support for him to be our republican endorsed candidate.

I previously, and very early, supported Scott Honour. I did so because at the time I thought a competent businessman with real ties to Minnesota, one who, for G-d's sake, was raised in a trailer, could have a real shot against the perpetually damaged Mark Dayton. Unfortunately, there was no growth in either the candidate or his campaign. I hope Scott, an honorable man, continues to be active in politics as I think he can make an important contribution to Minnesota. At the end of the day, however, his campaign wasn't enough in this cycle and we can't beat something with nothing.

Seifert has undeniable appeal to Greater Minnesota and rightly so. This kind of candidate is the only way we republicans can take back the governorship. Seifert has been calm and cool in this regard. Remember: he got into this race relatively late. All the better for his cool head. That bespeaks a confidence not found in other candidates.

Seifert has the only balanced ticket. Geography and gender matter, no matter how much that makes me roll my eyes: it remains true and these things count. They count if you want to win.

The issues also favor a Seifert/Myhra ticket: mining in the northeast of the state, the ridiculous light rail projects that are disfiguring our two major cities and environs, and the malignant Met Council. This is a ticket that can reach out and get independent and moderate democrat voters. Any republican who wants to win must be able to do so.

Marty Seifert can bring the fight to Mark Dayton. Money alone can't win races although this is heresy in some republican circles this cycle. But it's true. A good candidate is fundamental. The old rules still apply. Seifert knows this. Seifert can win.

This weekend in Rochester, I encourage fellow delegates to endorse him.

India's Cataclysmic Election & Narendra Modi

India's poor voted to no longer be poor.

That's the level best I can do in trying to get across to Americans the scope and significance of India's election returns, which started coming in to us last night and continued throughout the day. The scope of Narendra Modi's victory can hardly be overstated. In fact, it left virtually all political observers in and out of India grasping for words, for metaphors, for some image that can adequately convey what is clearly a historical turning point for the world's largest democracy and, consequently, the world itself.

Modi's political party, the center-right Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP, won in almost every state, in every direction throughout India, in areas where it hadn't won for a long time and in many cases where it never had before. In India's parliamentary system, a total of 272 seats are needed to form a government and for the last several decades they have been coalitions of various parties, with the Congress Party ruling for the most part. Congress is the party of Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and most recently Sonia Gandhi, who took over after the assassination of Rajiv, her husband. These Gandhis have no relation to India's most famous one, Mahatma Gandhi.

Modi was the former Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat, population 50 million. His achievements there were nothing less than spectacular, ensuring steady power to homes and businesses, clean water, sound education to every level of society and more. In short, Gujarat worked because Modi worked. He took his tested accomplishments to the nation and, fundamentally, asked it if it wanted to stay poor under Congress and its allies or if it was ready for the future, for India's destiny. The answer astonished even the most jaded.

The BJP won a governing majority outright, with 285 seats. Together with parties aligned with it, the number reaches 340 out of a total of 543 seats. India has never seen election results like this. I won't belabor the details here because I wanted to give Americans a quick understanding of this election, the consequences which will play out dramatically in the next five years.

However, readers should know that in the West the backlash against Modi has already begun. Why might this be? Because India has slaughtered liberalism on a scale unprecedented in the modern age. Everything generally liberal or progressive in the West was embodied in the Congress Party. A nation of more than one billion has turned its back on it; from this there is no return.

Consequently liberals in the West, in the media and academe, will say the usual tired things about Modi they said about Reagan, or Thatcher, or to a lesser extent Deng Xiaoping, each a leader who transformed their country.

Don't buy the criticism, especially that Modi ignored communal rioting in 2002 that left many dead, mostly Muslims. That charge has been thoroughly vetted in India and was found to be without merit. This doesn't stop Westernized Indian liberals like the ridiculous Pankaj Mishra from claiming the world's largest democracy just elected a mass murderer. Right. Couldn't he at least have worked in climate change to the mix? In America, the once respected magazine The New Republic was hot off the blocks in making a similar but less pointed case against Modi. Yes, that's all they've got but a wholesale rejection of liberalism in India puts the entire world's liberal agenda in peril. Good.

While I said at the start that India's poor no longer wished to remain so, clearly most other segments of society in the world's most diverse country also saw something in voting for Modi. There is no other way to explain 340 seats in parliament. Remember this when the intellectual thugs and despots of the Left come calling to trash this election and results.

Yet, if you're for the advancement of the human condition, if you're for the dignity of the human person, if you're for compassion instead of suffering, if you're for the equality of women, if you're for the advancement of culture, technology and knowledge, you'll welcome the advent of Prime Minister Modi.

But mostly, here's to the average Indian voter, literate or illiterate, who had the courage and genius to realize that the future does not come often in elections and as a nation seized it with both hands.

Mike McFadden For Senate & Republican Denial

The political mise-en-scène was to have an accomplished private sector man with no record, capable of being programmed by Norm Coleman and Vin Weber to be a plausible alternative to Al Franken, thereby clearing the field of competitors and uniting the Minnesota republican party after a cycle controlled by Ron Paul zealots now returned to party regulars. The Cipher Candidate™ would mouth enough generic platitudes to convince the activist base to fall in behind him and the large money needed in order to take out Franken would flow, the implicit representation being that here was a guy who could self-fund if needed (never true).

Before that scene could be shot, however, reality intervened, leaving the script in tatters.

The first thing anyone learned about the previously unheard of McFadden was that he was wealthy (he's more like Euro trash wealthy; he's not, for example, Alida Rockefeller "we don't smile we're so wealthy"). The second thing you learned about him was that he was going to a primary, period. Curiously little attention or thought was given by the base and activists to this arrogant pronunciamento. If he's so great, wouldn't he win the endorsement by acclamation?

To be fair, the last time a republican endorsing convention offered up a senate candidate they gave Minnesota Kurt Bills, so one can't fault the men behind the curtain from being leery. But two years is a long time in politics and if either of these influence peddlers without scruples had been paying attention, they'd have realized May 2012 in St. Cloud was the Paulers' high water mark. For a trip down memory lane, you can read what I wrote about it at the time, "What I Saw At The Hemp & Raw Milk Revolution," by clicking here.

The McFadden campaign, however, has turned out to be a case study in tone deaf kingmakers, money men, consultants and staff. I realize Mike's the actual candidate but I put him last in assigning blame for the ridiculous show to which Minnesota republicans have thus far been treated. Somehow, in my heart of hearts, I just know he was told it would be very different.

The decision was made to keep McFadden from much exposure to the base. This was very stupid, but Vin Weber crowed to MinnPost that it was exactly the right move, keeping him on the phone dialing for dollars. The reporter never thought to ask Weber why the candidate couldn't have done both; most do. As a result, the ones McFadden most needed to get to know never got a chance to meet him. As time wore on, it became clear that it was actually McFadden who desperately needed the exposure to the base, not the other way around. Having squandered virtually all of 2013 by keeping him under wraps, his consultant driven handlers tried deploying him as a real person in 2014 with increasingly disastrous results.

The two most recent events should suffice as I've blogged about this campaign for some time and interested readers can click on the archives to the right should they wish to read that analysis.

The first involves McFadden campaign manager Brad Herold traveling to Washington, DC to hold a press availability about the career of Mike McFadden, without the career guy himself present. This was bizarre but in the cloistered world of consultants it somehow made sense. OK then.

The campaign tried to thread the needle between different types of equity: investment bankers (McFadden) as opposed to private equity (Mitt Romney). The point of the event was to make the useless, and graceless, point that McFadden isn't Romney. I look forward to another such event where they try to differentiate the unknown McFadden from, say, David Duke. Why not? You never know what that dastardly Al Franken may throw our hero's way!

And isn't always being on defense the best way to win an election? The Star Tribune's story can be read by clicking here. McFadden's Twitter supporters were left to critique the media, which is a topic I pretty much own in this town but anything to avoid blaming an awful campaign.

The second recent event involved Mike as Daniel: into the den of Tea Partiers went he.

I actually was fascinated by this decision when it was announced a week or ten days ago (who can keep track of time, especially when on Twitter a lot?). Jake Duesenberg & Jack Rogers have ginned up the Tea Party in Minnesota this cycle. While I'm not a per se Tea Party republican, I welcome everyone into the tent who wants to defeat democrats.  Jake & Jack had previously been rather harsh on Mike for avoiding the Tea Party and the conservative base. Hence the about face of the McFadden team to have Mike address the North Metro Tea Party last week made me wonder if they couldn't yet get it together.

Turns out they couldn't and then some. Disastrously so.

How could The Borg not prepare MM for what he would encounter there? How could he so obviously filibuster in order to avoid answering questions? How could he be so cringe-inducingly unprepared to answer just the basics? Why bother to attend when he said he needed to leave after a mere 40 minutes? Even then, after getting off the stage, he mixed with attendees as Duesenberg asked him from the stage if he hadn't said he needed to get going? This was after McFadden called for an end to the republican circular firing squad only to have a boisterous member of the audience point out that going to a primary constitutes holding the gun. Before the event staffers patrolled the premises attempting to keep people from recording him. Remember, it's the smart set running this campaign.

Worse, how could one of McFadden's high ranking aides appear to threaten Duesenberg? That, at least, is the allegation. From a public relations standpoint, this appearance could not have gone worse if Al Franken was in disguise advising.

The Star Tribune's Rachel Stassen-Berger wrote up the proceedings which can be read by clicking here. Jake Duesenberg put his own thoughts together on Facebook, which can be read by clicking here.

A depressingly large number of republicans have bought into this dog and pony show; their better judgment clearly eclipsed. Some of them are my friends; some of them used to be. Funny, that.

At the end of the day, however, almost all of them know, at some level or another, that the guy they saw stumble through his own press conference last month can't beat Al Franken. They've already signed onto the effort, however, and see no realistic (for them) reason to either abandon this sinking ship or switch outright to another candidate. So they bide their time, thinking the endorsement means nothing and that the primary will vindicate their readiness to be bought.

Except that McFadden winning the primary is another word for Franken winning the general. And for their dishonesty in refusing to admit that there is still time to select another, infinitely more qualified and viable candidate, I cannot forgive them.

The Triumph of Representative Mary Franson

"Go fuck yourself."

I still have that charming Twitter direct message to me from the then Minnesota Republican House Director of Media Services sent that Friday night years ago when freshman Representative Mary Franson (HD 8B) released a poorly scripted video to her constituents. I saw the Left immediately swing into action online, vicious as always, claiming Franson actually believed poor people were animals. The point of departure for such a preposterous claim was her video in which she analogized from national park warnings not to feed the animals because it creates dependency in them. The rest of the faux outrage was as we have come to expect.

Only our side wasn't coming to Mary Franson's defense. I'd never heard of, let alone met, the woman. But it was clear this was the first time at this particular rodeo for her and I wondered why republicans wouldn't push back against such a preposterous narrative. No, the initial response was panic and spinelessness, something of a norm for Minnesota republican staffer types and their equally gutless bosses. When I argued privately on Twitter that removing Franson's video would only make matters worse, implicitly agreeing with far left wackos that she called poor people animals, I received the direct message which leads off this post.

Lovely.

Not only did we not have the instincts to fight for one of our own, we were ready to throw her overboard in the hopes that other members of the House republican caucus would not be damaged by this one silly video. This response only leads to the other side continuing with outrageous and silly claims, claims we legitimate by our cowardly reactions. Enough.

In the days that followed I learned the details of Franson's life and career: here was a single mother of three who overcame repeated adversity to advance in life and now was a member of the Minnesota legislature. As I've said before, if this were the story of a DFL woman, Minnesota media would have made her a household name, showering her with praise.

During the week that followed the rent a mob from the unionized Left demonstrated at committee hearings that Franson needed to resign. She endured this thuggery--shall we call it bullying?--with quiet grace. By the end of the week she agreed to go on Sue Jeffer's widely listened to Saturday radio show.

The day before that, however, the head of a so called "women's group" contacted Jeffers and demanded that she not have Franson on her show. Republican women, ladies and gentlemen, and this example from four years ago. It's only gotten worse since.

Jeffers was having none of it and Franson had already rebuffed pressure not to appear from this same woman and the show duly aired. I was appalled that any such thing had been contemplated or attempted, especially by a woman's group doing the bidding of male party leadership. "Kapos in the republican sexism camps" as I called them earlier this year.

Franson's first term was rocky by her own admission, not that the party came to her aid in helping her navigate the pitfalls of being a public official. In fact, House leadership pressured her not to run again, push-polling in her district and her district only, pointedly suggesting that if she didn't run again a full time job could be found for her. Somehow I think the replacement for her wasn't going to be another woman, though I have no proof of that.

Franson won reelection by one vote; then by 12 after a recount. Lesson learned.

Franson's second term was demonstrably improved. She rose to the challenge of being a strong advocate on those issues of importance to her but without the missteps that could give her enemies, inside and outside the party, ammunition. She dressed, spoke and acted the part of a state legislator.

Yet this year she was challenged by a disgruntled far right activist in her own district for the endorsement. Saturday, after many ballots and a disturbing smear campaign (by Christians, naturally!), Mary Franson won the endorsement. Virtually everything that's wrong with the republican party of Minnesota can be found in that endorsement battle. For a change, the good guy won and the relief on Twitter was palpable. Franson's challenger hasn't said whether she'd abide by the endorsement. What schizophrenia?

Mary Franson embodies everything that the rest of us merely talk about: a citizen legislator. Before holding office, Mary was a daycare provider. Does it get any more authentic than that? Can we check our impulse to knife her in the back long enough to appreciate the personal virtues and integrity she demonstrates by overcoming adversity in life and succeeding? If she doesn't embody what we think we are all about, I submit no one does.

But she does. I'm proud to call Mary Franson my friend but even prouder to call her a republican member of the Minnesota legislature. Whether her horrid opponent challenges her in a primary or not, Mary could use every single dollar you can send her way. Please click here to do so.

Republicans' Endorsement Schizophrenia

Last weekend three republican congressional districts held their endorsing conventions. In CD 8 Stewart Mills was endorsed to run against current DFL Congressman Rick Nolan. By any measure this race will be one to watch as Mills could well defeat Nolan. In CD 5, Doug Daggett won the right to be flattened by the repulsive, ignorant and divisive DFL Congressman Keith Ellison. In CD 6, the establishment muscled through Tom Emmer as its endorsed candidate to succeed retiring Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. There's a certain symmetry here: both are unaccomplished, bombastic and exist primarily to advance themselves. Naturally they each have lots of toady followers.

The 6th CD is an interesting case, probably the premier one, of what I term a certain republican schizophrenia about the endorsement process. We're told, on the one hand, that the endorsement is almost sacred and must be abided by if one is to be deemed a good republican.

On the other hand, Mike McFadden, running for the US Senate, has made plain since day one that he will go to a primary if he does not get the endorsement. In fact, he hasn't made a serious play for the endorsement and everyone--correctly in my view--assumes his strategy has been to win the primary. He and his supporters suffer no adverse consequence for this heresy. Indeed, not to support him for the nomination, as I do not, is to be seen as the odd man out, needlessly contrarian or just wrong. That's fine but it doesn't address the underlying schizophrenia.

Tom Emmer will face Anoka County Commission Chair Rhonda Sivarajah and Phil Krinkie, former legislator and past head of the Taxpayers League, in the August primary. Krinkie refused to attend the endorsing convention, while Sivarajah went to tell the delegates and alternates why she both sought their endorsement and would run in the primary. Her speech is worth reading and can be done so by clicking here. Full disclosure: I wrote it but the thoughts and ideas are Rhonda's, as was the courage it took to go and make it in person.

Republicans in Minnesota have a problem when it comes to the endorsement. The problem isn't mine because I favor the primary system and so do a good many others. My friend Jeff Kolb, for example, shares my view (especially about moving forward any primary date from August to June) even though he's a supporter of McFadden. Jeff is running for the city council of Crystal and deserves widespread support. Please go here to donate and go here to read his blog. I didn't find his post in support in support of McFadden particularly persuasive but read him and make up your own mind. To be fair, he posted before McFadden called a press conference last week and committed seppuku. Kolb is one republican who isn't schizophrenic, however, and that's a plus in my book. We need more of them.

The delegates in CD 6 who endorsed Emmer and who feel offended, if not outraged, that others would run in the primary will doubtless, almost to a person, support McFadden in his primary run. They insist they aren't inconsistent but that's objectively untrue.

What I think is going on is a reluctance on the part of many, if not most, of these kind of republicans to admit the truth. In America's most tiresomely passive-aggressive state, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

The truth, however, needs to be said: in each instance these republicans are falling behind the establishment candidate.

Some on Twitter are too clever by half by asking just who is the establishment? Worse, some of them are among those who pretend we don't have a sexism problem in the republican party. Come to think of it, both forms of denial go hand in hand. No wonder we find ourselves in our current fix. We mock what scares us, what keeps us from being fully competitive with the democrats. Fortunately the blanket is big enough to accommodate the many pulling it over their heads.

I prefer the naked confession of going with the establishment guy (the establishment is rarely gal) instead of feigning respect for an endorsement process that has long outlived its usefulness and then abandoning it when convenient or because party peer pressure is too great to resist.

Republicans' inability to be honest about their endorsement schizophrenia is a stand-in for a multitude of other things we decline to face directly. If a party can't face itself, it can't face the voters. Which is another way of saying it's a party that has accommodated itself to losing.

Mike McFadden Embarrasses His Supporters

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nowhere man. But I repeat myself.

The McFadden Borg Becomes Self Aware

Last Friday Mike McFadden, the hand picked establishment candidate for the republican nomination to run against Al Franken this fall, surprised just about everyone by doing something he hadn't done often: showed up for a public republican senate forum.

I met McFadden for the first time at my senate district convention a week ago Saturday. I found him cordial, professional and personally self-possessed. There's not a lot of professionals left in any field but he's clearly one. I wanted to hire him immediately and I had no idea for what; just hire him. Preferably using someone else's money. This is his métier.

I called him a gentleman on Twitter and hoped that it wasn't so old school of me in using that term that people wouldn't get it. I meant it and my concerns have never been personal. He gave a fine speech before the delegates and then departed with his entourage, who went out of their way not to speak with me. Those types actually go far in Minnesota republican politics. Where do you think the current generation came from?

After Mike walked away, I thought: why have they been keeping this guy under wraps? He may not be a natural candidate but he struck me as eminently coachable and everyone running for office can benefit from proper coaching, especially one who has never run before. He could be good retail but that was never why he was picked in the first instance.

Elect the selected. ™ Jack and Annette need to deliver. No, you don't get a cut of the proceeds.

At any rate, McFadden showed for the republican CD 7 senatorial forum, held in Willmar on Friday evening, the night before its convention on Saturday. He had previously said he would not be attending, hence doing the right thing came as a surprise. You'd think this would be a natural inflection point for self reflection as to how his campaign had been programmed to date but you would be wrong.

The first question to the candidates was whether they would abide by the party endorsement. Apparently the buzz was literal in the room when McFadden said he would not. I'm not sure why this news is just reaching fellow republicans in CD 7 but there you have it; the assembled republicans were not amused. Twin Cities Metro Republicans™ twist themselves into incoherent knots attempting to make the case that the party establishment should wholly fall in behind the candidate who never once considered abiding by its imprimatur, while excoriating, for example, anyone who would do the same in the race to replace Michele Bachmann. None of them are looking particularly principled.

It must be said, though, they don't seem to mind!

CD 3 republicans also had their convention last Saturday and all the senate candidates showed up to appeal to them. State Sen. Julianne Ortman won the straw poll with over 40% of the vote. She's won every one of them to date. The anger this elicits from the old boys' network is barely concealed; at every turn they prove my case but without knowing it. Please, do continue.

I could be wrong but I think I understand the McFadden team's calculus: metrics such as straw polls are beside the point because winning a primary requires a different strategy altogether.

It can. It might. It doesn't have to.

I thought McFadden would have won that straw poll in a romp because CD 3 is filled with the types who enjoy not thinking for themselves as a sign of their political savvy. That he came in a distant second should sound warning bells to the newly self-aware borg but perhaps they haven't quite gotten the hang of things yet. It should pay attention because the results may foreshadow something ominous:

Is McFadden losing the primary by degrees even before the endorsing convention is a thing of the past?

Can carpet bombing hapless republican primary voters with direct mail pieces, likely to be as unsubstantial as the campaign run thus far, or pestering television viewers with ads cut from the same "green shirt" video, do the trick? Remember, that's the sophisticated thinking: money is pretty much everything in the race to compete against Franken.

To disagree with that premise isn't to say that money is unimportant, although that's frequently the response I get from "tell me what to do" republicans activists and pundits when the point is made.

Yet despite, not because of, all the money raised and spent to date, with promises of oceans more in the general election, the dogfood is not being eaten. If they don't eat it in the 3rd CD you might want to ask yourself if there's a larger problem with your overall strategy. The lazy assumption, widely shared I must disappointingly confess, is McFadden wins the primary easily over Dahlberg or Ortman because Minnesota republican primary voters are simply amoeba who respond predictably to changes in their petri dish.

Maybe he will but where's the evidence that remote forms of contact with voters will get them to support the guy whose team made it a point never to let them get to know in the first place? Who most of the time refused to let him show up and then crowed with self-congratulation when they did last weekend? Genius never looked so dense.

In my estimation, Minnesota republicans want an authentic fighter who will champion their values and policy positions but in a way that is inclusive and welcoming. None of them think it will be easy to defeat Franken but all of them think it's quite possible. I agree.

In order to do so, however, they have to have some connection with the candidate who is asking for their support. Tomorrow is the beginning of April, an awfully late date for those in charge of McFadden's campaign to realize the human element is always central in any race.

Team McFadden might be waking up just in time to catch the end of their own movie.

Andrew Bostrom: Iran's Plan To Annihilate Israel

On Saturday, March 29, at 11:00 a.m CDT, Dr. Andrew G. Bostom is my exclusive guest for the full hour on Gilmore & Glahn radio. I'll be hosting solo as Bill Glahn is on assignment. Note the one time shift in scheduling for the show.

Dr. Bostrom is an associate professor of medicine at Brown University. In addition, he is an accomplished author focusing on Iran's threat to Israel. His latest book, Iran's Final Solution For Israel, explains why, among the many enemies of Israel and the Jewish people, Iran is preeminent. He illuminates how the recent U.S. brokered “P5 + 1” agreement has abetted the post-Khomeini era Iranian theocracy’s annihilationist designs on Israel and its global hegemonic aspirations.

His just released book can be purchased by clicking here.

Listen to Dr. Bostom on Saturday at 11 a.m. by clicking here.   

The podcast will be linked to when available, shortly after broadcast.

Sarah Palin & Minnesota Republicans' Sexism

"The medicine it still won't work but there's dangerous levels of it here."
The New Pornographers 

Almost all of my friends are either on the make or want to be.

I never have been nor wanted. Their becoming such was so gradual I'm not sure they were aware of it. I imagine, in their own minds, they think of it somehow as progress in life. They keep getting promotions without a clue what to do next except get another. Early in life they find themselves empty; racing to get old, as Elvis Costello once put it.

In Minnesota, however, the republican young have been taught something else, which is not to think beyond establishment confines. Worse, obeying them is your path to advancement. See paragraph 2. They say fond things to each other on Twitter about Tim Pawlenty. It's enough to break your political heart.

Today Sarah Palin endorsed Julianne Ortman for the republican endorsement to run against Al Franken. The reaction now as compared to when she endorsed Tom Emmer in 2010 in his failed gubernatorial race is instructive as to where republicans in Minnesota find themselves generally with women today.

I resented it when Palin endorsed Tom Emmer in an endorsement contest. I think a primary is fair game for anyone to chime in. Palin should have endorsed Ortman if, and after, she received the endorsement of the Republican Party of Minnesota. I only look inconsistent to those not bright enough to keep up.

At any rate, the reaction of the so called most politically involved has been demonstrably different and it can't all be chalked up to four years having elapsed between the two endorsements, although that certainly is valid to factor in.

Palin endorsing the establishment man, good. Palin endorsing the non-establishment woman, bad.

It's not me, it's not Sarah, it's not Julianne.

It's you.

MN Republicans' Republican Women Problem

One doesn't have to buy into the ridiculous, but at times effective, invented progressive narrative that republicans have, or are waging, a war on women in order to be troubled by how the Republican

Party of Minnesota treats it own republican women. For a change, instead of women being their own worst enemy (Anatole France: "friendship among women is only the suspension of hostilities"), the locus of the problem can be laid squarely at the feet of republican men and a few but sufficient quisling women. And by the Republican Party, I mean republicans in Minnesota in general.

From the beginning of my involvement in local politics, I could sense some sort of problem with respect to republican women but could never quite put my finger on it. I'm not sure I can now, precisely, but I know the problem, far from being solved, has only gotten worse. Why is this?

I have no single, comprehensive answer; I don't think there is one. I do know republicans pretty much fail to admit to ourselves that the problem exists.

We currently have no women in party leadership, pretending for the moment that it's still relevant. Republicans had an amazing Senate Majority Leader when we held the majority for two fleeting years (had not men taken her out as collateral damage to their real (and male) target, we'd be running her for governor now). We also had women in key legislative positions for the first time in the state's history and that's not nothing, especially for the box checkers on the Left and their handmaidens in the press.

Now, however, the republican political environment seems to be about ignoring or, at times, trashing, qualified republican women candidates in ways that would never be done to male candidates. This is being played out before our eyes but goes largely unremarked upon.

The women who are currently experiencing the worst of this are Sen. Julianne Ortman, state senator running for the US Senate, Rhonda Sivarajah, Anoka County Commissioner, running for Congress in Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District and Rep. Mary Franson, representing House District 8B and currently being challenged for the endorsement.

Each has life stories and a history of public accomplishment which, if possessed by men, would cause them to be lauded and promoted at every turn. Instead, they are treated, at best, as if they don't exist. At worst, they're subjected to what strikes me as garden variety sexism.

Conventional wisdom views Ortman as an inconvenience en route to a McFadden primary win. The reality is that she has traveled the state tirelessly, making her case to the rank and file and answering questions instead of running from them. Polling shows her within single digits of Al Franken. She's won two straw polls that were said to be important until a woman won them. Like her or don't like her: she's the only authentic candidate in the US Senate race. Is it axiomatic we should support her because she's a woman? Of course not. By the same token, do we ever think of recruiting and nurturing women to run for statewide office? The evidence suggests not and rather conclusively. Chris Dahlberg is a likable candidate but he exists because Stanley Hubbard wanted him to run and is effectively funding the effort. Funny, no one asks if we should support Dahlberg because he's a man or the creature of a not very politically astute media mogul; that question never enters our consciousness.

Out-state money men like Vin Weber, Norm Coleman and Karl Rove handpicked the wealthy McFadden and Minnesota republicans are supposed to support him because of that fact. If you call them sheep, remember, you're the problem. McFadden, however, isn't the self-funder we've been led to believe, a realization that is dawning upon the big money donors who are not amused at being asked to fund an effort the candidate himself doesn't see as a wise investment. Add to this a genuinely disastrous performance thus far as a candidate and you have some quiet rethinking of this race. Yesterday the Cook Political Report put its McFadden assessment rather gingerly: "He's not a bad candidate. But he's got a way to go." Heckuva job, Beltway insiders, consultants and hangers on. You guys are pure genius.

Donors like Hubbard have given us Dahlberg, apparently for most of the same reasons as McFadden only this time Mr. Money Bags is in-state. Feel better?

Nowhere, however, has the egregious differential treatment between men and women in the republican party been more shamefully showcased than in Rhonda Sivarajah's race to replace Michele Bachmann. Sivarajah's record of conservative accomplishment is unmatched by anyone in the state; this sounds like hyperbole but it is not. Some things really are true.

Her support is thin to moderate generally and almost non-existent in the establishment. Again, she doesn't deserve support solely because she's a woman. But when a republican woman this accomplished isn't supported more widely and deeply, something is objectively amiss. Most activists don't want to face this because they are complicit in it: they need a job, a come back, a rung up the ladder, the approval of their peers. It's all rather transparent and the more pitiful for it.

Let's try this: would Sivarajah be supported if she ran a disastrous campaign and lost to Mark Dayton, depriving Minnesota of an all-republican led state? Would she be taken seriously if she had two DUIs and introduced legislation that would have had the effect of making such a history less discoverable? Would she be supported if she introduced legislation attempting to limit speech rights? What about if she lost the RNC race and fled the building, refusing to congratulate the winner? How about if she was paid by far left extremists to support National Popular Vote, which would eviscerate the Electoral College and have made Al Gore president?

The answer is a resounding no but these things all have been done by Tom Emmer and he's the establishment favorite. He's accomplished nothing, of course, but that probably makes him one of them. Women like Sivarajah frighten them to death precisely because she's successful. Think of the establishment as mediocrities who like having similar people around them; as the boss that wouldn't promote you because you were smarter and you both knew it.

Astonishingly, not one but three sitting Congressmen jumped into the 6th CD endorsement process last week by hosting an hour "coffee" on behalf of Emmer in Washington, DC. The invitation to that squalid event can be viewed by clicking here. Many of us have been told that we should butt out of this race because we don't live in the district. I've not heard that criticism lodged against Reps. Paulsen and Kline, who are at least from Minnesota. Wisconsin Rep. and perpetual boy scout Sean Duffy joined the other two in hosting this event. I like all three, politics and office holders being the art of the possible, but none should have jumped in before a primary. That they did, and in support of a deeply flawed man, in the teeth of a substantially better qualified woman candidate, can and should be held against them. On a different plane altogether, they illustrate Minnesota republicans' problems with republican women: they just don't get it.

Finally, the current situation of state Rep. Mary Franson is an illustration of both gender and integrity problems amongst republicans. Franson is being challenged for the endorsement by an opponent who attacks her for introducing a civil unions bill during the marriage debate in the hope of garnering democratic votes so same sex marriage wouldn't pass. The other ersatz substantive issue in the race is her bill for industrial hemp production. The first issue is marriage; the second is liberty.

So where are all the sanctimonious FitzSimmons Republicans™? They put on ostentatious displays of feelings! and outrage! when delegates to house district 30B denied him the endorsement over same sex marriage. Why haven't they flocked to support Mary Franson who is under different but similar attack?

Because more than self-absorption and cost-free moral preening is required here. FitzSimmons Republicans™ are really Twin Cities Metro Republicans.™

If the sentiment underlying FitzSimmons' endorsement loss was anything but self-indulgence, it would have already transferred to Mary Franson's race. But it hasn't. Draw your own conclusions. I have.

Leave aside the individual examples of these three different women; I can anticipate particular criticisms made about each of them in order to discredit the general point made here. That's fine, but the situation for republican women only gets worse at the group level.

Recently the DFL hosted a DFL Hall of Fame for Women. Yes, cheesy, everyone got a participation ribbon. But the event itself reveals an underlying appreciation of women that is simply missing in Minnesota republican politics. Some women thrive but mostly on their own and are cut adrift when it suits men; most republican women are not encouraged and cultivated like women are by democrats in this state. It's so obvious it defies refutation.

"A-list" republican women consultants in Minnesota? Name one outside of fundraising. Funny how that works. We have a deep bench, however, of teacher's pets who are allowed to embroider on the edge of the tapestry and for which honor they are grateful. Their ascendance is like the rise of a temperature along with the fever. These women actually bask in the praise of these men the rest of us have seen through. They're kapos in the republican sexism camps.

Republican approved vendors who are women? None come to mind but the old boys' network does instantly, along with their shopworn, outdated direct mail campaigns foisted on hapless candidates until their funds run dry.

How about big money republican women donors? Joan Cummins doesn't count, thanks for the damage. No, can't think of any independent wealthy republican women who are heavy hitters in the donor class.

Both at the individual and the group level, Minnesota republicans must take women seriously in all ways political: real, substantive, powerful political ways. It's embarrassing to have to write this.

It's also a sign of how messed up things are that it's a guy who is writing about it. Then again, if a woman did, republicans would pay her no mind.