Urdahl, R-Grove City, accepted the position offered by House Minority Leader Marty Seifert of Marshall, but said he then had second thoughts. While he voted against the transportation spending package, Urdahl said he did not think the six House Republicans who helped put it into law should be punished. Seifert removed those six from committee and leadership positions.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Urdahl said.
Urdahl replaced Rep. Rod Hamilton of Mountain Lake as the top Republican on the Agriculture, Rural Economies and Veterans Affairs Committee.“We can’t have the committee without a (Republican) lead, so I’ll remain, but I will urge, and have, that Rod be reinstated,” Urdahl said.
Urdahl said he did not expect that to happen.
“I wanted to be on record that I didn’t like this,” he said. “I don’t think people should be punished for votes of conscience.”
Sounds like there is dissent in Seifert’s kingdom. Marty better take swift action. For as we all know, you are either with us or against us in the fight against moderation.
Good for Urdahl. I wonder if he’ll be punished for speaking out against “the man”.
I’ll go on record saying this will be a tough November for Republicans in state races. The MN GOP will encourage conservative candidates to run for open seats. Moderates will take their votes to the IP or (gasp) DFL, assuming it isn’t a Kucinich-esque candidate running on that side. The republicans will be slammed in the election. In the following cycle, they will wise up, let moderates run for open seats out of pure survival, and begin to turn the party around.
This kind of cycle happens on both sides of the aisle. We just happen to be at the low point of the local Republican cycle right now.
Hey Zack,
Can you tell me what happened to Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller?
To be blunt, Lieberman had to deal with a party-leadership that bent over backwards to keep him in. The MoveOn crowd chased Lieberman out, not the party - and I’d say that he kept his committees after winning as an independent is a prime sign of this. Whatever Limbaugh says, Leiberman still votes with the caucus on most everything besides Iraq (and I think the leadership brought/bought him around on a few Iraq votes last year).
Its comparing apples to oranges - Leiberman is not a Democrat in the same sense that Bernie Sanders isn’t, on paper, and no-where else. We’re a big tent party, and we’re willing to flex to keep it that way (the majority is nice too). I’ll refer to the late William Buckley to make a point here: when you beleive that one narrow mindset is all the truth there is, you’re on a short road to tyranny. Or being totally irrelevant.
Zell Miller spoke at the Republican convention and endorsed Bush. He truly was a Democrat in name only towards the end of his tenure. Lieberman was defeated in a primary and left the Democrats to start his own political party.
Joe Lieberman was defeated in the Connecticut Democratic Primary, but won election as an independent. Even though there might be a lot of teeth-gnashing about him in the Senate and in Democratic circles generally, he was allowed to keep his seniority and is chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. He has not been stripped of any leadership positions for a single vote.
Zell Miller was out of the Senate when he campaigned for President Bush and spoke at the Republican Convention. This strikes me as way different from going against the leadership on one vote. Even so, I don’t know what,if anything, the party has done to him. Don’t look for him to get the party’s endorsement any time soon, though.
“The MoveOn crowd chased Lieberman out, not the party”
The MoveOn crowd is an annoying part of the Democratic party. The extreme right has been the core part of the Republican party. That is the difference between the two right now. That is why the Dems have the momentum - they are actually the friendlier place for moderates right now.
This all cycles, ebbs and flows. One party gets power, gets greedy, becomes too far to the left or right for the middle third, and then lose power. It happens over and over again in 10-20 year cycles. Right now the Dems are hot and the Reps down. Right now.
Joe Lieberman earned his primary challenge by constantly undermining and attacking Democrats. His positions, especially his hard line foreign policy positions, are totally out of place in liberal Connecticut. He was re-elected to the Senate by Republicans.
But his primary challenge didn’t come from the top - in fact, a lot of leading Democrats campaigned for him in the Democratic primary. Even now, when he is not even a Democrat, he still hasn’t been punished much by the party.
Chris -
Last time I checked, Joe Lieberman is STILL chair of the Government Oversight Committee in the United States Senate. Zell Miller was not removed from any leadership position in the Senate after he endorsed W to my knowledge.
I really don’t think politics lives on a line, unless your politics is truly single issue. The rest of us are now living in an n-dimensional political space.
Zack,
From CNN.com dated August 11, 2006:
Lieberman lost Tuesday’s primary to Lamont, a millionaire cable executive, 52 percent to 48 percent.
After Lieberman’s loss, other prominent Democrats — including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and Sens. Chuck Schumer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Dick Durbin, John Kerry and Christopher Dodd — announced they would back Lamont in the race….
The party leadership backed Lamont over Lieberman in the election. The reason Lieberman has not been stroppied of his chairmanship is because the Democrats have a one seat majority in the Senate and Lieberman could tip the scales away from the Democrats.
“The party leadership backed Lamont over Lieberman in the election.”
Of COURSE they did. Did you miss the part about him losing the PRIMARY?
Your attempt to draw some sort of parallel here are failing miserably.
That should read “IS failing miserably”
SeanH,
The point is that your party threw Lieberman out because he did not support your party’s anti-war dogma. Your party’s leadership supported the far=left candidate, Ned Lament, in the general election over Lieberman. Your party’s leadership could have withheld support for Lament and supported Lieberman but they did not.
The party’s leadership supported the candidate who won the primary. It would have been most inappropriate for them to support the candidate who lost.
If we’re doing the “what about what your guys did” dance, let’s consider how the Republicans here at home dealt with Arne Carlson.
Like I said Chris, you are failing miserably. The VOTERS went with someone else in the primary. Lieberman LEFT THE PARTY on his own accord-he was not thrown out. The Democratic leadership supported the Democratic candidate.
Are you trying to cram as man inaccuracies as possible into your posts?
Chris-
And the speed the party leadership told Leiberman all was forgiven on November 8 was truely breath-taking. And Lamont got endorsements, but little real help - it was obvious who was going to win, and if we went with ideology over reason we’d be… you.
HOW TO BUNGLE A VEEP BID
http://www.nypost.com/seven/02292008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/how_to_bungle_a_veep_bid_99844.htm
“We loved Ronald Reagan, but he made some compromises along the way,” Pawlenty said, adding, “We don’t have a big enough party to be throwing people overboard.” Presumably, that also means coal and oil interests.
And the changes are:
•Rep. Rod Hamilton, R-Mountain Lake, replaced by Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Grove City, on the Agriculture, Rural Economies & Veterans Affairs Committee
•Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover, replaced by Rep. Larry Howes, R-Walker, on the Capital Investment Committee.
•Rep. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, replaced by Rep. Matt Dean, R-Dellwood, on Health Care and Human Services Committee.
•Rep. Bud Heidgerken, R-Freeport, replaced by Rep. Sondra Erickson, R-Princeton, on K-12 Finance.
•Rep. Ron Erhardt, R-Edina, replaced by Rep. Morrie Lanning, R- Moorhead, on Property Tax Relief & Local Sales Taxes.
•In addition, Rep. Neil Peterson, R-Bloomington, was removed as an Assistant Minority Whip and replaced by Rep. Pat Garofalo, R-Farmington.
Perhaps, the governor should just practice what he preaches.
We could solve a lot of these problems by never again electing a Republican. Works for me…
It’s amazing how you people all twist yourselves into pretzels accusing Republicans of eating their own and then just ignore the Lieberman problem like nothing happened. The ideologues in the Democrat party kicked him out for not supporting the number one plank of the Democrat party. So far none of the mentioned Republicans have been kicked out of the party even though they failed to support one of the top planks in the GOP.
“The ideologues in the Democrat party kicked him out for not supporting the number one plank of the Democrat party.”
Just as false as the last time you said that. You can keep repeating it until you are blue in the face but it still will not be true.
“kicked him out” is such a loaded term. They simply no longer supported his re-election.
Chris seems to think if he says the same lie over and over it will magically come true.
Senator Lieberman left the Democratic Party. You can blame the party for the divorce but the party didn’t do anything but fail to endorse him for running. He left the party and ran his own campaign… what is there about that for Republicans to pretend not to understand. Are they all playing stupid or are they stupid?
I’m sorry, but I’m beginning to think a lot of you guys are stupid. Maybe ignorant is a better choice of words. Joe Lieberman was your party’s Vice President nominee in 2000. Six years later, your party kicked Lieberman out by defeating him in the primary in favor of some nobody named Ned Lamont (aka Ned Lament) who ran on a MoveOn.org/Code Pink platform. As Lieberman would say, he did not leave the party, the party left him. What’s amazing is that none of you are willing to admit this simple truth. It’s not controversial to say that the far left kicked Lieberman out of the Democrat party because he opposed cutting and running from Iraq. Moreover, your party’s leadership supported Lament over Lieberman. This isn’t controversial sheeple.
Chris -
I’ll grant you that some people were perhaps stupid who got to select the VP candidate in 2000 - Liebermann was a horrible choice in 2000. I knew he was bad back then.
Like a Republican, he was collecting chits.
“The party leaving Liebermann?” What drugs is he on?
That’s a GOOD thing to have the party & Liebermann separate.
It was too much like Republican mobsters.
Make that CASHING IN chits.
your party kicked Lieberman out by defeating him in the primary in favor of some nobody named Ned Lamont
Chris is really my most favorite 8 year old on the planet. Voters defeated the odious Lieberman. The party took special pains not to endorse Lamont. In fact many in the party, endorsed the odious Lieberman. Chris, your mother needs to help with your research and it’s not a bad thing to ask.
And through the magic of conservatism, we kicked him out… but he still got to keep his committee’s, his seniority. Do all such magic benefits emerge from Ronald Reagan’s ghost, to those who pray to the gods of expense, un-neccessary wars?
Seriously - we let him keep all his stuff, his position in the party, his Senate influence, etc, and this is considered the equivalent of Seifert stripping his moderates of everything for one vote? Chris, secret message for you man - if you look up, gullible is written on the ceiling! With four l’s!
I just wanted to let all of you people who have attacked Pawlenty for indebting our children and grandchildren because he bonded for some roads and bridges know that the Senate DFL yesterday passed a $1 billion bonding bill. I’m not sure if the same bill has passed in the House today or not. I’m sure that you people will be calling Senator Pogemiller and Speaker Kelliher demanding that they stop mortgaging our children’s future.
Chris seems to be under the mistaken impression that liberals think all bonding is bad. Oh wait-it’s just a strawman-never mind
It is only bad when they can’t use it as a political issue. Bonding for entertainment facilities is just fine. Bridges and roads aren’t as important to Democrats as hockey rinks and paying off the debts of their friends parking ramps.
The gas tax was fine but the Democrats complaints about bonding for roads was ridiculous and hypocritical. Not that party loyalist are ever bothered by the hypocritical and ridiculous. If they were they wouldn’t be party loyalist.
The state has been bonding for capital projects for years, and the Senate passed a bonding bill also. It’s different from the House version, to they’ll have to work out the differences in conference committee.