I’m not quite ready to take the position that Reed needs to drop out… yet. After all, the election is over a year away. But the CD6 race is already presenting a question that is a perennial problem for DFLers: Is it better to have an endorsement battle — and possibly a primary — to find the best candidate for the general election, or would it be better to have a single candidate as early as possible so she can raise money and build name recognition?
To me, one of the big problems is Minnesota’s insanely late primary. If there were more time for a general election campaign, I would tend to say that the primary would benefit the party by weeding out weaker candidates. But with a primary in September, all a primary does is play into the Republicans’ hands — which is why Tim Pawlenty vetoed a bill that would have moved the primary to August.
Can we afford to have a contest for the DFL nomination in CD6? We can for a while, but we don’t stand a chance in this race if we have to hold a primary. One thing is for certain — Reed needs to stop wavering and tell us unequivocally if she will abide by the DFL endorsement.
___
* “One of the first” is my wishy-washy way of not definitively saying he broke the story, as I don’t really want to get into an argument about who was first to report it.
Doesn't matter too much. The Primary will be moved back to June. The DFL state endorsing convention is in April next year in order to prepare for this upcoming change.
By the way, Reed should drop out. She's not gaining anywhere and its tough running against a legislator who can point to accomplishments. She is running an amateurish campaign that has made mistakes already. This, in a district where the DFL has to be almost game-perfect to win.
DJZ — Where did you hear this June business? I've heard august, and I'm pretty sure that's what it's going to be.
I think I just made it up. I thought I got it from a central committee member but- I have failed to find that email in a quick search. You would know better than I, so stand humbly corrected. I also suggest we move it back to June. The convention is still April 23rd, right?
I just think its a bad joke to have more time for a primary than a general election.
THe CD6 convention, where the endorsement will take place, is March 27.
My two cents:
The question is… where can the DFL use Maureen Reed?
The minute I heard she was a CD6 candidate I knew we'd an overlap in talent and values with some other candidate. After all, Bachmann has been suggesting a lot of strange ideas, and the nation has been paying attention. I find it very embarrassing for Minnesota and I think the DFL does, too… which suggested to me that the DFL would look for a certain kind of candidate.
I believe people who vote for Independent candidates help elect the candidate they least like. In this case, Reed and Clark are very much alike, and so together they would help elect Bachmann. (I know, I'll go wash my mouth out with soap, now).
Non, No, Nyet. They are not alike. One is full of rhetoric and promise, the other has a record of working at fulfilling that promise.
I hope Reed and Clark are not alike. Reed is a "blue dog". Reed is very, very conservative on the social issues. Reed is a horrible campaigner and her choice of staff and last election results prove that. Reed avoids answering questions and dodges taking a stand on anything. In fact I doubt these two agree on almost anything.
subscribing to read via e-mail instead
I live in the 6th and I’m all for a primary if it helps us get the best candidate. But that’s clearly not the case here. The idea that Reed somehow is running a good campaign is at odds with the results. She refuses to take a stand on anything except that Bachmann’s bad.
Now she is saying that because she doesn’t have a firm position on anything and never has that makes her more electable than Clark.
It time for Reed to drop out before she does anymore damage to herself.
Political Muse, Erik Austin, of Liberal in the Land of Conservative is a teacher's union hack. I can't believe he teaches history to middle schoolers in Becker. Probably revisionist history where the white man and America is always bad. MnPublius and MnProgressive Project spreads his lies without even fact checking or considering the source. He went after the employers of two conservative bloggers because he doesn't agree with their political philosophy and their personal views.
Erik's website is a Tarryl Clark dream. He even has an Internet TV site for her. How anyone could have ever thought any allegiance would be give to Reed is beyond me.
You know, if you are going to out me the least you could do is spell my name correctly. It's Eric.
Not to nitpick but I don't teach Middle School anymore. I now teach 11th grade Government. However, when I did teach 8th grade I am not sure I ever said America was bad but given that you know me so well you are probably right.
I went after the employers of two conservatives? I recall fighting back against an employee of Klein Bank who was utilizing her business email to attack and encourage people to crash family picnics that SEIU was having. So if you want to continue to bring that up we can do that. I am not sure who the other "employer" is you speak of.
By the way, I hope you aren't a Reed supporter or connected to her campaign AND calling me a union HACK because that might not sit well. I am a proud union member and Co-President of my local and if that makes me a HACK then I proudly wear that label.
Finally, I put the Tarryl Clark youtube widget on my site long before this campaign ever began because she is my Senator and I am proud of the work she does. I have not hidden the fact that I immediately leaned Clark once she announced.
And Silenced takes a direct hit
An anonymous blogger, that gets a kick outa naming Muse by name and occupation.
Seems to me that the fine folk running Publius ought to have a "good for the goose, good for the gander" policy for jerks like "Won't Be Silenced"….
Yeppers, if you are going to call someone out by name while hiding behind a pseudonym or moniker you are the lowest form of slime.
That's Alec with a "c" not an "x", so if you ever want to call me out I am a union teacher as well!
EriC's name is on his own blog in an email exchange with Dave Thul. His occupation and many other details are also easily found on a Google search. I read EriC's post about that conservative blogger who criticized SEIU, and could not find any evidence on Look True North of any email reference at all for the author. Did Eric contact the blogger or anyone before making such a claim? Seems like that would have been respectful before attacking their employer. I have not seen any breach of blogger etiquette like this personal attack of someone's livlihood from the left or right? I brought EriC up on this post because his blog is pretty harmless judging from the number of commenters, 0, 1 or 2, but if his lies are going to be spread on other liberal sites, I think they have an obligation to research his claims.
I'd be very intrigued to know if "Won't Be Silenced" has any connection with the Reed campaign, because if so, that's very, very bad.
It's one thing for the Reed campaign to be attacking Tarryl Clark, it's quite another if they or their supporters are attacking a blogger, not only on a blog post, but on that blogger's personal identity. That's beyond the pale.
For the record, I've met Maureen a couple times now, and she seems like a nice enough person. But trying to pin her down on anything that she actually stands for is like trying to nail jello to a wall. I've heard that her volunteers are actually touting as a plus that she hasn't had to vote on anything. It is not a plus in my book to never take a stance on things.
In any case, I think Maureen genuinely wants to beat Bachmann: she's from Bachmann's old senate district district and has seen her move up the ladder of crazy from the get-go. But that doesn't mean that she necessarily knows how to run an effective campaign. Early on, she was feigning that she didn't really know what the Employee Free Choice Act was… she had to study the issue… but kept using that line for months. And my understanding is she told unions in their screenings that she didn't support card check. And she's shocked that she didn't get any union endorsements?
Personally, I'd like to hear more on issues from both Maureen and Tarryl… it's fairly ridiculous that neither has an issues page on their respective campaign sites… but at this point, I trust Tarryl a bit more based on her record.
I have zero interest in donating any money or time to elect another Blue Dog, even if it means getting rid of Bachmann. Maureen has said she's only going to caucus with the Democrats, but I get more nervous about her than I do Tarryl.
I also have to say that while Maureen does have experience on the health care issue, I'm more than a little nervous as to who's side she would be on. For her first quarter, I perused her donor list, and roughly a third of it were health care professionals — not surprising, given her background, but it still gives me pause.
I'm perfectly willing to continue to listen to both and hear the arguments they want to make, but Tarryl has been doing a much better job than Maureen so far, in my opinion, and I'd be shocked if she doesn't get the endorsement… and win the primary.
I'm pretty sure Maureen lives in Matt Dean's district. I'd love to see her run against him. Like I said, I think she seems like a nice, smart person with good values… and I'd rather see her knock Matt Dean out of the House than have a drop-out drag-down primary fight that benefits nobody.
Did the Reed campaign already get nailed once for astro-turfing online?
Nailed? Who nailed the campaign? For what? Dumb. Take another look at it, folks. Intelligent backing of their candidate is what the Repugs have done for years. "OH, NO, NOT ASTROTURFING! OMG!
Pthewf.
Your right Chris. It was MNblue who was posting and we haven’t heard from him/her since.
Now we have “Won't Be Silenced” and what he/she did here was exactly what we feared would be coming from the Reed campaign. I was called by a young Reed staffer to be invited to an event and when I told the staffer that I was supporting Clark she launched into a negative rant about why Clark can’t win.
Others have described the same thing to me so it appears that is part of the message. What we see from Won't Be Silenced is more of the same.
That person wasn't a troll as some people were calling him or her. Sorry, it was support of candidate at an opportune time. Good usage. Eyeballs were seeing one side of it, good to present the other. Except for the fact that what really needs to happen is the defeat of Michele Bachmann… common goal, everyone.
Be assured I'm not affiliated with the Reed campaign. I just don't agree with the tactics of Erik Austin. People with personal blogs have all kinds of opinions. It's very easy to detect a personal blog from that of a company or organization. Austin's attacks on fellow bloggers trying to boycott their employer's is way over the line. I've read his posts on these two incidents and researched his links and found no evidence. He just makes things up to try and embarass people he does not agree with. I wonder why he is accepted in liberal blogging circles so readily with these kinds of tactics.
Well, I guess if you really want to get into this…
It is very easy to detect a personal blog but I wonder what the reaction would be if I were using my school email to post to my personal blog. My point was that this particular employee of Klein Bank was using her Bank email for the purpose of expressing her opinion. Now, that opinion and that particular post was to suggest to fellow conservatives that they should attend SEIU "events" to, as she said, make their voice heard. I went to that list of events and found that amongst that list were things like family picnics and family get togethers. The person you defend was suggesting that conservatives should invade and protest places where SEIU members were simply gathering with their families? Do you support such a protest?
What I did was suggest to my readers and suggest to SEIU members that perhaps they were not very welcome at this particular business and if this conservative using the official email of this bank is suggesting people should "make their voice heard" at SEIU events which are merely family get togethers then perhaps they should stop doing business with that bank.
Now it is your turn to explain which pieces of my evidence are wrong or "non-existent"
Bruhahaha, what a scary conversation. Happy Halloween!
Did you verify any of your information with the conservative blogger? You also have not addressed the Dave Thul incident, which appears very similar. Your "evidence" was from an RSS feed not from the blogger's website or Look True North's website. I looked at both sites when this happended last summer, I could not find any work related emails attached to the post. Is there the tiniest possibility you could be wrong? Could you have slandered a fellow blogger and her employer without checking your facts? The tinest possibility?
OVER and definitely out.
I heard from my dad (oops, there I go again) that the whole Jeremy Lindman situation got settled and Muse was wrong. But hey, don't just take my word for it:
http://liberalinthelandofconservative.blogspot.co...
Maybe this is an example of what Won't Be Silenced is getting at.
I'm home! What a long day. I see Eric has been outed and the rest of you are fighting between Reed and Clark. So will go the election. It'll really get bad if Reed decides she's an Independent. Right now it's just the defacing and the money usage that's hurtful.
Again, where can the DFL use Reed?
And I have to throw my two cents in for "troll" and "astroturf". A troll is a person who intends to mess up the conversation without having a direct impact on the topic.
And as to astroturfing, how stupid that the Republicans use that for years to their advantage and now it's no good for DFLers. Respectful, this is why I believe what I do and why I support someone is beautiful advertising and smart blog usage. Sorry, just my two cents.
Negative attacks are a bad way to go, whoever you support. So stop it :>)
Reed and Clark are alike in values, issues, and more. Step back and look again. Compare the two of them to Bachmann.
"Reed and Clark are alike in values, issues, and more. "
Except that they are actually nothing alike. WTF?
Astroturfing is "no good" for DFLers because its dishonest and sleazy. Its also not very effective, at least on blogs, because its easy to see through.
Holly, Holly, sweet Holly. In reality, astroturf is the opposite of grassroots support. Its where money is spent to create and illusion- or, outright lie about relevant support for your candidate or issue.
It is the exact opposite of having support for your candidate or issue. That's why the Republicans use it for issues that are actually popular with the American people. And while it works in the short term, it always fail in the long term.
For instance, many astroturf groups went after health care reform back in the summer at these town hall forums. People seemed angry and unreasonable and Democrats were being pummeled or, calling in their town hall forums. Eventually the tables begin to turn and the grassroots begin pushing back and now we have a majority of Americans wanting health reform with a public option.
Also, sometimes astroturf methods get you in trouble with the law- over and over. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/31/bonner-forger...
Eric's blog is pretty far reaching, WBS. Look at his Twitter account and see the lists: pretty connected http://twitter.com/Political_Muse
And get over it. What a whiner.
Perhaps then you should have looked at the image I provided in my post which clearly showed the business email of the conservative blogger in question:
http://liberalinthelandofconservative.blogspot.co...
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RB8RH3n4L6Q/Sn9_woN0P7I...
So, was it respectful for this conservative blogger, using their Klein Bank email, to suggest that her readers should go to events being held by SEIU and "make their voices heard" when many of these events were picnics and SEIU family get togethers?
My questions:
Did the "conservative blogger" criticize SEIU or did this blogger suggest people actually go protest at events they were holding?
I presented you with the image that clearly show this blogger has been using a business email to post to True North. So, how was I lying about anything in my post? Pick out one lie…
Explain to me how it is acceptable to suggest that readers of your blog attend the family get together of an organization to protest it but unacceptable to suggest that since the writer of that blog insists on using her business email that the organization in question take its business elsewhere.
This will be my last reply regarding this topic since you have decided to hijack the thread so if you would like to continue this conversation you are more than willing to contact me through email or I could even create a special open thread on my completely harmless blog so that we can discuss. That way I can have more than 0, 1, or 2 comments!
Hey, all this buzz got me to looking at Political Muse's site. Looks like you had a similar altercation with Dave Thul when you accused him of using his military email on his personal blog. The exchange shows a technical error on the back end of Dave's blog that was not available in public viewing of posts. You acknowledged it was an innocent mistake but now before you contacted his commanding officer.
Could this be what happended to Twice Blessed? And, how do you blog with an email, I thought that people blog with websites? Looks shady to me.
DJZ and all,
Regarding astroturfing:
This is a new age, and voters will be using the web to find out about candidates, so, what about thinking outside the box? Let's do this: Campaigns should pay at least one person to watch the web. If there is a bad, slamming attack against the politician the paid person can provide a simple response about the candidate and what the candidate is trying to do.
Yep, I like it. It's a good advertising technique. Right now I think the Repugs assign a different Repug for each blog, etc. I think I have my own personal Republican, now that you mention it. Right, Brad?
It's already being used by producers and Republicans… except a lot of the time you wonder if it is true. Democrats can decide to be truthful. And let's call it Rovering. Or DJZing?
Cast aside those thoughts about astroturfing and what it has to be. MDE doesn't have to set the bar. Snotty, petty attacks do backfire. Just look at our last Senate race down here. Brodkorb showed up and everyone voted for the Democrat. Thanks, Michael!
Oh yeah, and there are few that can "whittle down" the field in CD6. The candidates themselves are the only ones to decide who stays and who goes.
All of the dem candidates are good people, I think. Again I ask, what can the DFL offer Reed?
Oh, and I'd better add a little context to that last comment: I'm still wondering if Reed will be on the ballot as an Independent, someday.
We can offer her a nice seat in the legislature. Representative Dean (who's wife is a doctor)is a rubber stamp for the leadership do nothing but complain Republican.
I'll be willing to do some "DJZing" to see her defeat him. However, her remaining in this Congressional race only serves the Republicans interests.
There it is! She'd be great as that. DFL top office, call and see if she'd be willing? Or I suppose that is too TV like.
Holly:
You're not getting it.
Astroturfing is fake grassroots because people pretend to be "ordinary folks" when they are anything but.
Of course campaigns should monitor websites and social media and respond appropriately. But they absolutely have to identify that they are working with a campaign when they do so.
If campaign workers make posts or comments without making that disclosure, it is incredibly deceptive and definitely astroturfing. That's not smart campaigning: it's deception, pure and simple.
Yes MBulldog I am getting it. No, I don't suggest people "have to identify". Not the usual, as seen before. MN DFL invented this idea, perhaps. Just stay truthful about the positives re your candidate. No prob.
I mean, MN DFL invented this idea that you have to "identify". Hogwash. Just be truthful and mean what you say.
Holly:
That is total BS.
I've questioned your campaign advice previously, but now I'm convinced: it's terrible.
You are advocating that campaigns do astroturfing without identifying themselves? That is just unbelievably unethical.
People who try to "astroturf" for candidates on blogs take a huge risk. If caught, they can hurt the campaign they tried to help. (Like the attacks on Laura Brod, although nobody was clearly linked to them. Yet. ) Those on an opposing side are getting better at identifying "astroturf" posters.
It is better to be an established poster commenting on a variety of subjects, and then be a candidate advocate.
Maybe you like the term Rovering best. Karl Rove meets Yellow Dog = Roverism.
I know, campaigns can pay into the DFL and the DFL could have a Roverism service!
Speaking of "Minnesota Bulldog". Bark!
It is better to be an established poster commenting on a variety of subjects, and then be a candidate advocate. <i/>
Nice! But not too devious. That is already in motion, I'm seeing.
Roverism team, support! (instead of "attack")
oops, tag prob
There was alot of astroturfing going on last year in the Madia v. Bonoff race, I recall. I don't think you ever get away from it.
It is an ethical fine line. LIke Holly says, if you believe what you are writing, then why hold back? On the other hand, if this was a newspaper, you would no doubt have to fully disclose.
One of the evolving questions of blogosphere, I guess.
YOu should ask the StonewallDFL board if Maureen Reed won't take a stand on anything. She clearly articulated her stances on GLBT issues and a public option in the healthcare debate, to the SDFL Board, at the October meeting.
The whole idea of real grass roots action and "astroturf" within the political parties is a bit strange. It seems similar to trying trying to determine which members and to what degree those in various religions hold and voice their beliefs having come about them naturally verses taking direction from the official entity. Those that choose to belong to either political parties and organized religions have made the decision to join the group because of an affinity to its predefined doctrine. This first act already defines that supporter as a person who is willing to defend and support a set of beliefs that are not natural to them but are instead primarily created by others. At that point all of the advocacy that person does on behalf of the group could be defined as "astroturf". All the campaigning, press releases, commercial advertising, and news appearances are designed to manipulate opinion and direct people into a certain set of beliefs. The entire point to long lasting political parties or religions is antithetical to grass roots action.
Political Muse has since changed his comment forum not to show the number comments but just now lists Comments. Perhaps trying to disguise how little anybody really reacts to what he says.