Its an epidemic.
Archive for February, 2008
Norm Coleman is afraid, very afraid.
On Thursday, Coleman acknowledged that his campaign is taking Franken’s candidacy seriously.
“[The election] will be difficult and challenging,” Coleman said in a phone interview with the People’s Press.
Franken has not only been able to raise a lot of money, but he has won numerous endorsements from elected officials and unions and has caught up to Coleman in election polls.
Just how frightened is Coleman of Franken? It would appear that he has thrown his support behind Mike Ciresi in the DFL endorsement contest.
At the same time, Coleman said Franken has not been around Minnesota as long compared to he and Mike Ciresi, Franken’s main opponent for the Democratic endorsement.
Furthermore, Coleman said Franken is defined for his work on Air America, his “angry diatribes” and for “divisive, negative language” he’s used.
“Part of what you see is what you have,” Coleman said.
He added that Franken’s presence in the Senate would be as polarizing as having conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Ciresi, on the other hand, is more defined in Minnesota and Coleman said it begs activists to ask the question about who they should support.
Poor Mike Ciresi. A Norm Coleman endorsement is the last thing he needs.
A little bit more reaction to the Seifert moderaticide.
All that being the case, the punishment meted out by House Minority Leader Marty Seifert to his six caucusmates who voted for the transportation bill seems unseemly.
Seifert announced Tuesday that he would strip the six of their leadership positions, and he threatened to withdraw reelection campaign help. It’s believed to be an unprecedented retaliation in modern times. Nothing comparable, for example, befell the probusiness “Woodticks” within the DFL caucus in the 1980s.
The six GOP supporters of the transportation bill merely did what all 201 legislators routinely vow to do: They voted their consciences.
Lori Sturdevant - Star Tribune
(Dr. No and his radical anti-transportation allies are still going batty, kneecapping rogue Republican lawmakers who — zut alors! — voted their consciences and threatening revenge against those big-spending libs from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce who supported the override. The word “meltdown” comes to mind).
Nick Coleman - Star Tribune
Brian Melendez, the chair of the DFL, and Donna Cassutt the associate chair of the DFL have both announced that they will be supporting Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in August where they will be super delegates.
Joe Bodell has another section of their letter up, and according to DemConWatch, Obama has an 8-3 advantage in superdelegates with Nancy Larson , Colin Peterson and Amy Klobuchar as the only MN superdelegates who haven’t publicly announced their votes.
[Update:] At 10:30 the UpTake will be covering Melendez and Cassutt’s press conference live.
The press release after the jump, and an excerpt from their letter to the State Central Committee .
Well it seems our little story yesterday about two identical anti-Franken letters to the editor showing up in two local papers under different names has blown up into national news. As we reported, the two letters were traced back to the Coleman campaign. Later in the day yesterday MPR reported that the Coleman campaign apologized to the papers in reaction to the incident.
But today the story appeared in Crooks & Liars, Hullabaloo, Daily Kos, and last but not least, the AP… twice. While the title of the Daily Kos story takes the first prize (”Smears you can Xerox”), I do have to applaud the Coleman campaign for taking credit for these weak tactics. Coleman’s campaign manager, Cullen Sheehan, in the AP article:
Our volunteers were not given a clear enough description of what our policy was, and in no way shape or form should they be held responsible for our failure to execute that policy.
What was revealed in the AP article that we were not yet aware of was the fact that the letter also showed up in Winona State University’s paper, Winonan. Which brings me to the most pointed question out of this story yet:
[A]sked Franken campaign spokesman Andy Barr, “how many were submitted, including those that were not printed? And was this the first time the Coleman campaign has used this tactic, or just the first time they got caught?” [AP]
12:38pm - MOLNAU FIRED! Final vote 22 in favor of confirmation, 44 against. I believe it was a party line vote, but I couldn’t see the board that well. I think Ron Latz was the only Senator not voting.
12:33pm - David Senjem called Carol Molnau “one of the finest public servants in the history of the state.” Are you kidding me? More Senjem: “Where I come from you call this a political execution.”
12:18pm - Katie Sieben (DFL - Newport) says “my vote is not personal, and its not political.” Sieben cites the Wakota Bridge debacle and the Hastings Bridge as evidence of Molnau’s incompetence.
12:15pm - Ray Vandeveer: “This is how you are going to treat the first woman Commissioner of MN DOT?” Man, the Republicans are really playing the gender card.
12:12pm - Dille’s motion fails 22-43. I didn’t see any party crossovers, but I can’t be sure, my video feed isn’t all that great.
12:10pm - Steve Dille is speaking now. He voted for the override, but he doesn’t want to can Molnau. He’s talking about forgiveness, with the way the Repubs are treating the override six, I imagine he’s been making this speech frequently. Dille moves to lay the confirmation vote on the table. Roll Call Vote.
12:05pm - He’s Baack. Dick Day is speaking again and again claiming that we’ve underfunded transportation. Perhaps Senator Day is regretting his override vote.
High noon - There is another speaking disparity. 8 11 Republicans have spoken (36% 50% of their caucus) compared to just 2 3 DFLers (4% 7% of their caucus).
11:58am - Poggemiller: “it is a simple fact that the level of leadership in this department is not what Minnesotans deserve.”
11:50am - Assassination seems to the word of the day. Michael Jungbauer just called Molnau’s firing “character assassination”
11:44am - Betsy Wergin (R - Princeton) is now defending Molnau. There was some speculation that the some Republican Senators might go along with the Molnau firing, but so far that is not the case. We’ll see what the final vote is.
11:40am - Claire Robling (R-Jordan) says Molnau has been her mentor.
11:36am - David Hann (R - Eden Prairie) is speaking. “She has done a great job.” Accuses the DFL of a “political assassination” More Hann: “Our roads are in great shape.”
11:33am - Day is still speaking, his basic argument is that the DFL hasn’t given Molnau enough money to do her job. But, Dick, you voted against the override…remember?
11:31am - Dick Day is speaking now. He’s claiming that the DFL has never done anything for transportation until yesterday. Well, Dick, that would be because Gov. T-Paw has been exercising his veto pretty regularly. “Why isn’t society blaming us?” Dick, you really want the blame? More Day: “I don’t know if there is something about women and jobs…” Is Dick Day accusing the DFL majority of sexism?
11:29am - Steve Murphy is speaking. Short speech, asks for a roll call vote.
Robert Novak doesn’t like Tim Pawlenty. Yesterday, he took a quick shot at the guv in the ENPR. Little did we know that was just the begining. Today, Novak unloads on Timmy in an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “How Not to Run for Vice President”
Minnesota’s Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, carefully prepared his plan for controlling greenhouse gas emissions to present it at the annual winter meeting of governors in Washington. That effort coincided with Pawlenty’s fast-rising prospects to become Sen. John McCain’s choice for vice president. But behind closed doors, governors from energy-producing states complained so vigorously that Pawlenty’s proposal was buried.
Pawlenty’s position as chairman of the National Governors Association may prove to be his undoing. While party insiders sing his praises as ideal to be McCain’s running mate, leading conservative Republican governors have been less than pleased with him.
Curious how Marty Seifert’s moderaticide is playing across the state? Check out these editorials (I already posted the St. Cloud Times’ editorial on the subject):
Hardball politics at its worst raised its ugly head Monday when Republican Party leaders in Minnesota dropped not-so-subtle hints that those party members who went against Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s veto on transportation will pay…
Republican House Minority Leader Marty Seifert on Tuesday stripped all six Republicans who broke ranks of their leadership positions. This is the epitome of heavy-handed politics people are sick of. It’s a politics that puts the party before the people. It’s dirty, backroom politics that crowds out dissent and potential good ideas…
[Abeler] speaks in the tradition of honest and clean Minnesota politics. Unfortunately, Republican Party leaders do not consider these traditions very sacred anymore.
The significance of this event grows in light of the fact that Republicans made it possible. Six representatives in the House broke ranks with GOP leadership to give the DFL the votes they needed. And, in what might be an even braver move, two Republicans in the Senate also stood against the governor. The DFLers had plenty of votes without them, so it would have been easy to side with the GOP, yet they chose to take the hard road of voting their conscience.
The price they pay for breaking ranks could be high. Even before the votes were cast, state GOP Chairman Ron Carey hinted that defectors from the party line would face retribution. Some incumbents won’t get party endorsements or resources in their re-election campaigns, and at least one Republican has been asked to step down from his committee appointments. Others appear likely to suffer similar fates.
If this saga became a reality TV program, it would titled “Politicians behaving badly.” Such bullying only reinforces the commonly held notion that once elected, our officials are expected to put party loyalty above everything else. Sure, free thinking and the marketplace of ideas are fine on the campaign trail or in meet-and-greets with constituents, but when the time comes to stand up and be counted, our representatives must fall in line or risk being kicked out of the game.
Is it naive to long for the day when our elected officials can disagree, negotiate, cast their votes — and then shake hands and move on to the next order of business, even if they occasionally wander from the party’s ideological straight and narrow? Perhaps. But we’d argue that when incumbent politicians must tread far more carefully among their comrades than among their foes, something has gone very wrong.
More after the jump…
Continue reading ‘House Republican Caucus: Moderates Need Not Apply #7′
Confused about this whole subprime mess? Let these stick figures explain it to you.
Mere hours after we originally reported on the issue, Norm Coleman’s campaign is featured in a front page article on MPR’s website apologizing for the inappropriate seeding of two identical letters to the editor. MPR reports:
Republican Sen. Norm Coleman’s re-election campaign is apologizing to two Minnesota newspapers for two nearly identical letters to the editor that ended up published under two different names. The campaign acknowledges a staffer was behind the letters.
The letters, critical of DFL Senate candidate Al Franken, appeared in the Minnesota Daily and the Winona Daily News.
Coleman campaign spokesman Cullen Sheehan said one of his staffers sent the letters to at least two people who then sent them to the newspapers under their own name.
Sheehan said the letters should not have been sent to the newspapers the way they were.
“It’s a mistake, but in the realm of the campaign, it’s a mistake you learn from, and you move on and it’s not going to happen again.”
The Franken campaign said it wants to know if the Coleman campaign has used similar tactics in the past.
The full story along with the text of the two letters can be found in our post from earlier today.
Robert Novak says the NGA Meetings didn’t help Tim Pawlenty’s VP Chances:
It was a less favorable NGA meeting for the organization’s chairman, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. His carbon-emissions proposal was shot down by bipartisan opposition from the coal-oil bloc of governors, and that did not help his vice presidential aspirations.
Man, Timmy missed the override vote for that?
Update: This wasn’t the only political hit Pawlenty took this week this quest to be his party’s nominee for Vice President. The veto override made him look weak at best or fiscaly impure at worst. What do I mean when I say fiscally impure? Pawlenty’s strength in the Veepstakes is that he can credibly claim that he checks all the conservative boxes. He’s got both a socially and fiscally conservative record. He has even done the requisite ammount of immigrant bashing, notable given that he is Governor of Minnesota (and not, well, any state with a huge illegal immigrant population). But if reports like this one from Mary LaHammer are true, T-Paw’s rep as a no new taxes stalwart might take a hit:
It appears an override attempt in the House is going to go through today. The biggest news may be that the governor appears to have let Republicans off the hook. Last week we reported that Gov. Pawlenty visited the House Republican caucus. According to a leading House Republican, the governor told House Republicans if 5-10 of them had to override than they were supposed to just do it on the first attempt. Some caucus members said if they knew the governor was going to say that they wouldn’t have invited him. Some of the Republicans who voted for the bill are saying they’re doing this for the governor because the bridge collapse and the fact “he’s boxed himself in on transportation.”
Grover wouldn’t be happy to read that. Or this…
Republican lawmakers were annoyed Pawlenty was gone in D.C. for days during the critical override. Sure, he worked the phones. But on those phone calls the recipients say it was a pretty soft sell, telling them to just “vote their conscience.” Then there’s the now famous comment in caucus that if some Republicans did decide to override to do it on the first attempt. With a fierce tone the governor made it clear he didn’t mean that to let Republicans off the hook. Republican lawmakers felt otherwise.
Ouch.
Aaron Brown of Minnesota Brown, a fantastic blog based way up on the Iron Range, has a great post on the practical political consequences of the moderate purge going on inside of the House Republican Caucus. Here at MN Publius, we’ve focused in on what this says about the broader trend of suburban moderates fleeing the Republican party. But Aaron points out that Seifert’s crusade against moderation actually weakens his position in the Legislature.
I am not surprised that die-hard GOPers would be upset with this group breaking ranks, but I am surprised that they’re basically excommunicating the whole lot of them despite the Republicans’ status as an almost feckless minority in the House. If these six somewhat moderate Republicans were to switch parties or lose to more conservative opponents (who would be prime targets in the Fall), we would see a DFL legislature that can and would override Pawlenty all the time until he leaves office. I just don’t get it.
At this rate, the House Republican caucus of 2009 will include Rep. Marty Seifert, the Monopoly guy and Skeletor. That’s a pretty bad ass group, but they won’t be able to stop universal health care, a stronger education system or tax reform. And that’s good news for DFLers, independents and moderate Republicans. You know, most Minnesotans.
So true.
We reported this morning about a lawsuit that had been filed against Randy Demmer a little more than 10 years ago and how the merits of the suit were unclear at best. We made attempts to contact numerous people involved with the case and Randy Demmer’s campaign sent us further information this morning which we relayed. As the day has progressed it has become increasingly apparent that this is a game of intra-party dirty politics.
Even more troubling is the manner in which this game developed. The Rochester Post Bulletin reports:
A couple weeks ago, state Rep. Randy Demmer received an ominous call. It was a warning, delivered through an intermediary from Washington, D.C.: Drop your candidacy for U.S. Congress or information about a sexual harassment lawsuit settled a decade ago would be dredged up to damage your campaign.
Threatening a State Legislator like this is on its face reprehensible, but this is especially remarkable as it seems that the lawsuit is without merit and doesn’t pose any real challenge to Demmer’s campaign.
Having a better perspective on the whole story at this hour, it looks as though this is just a dirty game of mud-flinging, but the question remains: who is the mud-flinger? Bluestem Prairie provides thoughtful analysis:
Despite a comment in the Post, this doesn’t look like a story driven by Demmer’s Democratic opponents, but rather an internal partisan battle. After all, there would have been no incentive for the DFL to ask Demmer to drop out before the Republican endorsing convention at the end of March.
Bluestem Prairie’s hypothesis that it’s none other than 1st CD GOP candidate Brian Davis or his allies. No one really knows, but Bluestem’s final word seems sound:
We don’t know if Demmer or Davis tipped off a lefty blogger about the lawsuits. But the story isn’t the lawsuits: it’s the strong possibility of Davis’ dirty campaigning–while publicly claiming victimization at the county convention last weekend.
OK, we don’t know that much yet. But Mary LaHammer reports that the Senate will take up Molnau’s confirmation tomorrow:
I’ve now had it confirmed from several sources, the Senate plans to take up the confirmation of Lt. Gov./Transportation Commissioner this Thursday on the Senate floor. The floor session is scheduled for 11:00am, the same time the budget forecast is going to be released.
I have a better chance at being MN DOT Commissioner on Friday than Carol Molnau.
(This is a bit long, but stick with me, it’s unbelievable)
On January 25th the Minnesota Daily published a letter to the editor from Abul-Rahman Magba-Kamara, chairman of the UMN College Republicans. The letter’s a bit too long to post in the body here, but you can find the whole text below the fold or on the paper’s site here. But, just to give you a taste, here’s the first paragraph:
Al Franken’s traveled around the state to college campuses trying to get the votes of young people. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television commercials trying to portray himself as a nice guy. He even enlisted his fourth-grade teacher to give a testimonial about what a nice boy he was in elementary school.
A week later on February 7th, The Winona Daily News published a letter to the editor from Samantha Gronlund, a Winona State University student. Again, the letter’s a bit too long but the text is below the fold and can be found on the paper’s site here. And, again, here’s the first paragraph:
Al Franken’s travels around the state to college campuses trying to get the votes of young people are well documented. He has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television commercials trying to portray himself as a nice guy. He has even enlisted his fourth grade teacher to give a testimonial about what a nice boy he was in elementary school.
Sound familiar? I think the sum total difference between the two paragraphs amounts to three insignificant changes… The startling thing is that they are virtually identical the whole way through and the thing’s 10 paragraphs long! Seriously, I’ve included both below the fold, it’s startling, but let me restate where we’re at: Two papers published identical letters to the editor attacking Al Franken within a 2 week span but attributed to two entirely different individuals. The academic integrity of these two students is of serious question, but that’s not my concern right now.
It’s not surprising that someone else found this weird.
Apparently tipped off to this disturbing occurrence, The Winona Daily News published the following correction on Saturday the 9th (emphasis mine):
Page: 4A A letter published by the Daily News on Feb. 7 and written by Samantha Gronlund, a Winona State University student, appears to have been written by someone else. The letter also appeared at the same time in another student publication in Minnesota by a different author.
According to Ms. Gronlund, the letter came from Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign and was a form letter. While the Daily News’ mission is to encourage a robust, community-centered forum, it also prohibits form letters or any plagiarized letters. If any letters submitted and published are verified as form letters or plagiarized, we will inform our readers as soon as possible. -Darrell Ehrlick, editor
Wait, wait, wait… “the letter came from Sen. Norm Coleman’s campaign”!? So, in other words, Senator Coleman’s campaign distributed form letters to supporters which then just found their way into local papers but attributed to the submitters? Hmm… something smells fishy here.
The letter was obviously formatted as a pre-fab letter to the editor by the Coleman campaign and both of these supporters must have felt that the campaign was content with as-is submission of the letters… Why is the Coleman campaign encouraging college students to defraud papers? Why is the Coleman campaign distributing pre-fab letters to the editor and why would they not, at the very least, make it clear that these are not to be copied? These supporters have defrauded these two papers by submitting campaign produced materials under their own names.
This is absurd and disgusting behavior. I certainly hope that the Coleman campaign can explain how this happened under their watch. And even assuming the best case scenario, it’s just really pathetic that all they can muster is generic, pre-fab attacks on Al. I mean, apparently there just aren’t any Coleman supporters out there with some genuine rage of their own to express…
Continue reading ‘COLEMAN SUPPORTERS DEFRAUD LOCAL PAPERS WITH CAMPAIGN DISTRIBUTED MATERIALS’
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