MNpublius.com

Sometimes it pays off to read Andy Apilkowski’s blog. For instance, today he published this letter sent by Rep. Jim Abeler to the rest of the House Republican Caucus.

Dear Colleagues,

You may be wondering why I am behaving as I have been since my convention voted 58-42 to ratify my votes and actions over my 10 years.

Shockingly to me, Rep Emmer showed up at the convention on Saturday around 9:45, declaring himself as representing the caucus. “Marty went south, and I went north.”

Following a nice commendation of Rep Hackbarth for providing good representation of his district (no mention of me), Tom went onto bash the “Democrat transportation tax bill.” The entire speech lasted 7 or 8 minutes, during which time the crowd got actively engaged, since as a group they were about 3:1 opposed to the bill and many were angry at me anyway. When comments came about “those 6 republicans” Tom gestured in an encouraging way, and crowd whipped into a frenzy against those 6 (including me) resembling an Obama rally. There was no doubt as to the local object of this aggression, me. As he closed, he received tumultuous applause and left.

When David Olson of the Mn Chamber arrived, he was treated harshly by the crowd and booed due to the firey mood of the crowd after Emmer’s speech.

When I approached Marty prior to the convention for a letter stating that I had been a good caucus member except for this singular vote with which he vehemently disagreed, he declined stating that didn’t I remember that the caucus was not going to do any help in my election. Which I accepted.

What shocked me is that the caucus would send Tom Emmer who has obvious and unresolved anger issues toward me and expect his appearance in already tense situation to go well. I think in human resource circles they call this the Worst Possible Decision.

I have been a member of the caucus for 10 years, but cannot recall even any stories about the caucus attacking a sitting member during an endorsing process, especially when the opponent is “no endorsement” and particularly when that member is supported by business and the MCCL.

The caucus punishment story about us 6 had died down with the advent of the budget forecast and the governor’s response. The Emmer rant at my convention has given all of this retribution talk new life, and we are now becoming known as the party of the robot.

I think we had better look inside each of ourselves and see where we are going to wind up politically and as a coalition.

I am sending this to members and staff both, because we are all in this together. There has been too much silence already, and this matter has escalated way too far. All our loyal crew deserves to know what is going on and what transpired.

Now you know what happened.

If you don’t happen to see me at caucus, you shouldn’t be surprised. It is hard to leave your backside open to a “family” who has tried to blatantly defeat you.

State Rep. Jim Abeler
Former Minority Lead
Health and Human Services Finance

Well, personally, I think sending Rep. Emmer anywhere is the worst possible decision, but I’m just a little biased.