While MDE has always been the site of “let’s throw this mostly-inaccurate-spin out there and see if it sticks with the media,” things keep getting worse and worse. It’s now flat-out lies from MDE, most from Luke Hellier, and it’s widely documented. By the way, if you haven’t figured it out yet, the site they’re linking to today goes to a parody site of the Communist Party, not the official site.

MDE was incredibly effective for the GOP with Michael Brodkorb at the helm as he’s incredibly media savvy and disgustingly manipulative. Brodkorb was able to use MDE to get the media and the public to believe things that weren’t true and have that spin reported. Now I don’t know if MDE is more of a joke than a failure.

…there’s something more with Michael’s vile hatred for Secretary of State Ritchie.  Something that I can’t put my finger on.  Is it just the reality of a DFL SoS that stokes Michael’s fire, is it Ritchie’s determination to make sure everyone in Minnesota can vote, did he just really like Mary Kiffemeyer?

Now that he’s Deputy Chairman of the GOP, Brodkorb is bringing his irrational hatred with him, in the form of a senseless attack on Ritchie a full 16 months before the election. This is just another in a series of bizarre attacks. After all, 16 months before the election, who cares? The only reason for the attack is because Brodkorb seems unable to control his rage; it certainly doesn’t make political sense.

Matt suggested a few reasons for Brodkorb’s hatred of Ritchie. I really don’t care what his reasons are; I’m more interested in his inability to get over it. It was one thing wasting his own time and resources on discredited attacks against Ritchie, but it boggles the mind that he’s managed to drag the entire Republican party into his vendetta. Does the GOP, given the huge challenges it faces, really want to spend its money satisfying Michael Brodkorb’s whims?

I suppose I should be thankful they’re throwing away their money. I guess it’s just said to see the last vestiges of a moderate, rational GOP disappearing.

As Jeff pointed out earlier today, Michael Brodkorb is at it again — trying to make a press story out of nothing. Rachel Stassen-Berger called him out on it yesterday and killed the story:

But even [Brodkorb] admits that any count he gets, if he gets the data, would come accompanied by a “giant asterisks.” That’s because, without the envelopes, he wouldn’t be in a position to know whether the individuals who cast the ballots comported with even the most basic requirements of absentee ballots. He could not check, for instance, whether those who cast the ballots were registered. Without that information, it’s not clear to this reporter what practical value the information would have — except for spin purposes.

Exactly. The only reason Brodkorb is doing this is for spin and media coverage. Over in the comments in MinnPost, Alan Paulson says:

The elections officials will refuse [Brodkorb’s] request. He would be wasting his time to sue. Opening the ballots would require an act of the Legislature.

While Mr. Paulson is sound in his logic, Brodkorb is absolutely not wasting his time. The whole point is to get media coverage, not to actually accomplish anything for the voters of Minnesota. Brodkorb’s the same guy that started the rumor that Mark Ritchie is a communist, harassing female DFL staffers by posting photos of them online and asking his readers what “skinny bitches for Madia” meant, called the exploitation of an 8-year-old girl “hilarious”, stalked a woman in a Perkins Restaurant parking lot outside a campaign office after placing illegal lawn signs, and now, naturally, he’s running for deputy chair of the Minnesota GOP. The whole point here is media coverage for Brodkorb and his allies, not to do anything relevant or helpful for anyone else.

This is what I don’t understand, though: the Star Tribune has traditionally published Brodkorb’s stories and tips. For example, he was going to sue over alleged double-counting of ballots and the Strib gave him an entire article. He never actually sued anyone — it was just for press coverage, as far as we can tell.

Has the Star Tribune finally learned to not fall for his traps?

I have found out that my post was taken down by the site administrator at True North after numerous calls/messages from Michael Brodkorb.

I asked the administrators of True North about Repya’s allegations.  Here is their reply:

Mr. Brodkorb had nothing to do with our decision. No one had contact with Brodkorb on this subject or on this post. We as the editors of TrueNorth felt it was not the type of post we think True North is here for. It is rare that we pull any posts down, but from time to time some posts happen to be put up on TN that are better suited on an individual’s blog, not on a website with such a large and variety of contributors who may or may not agree.

I also asked Michael Brodkorb about Repya’s allegations:

I didn’t have anything to do with the post being removed from True North and the independent statement from the site’s administrators verify that.

Frankly, I’m no fan of this guy and Michael Brodkorb’s effort to run for MN GOP Deputy is laughable.

Brodkorb is perhaps one of the most angry, abrasive, and divisive individuals in Minnesota’s political process. His thuggish and bullying behavior has caused many GOP grassroots activists in Eagan to be so turned off by his antics that they lost interest in participating in the political process. Eagan is now a solid DFL stronghold. He is one of the reasons that the MN GOP has lost so much ground the last three elections.

The current MN GOP Deputy, Dorothy Fleming is a far better candidate and a uniter not divider.

That’s Joe Repya, prominent Republican activist and past (and perhaps future) candidate for MN GOP Chair, discussing Michael Brodkorb, proprietor of Minnesota Democrats Exposed and Communications Director for the Senate Republican Caucus. It would seem that some among the GOP’s activist base are not too pleased with Michael’s scorched earth tactics.

Of course, Repya’s feud with Brodkorb is nothing new. Brodkorb managed Ron Carey’s re-election campaign for party chair two years ago. Repya was Carey’s opponent. What is new, however, is this blog: (which I hadn’t discovered until I read Repya’s post) Dump Brodkorb. Its apparently an effort to prevent Michael from being elected MN GOP Deputy Chair. One would think that Repya would be sympathetic with this blog, but Joe smells foul play:

As of this morning no one has stepped forward to admit ownership of the web site.

This has led many of us to deduce that the owner of the web site might actually be Michael Brodkorb.

Why? It fits his pattern of despicable political shenanigans. Set up a web site against himself, so he can play the victim card and say that mystical forces or his political enemies are trying to keep him from office because they fear his effectiveness.

Dump Brodkorb has no real content yet, but I’ve added it my to my RSS and I’m looking forward to see what they come up with.

UPDATE: I wrote above that Repya might be a future candidate for MN GOP Chair.  Well, Repya just announced that he will not run and will instead support former Senator Rod Grams for the position.  I don’t think that the GOP will elect Grams Chair.  There is just no way that the DFL could be that lucky.

During the November 19 edition of Fox News’ Studio B, Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, baselessly claimed that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) is a “former member of the Communist Party.” Discussing the members appointed to the Minnesota State Canvassing Board, which oversees the recount in the Minnesota Senate race, Napolitano stated: “The fifth member of the committee by statute, is the secretary of state, who is a Democrat and a former communist — former member of the Communist Party.” Napolitano provided no evidence to support his claim that Ritchie is “a former communist” or a “former member of the Communist Party.”

Hilarious. Communist? Really? Where did you get that information? Oh yeah, a rumor that dedicated MNpublius reader Michael Brodkorb himself started. Note, Michael Brodkorb may not have directly claimed that Mark Ritchie was a communist, but he did start the rumor. From a post that he quickly retracted this evening for some reason:

As the blogger who broke the story about Ritchie’s connection to Communist Party, please see the links to my original posts.

He then links to all four examples of his own “research” that shows these amazing ties between Mark Ritchie and Communism. First, he links to a piece at the Community Party website that actually has nothing to do with Mark Ritchie or his political views except for the fact he got mentioned as someone that is known to protect voter’s rights and being part of the voter protection movement. Brodkorb picks his quote wisely and doesn’t include what’s written after it. Brilliant. Secondly, he links to an piece that Mark Ritchie wrote that appeared on the People’s Weekly World. Brodkorb writes:

Ritchie’s writings have been published by newspaper with “a special relationship with the Communist Party USA.”

Even if that connection is incredibly weak in the first place, Brodkorb doesn’t tell you that the piece was originally at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (.doc) dated a couple weeks earlier and simply reprinted by the People’s Weekly World. Heh.

Brodkorb’s third example is how the Star Tribune mentioned Brodkorb’s spun version of his first example. Congratulations, Mr. Michael B. Brodkorb! I wonder how that happened?!

The fourth and final example is a $250 contribution to Mark Ritchie from a donor that is also part of an organization that “is dedicated to providing information and activities relating to contemporary Cuba and contributing to a normalization of relations between Cuba and the U.S.”

Wow. $250 from someone interested in normalizing relations between Cuba and the U.S.? That must mean Ritchie is a secret communist!

By the time the telephone tag is done, we have Fox News lying by saying that Mark Ritchie was part of the Communist Party.

The level of wing-nuttery exceeds my normal threshold and perhaps this occurred to Michael Brodkorb when he decided to pull the post down within minutes after posting it. It’s that or he realized that when he linked to Media Matters showing that the whole Communist connection is a load of bunk, he may no longer have wanted to take credit for spreading the rumor.

We must respond to this misoginistic attack on young women staffers by this blogger who is Erik Paulsen’s paid consultant.  I’m going to ask you to do several things:

1)  Click on this link to understand my outrage. http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com/2008/10/26/more-evidence-of-madias-postive-and-uplifting-campaign/

2)  Write xx@paulsenforcongress.com. She is Erik Paulsen’s communications director or call Erik Paulsen at xx@paulsenforcongress.com (952) 934-xxxx

3)  Forward this request to every woman you know who will write in to express her disgust with Paulsen’s campaign and his paid minions.

4)  Keep track of how many people write. Let’s aim for 100 emails before lunch today.

5)  Please email me that you have written to Erik Paulsen.
 
Thank you. 
 
I am approaching every women’s organization I know.  We are powerful. We can make a difference.  We cannot remain silent!

While MNpublius has absolutely nothing to do with this viral email it is not at all surprising that people are outraged and disgusted with the behavior of Paulsen’s highest paid consultant. To be honest though, it would be a lot more effective to tell the media to cover this than it would be to bombard the campaign with emails.

Either way, will Erik Paulsen condemn these actions?

Remember, this is the same creep that was stalking and videotaping himself harassing a woman in a Perkins parking lot at night after planting illegally placed signs next to Madia’s office. It’s the same guy who finds exploiting an eight-year-old girl in a negative attack ad “hilarious.”

In his recent set of three posts on Michael Brodkorb’s whisper campaign and MNGOP rumor mill headquarters, Minnesota Democrats Exposed, he “exposes” and links to photos of young women and asks his readers to question what “skinny b*tches for Madia” means to them.

It is unbelievably shameful for the former Communications Director of the MN GOP, the former Research Director for the MN GOP and a consultant to numerous state-wide campaigns to push a story with copied images of young female staffers of his opponent and framing them such a disgusting context.

On Minnesota Democrats Exposed, many times Michael Brodkorb will pose a “simple question” or a very short post while his commenters finish his thought so he doesn’t have to say the words himself. It’s a common way to spread rumors, lies and to frame conversations about a topic. In the recent three separate posts and threads, he fostered the following excerpts of conversation to describe the photographs:

“When did the DFL start pimping their daughters?” “DFL is now DFLP Democrat Farm Labor Pimps” “Do I think their management is pimping them? Yes, Absolutely yes.” “To be clear, the gal at the top of this page is kind of a babe.” “She’s cute. Is she single?” “I wonder. Do you think the Democrat party pays workinggrrlz comp. for it’s staff skanks?” “Madia for Congress: Hiring gorgeous women.” ”The Democrat party, and the Ashtray Madia campaign does not discriminate it’s skankery based upon gender, sexual orientation or fashion sense.” “Word to the wise, fellas: If Democrat skanks, or skinny b*tches for Madia show up at your fraternal orginization, wrap that rascal!”

There’s much worse that I won’t reprint here. Most of it is blatant objectification of DFL staffers and nothing to do with the campaign. Brodkorb even allows linking in the comments where people actively grabbed their own copies of the photos and labelled them such as “madiaskank2.jpg” to share with others. All while the top of the post and the names of some of the images contain the women’s real names.

Michael Brodkorb does not delete these comments and allows them to foster. He even linked his posts to another site that took his lead and took it farther by calling these women “street walkers” and “skanks.”

This disgusting activity by the Paulsen campaign’s consultant should never, ever have a place in Minnesota politics. What happens when these women try to find their next jobs? Will Erik Paulsen condemn this activity from his highest paid consultant or will he let it go like he did with the racist and bigot in the Minnesota House?

The Paulsen campaign should be absolutely ashamed they have allowed themselves to go this low and Erik Paulsen should condemn these actions.

“We want to commend Senator Norm Coleman for his hard work and leadership on the passage of the Postal Reform Bill,” said Jim Andersen, president and CEO of IWCO Direct, a leading provider of integrated direct mail solutions based in Chanhassen, Minn. “Since being elected in 2002, the Senator has shown great leadership on this issue which is vitally important to the 200,000 Minnesotans whose jobs depend on direct marketing.”

IWCO Direct also happens to be part of Avista Capital Partners, where they sure seem to shell out for Republican candidates.

The CEO of Avista Capital Partners, Thompson Dean, not only owns the Star Tribune, but is also on the board. His contributions indicate he only sends to Republicans, including to Rudy Giuliani’s PAC. Coleman is the only Senate candidate to receive money from Giuliani’s PAC this cycle.

Thompson Dean also fundraises for John McCain.

This, mixed with their right-wing editorial positions this cycle and knowing that their primary investments are in oil companies and health care firms, who could possibly be surprised by a Coleman endorsement? The only one has been Republican Operative Michael Brodkorb, whom placed a bet with MinnPost’s David Brauer, one of the state’s best-regarded writer on the media. Brauer quips: 

I think Michael picked Franken to raise expectations, but I’ll take bragging rights.

That’s not all he’s taking:

No shock at all on the Strib. I like extra dry martinis.

For some reason I can’t see Brodkorb dining at Nye’s Polonaise Room.

This close.

In other worthwhile ACORN news, here’s a video of John McCain sorrounded by ACORN activists at a immigration rally in Miami in 2006.

(Obama/Keys picture via that paragon of verisimilitude, Michael Brodkorb.)