Tracking Minnesota Politics Since 2005
The invite of the year (so far): Barack Obama’s Super Bowl watching party…elected officials break out 11 Ds, 4Rs
Senators: Bob Casey (D-PA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Arlen Specter (R-PA)
House members: Elijah Cummings (D-MD); Artur Davis (D-AL); Rosa DeLauro (D-CT); Charlie Dent (R-PA); Mike Doyle (D-PA); Trent Franks (R-AZ); Raul Grijalva (D-AZ); Paul Hodes (D-NH); Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC); Patrick Murphy (D-PA); Fred Upton (R-MI)
Yesterday, Ramsey County elections director Joe Mansky confirmed the voters Norm Coleman brought to testify didn’t cast valid ballots. As well, Talking Points Memo catches this interesting tidbit about Peter DeMuth, who didn’t submit his absentee ballot legally: [hat tip Taylor]
Upon cross-examination by Franken attorney Kevin Hamilton, DeMuth said he was contacted by the Republican Party and told about the problem. “They asked me if I knew my absentee ballot had been rejected. I said no,” said DeMuth. “They asked me if I was a supporter of Norm Coleman, and I said yes, and they proceeded to ask me if I would like to go further.”
Let’s think about this for a moment: Over the last several days, the Coleman camp has said repeatedly that they are not cherry-picking who they’re helping out, that they don’t know who the people they’re advocating for actually supported, and for all they know they’re helping out Franken-voters.
Asking if you’re “a supporter of Norm Coleman” is part of the questioning before you’re asked to go to court to get your illegally cast ballot counted. Great, work, Team Coleman.
Are they idiots or are they setting up a trap to replicate what happened in 2006 with insecure information? I personally did not download this database but a number of MNpublius readers had emailed or commented in the thread sharing the public link. In other words, the information is out there now. It is also extremely likely that the availability of this database was known about for months if not longer and just not publicized until now.
Team Coleman should apologize to its supporters for not securing their personal information and allowing anyone on the Internet to obtain these records.
Adria Richards and Paul Schmelzer have stories.
UPDATE: Adria Richards will broadcast the contents of Coleman’s database at 3:30 PM CT today.
“THOUSANDS OF HITS CRASH COLEMAN WEBSITE”
ST PAUL – Information recently added to the Coleman for Senate website, whereby people can find out which Minnesota voters the Franken campaign is trying to disenfranchise, has resulted in the website being inundated by tens of thousands of hits today – temporarily crashing the website.
They’re completely lying. Here’s why:
1. colemanforsenate.com has handled much, much more traffic before. (Note that each “visitor” generates numerous “hits.”) Why is it a problem now?
2. Their website has been configured to point at the IP address “1.1.1.1,” which goes nowhere. This isn’t a mistake. They also set the “time to live” on that for only 600 seconds, which means when they choose to switch it back, most servers should only take 10 minutes to refresh. It’s an intentional move so they can manage their timing of the switchover. Most records like this have a much longer time to live. In short, they have configured their website to intentionally point at nothing. This does not happen by mistake and it is clear what they are doing. Reporters: ask any IT professional.
3. It’s extremely fishy that Ryan Flynn is posting what appears to be an internal administrative IP address instead of the Coleman for Senate website. On the post on MDE, click on that Coleman for Senate link. It goes here:
http://65.121.0.101/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.colemanforsenate.com/
UPDATE: My pal Bill points out that the IP address above is owned by FLS Connect. Why would Ryan Flynn be copy/pasting out of an email on a server owned by FLS Connect? Is Ryan Flynn of Minnesota Democrats Exposed using resources paid for by Norm Coleman to push Norm Coleman’s message out via a blog? There’s a lot of questions to be asked here.
UPDATE 2: The post on MDE has been changed to say “Coleman for U.S. Senate Press Release” in front of it and the URL in question has been removed.
4. As the Coleman for Senate website is being pointed at 1.1.1.1, which goes nowhere, they have no way of tracking how many “hits” they are getting. They had to have made up the “thousands of hits” number because it is technically impossible to track traffic they aren’t receiving.
This stunt is a completely fabricated lie.
UPDATE: Fox 9 basically copies and pastes the Coleman version of the story without fact-checking Fox 9 updated their story.
UPDATE: Minnesota Independent has some more insight on this story.
More links: City Pages, MN Progressive Project, Huffington Post, Secrets of the City, East-Lake, tons of people on Twitter.
All it takes is a computer, and a minute or two of your time each day to let your voice be heard. We’ve all worked so hard to make sure Norm Coleman was re-elected on Election Day. [ed: Um, please don’t mind the certified results that prove Franken won the election.]
We’ve got to keep working hard to make sure that he is re-elected…again. [ed: Um, Norm Coleman wasn’t ever re-elected.]
Below, we’ve listed a number of links that you can access online from your computer and the internet. Each and everyone of these publications gives you an opportunity to have your voice heard. And, now, more than ever, we need your voice to be heard.
They call out the Star Tribune comments specifically in the email body, which is likely the worst comments section in the state. To my surprise, they decided to include MNpublius as a place where people parroting the Norm Coleman talking points can “make their voice heard.”
What is this email campaign about? Is it about helping overturn the election results or trying to brainwash people into thinking Coleman won when he didn’t? Don’t mind that the certified election results proved Franken won the election and that the only reason we are in court is to allow Team Coleman to throw a hail mary by trying to disenfranchise voters and count illegally cast ballots. In fact, their desperate, unorganized and abysmal court performance put their court strategy in jeopardy where they couldn’t even tell reporters what they were doing today because they hadn’t discussed it yet.
So yeah, while Team Franken has always, from day one, been about counting every single legal ballot once, Team Coleman has been flip flopping around on what should be counted and what shouldn’t be counted, spreading false rumors about “double counting” and trying to undermine and cast doubt on what was most likely the most transparent and open recount process in the history of public elections. Now Team Coleman has carried over into asking their supporters to comment on blogs and tell people that “Norm won.” How pathetic is this campaign going to get? Coleman supporters, have your say!
I really have put off any sort of decisions about my political future until we get through this legislative session and this budget crisis, and I want to stay focused on that. I haven’t ruled out running for re-election as governor, either. I’ve told our local press that I’ll something to say about that later this year, but generally, I’m going to focus on the task at hand.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think Pawlenty will not seek another term and if you parse Pawlenty’s language in this answer, there are a couple of clues that he’s probably not going to run again. First, Pawlenty says he “hasn’t ruled out” a re-elect. Which is the kind of phrasing used to discuss a less likely possibility. Second, and more significant, is the fact that Pawlenty is putting off an announcement until after the session. This is a critical session for the Governor (and the state) and Pawlenty doesn’t want to become a lame-duck. Remember, the DFL is only two votes away from a veto proof majority in the State House. If Pawlenty becomes a lame duck, it might be harder to keep wavering GOPers in the House on the wagon.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States of America.
The goal, it now seems clear, is what some deduced many months ago: Obama wants to become the leader of an American version of the national governments that Britain relied on in the depths of the last Great Depression.
We cannot know whether he will succeed, whether partisanship and America’s culture war will slowly eat him up, or whether in government, as he makes decisions with winners and losers, his aura will evaporate. But what we can say is that, so far, he shows every sign of meaning what he said about leaving that divisive, destructive froth behind. Just reading the papers every morning, we see every sign that the gravity of the crisis his predecessor bequeaths him makes this necessary…
Sullivan’s first endorsement of Obama is an absolute must read, and his last column before the inauguration is just as good.
Change is coming.
Of all the lawyers Norm Coleman could pick to argue his election contest case, he chose Nasser Kazeminy’s.
Links over at MinnPost. Unbelievable.
UPDATE: Huffington Post has more.
One of the best things about MNpublius is our active comment threads, but we also get a lot of comment spam, which means we have to have a strong spam filter to keep things clean. So, if your comment doesn’t go through, it’s nothing personal (in fact, the filter is 100% automated) and if it’s not spam we’ll approve it as soon as we see it. If you login though (upper right) your comment will never be moderated! And the more you comment, the smaller the chances of your comment getting moderated become! So, comment away but please be patient if your doesn’t appear ASAP.
I wrote a couple posts yesterday contemplating the real problem that only having one seated Senator posses for Minnesota right now. The first made the case that with Obama coming into office, trillions of dollars of federal spending about to be voted on in Congress, and Minnesota hurting with a deficit that (optimistically) amounts to 15% of our total budget, now is not the time to be underrepresented in the Senate. You may not feel it right now, but I predict that when the Senate starts voting on these packages, Minnesotans are going to become pretty peeved that we only get half of our Constitutionally guaranteed voice on allocating the relief — and people should be peeved, these votes are on funding packages so large they’ll affect us for decades.
I also made a somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment towards the end of that post that if GOPers and DFLers can’t agree, then maybe Pawlenty should appoint Dean Barkley as interim Senator until everything is sorted out. I say “somewhat” tongue-in-cheek because the interests of Minnesota have to come first and if appointing Barkley temporarily would protect those interests, I’d be all for it. But here’s the thing, Pawlenty doesn’t have the power to do this (nor does anyone else). This is obviously different from Barkley’s last stint because we do not have an empty seat, but rather a seat that clearly has some winner but is currently held up by a little known state law. That being the case, Pawlenty has no empty seat to fill, but a winner to be certified.
This is not an unprecedented situation, however, and there is a clear way to protect the interests of Minnesota and Norm Coleman, but more on that a little later…
[image credit: Len Kovsky, see more of his paintings here]
As always, make sure to check out all of Steve Sack’s wonderful cartoons at the Strib.
In case you hadn’t already heard, Raymond Thomas Rybak will be running for a third term as Mayor of Minneapolis. As the ever-improving Star Tribune notes in their sub-headline: “Rybak says he’s energizes for a third term.” This isn’t a huge surprise given RT’s new year’s eve mayoral fundraiser, but it does firmly close the door for some City Council members who have been licking their chops at rumors of a Rybak Obama appointment or a 2010 gubernatorial run. And now that he has announced, we can announce the winner of the 2009 Minneapolis Mayoral race: RT Rybak. Okay, so maybe there’s some slim possibility that he won’t succeed in his bid for a third term, but I don’t see him losing absent some new information from Ashley Dupré on her clientele… (for those of you without a sense of humor, that’s a joke)
So what about that 2010 gubernatorial race?
Well, some in the blogosphere jumped to the reasonable conclusion that this announcement forecloses any possibility of a Rybak run in 2010 but the Mayor notably declined to make any such statements. No doubt, two races in two years puts a lot of strains in a lot of places (most notably, donors), but it’s not impossible by any means.
I may have been singing a different tune just a few weeks ago, but with Congressman Tim Walz out of the picture, the 2010 DFL race is suddenly much more attainable for all other interested parties. Walz was truly the 800 pound gorilla in the room and his exit leaves much more room for other candidates to fill the void. Then factor in the inevitably abysmal session the legislature is facing (to no fault of their own) with the budget in the current shape it is and the potency of the whole slew of legislative candidates is necessarily diminished, even Kelliher’s (of course she could come out of this swinging, I’m just noting the current state of things). And while he’s built up a great political staff, Mayor Coleman has also announced his plans for another run in St. Paul.
So, who do we have left for 2010 who isn’t tainted by the state budget crisis, stated disinterest, or running for a mayoral reelection? Susan Gaertner, Mark Dayton, and Matt Entenza (who else am I missing). I haven’t heard all that much from the first two (almost nothing at all from Dayton) but Entenza is rumored to be serious about running and throwing his weight (and money) around to intimidate others away.
The point of all the above (other than taking an advantage to postulate about 2010, which is always fun) is that there is a very real possibility that the DFL won’t have a clear front-runner come November. Now, of course, we could, but that would be atypical of DFL gubernatorial endorsement battles and fairly surprising given the density of the field. If the field is still a tangled mess, Rybak wouldn’t have an exceedingly tough time entering: the mayoral race will likely be a walk in the park so he could start hitting up delegates behind the scenes early, he has a loyal donor base that he shouldn’t have to hit too hard for the mayoral race, he’s one of the few candidates with good name recognition (yes, even in outstate MN), and he’s fairly popular. These are reasons he could still run, however; a combination of personal fatigue, donor fatigue, a heated field, and another run by Tim Pawlenty would lead me to bet against a 2010 by Rybak, but who knows.
Bottom line: the Rybak didn’t close the door today, but the opening got much narrower. Now what are we DFLers going to do about a candidate…?
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