Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States of America.

Tracking Minnesota Politics Since 2005
Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States of America.

With Ritchie and Pawlenty refusing to sign a certificate of election for Franken’s win per the canvassing board’s official election results, Minnesota is left with one lonely Senator in Washington D.C. … am I the only one a bit perturbed by this? Where are the screams of taxation without representation people?
With the Obama administration about to take control of the reins, the American people are about to witness, by all accounts, a veritable tsunami of legislation attempting to tackle the escalating economic woes of our nation. And you better bet that there will be an equally sized tsunami of spending accompanying all that freshly inked law — spending of the likes this country has never before seen.
Now, debate if you will the merits of this impending wave of federal spending or the plans underlying them, but I think we can all agree on one thing: Minnesota should be part of the debate. And right now, our voice is halved. Halved at a time where our own state’s budgetary deficit has been reported to be around 15% of our entire budget and may in fact be closer to 20%… no matter how much fluff you think there is in our State’s budget, no one’s going to find $5.3 Billion (or more) without imposing some serious blood-letting.
So, try as we may to do the Minnesotan thing and take care of ourselves, there is no doubt that we, like so many states, are going to be deeply affected by the spending decisions made at the federal level. Billions of dollars of spending is going to be doled out one way or the other, and it is the duty of our Senators (and Representatives) to fight to make sure Minnesota gets it’s fair share. But instead we’re going into the legislative Superbowl of the century with only half an offense.
I think that seating Franken is the wise thing to do in these circumstances; after all, if Coleman’s challenge succeeds (God forbid), Franken will be recalled even if he’s seated. But, stepping back to reality, it’s apparent that that’s just not happening. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I think the Governor should appoint an interim Senator until this is all sorted out (and who knows how long that will take). Ideally, it should be a bipartisan, or nonpartisan, candidate — a third party, if you will… Anyone know what Dean Barkley’s doing for the next couple months?
He does have experience with this whole interim Senator thing…
Thanks to Mr. Madison, we didn’t actually elect a President last month - we only elected the people who will elect the President. On Monday, the members of the Electoral College will meet in the various state capitols all across the country and cast the votes that really matter; the votes that will elect Barack Obama President of the United States. Just in case anyone is curious, here are the names of Minnesota’s Electors:
Arthur Anderson – Albert Lea, CD1
Ben Gross – Eagan, CD2
Bill Davis – Brooklyn Park, CD3
Joan Wittman – Saint Paul, CD4
Dave Lee – Minneapolis, CD5
Al Patton – Sartell, CD6
Jim Gremmels – Glenwood, CD7
Donyta Wright – Biwabik, CD8
Matt Little – Maplewood, At Large
Jackie Stevenson – Hopkins, At Large
Update by Aaron: Dave Lee has been running a blog about being an elector and the electoral college at Citizen Elector.
To help move the process along, nearly 90 notable figures in the world of sustainable agriculture and food sent a letter to the Obama transition team earlier this week offering their six top picks for what they called “the sustainable choice for the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.”
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For those playing along at home, here’s their list of the six top picks for Secretary of Agriculture…
Mark Ritchie, Minnesota Secretary of State, former policy analyst in Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture under Governor Rudy Perpich, co-founder of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Secretary Ritchie is a little preoccupied now, but he is an expert in agriculture policy and he’d be Minnesota’s second third US Secretary of Agriculture after Orville Freeman (who is best known for his leadership on food stamps) and Bob Bergland.
Sadly, my choice is one of the signers of the letter, Michael Pollan.
Edit: Thanks to reader, Freedoms Eagle for correcting me on Minnesota’s USDA Secretaries.
The genius behind Hillary’s appointment as Secretary of State is not the much discussed ‘team of rivals’ approach (Doris Kearns Goodwin has to be smiling with the uptick in book sales, just in time for the holidays!) . It is instead a great tactical idea because Barack Obama just took his biggest rival for the leadership of the Democratic party and the person most likely to form a rump party if his administration hits the skids, and made her a stakeholder in the success of his administration.
Hillary is a supremely capable, and a supremely ambitious woman, and for any future Presidential amibitions to pan out she has to make sure that he is as successful as possible.
And it gets us the biggest Secretary of State we’ve had since probably James Baker, and the only person with the possibility of joining Baker and Kissinger as giants in the position in the modern era.
A great pick by Obama tactically and operationally.
Read about it: New York Times, The Atlantic
Read both. Wow. More on this soon…
Speaking with reporters in Colorado yesterday, Palin said she does not agree with Rep. Michele Bachmann’s recent comments suggesting that some congressmen hold “anti-American views,” NBC/NJ’s Matthew E. Berger reports. “Well that’s quite subjective,” she said of Bachmann’s comments. “I would think that anybody running and wanting to serve in Congress is quite pro-American because that’s what the mission is, to better this country, so I would question the intent of that.”
Seriously, the only way this could get worse for Bachmann would be if Roy Cohn himself came back from the dead and called Bachman a fearmonger.
Minnesota Independent and The UpTake have done some great work covering Todd Palin’s visit and Norm Coleman’s “Hope” Express, including the piece “First Dude and absent Sarah upstage Norm at Duluth Sportsmen for Coleman rally.”
I cannot believe they allow such disgusting signage not only at the rally, but at the front of the rally. I’m sure Mr. Positive Norm Coleman is proud.
People Are Shouting
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