Kuttner will be speaking on the Obama administration so far. The event is co-hosted by Growth and Justice.

Come on down!

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

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.”

…

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.

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.

Frankly, it is not the prose of The Economist endorsement that interests me as much as it is the statement that they are endorsing Obama at all.  As much as I respect love The Economist’s reporting (it’s second to none as far as magazine world news goes), their editorial board is notably conservative.  Perhaps not in an American fiscal and social conservative manner, but certainly in the fiscal aspect.  Yet, here they are, endorsing a man that John McCain would have you believe is a socialist… it is an interesting time.  Revealing part of the underlying logic of the endorsement, it begins with a discussion of how disappointing that the “real” John McCain disappeared over the course of this election:

Ironically, given that he first won over so many independents by speaking his mind, the case for Mr McCain comes down to a piece of artifice: vote for him on the assumption that he does not believe a word of what he has been saying. Once he reaches the White House, runs this argument, he will put Mrs Palin back in her box, throw away his unrealistic tax plan and begin negotiations with the Democratic Congress. That is plausible; but it is a long way from the convincing case that Mr McCain could have made. Had he become president in 2000 instead of Mr Bush, the world might have had fewer problems. But this time it is beset by problems, and Mr McCain has not proved that he knows how to deal with them.

And adds these kind words for Obama:

Political fire, far from rattling Mr Obama, seems to bring out the best in him: the furore about his (admittedly ghastly) preacher prompted one of the most thoughtful speeches of the campaign. On the financial crisis his performance has been as assured as Mr McCain’s has been febrile. He seems a quick learner and has built up an impressive team of advisers, drawing in seasoned hands like Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers. Of course, Mr Obama will make mistakes; but this is a man who listens, learns and manages well.

Now, Sullivan’s endorsement interests me for the opposite reason.  We all know he loves Obama, but man does he know how to say it.  His whole endorsement is definitely worth the read, but his last few paragraphs really get to the core of why I think Obama is not only the right choice, but essential for the vitality of this nation:

The truth is: we are in a war for the future of human civilization. We are fighting for a world in which destructive technology need not collide with fierce religious fundamentalism to annihilate us all; for a world in which dialogue across cultures and religions and regions (even within America) is essential if we are to survive. We need to win the argument in the developing world; we need to reach out and persuade the Muslim middle - especially the next generation in Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Western Europe - about the virtues of democracy and constitutionalism. We cannot do that if we trash our own values ourselves. It is self-defeating. We cannot be a beacon to the world until we have reformed ourselves. In this war, we are also fighting for an America that does not lose its soul in fighting our enemy. Just because we are fighting evil does not mean we cannot ourselves succumb to it. That is what my Christian faith teaches me - that no nation has a monopoly on virtue, and that every generation has to earn its own integrity. I fear and believe we have given away far too much - and that, while this loss is permanent, it can nonetheless be mitigated by a new start, a new direction, a new statement that the America the world once knew and loved is back.

It will not be easy. The world will soon remember why it resents America as well as loves it. But until this unlikely fellow with the funny ears and strange name and exotic biography emerged on the scene, I had begun to wonder if it was possible at all. I had almost given up hope, and he helped restore it. That is what is stirring out there; and although you are welcome to mock me for it, I remain unashamed. As someone once said, in the unlikely story of America, there is never anything false about hope. Obama, moreover, seems to bring out the best in people, and the calmest, and the sanest. He seems to me to have a blend of Midwestern good sense, an intuitive understanding of the developing world that is as much our future now as theirs’, an analyst’s mind and a poet’s tongue. He is human. He is flawed. He will make mistakes. His passivity and ambiguity are sometimes weaknesses as well as strengths.

But there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.

And the world needs that America now as much as it ever has. Can we start that healing, that rebirth, tomorrow?

Yes. We. Can.

CD6: Bachmann 46, Tinklenberg 45, Anderson 6
CD3: Paulsen 46, Madia 41, Dillon 10
Sen: Coleman 44, Franken 39, Barkley 16
Pres: Obama 49, McCain 46, Other 3

Regular MNpublius readers have seen a lot of polls and SUSA has always been the right-wing outlier. One reason is that SurveyUSA only polls people it knows are likely voters. The problem with that, is that in 2004 for example, over 20% of the electorate voted with the same day registration process. If there is a remotely similar situation this Tuesday, be mindful that SUSA would have not polled any of those people.

Another way to look at this is to compare KSTP/SUSA to other polls. Here’s FiveThirtyEight’s breakdown of recent polls on the presidential race in Minnesota:

So when Survey USA and KSTP say that Obama is only leading by 3, how far off might their polling for Senate, CD3 and CD6?

If you’re interested, dig into the crosstabs: CD3, CD6, Senate, President. Normally I consider the crosstabs are worthy of further analysis but I don’t feel like bothering digging into a throwaway poll.

UPDATE: Paul Demko at Minnesota Independent points to Nate Silver of The Plank and FiveThirtyEight:

Don’t worry too much about that SurveyUSA result in Minnesota, which shows Obama just 3 points ahead. SurveyUSA’s polling in Minnesota has been very, very weird all year; they’ve never shown Obama with larger than a 6 point lead in their likely voter model, and had McCain ahead in the state as recently as October 1st. SurveyUSA does not have a Republican lean in general, but in Minnesota, it has consistently had a huge one.

A Fox Broadcasting executive denied that Barack Obama’s half-hour ad, scheduled for tomorrow night, forced Fox and Major League Baseball to delay the start of a World Series game.

That notion — which had been reported repeatedly, including here, has become a Republican talking point.

“No one will delay the World Series game with an infomercial when I’m president,” John McCain said today.

But the Fox account executive who negotiated the ad buy said Obama’s ad isn’t delaying the first pitch — it’s just replacing the pre-game show.

“Our first pitch for the world series is usually around 8:30 anyway – so we didn’t push back the game, it was really just about suspending the pre-game — you know, Joe Buck,” said the account executive, Joe Coppola. “That’s all we did.”

Republicans and Democrats can agree on this one point.  Listening to Joe Buck is like being punched in the face repeatedly.  Whatever else you have to say we all can agree that Joe Buck sucks, so thank Barack for his patriotic duty tonight.  It just cost him millions of dollars to spare you from 30 minutes of mindless boobery.