Grams, a strict conservative who failed in a 2006 bid to return to Congress, has hinted for months that he might run for Senate as an independent to show conservative displeasure with the state of the GOP. “I do like Norm, but boy, if he wants to court the middle and the moderates he is leaving a lot of us behind,” Grams said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Monthly Archive for May, 2008
I don’t think he’ll do it, but if he does, Coleman is finished.
Ashwin Madia is kicking off his campaign for Congress today. Stop by if you have the time…
WHEN: Saturday, May 31st, 9:45am
WHERE: Parker’s Lake Pavilion, 15205 County Road 6, Plymouth, MN 55447
WHO: Democratic Candidate for Congress Ashwin Madia and campaign supporters, friends, and volunteers
WHAT: Campaign Kickoff for Ashwin Madia for Congress
Bluestem has the scoop, a new poll by the Benenson Strategy Group shows Tim Walz with massive leads over his two Republican challengers:
Walz - 60%
Davis - 20%
Walz - 57%
Day - 22%
No big surprise here, Walz is going to blow these guys out of the water.
The DFL put out a great release showing how Norm streached the truth in his nomination acceptance speech yesterday. Read it in full after the jump…
Continue reading ‘Coleman’s Speech Riddled With Inaccuracies’
I ain’t Chicago in 1968, but apparently there was a physical altercation between a John McCain supporter and a Ron Paul supporter. Mary LaHammer promises video footage on Almanac tonight.
Added by Sean: I also wanted to point out our great friend Noah Kunin and the UpTake have coverage of the MNGOP convention. Noah says that the Republicans are using these rules for electing national delegates:
- No nominations from the floor are allowed.
- If you do not vote for 14 delegates, thus filling the slate, none of your other votes are counted. So if you only find 13 delegates acceptable: too bad, those votes don’t count
- The Nominations Committee put into contention less than double the spots open - thus any acceptable ballot will have several of the “establishment” slate names on it - otherwise it would fall under the 14 delegate threshold and be considered spoiled.
What does that mean boys and girls? That the establishment is going to get its slate of delegates elected without much if any opportunity for anyone else to get their voice heard. This isn’t the way it’s going to work next week for the DFL.
That’s Sarah Janecek’s description of Jeff Larson, founder of FLS-DCI and key figure in Norm Coleman’s inner circle. Larson is probably one of the main reasons why Norm Coleman refuses to return $10,000 in contributions from DCI sources despite the fact that John McCain has removed two senior campaign officials due to their ties to DCI. The City Pages includes a brief bio of Larson in their series on the 10 most powerful Republicans in Minnesota. One highlight:
His company, Feather, Larson & Synhorst (FLS), which he founded with two other campaign heavyweights, was paid $18 million for its work on George W. Bush’s national re-election campaign. The company’s website boasts that Larson has “worked on behalf of 35 state parties, dozens of gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, and U.S. congressional candidates, along with national organizations including the Republican National Committee.”
If John McCain wants to pick a running mate who reinforces his message of being a bipartisan reformer, he better not select Tim Pawlenty. The Governor set a record for vetoes this session, with 34. Senator Ellen Anderson put it best:
As the new veto record holder, Anderson said, Pawlenty has proven himself to be a governor who doesn’t know how to compromise, find common ground and get things done for his state.
By itself, the veto record probably woudn’t be enough to drop Pawlenty in the Veepstakes. But put it together with his sex joke and his break with McCain on 35W and you can start to see why most insiders are cold on Pawlenty’s chances to join McCain’s ticket.
More signs that the Republican Party is in trouble are coming from their state convention down in Rochester today. State Republicans are gathered for two primary purposes: to select delegates to the national convention and to endorse Sen. Norm Coleman in his bid for reelection. Both may cause controversy.
The Big Question reports today that Republican activists are circulating a flyer urging delegates to vote against endorsing Coleman due to his “RINO” like tendencies. I think any suggesting that Norm is a moderate is absurd, but I’ll take the conservative dissatisfaction with Coleman. In a race that is likely to be very close, keeping conservatives from staying home on Election Day could be a challenge for Norm.
Meanwhile, Republicans refused to allow Ron Paul to speak at the convention despite his strong showing at district conventions earlier this year. Paul delegates still might cause trouble in the delegate selection process.
We’ll let you know if anything out of the ordinary happens.
Hope you guys enjoyed being a swing state, because that era seems to be coming to close. Obama has led McCain by double digit margins in recent polls and both campaigns have been sending signals that Minnesota will not be a critical battleground this fall.
Today, in his regular ranking of state’s most likely to move from red to blue or blue to red this fall, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza doesn’t even place Minnesota in the top ten. Six weeks ago, Cillizza ranked Minnesota a 7th. Our drop is no doubt due to Barack Obama’s all but certain clinching of the Democratic nomination. Obama is widely considered to be a stronger candidate in Minnesota than Hillary Clinton.
If Republicans do in fact chose not to contest Minnesota in the presidential race, it will be a massive boon for the DFL up and down the ballot. Currently, the presidential race is the only level where the Republicans are financially comptetitive. The DSCC and DCCC, on the other hand, have massive cash advantages over their Republican counterparts. If McCain and the RNC pull out of Minnesota, Madia, Walz and all the other DFL candidates will be enormously benefitted.
“The most disturbing analogy between the Gulf War and Nazi Germany isn’t, as President Bush and others suggest, between Saddam Hussein and Hitler. It is the striking parallel between the blind patriotism of the German people and the idolatrous patriotism that swept through our country and our churches. Signs of idolatry were evident throughout the war, from ‘Desert Shield’ to ‘Desert Storm’ to ‘Desert Prayer.’ President Bush was accompanied by Billy Graham on the eve of his decision to launch offensive military action in the Gulf; yellow ribbons filled local churches; and general Schwarzkopf expressed a common view that the outcome of the war was a sign of God’s intent for and blessing of U.S. policies. Perhaps most disturbing was President Bush’s manipulation and invocation of God throughout the war and the churches’ genuine failure to challenge his assertion that the war in the Gulf was a ‘just war.’” (Brave New World Order, 134)
“Faced with imminent death of the planet and confronted with a new world order based on poverty and militarism, Christians and churches in the United States must embrace the imperative of radical discipleship. Specifically, this requires embracing and encouraging tax resistance and nonviolence. It means that individuals, communities, and churches will be called on to take meaningful risks. Alternative faith communities and churches must take leadership in a faith-based tax revolt against the economic priorities of the U.S.-led new world order and the military priorities of the National Security State. Tax resistance can be expressed in many different ways, some more effective than others: living below a taxable income; refusal to pay the federal tax on our phone bills, which functions as a war tax; withholding the percentage of our taxes that are used for military purposes; enclosing a letter of protest when filing our tax returns; delivering the equivalent of taxes owed in food stuffs to our local Internal Revenue Service (IRS) offices.” (Brave New World Order, 151)
Who would have thunk it — Robert Beale and Jack Nelson Pallmeyer, anti-tax brothers in arms. Also for historical edification, the federal excise tax on phone bills he mentions in the book was partially repealed last year.
“Dietrich Bonhoeffer, killed by Hitler after being implicated in an assassination plot, once said that to be a patriot in Nazi Germany meant praying for the defeat of his country. I believe his difficult words are equally appropriate for us: praying and working for the defeat of our country in the context of its goals and priorities within the new world order is a gospel imperative.” (Brave New World Order, 156)
A couple things. First anyone who is saying that I’m providing these quotes outside of context ala MDE is stretching things. I’ve tried to make sure that there are relatively lengthy quotes to get them in context and I have presented them with a minimum of editorial content.
We’re going to have to deal with Al Franken’s satire taken out of context and Jack Nelson Pallmeyer’s more academic works taken out of context to argue otherwise is wrong headed.
One of the more tired talking points of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer supporters is that he is free from the slings and attacks that would accompany an Al Franken candidacy. Sure, they say Al said some pretty inflammatory things in some of his books, and Minnesotan’s just won’t accept them, but those wascially Republicans got nothing on Jack.
Except for a library card.
I went and picked up a few of Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s books, (I’m trying to track down a copy of “Jesus Against Christianity” for my own personal enjoyment, but Christ as Revolutionary isn’t for here, and I’m also curious to get my hands on “Families Valued: Parenting and Politics for the Good of All Children” ) and I think it’s worth everyone knowing that this talking point is bunk.
“’Sacred’ texts such as the Bible and the Quran provide inspiration to many people, but they all too frequently inspire to violence. They are dangerous books in the hands of those who claim to know the heart and will of the divine. Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush are both engaged in a holy war. Both have claimed that God is on their side, and both have staked their claim in their respective ‘sacred’ texts.” (Saving Christianity from Empire, 10)
“The Bush Administration, in Goering-like fashion, inflated threats of terror, questioned the patriotism of critics, and cultivated a politics of fear in service to its broader agenda that could only be pursued through aggressive war on a global scale.” (Saving Christianity from Empire, 34)
Later in that same book he brings up Goering again.
“The politics of fear dominated the election. Nearly every political advertisement for President Bush and other republican candidates were specifically designed to create and capitalize on fear. Goering’s words quoted previously about how easy it is for leaders to muster support for war and other disastrous policies are haunting: ‘All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.’” (Saving Christianity from Empire, 172)
My personal feeling about his assertion here notwithstanding (Republicans, including Norm Colemans ad man Scott Howell love to challenge Democrats patriotism — mind you that was a multiple amputee Vietnam veteran, not a college professor) the out of context bloodbath that would accompany these quotes would be mind numbing (see: Ellison, Keith).
“My fundamental claim is that religiously justified violence is first and foremost a problem of “sacred” texts and not a problem of misinterpretation of the texts. The problem, in other words, is not primarily that people take passages out of context and twist them in order to justify violence. The problem is actual violence at the heart of these texts that can be reasonably cited by people to justify their own recourse to violence.” (Is Religion Killing Us?, xiv-xv)
I personally find this absurd, and I’d venture to guess most every Christian who isn’t Eric Rudolph and most every Muslim that isn’t a whacko find it pretty silly too.
“A terrorist may be a freedom fighter in someone else’s eyes. Both Osama bin Laden and U.S. leaders have used terrorist tactics in pursuit of political objectives.” (Is Religion Killing Us?, 10)
I think that one is going to speak for itself.
“My Lenten discipline in 2002 was to assess Jesus’ prospects if he were to show up in the United States post-September 11. I concluded that – because of his likely conflict with authorities, nonviolent actions, teachings on love of enemies, and warnings against the futility of violence – Jesus would have been killed in a matter of weeks, days, or hours.” (Is Religion Killing Us?, 113)
I went to Catholic school for several years as a child and because of that I have from time to time observed Lent, if just as a personal trial; I’m not going to deny, me trying to give up soda isn’t half as mentally stimulating as assessing Jesus’ prospects post 9/11, but I don’t think that this is going to go over well with the majority of Minnesotans.
Jack Nelson Pallmeyer is a good man — I don’t think he’ll be our Senate candidate, but all the same if he is I’ll be there with more than full throated support — but as a delegate I’m not going to go into this convention thinking that he can’t be attacked by Republicans for what he’s said.
I’m still working on Brave New World Order and you can find most of Is Religion Killing Us? and Jesus Against Christianity on Google Scholar.
In February, Tim Pawlenty was the top choice of Republican insiders to be John McCain’s running mate according to a poll conducted by the National Journal. Now he’s dropped to third place, behind Mitt Romney and Rob Portman. Not sure if it was the sex joke or his break with McCain on 35W or just Obama’s massive lead in Minnesota, but Pawlenty went from a 4% lead over Romney to a 23% deficit (of course, Pawlenty is familiar with deficits, but then I don’t think he can pass this one off on local governments).
All this being said, the National Journal didn’t survey the one person who’s opinion on this subject actually matters: John McCain.
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