Polinaut: April 2006 Archive

Farewell West Wing

Posted at 8:18 PM on April 2, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

I've been a West Wing fan since the first show and apparently I'm the only one still watching it but I've generally been impressed with the research that's done on it.

Sunday's night's episode featured Election Day between Matt Santos and Arnold Vinick and as the exit polling was coming in, they were taking apart what it meant. The resarch was solid and they weren't making it up. Minnesota's numbers were coming in and you heard a cnnversation in the Democratic boiler room that said, "don't worry about Dakota County. As long as we're solid in the 4th and 5th, it doesn't matter.

Dakota County is mostly the 2nd...Republican turf. The 4th and 5th are Minneapolis and St. Paul and relatively blue environs.

In another scene, the concern was about Massachusetts. The early numbers weren't good for the Democrats and it was noted that the Berkshires made up most of the numbers that were available. My father-in-law, a Massachusetts Republican of the traditional order, ran for Congress after Rep. Silvio Conte died. (You true political wonks will remember him as the guy who put on a big mask during a speech on the House floor to wail against pork spending. He was the ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.)

My father-in-law was talked into running by the state GOP Party, but they walked away from him as soon as the far right-winger from Springfield got into the race(I see Mitt Romney just appointed the guy a judge so it looks like, given his career politician status,he'll be able to retire never having actually worked a day in his life). So they had a primary.

My father-in-law won the Berkshires (from which he hails) and a few of the blue collar cities like Gardner and Fitchburg, but in a GOP primary you can't win the 1st in Massachusetts without Springfield, so he lost. And the guy who won got his brains beat out against then state Rep. John Olver.

Don, my father-in-law, was disappointed when he lost, of course, but I often think Washington would have been the worst place for him. He's a good, decent,intelligent man who really is interested in doing good things for people. He'd have been a fish-out-of-water in Washington. He may be the most decent person I've met in my life; he's the only poliician I can say that about.

Anyway, I know a lot of people soured on West Wing, but the writers' research was always spot on.

Unlike other TV shows. JAG comes to mind. I recall one episode when the lead character lands a plane, only there's a fuel truck on the runway. What to do? So the pilot -- the pilot, mind you -- turns the steering wheel to the right and the planes veers out of the way.

Interesting scene, except that the "steering wheel" doesn't actually steer the airplane...the rudder pedals do. But I guess they couldn't get a shot of the guy moving his feet.

It was a stupid show that was very popular. West Wing has, with exceptions, been an intelligent show that isn't.

Says a lot.

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Who is Patrick McHenry

Posted at 8:01 AM on April 3, 2006 by Bob Collins

He's the congressman who'll be flying in and out of Minnesota and a bunch of other states. Locally, he'll be supporting Krinkie and Kennedy, according to the Charlotte Observer.

That must be one safe district he's in. He's got no primary fight.

The Kennedy tapes

Posted at 3:27 PM on April 3, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

I'd forgotten all about this until Mark Zdechlik asked me for the audio for a story he's working on, but here's the interview MPR's Tom Scheck did last week with Rep. Mark Kennedy. Tom is doing these interviews for the data that makes the next edition of Select A Candidate; an addition, by the way, that has been hopelessly delayed, I'm afraid, by events too frustrating to discuss. Anyway, it's in RealPlayer format. Listen.

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And now this word from Michele Bachmann

Posted at 4:47 PM on April 3, 2006 by Bob Collins

Congressional Quarterly has just posted an interview with Michele Bachmann.

Did the shoe drop while you were putting it on the other foot?

Posted at 7:51 PM on April 3, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

So some NBC affiliates have rejected Move On's ads for pretty much the same reasons, as near as I can tell, that KSTP rejected the Midwest Heroes TV ad a few months ago.

I presume that both sides in that debate have the same positions on this latest controversy that they had in the previous one, even though the ads are from the other side? Right?

Of course. I'm sure the press releases and blog postings are being prepared right now. So we'll be seeing a Democratic news conference urging other stations to join the affiliates in preventing the ad from being shown, and Republican-dominated talk shows and bloggers will be passionate about how wrong the rejection is.

Common ground? Yes, of course. I can almost taste it through my helmet.

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Whatever happened to old people and their prescription drugs?

Posted at 9:48 PM on April 3, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Hill has a column about the toney Club for Growth, the arch conservative funding organization for "true conservative" candidates. They like Phil Krinkie and it's mentioned there. Apparently they're angry that some Republicans are turning more centrist than they'd like. And they've raised twice as much money as the last election cycle.

What interested me was this line from the club's president...

"Toomey has established a vetting process to ensure that each of the candidates its PAC supports is a true conservative who would “go down to the floor and vote against the Medicare prescription-drug benefit” and also has a clear shot at winning despite a tendency “to ruffle feathers within the party establishment.”

That sent me to the Krinkie Web site in search of his position on a prescription drug benefit.

Funny. There's nothing there. Actually, there's not much there on any issue. But the ommission of anything about health care is glaringly absent.

So let's get this straight.

1. Krinkie's the beneficiary of the Club for Growth
2. The Club has a vetting method to be sure a candidate wouldn't vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Call me crazy, but where I come from, 1 & 2 add up to the notion that the Club for Growth ASKED Krinkie whether he'd vote for a prescription drug benefit and he answered "no." In fact, he said as much in a Star Tribune profile in which he called it "ill-conceived, ill-wrought, ill-implemented."

True enough, perhaps, but the question wasn't about this prescription drug benefit, it was about a prescription drug benefit.

There's been a lot of mudslinging in that race over stupid things the last week or so, but being against a prescription drug benefit for seniors is a rootin' tootin' campaign issue. Just ask the elderly.

So why hasn't it been an issue. Because Jim Knoblach is against it too, according to a debate summary in the St. Cloud Times in February. Michele Bachmann's position is difficult to assess. In 2004, she put out a press release on HSA,s but that does nothing to get retirees (who don't have HSAs) prescription drugs.

Her Web site? It's as bereft of anything about health care as Krinkie's. Funny. The whole point of getting the prescription drug benefit passed was to get it off the table as a campaign issue in 2004 because it's the sort of issue that can turn a lot of voters -- read that: the elderly -- against you in a hurry if you're not quick.

Up to now, it's worked. But I'm guessing as we head for the general election, it's back on.

There'll be a ton of money coming into that race and I can see alot of TV ads intended to scare the old folks.

The line forms here...

Posted at 11:43 AM on April 4, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Tom Scheck just sent me a picture of the line waiting to get into the Judiciary Committee meeting where the marriage amendment bill is going to be heard.

Imagine the lines in November if it makes the ballot.

Update: I see where a blog with an occasional, but passing, relationship with reason says that line above proves a bias against the bill. Really? You think? That would mean that everyone standing in that line is for the bill. I'm kinda thinking they're not. I'm also kinda thinking that the bill will draw both opponents and proponents to the polls and I think if the bill passes, there'll be long lines at the polls.

Where I come from saying, "there'll be long lines at the polls in November if this is on the ballot," means "I think there'll be long lines at the polls." Only reader bias can reach another conclusion.

* * * *

By the way, this question about whether the appearance on the ballot in November is an attempt to help GOP candidates is an interesting one when looked at intelligently. The theory goes that if it's on the ballot, the GOP base will be energized, show up, and vote in GOP candidates.

But is that a given? If you look at the exit polls from 2004, the election was a referendum on Iraq, and John Kerry won the state. Not all that surprising. But what was surprising is that almost 1 in 3 voters voted against a candidate, not for for one.

Consider the top-of-the-ticket as the "referendum." Did it result in change elsewhere on the ballot? Nope. Every incumbent congressperson won re-election. John Kerry took Wright County, Washington County, and Stearns County , Rep. Mark Kennedy was re-elected. So where was the energized base in this "referendum?"
(This is wrong. See the comments section).

On the other hand, Gov. Jesse Ventura's victory is often credited to a constitutional amendment on the right to hunt. I tend to view this as another example of party hacks not understanding why Jesse Ventura won in this state. Ventura won the minute he sat next to Norm Coleman and Skip Humphrey at the first debate to which he was invited... and opened his mouth.

And it's true that in 2004, DFLers picked up 13 seats in the Minnesota House, 14 incumbents lost. Twelve were Republican (Arlon Lindner ran in a three-way after being disavowed by the Republicans). It's possible, I suppose, that people were so ticked off at Bush, that they voted against the incumbent Republican.

Except that in several of those districts, Bush carried the county.

Here, using the very excellent MPR Campaign 2004 results map, is the state from a presidential point of view:

And here is the state from a legislative point of view:

Theoretically, the results should look roughly the same. They don't, of course. I would guess that what drove the vote on the Legislature was a "big honkin'" budget deficit and the efforts to cut it rather than Iraq. So voters were clearly able to distinguish between issues.

Will they still?

(Update 4:18) -- David Kirchner at The Analyst (this is his speciality), provides these two maps for a closer look.

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Bachmann in the lead

Posted at 11:51 AM on April 4, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

According to a Phil Krinkie e-mail newsletter, here's the latest delegate count in the 6th District race:

Michele Bachmann 45% (78 delegates)
Phil Krinkie 30% (52 delegates)
Jim Knoblach 20% (32 delegates)
Jay Esmay 1% (4 delegates)
Undecided 5% (7 delegates)

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In the interest of full disclosure

Posted at 2:23 PM on April 4, 2006 by Bob Collins (37 Comments)

Now that the FEC has decided not to treat bloggers as potential independent expenditures and allow them the freedom to say what they want and do what they want, perhaps it's safe to answer these questions.

I know a lot of other bloggers read Polinaut. So please post in the comments section, your answer to the following questions.

-1- Are you paid in any way by a campaign or candidate?

-2- Do you consult with campaign officials or party officials as to how the content on your site can be most beneficial to a particular candidate or party?

-3- Are you as an individual paid by a campaign or affiliated with an organization or company that has as a client, a particular campaign or political party?

There's nothing wrong, mind you, with either 1 or 2 or 3. I just think it would be interesting to find out what bloggers are independent, and which ones actually are working with or for a campaign.

Besides, throw in your URL and it's a free plug.

FYI, here's my current list of blogs I read several times a day (these are the ones I have in the (only) POLITICS category. :

The Analyst
Backbone Minnesota
Blog of the Moderate Left
Broken Nails
The Carpetbagger Report
Centrisity
Comedy Central - Daily Show Text Headlines
Daily Kos
DFLSenate
The First Ring
Hammerswing75
Kennedy v. The Machine
The Kool Aid Report
Krinkie for Congress
Minnesota Blue
Minnesota Campaign Report
Minnesota Democrats Exposed
Minnesota Republican Watch
Minnesota's in the middle
minvolved.com
MN Publius
Myelectionanalysis.com
Nihilist In Golf Pants
North Star Liberty
North Star Politics
Norwegianity
NPR People: Ken Rudin
People's Republic of Minnesota
Polinaut
PoliPundit
Rambling from the North
Republican Minnesota
Residual Forces
Roll Call
SD63: red life in a district of blue
Session Daily - Minnesota House of Representatives
Shot In The Dark
Swing State Project
Three Way News
Vox Verax
The Wind Beneath the Right Wing
Pollytick in Minnesota
RedState

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It's Greek to me

Posted at 5:00 PM on April 4, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

You know how back in Latin I, everyone around you was speaking the tongue with flair... Gaulus tres partes distributo est, rolling off the tongues, while you were still trying to figure out the difference between puela and puelae?

That's how I felt today reading The Analyst, who takes apart the congressional districts to analyze the ticket-splitting. I didn't get any of it until he explained it:

Using just this data, Bush's low approval ratings, and incumbency advantage -- and ignoring a lot of important information (like the fundraising strength of each party's nominees), the 6th jumps out as the most likely pickup opportunity for the DFL provided the president's approval ratings remain poor. Next would be the 2nd, followed by the 1st. Ramstad seems unassailable in the 3rd. Looking at the DFL seats, all four incumbents look very safe indeed. The 7th appears to be a potential pickup opportunity for Republicans whenever Peterson leaves office, since a very large portion of his support has been in precincts that have voted for Bush. (Indeed, Bush won the entire 7th district in both elections.)

That guy is...is... eximius.

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"Lord help the mister who comes between me and my sister"

Posted at 5:18 PM on April 4, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

It was a moment at the Capitol somewhat reminiscent of the 2004 campaign when Dick Cheney talked about his lesbian daughter, after Alan Keyes called her a sinner. That pretty much enabled Cheney to get the marriage amendment off the presidential stage when he said it is a subject best left to the states.

It was one of those moments when you got a little glimpse of family dynamic.

Same today when Sen. Michele Bachmann, a candidate in the 6th District congressional race, led the debate at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the amendment.

The "family" part of it came with Helen Lafave sitting in the audience listening to Bachmann detail the threat to the state and children that people like Lafave present. Lafave is gay. She's also Bachmann's stepsister.

She talked to MPR's Tom Scheck and other reporters and said, "I simply wanted to remind Michele that she does have family members that this affects in a very real way," she said. "I have not had any contact with her for a couple of years and she's never discussed this me and I wanted to remind her that she does have family members that this affects."

By the way, here's the entire committee hearing (RealPlayer required)

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Things to do now that UConn blew my bracket

Posted at 5:36 PM on April 4, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

One of my regular stops on Planet Politics, Kennedy v. the Machine, (I admit, I like Gary, he seems like a good egg) started a contest today to raise money for the Kennedy campaign. Under it, anyone who goes to the Kennedy site (that's the Kennedy OFFICIAL site and contributes money, goes into a pool to win movie tickets. (I can't remember what). The folks at the law firm where Kennedy v. the Machine is produced would pick the winners.

The postings are all gone off the site now, 'cuz it turned out the offer would be illegal, I guess.

I am told by some folks that know better than me that our proposed fundraising contest for movie tickets as a reward for contributing to the Kennedy campaign may violate state law.

Last time I checked, that wasn’t a good thing.

The reader should note that I am soley responsible for dreaming up this knucklheaded idea — unless it turns out to be legal in which case it was Andy and Doug’s idea.

Regretfully, we have pulled the contest until such time as we get clarification.

It falls under the the definition of "lottery." Specifically: prize, chance, consideration. Remove any one of those , and it's not a lottery anymore. So if they open the contest up to people who don't donate money (thus the popularity of the phrase "no purchase necessary.") it becomes legal again.

Heck of a creative idea, though.

How'd the NCAA brackets work out?

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Do lawmakers pay attention to constituents?

Posted at 9:01 AM on April 5, 2006 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)

In the age of auto responders, and the emergence of e-mail as a primary means of communication, I often wonder whether writing your representative -- be it legislator, congressperson or senator -- does any good anymore. I wonder if they read it at all or, if they do, whether they just dismiss an opposing opinion the same way most political discourse considers opposing opinions now -- if it doesn't agree with mine, rather than consider it, demonize the opinion-holder and ignore the message as the work of Satan.

I don't think I've written my representative since I wrote Sen. Ed Brooke (another Republican who represented Massachusetts back when it was possible... and that reflected on Republicans, not Massachusetts, by the way) when I was a kid asking him to do something about cleaning up the environment. I got a nice letter back -- in the mail -- and it at least sounded like the senator, or something that exhaled carbon dioxide, tailored the message to the one received; maybe even, you know, considered it.

It would be the cheap shot to say he paid no attention to it in the era of global warming here, but thinking back to the '60s, we thought nothing of going to McDonald's (they didn't have lobbies then), sitting in our car, eating the food, and then pitching all the trash out the window and driving off. Or maybe pitching it out the window after we drove off. We don't do that anymore. So maybe I made a difference with my letter to Ed Brooke. Who knows?

My wife occasionally writes to our state representative, with whom she rarely agrees, and usually gets back some garbagey e-mail that basically says "I'm really a great legislator, look at all the work I'm doing for you..." and then lists all of her accomplishments, but always leaves my wife asking, "um, great, you singlehandedly widened I-94 to three lanes, what about the points of the message I wrote you?"

Of course, the lawmaker apparently never read it or didn't care enough to be the next Ed Brooke, which is too bad because if you don't have time to listen and talk to your constituents, what are you doing in the job in the first place?

I was going to do a survey of some sort to ask currently sitting politicians when the last time was they had their mind changed by a conversation with a constituent? Now I'm thinking of doing one on when the last time is they actually read the message from and responded to one?

I'm sure as we get into the debate season, we'll hear all the usual questions about all the usual subjects and all the usual non-answers coming back disguised as answers and everyone will leave being no more informed than they were before.

But it would be great to have a debate in which one questions was: name the last time you changed your mind after talking to a constituent?

Until then, I assume all the e-mail can be found in the parking lot at McDonald's.

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Who gets to vote?

Posted at 11:36 AM on April 5, 2006 by Bob Collins

It's been an issue at the Capitol this session, certainly. The Senate killed a bill a couple of weeks ago that would've required certain documents to be shown (photo ID) by people who intend to vote -- "providing proof of United States citizenship in the form of a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization document, making an oath in the form prescribed by the secretary of state and providing proof of residence."

Today, the Senate took another crack at clarifying what documents are required for same-day registration -- a photo ID and a utility bill. (SF 2976). That pretty much codifies the current system. It passed the Senate although, with committee deadlines coming, looks like it's been sent to a House committee to die. We'll see.

Sen. Warren Limmer, as the last speaker, said he found it interesting that there was so much discussion on the Senate floor when yesterday a Senate committee "denied people the right to vote" (the marriage amendment). Maybe this question should be added to November too.

By the way if you would like to learn how to vote illegally in Minnesota, watch the debate. I don't know if any of them will work, but let me know.

Here's the roll call courtesy of the handy, dandy Votetracker.

Oh, speaking of Votetracker, we've made one change. We've added category headings to make it easier to find individual issues. Also, and this isn't new, did you know you can sort votes by party, district, and vote? So you can find quickly who jumped ship on particular issues (or who didn't).

Let freedom ring

Posted at 7:08 PM on April 5, 2006 by Bob Collins

Even ignoring a few ramblings by people who seem to think I'm always writing about them and focusing on their party...

Ah, but the strawberries! That's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes, but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt, and with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist! And I'd have produced that key if they hadn't pulled Caine out of action! I-I-I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officer and......

But I digress...

... there's been nothing so far to indicate that there's anybody in Minnesota -- Democrat or Republican -- in the Minnesota blogosphere, who is getting paid by a campaign or a party to write a blog (OK, so we haven't heard from everybody yet). There is nothing so far to indicate that any political blog in Minnesota would fit the concerns of FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith, who suggested last year that blogs may be treated differently "in the next election" (meaning this one). So while I penned the questions that were asked, Bradley Smith authored the concerns.

E.J. Dionne wrote about this today, "FEC decides to regulate ads and `soft money' but to exempt blogs"

It would be wonderful if the Internet proved to be as brilliantly self-correcting as its enthusiasts claim it will be. Let's hope partisan bloggers on the one side help expose abuses by partisan bloggers on the other.

And let's hope they can figure out how to do it without making it up.

Amen.

I take that back, the good ones have learned how to do it without making it up. It is the one area where the blogosphere mirrors MSM. The good ones rise to the top, the questionable ones end up preaching predictable sermons to a unexpectant choir.

Same as it always was.

Face-off!

Posted at 10:36 PM on April 5, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Lost in the hubbub of same-sex marriage on Tuesday was this little nugget tucked faily deep in Art Hughes' story about crime in Minneapolis

"From my vantage point, when you've got people shooting each other in the streets and you've got all that money sitting in Neighborhood Revitalization Program and some of the other things they do that aren't as high a priority, those resources should be redeployed in my view, in the near and intermediate term, on cracking down on this violence in Minneapolis," Pawlenty said.

Pawlenty says he's considering further state intervention to quell the violence.

State intervention? Does that mean what I think it means? In an Arne Carlson - Sharon Sayles Belton sort of way? (He threatened to send state troopers into her city, you'll recall).

Alright! Big showdown between the two big political dudes. They've dropped their gloves to the ice and here we go!

Rybak says he looks forward to talking to Pawlenty about the city's efforts to fight crime.

What? You're going to... talk?.

A Pawlenty spokesman says the governor wants to meet with Rybak, interim police chief Tim Dolan and other law enforcement officials to see if there are ways the state and city can work together to lower crime.

Go back to your homes, there's nothing to see here. C'mon, break it up! Go home. The show's over.

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The Fightin' 6th

Posted at 8:07 AM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Maybe the candidates got a good talking to by party leaders or maybe cooler heads prevailed after the foodfight in the 6th District (now known as the "Fightin' 6th") over the last 10 days, but at least one candidate is urging a toning down of the rhetoric in the race.

In an e-mail to supporters, signed by the "Bachmann kids," Michele Bachmann's campaign urged some restraint.

In our interests to see the campaign for the endorsement remain positive and focused on the issues, we've set up a website encouraging candidates, campaigns and the public to keep the messages positive. Check it out and sign Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment: Thou shall never speak badly of another Republican.

http://www.keepitpositive06.com

Remember to spread the word too, because Republicans have to stick together this year.

But on this next topic we'd ask to you keep it quiet.

By the way, happy birthday to Bachmann, who turns 50 today. (This was also my father's birthday, and my grandfather's birthday).

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I'll take that as a.....?

Posted at 8:30 AM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins (10 Comments)

The blogosphere -- well, a little slice of it -- is aghast at three questions that I asked the other day as a result of a year's worth of warnings from former FEC Chair Bradley Smith.

Bogus Gold, for example, gets a high, deep, spiraling punt that's pushing the returner back..back...back:

Bob Collins, MPR's official political blogger, and therefore (I assume) MPR's employee, and therefore paid at least in part by my freakin' tax dollars, is questioning MY financial independence?! Get your stinking hand out of my back pocket before you say that again, hombre!

Of course, Bob, being a lefty, may think that government funding is actually the best way to keep political influence out of political campaign coverage. Rigggghhht. And, much like MPR's website claims, they're perfectly objective in their publicly funded coverage. That's two whole posts in themselves, so I'll just call b*llsh*t and move on as we agree to disagree.

Anyway, he only sort of insinuates against me personally, since he reads KvM which I write for (umm... every now and then, anyway). Outside of that I don't even make his list of blogs he reads every day. Guess I'll just shrivel up and freakin' die. Except the non-regular reading is mutual, so I suppose he gets a pass.

By the way, I had no idea the guy wrote for KvM; I thought Gary did all the work over there. And actually he is on my list of blogs I read every day, but the list I provided was the list of folks in the ONLY POLITICS section of my reader. Bogus Gold is a good read but when you post commentary about American Idol, sorry, you don't make the "politics only" section. Unless Kenny Rogers' poor facelift has now made it as a campaign issue, which it probably should from what I hear.

Anyway, we'll put that down as a "get lost, and take your poodle," and figure the translation from what I actually said to what he thinks I meant is a freebie. (I'll have to log in later to find out what I really just said).

Over at Residual Forces, we have incoming fire...

But I am tired of the constant insinuations that conservative bloggers and the Republicans are up to no good. (Remember it was him that had his undies in a bunch over the stupid Marriage CD) The guy is a biased hack, and he is doing nothing more than phishing for someone stupid enough to admit their undying devoting and absolute servitude towards Karl Rove.

Meanwhile, a kinder, gentler approach to the notion that a medium (blogs) that ushered in the era of "transparency" should consider being, well, transparent, from Minnesota Campaign Report.

Bob, I hope you'll re-post this, including previous responses, once it falls off your front page. Lefties and righties frequent your page pretty universally, and it's both important and interesting to keep this disclosure effort going.

The issue has obviously aroused a passion not seen since the great Marriage CD controversy, another issue that -- coincidentally or not -- revolved around telling people what you're doing and letting them decide whether it means anything.

And the great irony, of course, is the blogosphere, rightly so, developed because of a guiding principle of transparency.

In an age where we're told that blogs will have more impact on politics in this country, what's wrong with asking whether content is bought and paid for or is independent information?

Is asking the question now considered a partisan attack? Gosh. Why?

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A confession

Posted at 10:39 AM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

I was driving home last night and I realize I have a confession to make. I lied. I lied on my resume...sort of. While I realize this disqualifies me from ever running for office or being the CEO of RadioShack, I must confess for, my soul requires it. I realized it today when, after taking today and tomorrow off as vacation days, I'm sitting here -- still in my pajamas at 10:40 in the morning, watching Channel 17's broadcast of a House Committee discussion on a nothing bill setting up legislative training forums.

There's a half-built airplane in my garage and a winter's worth of dog...ummm.. contributions in my backyard to pick-up and here I sit...a legislative couch potato.

If that's not a sign of a tortured soul, I don't know what is. There's

OK here goes: in my high school yearbook (Fitchburg Mass. High School Class of '72), I lied about my scholarly pursuits. See, we got these little cards to write them down and I realized I hadn't done anything. Sure, I played three years of hockey (no goals, no assists and not much playing time on a team that went 0-19-1) so I wrote that down. I was sports editor of the school newspaper so I wrote that down. But it seemed so....so.....empty. And so I did it. I wrote down Latin Honor Society 2,3, 4 (sophomore, junior, senior years).

And they printed it. I thought I could get away with it. And I did. Fact is, when I was reading the Latin version of The Aeneid, aloud in class, I had actually written the English translation down in pencil atop the Latin words (thanks to the Cliff notes). And I made sure I made mistakes as I was reading.

I didn't think Mr. Boyle bought it because as I was reading, from way back in the class. He slowly started walking down the aisle and then stopped right behind me, as I clutched by book closer to my chest to block his view. Ex-seminarians make tough Latin teachers, so I thought he'd blow the whistle and recall all of the yearbooks and I would be left to live a life of shame, fingered as a Latin loser.

There, it's done. I have a clear conscience.

And so I can tell you about this.

Fun things to do on a vacation day

Posted at 2:18 PM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

Every Thursday a group of MPR employees from different departments has a lunch get-together to discuss one facet of what we do. Today it was political coverage and they asked me to speak.

We were recalling the early days of MPR online...back in the mid '90s as we started talking about blogs and podcasts. I had asserted that one of the first blogs was actually Citizen Spin, which lasted about a week or two before one of the bosses got a nasty e-mail about it. Back then, one was all it took.

That was in 1999. (The good Citizen returned briefly during last year's shutdown. He was wearing winter clothing,by the way, because while we had original artwork the first time for various times of the year, the only one we could find was the one for winter).

Then, John Pearson, the guy who started MPR's online efforts, said that this was actually the first political blog (Democrats here | Republicans here | Bipartisans here), although we didn't call it a blog at the time, of course.

Then we started talking about podcats and Web-only "shows" and, until John reminded me, I had fogotten all about Spin Cycle. There's a few links still around on the MPR site but they're all broken so it's probably gone forever. But I used to bring the Capitol reporters in and stick in an analyst-type and open up the microphone and let them gas on. I'd snap pictures and then spend the afternoon matching up the audio and pictures in RealSlideshow.

We didn't have many listeners. But it was fun. And it planted a flag in the ground, I guess.

It's a date

Posted at 2:32 PM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

The RNC today announced the dates for the 2008 Republican National Convention. September 1 (Monday) through Thursday September 4, continuing the new thing of having it in September instead of mid-summer, and guaranteeing, presumably a battle-free convention.

I'm still betting on Miami or San Diego as the host city.

The coverage of which on CBS, I just realized, will be anchored by Katie Couric.

Look! On the horizon! Is that a ship?

Posted at 6:58 PM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins

NPR blogger Robert Smith reports that a civil conversation took place today between an apparent liberal and a conservative who happens to be president of the United States. It was articulate, it was civil, and it gives us hope for a new approach in political discussions. "Bravo" to both of them.

The next step will be when this isn't news.

(PS: As of 7:05 p.m., Polinaut's formatting is all hosed up when viewed in IE. I have no clue what's going on but thanks for scrolling down)

The survey says these guys don't like each other

Posted at 7:57 PM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Looks like the mudslinging has broadened beyond the candidates. Now the pollsters are getting into it.

The subject. John Zogby, the polling firm used by the Wall Street Journal.

These guys have never cared for each other anyway but it started with a Roll Call (subscription required) article by Stuart Rothenberg, in which he savages John Zogby's polling.

Zogby counters with a backhander...

Here are some things you just don't hear very much anymore:

"The beaches near Pyongyang are just lovely this time of year".

" Gee, I wish Duke Cunningham was back. It just isn't the same".

" I read Stuart Rothenberg's column every week and I really care about what he thinks".

But apparently he does because he sent out an e-mail and referenced this link.

Back over the net to you, Stuart.

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What a coincidence.

Posted at 8:19 PM on April 6, 2006 by Bob Collins (14 Comments)

Funny this should come up in a week when some folks have gotten themselves all worked up by my asking three simple questions.

Blue Ox has done some work to determine who is Molligator? A blog that appeared recently and disappeared just as quickly. It's gone now but apparently the postings were critical of gubernatorial candidate Becky Lourey.

While I can't be certain, a quick search pulled up sites here and here which seem to identify Molligator as paid Steve Kelley staffer Pam McCrory. My sources in the 7th Congressional District tell me that she is one of two Kelley staffers in the 7th and is based out of Bemidji. Ironically, this is confirmed by Molligator herself in, ahem, amusing comments left on Minnesota Blue.

If it were true that a blog was actually a front operated by a campaign, without actually stating that, would that be considered deceptive? Does it matter?

You tell me.

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Little news...

Posted at 11:47 AM on April 7, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

I probably won't be posting much today because (a) I'm taking another vacation day (2) it's Friday, a day of rest in politics and (3) the Cleveland Indians home opener starts at 2 p.m. against the Twins (I'm a huge Tribe fan, sorry). I've got a couple more 5th District congressional candidate pages to set up and will probably do that during the game, especially if Paul Byrd turns out not to be the second coming of Kevin Millwood. (By the way, check out the Bleacher Bums).

However, one thing to pass along, two of the true geniuses behind MPR's online efforts, Matt Thueson and Andy Beger, are setting up an RSS feed of Votetracker. I think it might be available by the end of the day.

There are plenty of other political-type feeds available from MPR here.

Another in the "little news category," former GOP Party spokesman Michael Broadkorb has started an audio version of his blog. That's cool, and he mentions something about posting video next week, thus violating the first rule of "radio" (never let 'em see your face).

Minnesota Stories has been doing video for some time, but I see they've now posted a produced piece on Becky Lourey.

Shoot, is that where blogging is going? Video? I have to learn video? I spent a few weeks in television once at WCVB in Boston. I could never master the whole "write to the pictures" mantra. Plus I hated getting yelled at by people with makeup and pefect hair.

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Votetracker RSS

Posted at 1:21 PM on April 7, 2006 by Bob Collins

Here's the RSS link.

Dueling candidates

Posted at 5:03 PM on April 7, 2006 by Bob Collins

Tom Scheck has just posted a story on Jim Knoblach vs. Phil Krinkie, special Legislature edition.

There's always a bit of politics in every policy debate at the Legislature. Lawmakers often try to force their colleagues to take a bad vote, while working to make themselves look good with their constituents. Republican Reps. Phil Krinkie and Jim Knoblach are using that tactic more aggressively at the Capitol, because they're running against each other for the same Congressional seat in the 6th District. Some political observers say they're trying to "out-conservatize" each other.

Briefing - Sunday April 9, 2006

Posted at 7:42 AM on April 9, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Washington Post has an article today about President Bush's small group of advisers choosing sides in various GOP contests coming up this year. It's a snapshot column, the bottom of which notes the value of John Kerry's e-mail lists and how it was used to raise $100,000 for Amy Klobuchar in the U.S. Senate race here.

Klobuchar gets some face time at the end of an article about Minnesota's poor record of locking up repeat DWI offenders.

In its Buzz column today, the Kansas City Star notes...

According to The Hotline, the last person elected to the Senate directly from a county-level office was Democrat Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois in 1992. This year, there are at least two major elected county officeholders trying to make similar jumps: Democrat Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota and Republican Mike Bouchard in Michigan.

On the editorial front, the Mankato Free Press gives the Legislature a "B" so far this year. But one gaffe that was pretty glaring...

The Senate has approved a bill to increase the Minnesota sales tax to 6.875 from 6.5 percent to guarantee funding for environmental programs, conservation, the arts and even public radio.

The House has proposed the same sales tax rate, but designated a certain amount to environmental, following a no new taxes mantra. And please don’t ask the House to fund public radio while it’s in Republican control. It’s a futile effort.

Fair enough and not at all surprising, but check the bill, it's funding public broadcasting, as Dennis Anderson accurately pointed out in his commentary last week.

Backers of public broadcasting make similar arguments, particularly those in public TV and radio outside the Twin Cities. (Twin Cities-based Minnesota Public Radio likely would receive little, if any, new money. Most of the new funds instead would pay for the required digital conversion of public TV stations outside the Twin Cities.)

It's actually a good story that's lost in the "big bad public radio" angle because it's actually about digital television. See the government -- the government -- dictated that Public TV convert its signals to digital. Or they will be ordered to shut down.

Now, that factoid may not change the fate of the legislation, but acknowledging it might change the honesty brewing in the upcoming debate. The situation is a result of a government edict, which is the quid pro quo for government funding.

Of course yesterday was a big day in politics in Minnesota and a few bloggers documented it. At Centrisity, they like Obama. Broken Nails provides some good color of the event with Klobuchar.

Jerry Plagge at SD63: Life in a district of blue has the details on the Republican convention on Saturday.

Whatever happened to the AG race?

Posted at 11:36 AM on April 10, 2006 by Bob Collins

There's actually a pretty good race for attorney general in Minnesota this year between Rep. Jeff Johnson and Rep. Matt Entenza.

And I'm late getting to this because I took a couple of days off and wasn't near any audio workstations, but here's the audio of the debate they had late last week.

Property tax stirs legislators

Posted at 12:28 PM on April 10, 2006 by Bob Collins

House Republicans today put the "taxes" issue in play in the campaign of 2006; an issue that they used masterfully to ride to victory in the state in 2002.

As outlined, their plan provides rebate checks that would equal 10 percent of a homeowner's 2006 property tax bill - with no cap on the relief amount, and the checks would arrive a few weeks before Election Day.

Democrats are also working on a property tax reform plan that uses LGA (local government aid). They say theirs is a long-term solution while the Republican plan is a one-year fix.

Either way, some votes are going on the record soon.

Blogger to challenge McKinney?

Posted at 12:47 PM on April 10, 2006 by Bob Collins

Sure looks that way.

Jeff Jarvis at Buzz Machine says this is the beginning of a trend; people running from citizen media. He says it lowers the barrier to politics and government.

And on that note...

Posted at 1:37 PM on April 10, 2006 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)

Still clearing stuff off my desk. Here's the audio (RealPlayer) from Sen. Barak Obama on Saturday. Tom Scheck sends this along. I'm pretty sure we didn't do any news stories on this event.

One of these days, I'm going to write another tome on campaign music. It was seriously painful to edit this audio down to get rid of everyone not named Barak Obama because I had to wade through overmodulated '80s music -- in this case Tina Turner, I believe.

I'm not sure why the Dems are still stuck on the '80s music but I'm pretty sure it's related to Bill Clinton's fascination with Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop." But the only good thing about the music in the '80s -- the big hair stuff -- is it wasn't music from the '70s.

I haven't heard much Republican rally music yet this campaign. I'm hoping Lee Greenwood will write another song soon, though.

I'm not sure whether music choice is reflective of the state of politics, or the state of music in our society. I long ago passed the age where I have actually heard of the bands they play on The Current, for example.

Every now and again, Morning Edition has a sports commentator on who happens to be the guy who selects the music at the Metrodome. Maybe he can explain it to me sometime.

If you have a recommended playlist for the campaign season, by all means share it. I will not recognize any of it, but have at it anyway.

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Is this issue going anywhere?

Posted at 1:56 PM on April 10, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Minnesota Senate took one of those votes on an issue a few minutes ago that I can't quite figure out has campaign implications or not. It was also one of those strict party line votes (with Votetracker, by the way, you can break the vote down pretty easily).

It's on the issue of unemployment compensation for Northwest strikers.

The issue may well be going nowhere since the House hasn't even given it a committee hearing yet. Must've been a tough call for Rep. Chris Gerlach, who I think was a co-sponsor of the bill at some point (don't quote me). He voted against it. He represents Apple Valley, which, last time I was there (and it's been awhile) was thick with Northwest employees.

Starting to look at a battleground state

Posted at 2:01 PM on April 10, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

On the heels of rising "Senate star" Barak Obama's visit, Gov. Pawlenty announced today that Sen. John McCain (an already risen star) will be in town on Wednesday.

The press release said nothing, zero, nada about why McCain is here, only that there'll be media availability with McCain at the Capitol Wednesday. But the release was issued on the campaign stationery.

Pawlenty and McCain on the same podium. Hmmmm...

Polinaut is still chuckling about McCain's ability to completely disarm philosophical opponents, as he did on The Daily Show to Jon Stewart the other night, finally getting Stewart to say, "don't make me love you."

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When Colin Peterson retires...

Posted at 4:54 PM on April 10, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

The GOP picks up a seat. Or so this would indicate.

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Pawlenty on the session

Posted at 11:03 AM on April 11, 2006 by Bob Collins

MPR's Cathy Wurzer had Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Morning Edition for a bit this morning. Bonding, taxes, fees, and stadia on the agenda. Find it here.

New voting machines for Minnesota?

Posted at 11:08 AM on April 11, 2006 by Bob Collins

And apparently it's South Dakota's idea (well, by way of Omaha). They're intended to help voters with disabilities and Minnesota is required to provide assistance this year. (Story)

McCain's Minnesota schedule

Posted at 11:53 AM on April 11, 2006 by Bob Collins

Wednesday's schedule from the StraightTAlkAmerica.com folks.

9:30am
Press Avail with Gil Gutknecht
Ramada Hotel and Conference Center
1517 16th Street SW
Rochester, MN 55902

11:00am
Press Availability with Governor Pawlenty
General Aviation Terminal

St. Cloud Regional Airport
St. Cloud, MN

3:00pm
Press Conference with Governor Pawlenty
State Office Building 181
Minneapolis, MN 55155

Factoids

Posted at 1:12 PM on April 11, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Looks like a pretty slow day today, so far. A couple of things have floated by starship politics.

Backbone MN has a post that it says came from a blog called NW Minnesota that explains the Molligator situation. But there's no link to the original blog so here's one to the repeating blog. Bottom line? The person behind the short-lived blog, Molligator, who wrote some posts critical of gubernatorial candidate Becky Lourey, was a paid employee of the Steve Kelley campaign.

She insists the campaign and the candidate didn't know anything about it. The candidate part may be true but when you're a paid member of the campaign, the campaign does know something about it.

Now, let's not mince words, here. In the old days, we called these "dirty tricks," and they reflect poorly on the offending campaign, regardless of whether the candidate knew about it or not.

That's why I asked the three questions a few weeks ago that caused such an uproar among, oddly enough, mostly Republican bloggers who thought it was aimed at them. Surprise, eh fellas? Perhaps they know something I don't. But a dirty trick is a dirty trick regardless of party and unless one advocates the use of dirty tricks in campaigns, three simple questions should cause no angst.

The offending party calls for an end to the controversy and maybe that's enough to make it go away.

Can and will more of this happen in the future? Yes. What will prevent it? People in the blogging community who think it shouldn't. While some bloggers were lambasting me for raising the possibility it could, others were rooting this particular incident out. Good job by them.

* * *

Johnsongate update.

The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility today rejected Greg Wersal's call for an investigation in the Supreme Court justices and any communication they may have had with Sen. Dean Johnson. According to the AP..

Betty Shaw, acting director of the Professional Responsibility office, wrote to Wersal that there wasn't grounds to investigate Blatz since it was unclear if the comments - if they were made at all - happened before or after (Kathleen) Blatz left the court.

Wersal says he may appeal.

* * * *

Press release file: Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga will be speaking and signing copies of their new book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, on Tuesday, May 2nd at noon at Arise Bookstore. Markos is the founder and editor of The Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com), the largest progressive blog in the country, with about 5 million unique visits each week. Wired magazine recently called it, " the most popular political blog anywhere on the political spectrum."

2441 Lyndale Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55405.

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It's raining buckets of money

Posted at 1:54 PM on April 11, 2006 by Bob Collins

The AP is reporting...

Minnesota DFL Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar said Tuesday she raised $1.26 million in the first quarter of the year, a steep increase over her last reporting period. Klobuchar, the Hennepin County attorney, said she finished with about $2.5 million in the bank. Overall, her campaign said, she had raised $3.7 million in the election so far. Klobuchar's first-quarter numbers nearly doubled the amount she raised in the previous reporting period. In the fourth quarter of last year, she raised $700,000. Klobuchar's DFL opponent, Ford Bell, did not immediately release his figures Tuesday, nor did the Republican candidate, U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy. The filing deadline is Saturday.

Update (4:07 pm): Mark Kennedy outraised (did I just make up that verb?) Klobuchar with $1.475 million raised in the first quarter and still has $3.4 million on hand. In a release, the Kennedy campaign notes that $100,000 of Klobuchar's dough came with a visit by Sen. John Kerry.

So updating the money race:

BTW, I see that the FEC has asked for more information from the Kennedy campaign regading the '05 year-end report. Apparently the FEC is not satisfied that the identity of contributors was properly provided. The response date is Thursday.

The future of the conservative movement

Posted at 4:38 PM on April 11, 2006 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)

This should be good.

Release issued today by MPR

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Representative Vin Weber will discuss the future of the conservative movement with Gary Eichten during a live Midday broadcast from The Forum on Friday, April 21st.

Event Details:
Friday, April 21st
Noon - 1:00 (participants must be in The Forum by 11:30 a.m.)
The Forum at Minnesota Public Radio

The audience for this event is by invitation only and will include members of our PIJ (public insight journalism) network, key community members, and Humphrey Policy Fellows. The broadcast will feature regional callers and online questions.

This event is hosted in collaboration with the Humphrey Policy Forum.

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Political doodles - April 12, 2006

Posted at 8:03 AM on April 12, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

As I continue to move... slowly... toward getting Select A Candidate done (the governor's race SAC will be done before the Senate), I still have a few issues to try to get a straight answer from the candidates on. One of them is agriculture. It's not exactly a source of great philosophical pronouncements in the campaign for U.S. Senate so far. So it's interesting to note the Marshall Independent, a good newspaper in farm country, has Ford Bell's take on the issue in an article today.

On the ballot front, the House Transportation Finance Committee yesterday changed the ballot question that might be on November's ballot regarding how to spend motor vehicle sales taxes. Before it wasn't broken down between highways and transit. Now it is: 60% for highways, 40% for transit. Votetracker is tracking (otherwise I'd have called it VoteStandingAroundDoingNothing) but I've got some more work to do on it today.

The U Daily has an article today on retiring Rep. Martin Sabo. However, it looks like they mostly regurgitated quotes from his retirement speech. I'm waiting for the question, "who are you voting for in the primary?"

Kennedy v. the Machine asks today why Amy Klobuchar's campaign said former campaign manager Jessica Vanden Berg was staying on as an advisor when Ben Goldfarb was brought in as campaign manager? According to a Raleigh newspaper, Vanden Berg has turned up as the campaign manager for Virginia Senate candidate James Webb. Dems have a primary battle there.

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Krinkie to abide by endorsement

Posted at 10:59 AM on April 12, 2006 by Bob Collins

If Phil Krinkie doesn't get the GOP nod in the 6th District race, he's confirmed that he intends to honor the party endorsement in the race. MPR Capitol reporter Tim Pugmire sought confirmation of that today. "As you may know, there's been some whispering from the Bachmann and Knoblach campaigns about Krinke and his commitment to the GOP endorsement. They say he made a statement at a district convention last weekend about possibly running in the primary. "Krinkie told me this morning that he did indeed make the comment (at the district convention), but insists it's much to do about nothing. He says he mentioned the option of running in the primary during a heated procedural discussion, in which he feared the potential disqualification of 30 to 40 ballots. Ultimately, he says only two spoiled ballots were thrown out, and he cooled down.. Krinkie insists he still plans to abide by the endorsement," Tim reports.

Oh that crazy blogosphere

Posted at 11:24 AM on April 12, 2006 by Bob Collins

It says in The Hill today that politicians have a love-hate relationship with the world of bloggers. Get out!

What do people give a rip about?

Posted at 1:17 PM on April 12, 2006 by Bob Collins (17 Comments)

I'm sitting here watching the bonding bill debate on the floor of the Minnesota House, surrounded by lots of charts that may or may not be telling me something interesting. I'm not sure, yet. Charts do that to me.

As you may know, as part of the Campaign 2006 Web site, we've been asking folks to fill out a form to ask what issues candidates should be focusing on in the coming campaign. Ideally, this information will then be given to show producers, hosts, and reporters for some cred.

The folks who are doing this, the Public Insight Journalism team at MPR, haven't yet processed these to weight them according to registered voter breakdown, which might be important because Republicans and Democrats -- and I know I could knock you over with a feature here -- have different takes on the issues, including what they are.

Let's break it down between U.S. House and Senate races and the state-level races.

SENATE AND HOUSE

Republican rankings (first choice)
1. National security
2. Abortion
3. Taxes
4. Immigration
5. War in Iraq
6. Federal budget
7. Health care
8. Social security
9. Energy
10.Patriot Act

Democrats (first choice)
1. War in Iraq
2. Health care
3. Federal budget
4. Global warming
5. National resources/environment
6. Ethics
7. Energy
8. Abortion
9. Early childhood education
10. Higher education

STATE-LEVEL

Democrats
1. K-12 funding
2. Health care
3. Early childhood education
4. Transportation
5. Natural resources/environment
6. Higher education
7. Gay marriage
8. Energy
9. Budget
10.Local government aid

Republicans
1. Taxes
2. Gay marriage
3. Abortion
4. Budget
5. K-12 funding
6. Health care
7. Crime
8. Immigratin
9. Higher education
10. Stadiums

None of those are terribly surprising, and keep in mind that's just a list of what people's first choice is. When you drill down a bit and look at other issues they're interested in, it gets a bit more fascinating. Atop that list is electoral reform.

I find this fascinating, and am encouraging this to get into some polling we're going to do. One of the bills that's languished up at the Capitol this year -- and gotten no spotlight at all -- is one that would reduce the size of the Legislature and make it so some members of the Senate are up for election every other year. There's also the possibility of instant run-off voting.

What issues are you interested in seeing get some more publicity? Let us know.

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Immigration: It's a Republican thing

Posted at 3:11 PM on April 12, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Rasmussen Reports is out this week with a fascinating poll that explains pretty well why the immigration issue has gotten such a big blip on the political radar.

37% of Americans now trust Republicans more than Democrats on the issue of immigration. Just 31% trust the Democrats more.

A separate survey earlier this month found that "a plurality of Americans would vote for the candidate (in a hypothetical congressional matchup) who favors more enforcement on the immigration issue.

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Old guard meets new guard

Posted at 4:56 PM on April 12, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

MPR Capitol guy Tim Pugmire sends along this rather artistic, wistful shot of the young and the old.

It's almost as if the two are looking into the future, seeing something we can't see. I wonder what that could be? A week at Canyon Ranch? A big inning by the Twins? A free chalupa because the Wolves scored 100 points?

Or something more?

Anyway, here's the audio (RealPlayer) of their news conference today.

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How does Minnesota rank

Posted at 10:45 AM on April 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)

With the Easter/Passover recess at hand, and with me having absolutely no interest in the exciting world of trunk highway bonding, I've been playing around this morning with a Web site called Statemaster.

One of the things that struck me when I first moved here many years ago is how obsessed Minnesotans are with how they rank. Or maybe it's a newsroom thing, but whenever there was a survey out that involved Minnesota compared to other states, it was an instant story, especially if it showed Minnesota superior to most other states. I guess that made us feel better about being Minnesotans, although I still can't figure out why we need to.

And then during the great budget cutting of a couple of years ago (when we couldn't afford to do anything like build stadiums for wealthy folks and provide health care to poor ones. Boy, those were the days, eh?) we pretty much constantly heard comparisions and justifications based on what other states were doing in the way of building stadiums and providing health care.

So I'm thinking this will be a big hit.

Here's some highlights of where we rank.

* Most murderous - #43
* Most taxed = #4 (no clue if this includes fees)
* Most trigger-happy - #44 (it's interesting to me that the bottom 4 states are from New England, where we were taught to just beat the crap out of people with our bare hands, of course.)
* Most penny pinching - #3
* Most educated = #6 (yeah, baby! I are #6! And the four states ahead of us are from New England.)
* Best place to live - #2 (So how can we be most taxed and the second-best place to live?
* Estimated # of illegal immigrants - #18
* Milk production - #6 (we couldn't even beat Pennsylvania)
* Sex ratio - #11 (Yeah, surprised me too, but it turned out not to be what I thought it was. It's ratio of men v. women)
* Attempts to quit smoking - #47 (look in the grass at any highway offramp and you know this is accurate.)
* Binge drinking = #3. (OK, explain this to me, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Minnesota, Iowa are 1-2-3-4. That tells me binge drinking is part of our cultural makeup here. I should find the "softball" ranking and figure out if there's a connection.)
* Growth in Medicaid spending - #45 (wouldn't have guessed that, would you?

I can see I'm not going to get any real work done today.

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Rep. Kennedy hit in face with hammer

Posted at 12:58 PM on April 13, 2006 by Bob Collins

Ha ha. Made you look. It's Patrick Kennedy.

It's slow today.

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that a congressman needs to have a demonstration on how a hammer works. OK, yeah, that's a cheap shot for the quick laugh (I can make a good living off that). The guy was actually demonstrating some shock absorbtion gel that's used in shoes.

Anyway, the hammer head fell off, which wouldn't have happenened probably, if they still made 'em in New Britain, which, for the record, is not in young Kennedy's district.

This is interactive media, man. Fill in your own title.

Posted at 3:06 PM on April 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (11 Comments)

Pretty slow today other than Ford (the one that employs 1,900 people) closing up shop. A chance to catch up on some Votetracker work and watch the Cubs (by the way, is there anybody in Chicago that can sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" on key?). I have to post something, I guess, since you were kind enough to come see if there's anything new. There's not. But here's a picture of Ford Bell looking pretty much like, well, Ford Bell at a forum today.

Wait a minute! Is that a Polinaut nugget I see? Yep, sure is. I'm saved! What the heck is this all about?

I mean, c'mon, you're a candidate for the U.S. Senate, who wears a "hello, my name is" label when you're a candidate for the U.S. Senate?

Anyway, in the interest of fairness, here's Mark Kennedy looking Mark Kennedyish.

Note the absence of the "hello, my name is" thing. What do we have in its place?

An American flag. Who you going to vote for? Someone who needs a sticker? Or the greatest country in the whole world? (Is that Amy Madigan's speech before the town school board in Field of Dreams I hear?) (I struck this line because, well, too many of you thought this was a serious statement. Go figure.) By the way, if you want to wear a sticker, you know what sticker you wear? Your campaign sticker.

Here's the story behind the story. A worker with the sponsoring organization, who was in charge of labels, peeled off the Kennedy sticker and started to put it on the congressman. Just then, a staffer -- seeing the developing problem -- lunged forward and arrived just in time as the hand put the sticker right in the middle of the staffer's forehead. What was cool is there was that Bionic Woman "na na na na na" sound as the near calamity was unfolding.

Or maybe not.

Anyway, can't tell you about the forum. We needed another reporter on the Ford story and Mark Zdechlik was pulled from the Senate event to go to the plant and find out, I guess, what it's like to be told you're losing your job.

Where was Amy Klobuchar? Don't know, but she wasn't at the event. I did see a press release cross the fax where she declared her support for Ford workers. Not exactly the kind of stuff we run through the newsroom with shouting "interrupt programming!"

(Update-- Wait. This just in. There was a "scheduling conflict" and the Klobuchar team tried to reschedule but it didn't work out. She contends she tried to arrange a new date with the Kennedy folks but they refused. Film at 11.)

You know what would be funny? If sometime a politician showed up at a debate wearing this:

If only there were still humor in politics.

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Minnewisowa

Posted at 4:48 PM on April 13, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Weekly Standard has a Barry Casselman article on the Senate race. You can only get about 4 paragraphs of it online, thus it doesn't make sense to link to it as I normally would when articles appear. But Barry sent his work along and I'm posting it here. Whether that gets me into trouble or not, we'll see. Nobody has yelled at me yet today, so ...

AS MINNESOTA GOES.......
High political stakes in northern states

Dumb and dumber

Posted at 5:45 PM on April 13, 2006 by Bob Collins

Larry Sabato seems to suggest in his latest Crystal Ball that a degree in rocket science is not a prerequisite for a career in politics.

Who knew?

Open thread -- Friday April 14, 2006

Posted at 8:12 AM on April 14, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

(Updates added here during the day... hopefully)

Is Ted Kennedy hanging with the wrong crowd? Some folks think so. But maybe it's just political genius. It reminds me of something a Republican elder noted the other day about the Senate. He said the older senators are more collegial, willing to actually talk and be seen with the "other party" members. The younger ones can't stand the "other side," regardless of the individual.

-0-

Tom Scheck with the sharp eyes today points out that the Washington Post's The Fix has met Mark Kennedy and likes him.

5. Minnesota: The Fix sat down with Rep. Mark Kennedy, the Republican nominee for this open seat, and came away impressed. Kennedy is not a typical politician -- he is neither slick nor particularly polished. But he is smart and practical, two essential traits for winning candidates. Kennedy acknowledges that the national political climate is a hurdle, especially given the Democratic tilt of Minnesota. But he also makes a strong case that his image as a unorthodox politician with a business background (he says he would be the only CPA in the Senate if elected) could appeal to voters looking for an agent of change in November. Democrats counter that Kennedy is nothing more than a rubberstamp for President Bush and say they have the votes to make the case. Both Kennedy and Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar, who has effectively cleared the Democratic field, will be well-financed. Kennedy narrowly outraised Klobuchar in the first quarter of 2006 ($1.5 million to $1.3 million) and has a $900,000 cash-on-hand edge. This seat is -- by far -- Republicans' best chance at a takeover (Previous ranking: 6)

-0-

Shoot, I was supposed to be a panelist yesterday at a Chamber of Commerce event on how blogs are changing politics with two talented folks -- Tim Nelson of City Hall Scoop and Michael Brodkorb of Minnesota Democrats Exposed. I didn't write down the date when they asked me, but I told the person to be sure to call me a day before to remind me. She didn't. Shoot, I was really looking forward to that too. I was going to win you all over with my charm and boyish good looks. Shoot. Now I've got nuthin'.

-0-

Rquired reading. Matt Welch in his goodbye to blogging today says "I used to think blogs would transform ideologues into nonpartisan truth-seekers. Man, was I wrong."

But as I look back at December 2001, and prepare to hang up the blogging fun of Reason’s Hit & Run for the stodgier print pages of the L.A. Times, I can’t shake the feeling of nostalgia for a promising cross-partisan moment that just fizzled away. Americans are always much more interesting than their political parties or ideological labels, and for a few months there it was possible for readers and writers alike to feel the unfamiliar slap of collisions with worlds they’d previously sealed off from themselves. You couldn’t predict what anyone would say, especially yourself.

-0-

We interrupt this political dialog for a non-political item. This is always a special date in our house -- a sibling's birthday. My oldest sister turns 56 (I think) today. She was a straight-A student, always had the champion cow in 4H, was a champion skier, and the best baseball player in the Collins clan. Tough footsteps to follow in, but we never felt we had to.

-0-
Anybody going to the Twins-Yankees game tonight? If so, stop by Section 118 Row 32, seat 021 & 022. I'll be the one with the Yankee fan. But I love him anyway. He's my son.

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Senate debate audio

Posted at 12:51 PM on April 14, 2006 by Bob Collins

Olin Moore of the Ford Bell campaign posted a link to audio of yesterday's Senate debate before the venture capitalist group in the comments section of yesterday's riveting thread. But you can't make html in comments so I downloaded it, processed it into RealPlayer and posted it. You can listen here. However, be advised it's very much off-mic and you'll probably want to listen with some headphones. If you want to kick around some of what you hear, be my guest in the "comments" section below.

Next week

Posted at 1:00 PM on April 14, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

A couple of upcoming political shows on Midmorning to relay.

Tuesday - 10 a.m. Kerri Miller talks to Gov. Tim Pawlenty

Wednesday (Patriot's Day) - 10 a.m. Francis Fukuyama, professor of international political economy at the Johns Hopkins University and the author of "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy." He was on NPR awhile ago and you can listen to a segment here.

Friday - 9 a.m. - Hennepin County Attorney candidates Andrew Luger and Mike Freeman.

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If you were a flower, what kind would you be?

Posted at 2:55 PM on April 14, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

I'm interested in big weighty political issues and all, but one of the things I like about campaign season, is when you ask a candidate questions they don't expect that aren't about big weighty issues. Since they don't expect it, they usually don't have an answer prepared, and the ones that do come out are illuminating because they can often reveal the person beneath the persona.

Laugh if you will, but this is what made Barbara Walters' interviews somewhat enlightening. Don't get me wrong, I don't recommend asking a politician, "if you were a tree, what kind would you be?" But I often sit around thinking of questions that I'd ask. This year, I only got to pose them to Kelly Doran -- and I didn't have that many at the time.

I could send out surveys for candidates to fill out, but there are two problems with that: (a) an increasing number of candidates -- Peter Hutchinson comes to mind as the latest -- refuse to fill out surveys and (b) you don't really know if the candidate, or some staffer, is filling them out and you lose the spontaneity of the candidate and the look on his/her face when they realize they are now working without a net.

The Associated Press does this every year, but usually not until August or so. Too late for my purposes.

Most of these include things like: what car do you drive, what's your favorite movie, what's your favorite song etc. But I'm thinking of some more and so far today I've come up with:

1. What's the last thing you tried to fix at your house that resulted in disaster?

2. What's the one record album (OK, CD you whippersnappers) you purchased when you were younger that you're now embarrassed to own?

3. If you told loved ones that when you die you want your ashes scattered somewhere, but a law was subsequently passed allowing ashes to only be scattered in a Home Depot, what department would you want to be scattered in and why?

4. What was the last argument about with your spouse in which you finally admitted you were wrong and he/she was right?

and my new favorite

5. Who was the last person you talked to that made you change your mind about something.

So, I know all the candidates seem to keep a close eye on Polinaut. If you want, feel free to answer any of these.

For everyone else, feel free to add your own.

(By the way in the interest of full disclosure, my answers would be (1) a lawnmower. I bought an engine repair manual, followed it as best I could...put it back together and was thinking 'man, i could do this for a living,' threw all the parts that were left over on the workbench and started 'er up. It caught fire and belched smoke. I rolled it down to the end of the driveway and put a "free" sign on it.

(2) Learn to Do the Hustle - And that's all I have to say about that. And, yeah, it was an 8-track.

(3) The tool crib. And, no, it's not even close.

(4) I have absolutely no clue.

(5) It's usually the last person I talked to. But if it's one I listened to (as opposed to talk to), I think it would be the soldier from Anoka who we profiled a few weeks ago. But I think I've changed my mind again since then....and again...and again...

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Two items before closing up shop

Posted at 4:48 PM on April 14, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

MPR Capitol reporter Tim Pugmire is going to have a piece on Monday morning, looking at the Republican race in the 6th District. We'll have extended interviews with Michele Bachmann, Jay Esmay, Phil Krinkie, and Jim Knoblach. I'll post the entire thing online at 3pm Sunday and you'll find it here at that time.

* * *

There's a place where good ideas go to die and maybe that's where this one will end up too, but at least it's worth a shot. Yesterday I suggested that it would be good to have the three candidates for U.S. Senate sit and listen to the stories that the soon-to-be-unemployed autoworkers at the Ford Assembly Plant in St. Paul have to tell. No speeches. No using them as props to make a point. Just listen and, with any luck, learn.

I wasn't volunteering to organize it, but one candidate has already responded, saying it was a good idea. Maybe the other two will join in. I know their "people" read Polinaut, so here's your invitation. Of course, we also have to convince a few folks within these hallowed halls that it's OK to have three candidates for a top job in the same place, and not actually feel compelled to ask them what they have to say. (It's sort of like putting a dish of jellybeans out and not digging in and eating them). There'll be time for that, and it would be cool to find out if what they learned changed how they feel about certain things.

These folks have great stories and great passion about it means to work everyday. They have histories in which several generations have all worked in that plant. And they have perspective that's valuable.

I just had a thought. What if we got Studs Terkel to come host the show?

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There's a hatred out there. And it should stop

Posted at 9:22 AM on April 15, 2006 by Bob Collins (8 Comments)

My son and I went to the Twins game last night. He in his Yankee pinstripe Derek Jeter jersey (he was born in White Plains and, no doubt, picked up his love of the Yankees because his father grew up just outside of Boston) and me in my, well-worn Cleveland Indians jacket.

It's easy being an Indians fan in enemy territory. Although they are a division rival, the Indians haven't won a championship since 1948 and even Twins fans, who love to be victims despite their two championships in modern times, can't relate to that drought.

But a Yankee fan is another story, as many of the thousands of Yankee fans at last night's game (which was a great game), can attest. The Yankee fan represents greed, and arrogance, and championships. But that doesn't mean every Yankee fan in Minnesota is greedy and arrogant. It means they love the game of baseball, and they live and die with their team. Stop me if this sounds familiar, Twins fans.

Last night was a metaphor for the state of this country, especially in the area of politics. And it's not good. We can no longer differentiate between the "teams" we support and who we are as individuals. We no longer care to know the individuals; we jump right to the hatred because of whom the individual supports. Witness the number of people in the last campaign who refused to let their children play with the kids next door, because of the lawn sign that was stuck there.

At least the Twins fans had an excuse. They live in the nation's capital of binge drinking , and the Twins aren't all that interested in preventing their fans from pounding down just as many beers as possible before they close the taps around the 7th inning.

We had a group of six or seven young people in front of us, celebrating a young woman's birthday. And two young men (at my age, they're all young), next to us. It started out innocently enough. Good natured ribbing that makes being around baseball fans fun. "How can you root for the Yankees?" was the usual question.

But as the beer took its toll,it began to get worse, especially as my son observed that Tony Batista's career "highlights," posted on the scoreboard of having played "last year in Japan," is hardly a highlight since it's the baseball equivalent of "couldn't get a fulltime gig so had to take the 3rd shift at JiffyLube (my description, not his).

"Why do you Yankee fans always have to run down the opposition ballplayers?" the glassy-eyed young man next to us leaned over and said, the hint of good-natured ribbing disappearing.

"You know, I've been to New York," he said. I went to an Eagles game once and the fans were awful."

Oh oh. This is bad, he now was no longer able to differentiate between Philadelphia and New York City.

We offered no reply as we continued to exchange in-game pleasantries with the group in front of us, alternately lamenting the Yankees big-spending ways, and loving the plays Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano were making.

By the 8th inning, the Twins were playing well, highlighted by Lew Ford throwing Jorge Posada out at the plate; another great play.

Then I noticed it. It was poster night and the fan next to us was whacking my son on the head every time something good happened to the Twins... in a mocking sort of way (gee, you think, Bob?). My son, who has no propensity toward self-control, found some.

But in the 8th, the Twins scored some runs. Since we knew Joe Torre didn't leave Mike Mussina in for 120 pitches in April because he loves his bullpen so much, we expected it.

When a double down the line plated two, out came the poster....and the whacking commenced. Imagine if a Yankee fan had done that to a Twins fan if the roles were reversed.

So my son grabbed the poster, ripped it to shreds and went nose to nose with the guy as I, alternately trying to figure out how many times Hideki Matsui was dropping the ball and trying to figure out where this confetti was coming from, tried get between the two soon-to-be combatants.

I pushed my son around to my seat and stood next to the guy and said, "enjoy the game and don't hit someone and taunt just because you don't like who he supports. The players are down there on the field, cheer them or boo them, but these people (there were a few Yankee fans there) are here to have a good time and enjoy the game just like you."

As I was saying that, it occurred to me that this is a pointless exercise in logic to someone who doesn't know the difference between Philadelphia and New York City. But eventually, spurred on by other Twins fans who, well, get it, I got the guy sitting down. Or maybe he just couldn't stand up anymore.

He then turned to me and just kept saying, "It's nothing. We're nice..." as he muttered "Minnesota Nice" over and over again to explain why he was whacking someone on the head as a way to support his team, and completely misunderstanding why that would bother someone.

Nothing else happened, Joe Nathan came on to save the game, and when the game was over and the Yankees had lost and the Twins fans were cheering, my son and I stood up and cheered too. We clapped our hands until the players for both teams had reached the dugout, for it had been a good game, we had had a great time together, and we appreciated the game the two teams had given us. As we did so, I wondered if Mr. Minnesota Nice had learned anything at that moment from the fan for the Yankees, who had just demonstrated what Minnesota Nice really is.

We shook hands with the guy in the row in front of us, after exchanging a few comparisons of our fantasy team rosters, we wished each other good luck for the rest of the season, and we left. I walked my son to his car, and walked back to mine down empty streets and thought of the conflicting demonstrations of fan behavior, and what it says about us all.

I thought about our growing comfort with the labels we place on each other, and how they've replaced our desire or ability to get to know the individuals with whom we disagree; ironic given that just a few years ago the Twins marketing slogan was, "Get to know 'em."

I tried to figure out where that comes from and I could reach no other conclusion than it's rooted in a hatred. I hate what you support. So, therefore, I hate you. Missing completely what we have in common (baseball is the greatest game on earth, for example), we seek out our differences.

No amount of Minnesota Nice can cover that fact up.

And it should stop. And we can stop it.

Before someone gets hurt.

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Briefing - Monday April 17, 2006 (open thread)

Posted at 8:11 AM on April 17, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

The Washington Post repeats a theme. Quotes a Woodbury resident.

Other voters are less charitable. Shirley Jackson of Woodbury, Minn., said she formerly considered herself an independent voter "and my husband used to be a staunch Republican. But now we're both Democrats."

The main reason, she said, is Bush's handling of the war. "My husband and I think he lied to us, and he won't admit he's lied to us," said Jackson, 69. She said she believes Bush launched the war to avenge Iraq's reported plan to assassinate his father.

Jackson is following the competitive race to replace retiring Sen. Mark Dayton (D), and she doesn't like Republican candidate Mark Kennedy. "I won't vote for him, I'm pretty sure," she said.

* * *

Time Magazine has unkind words for Mark Dayton. "The blunderer." The up-and-comers are Barack Obama, Lindsey Graham, Hillary Clinton, John Sununu, and Mark Pryor. As for the best, one is Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, along with Arlen Specter, Ted Kennedy, Thad Cochrane, John McCain, John Kyl, Carl Levin, Olympia Snowe, Richard Lugar, and Dick Durbin

* * *

The Ford Bell campaign is out with a press release today "accepting" my suggestion that candidates for Senate meet with autoworkers.

Minnesota Public Radio’s (MPR) Bob Collins, who is in charge of their Polinaut blog, suggested on the MPR blog last week that in the wake of the Ford Motor Co. announcing that the St. Paul Ford plant will be closing for business, that all three candidates for U.S. Senate should meet with workers to “listen to them” and hear what the workers need from their leaders in Washington. Then as a follow-up, the three candidates could participate in a broadcast where they discuss what they heard and what they would do to address the workers needs in the Senate.

Well, not exactly. Let's go back to the original posting, which was actually in the comments section.

If the candidates and their supporters don't understand why 1,900 people losing their jobs today was a bigger story than one (out of what will be many) debate, then maybe the problem isn't me. Because those were real people, with real jobs, having a really bad day. Not the kind of bad day like when somebody makes a joke about a politician you support, but the kind of bad day when right now -- today - their lives just got turned upside down. That kind of bad day.

Am I embarrased that I think that's a bigger story? Let me say this proudly: No. I'm embarrassed that I spend so much of my life around people who have completely lost perspective about what it means to be a working stiff in America today.

I take the issues seriously. But I don't take politicians as seriously as they take themselves. They, and many of their supporters, have already spent way too much time playing victims in this campaign -- somebody didn't get the same airtime, somebody make a joke, somebody did this, somebody did that. They should stop. Life is too short, and the campaign is too long.

Let me just throw out this possiblity. Maybe the answer to the problem isn't for us to listen to the candidates. Maybe it's time for the candidates to listen to us. What if, tomorrow, all three candidates for office got together at the coffee shop across the street from the Ford plant, and instead of gassing on about how much they support them (whatever that means), what if they just kept quiet for, like, two hours, and listened?

My "suggestion" didn't come as a result of the Ford plant closing, it came as the result of a post, apparently by a Bell supporter, in the comments section who suggested I should be embarrassed by the fact MPR chose to cover the Ford plant closing instead of the Bell-Kennedy debate.

Kind of an important point since it gets to the issue of whether candidates "get it" when it comes to being a working stiff in America.

If I were hosting such an event, though, I doubt my first question to the candidates would be one they'd want to hear. "What don't you get about working for a living?" Just to see the look on their faces.

And then, of course, there's these.

***

Local writer Barry Casselman has an article in the Washington Times today called, Wake Up America. There's a little bit in there for every political party to embrace as their own,which, of course, isn't his point.

***

Skyway News has a couple of political articles this week. One is a profile of Sen. Scott Dibble. The other is a recap of the Minneapolis leaders v. Pawlenty sparring match a week or so ago.

***

Happy Patriot's Day.

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Stop the presses

Posted at 4:34 PM on April 17, 2006 by Bob Collins

Liberal bloggers are angry, says the Washington Post.

Maybe it has something to do with having to click through 5 pages because the Post truncates its stories now to 5 or 6 paragraphs a page so they can get their advertisement viewing numbers up?

Or maybe that's a bipartisan issue.

Pawlenty on Midmorning

Posted at 10:58 AM on April 18, 2006 by Bob Collins

Gov. Tim Pawlenty was Keri Miller's guest on Midmorning this morning. The audio will be available here. They'll talk about the various issues at the Capitol and maybe, if you listen really close, you can hear Keri's wistful thoughts of what might have been had she become a writer on Polinaut.

Peterson running again

Posted at 11:54 AM on April 18, 2006 by Bob Collins

Collin Peterson is running for re-election, according to a release from his office. Peterson is an interesting guy. His release today is no-nonsense, no-frills. In fact it's just an all-white piece of paper with typewriter-style font. Heck, for all I know, it was typed with a typewriter. No smiling picture of the candidate, no fancy stationery, no Web site address. Nothing.

Gravel '08

Posted at 12:54 PM on April 18, 2006 by Bob Collins

It's a ridiculously slow time of the year for politics -- the Easter break -- and Mike Gravel still couldn't get much coverage of his announcement he's running for president.

Tammy Lee in the 5th

Posted at 1:01 PM on April 18, 2006 by Bob Collins (9 Comments)

A business executive with a background in DFL politics has announced she's now an Independence Party candidate for congress in the 5th District.

Tammy Lee of Golden Valley is a vice president of corporate affairs for Mark Travel Corporation. In 1998, she worked as communications director for Skip Humphrey's unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign. Lee says she joined the Independence Party because she believes there's a third way in politics.

Here's her campaign announcement (RealAudio).

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Money chase

Posted at 4:41 PM on April 18, 2006 by Bob Collins

I've been spending parts of the last couple of days updating all the candidate pages on Campaign 2006, and all the district pages to reflect the deadline for the quarterly financial reports from the FEC.

I tend to follow the FEC's lead, and not include candidate loans in the "amount raised" category.

Anyway, if you're interested in the money race, see the individual race pages. Don't have the numbers, that is to say: the FEC numbers, for Klobuchar and Kennedy.

Sixth District is certainly interesting.

Tinklenberg was stronger than I would've thought, although he didn't have a great quarter. Wetterling's numbers are misleading because she still has a pot of cash from her aborted Senate run to use.

Where's that T-shirt now?

Posted at 5:07 PM on April 18, 2006 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)

The blogger known as Norwegianity (he's a very funny writer) has the missing 30 seconds of a video posted on the Klobuchar Web site. Pretty funny stuff.

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Those upstarts are at it

Posted at 9:48 AM on April 19, 2006 by Bob Collins

Tom Scheck takes note of this item in The Hill:

New campaign-finance records show that key challengers are surpassing or matching the fundraising of incumbents this year in competitive races around the country, a sign of the gathering strength of an anti-incumbent wind that doesn’t necessarily distinguish between Republicans and Democrats.

Oh, doctor!

Posted at 12:45 PM on April 19, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage is out with a bunch of ads, looking for some contributions and lambasting senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee who voted against the same-sex marriage ban. The thing is, though, they've doctored the photos of the senators to show them sticking their tongue out and making what some might consider an obscene (OK, it was obscene by the standards when I was growing up and my mother-in-law, two infallible yardsticks. Although one of the Disney characters gave me the same gesture at Disneyworld once) gesture.

Here's one.

Update: DFL has called a news conference. I'm betting they'll be shocked -- shocked -- that someone would do this to a politician's image.

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The Dirty Fingernail Coalition

Posted at 1:24 PM on April 19, 2006 by Bob Collins

Truth be told, we don't really know how "average" many of our politicians are. But we can tell a little by what they do in "real life." Call it the "Dirty Fingernail Coalition," the brainchild of someone with way too much time on his hands today, and a browser connected to the House member biographies.

First, we get rid of the lawyers (14), the educators (22), the realtors (4), doctors (including chiropractors) (4) people who list their occupation as "legislator" (16), and people who list their occupation as "business" (18), and, of course, consultants (7), and we're left with this year's Dirty Fingernail Coalition.

Bruce Anderson -- Listed as "agribusiness." I think that means farming or something having to do with farming. You're in.
Greg Blaine - Farmer
Rep. Tony Cornish - He's a retired cop. That qualifies.
Greg Davids - Farmer
David Dill - Aircraft and powerplant mechanic
Rod Hamilton -- Says "pork producer," which I think means hog farmer.
Lyle Koenen - Farmer
Doug Magnus - Farmer
Tim Mahoney - Pipefitter
Michael Nelson - Tradesman
Mark Olson - Carpenter
Mary Ellen Otremba -- Farmer (and substitute teacher. Yeah, that counts too!)
Duke Powell - Paramedic
Maria Ruud - Nurse
Steve Sviggum - Farmer

That's 9 Republicans and 6 DFLers if you're counting. And I know you are.

Now I have to come up with a logo and secret handshake. Oh and T-shirts. Gotta have T-shirts.

Respondents to Clinton: "No"

Posted at 1:59 PM on April 19, 2006 by Bob Collins

Rasmussen is out with a new poll today that shows support for a Hillary Clinton presidency at a new low.

The Test Tank

Posted at 7:29 AM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins

The blog, Across the Great Divide, has developed The Test Tank, a place where people can explore some issues and provide answers.

We're pretty hot into this stuff at MPR with our Public Insight Journalism project that has attempted this sort of thing several times. I'd say the jury is still out on the technique. But it's worth looking. I've written extensively about the great polarization in political discourse. But I don't see the voting public as being completely unwilling participants in the situation; forced into the behavior that I won't bother documenting here. How to turn the course of discourse? Good question.

Welcome back, Sen. Moua

Posted at 8:55 AM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Happy to see that Sen. Mee Moua cast her first roll call vote of the legislative session yesterday (at least on the major pieces of legislation Votetracker is watching). She's a well-liked lawmaker by folks on both sides of the aisle, and has been restricted to bed rest for the last few months while awaiting the birth of her child.

Disclaimer: I produced the Flash slideshow for Moua's portion for the book "A Day in the Life of the American Woman" for IVillage as an independent contractor.

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Are the Pulitzers too political?

Posted at 9:17 AM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins

Will Bunch, of the Philadelphia Daily News, has one of the best MSM blogs in the country, which seems to prove that a non-reporter really can have something to say on a blog, and the average person really is smart enough to handle it.

Bunch on Tuesday developed a long-needed smackdown of the media, noting that not a single Pulitzer Prize went to someone who did some good old-fashioned digging; what we call an "enterprise story." They all, it seems, went to people and media organizations that did a little better job at covering the same stuff everyone else is covering, or -- as he put it better -- "we are pathologically unable to stop covering the exact same stories that everyone else is."

He raises the question about whether the Pulitzers have gotten too political; thus the blog's appearance in this space. His answer appears to be "no," but he delves into the WHY a little more closely than some journalists would like, when raising the question of why there's no real investigative reporting at the White House anymore, for example.

The minute they write such an article, they are persona non grata in the West Wing, and it's hard to cover the White House when the White House hates your guts. That's even more true on the local level.

Bingo. A fear of offending someone. Unhealthy for journalists. Unhealthy for democracy. I'll leave it to others to figure out why.

There's a campaign going on. It's not too late to get the inside track on Pulitzer 2007.

Krinkie v. Knoblach: What's the difference?

Posted at 9:41 AM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

Sixth District congressional contenders Rep. Phil Krinkie and Rep. Jim Knoblach have been beating each other up pretty good on the campaign trail the last few weeks.

But time is running out for either of them to break from the other somehow at the Legislature to show where they differ.

According to Votetracker (and including last night's vote on the higher education bill in Ways and Means), they're 8 for 8 on the major legislation that they've voted on during this session. Here's Krinkie. Here's Knoblach.

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20-20 vision online

Posted at 12:56 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

It's not Rathergate by a longshot but the blog MNPublius showed why the world of blogging provides a watchdog that is pretty keen of eye. MNPublius posted yesterday that the Mark Kennedy congressional Web site (not to be confused with the campaign) posted a press release with an April 19 date advising constituents of online tax preparation services. Of course, the deadline for filing taxes was April 17.

It was a posting not unlike some of the partisan shots that political sites take at philosophical opposites.

But today he reports that the release is still online, but the date now reads April 11, or 6 days before the deadline.

Thing is: he saved the screen shot of the original.

In all fairness, however, a couple of things: nobody in the press actually pays any attention to these sorts of press releases. Second, it depends on what content management system Congress uses for its Web site and when the Web person posts them. Was it the same day they were mailed out or, more likely, faxed? Is it a database? A template? A lot of Web sites are archives and stuff often gets into the archives several days later.

Since nobody knows for sure, one can't really ascribe a sinister motive here, but it is a reminder than the bloggers are always watching.

Also a good reminder that the "strike" command is a much better editing tool for online material than a 'delete' command.

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Not so fast...

Posted at 1:16 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins

Last night the Senate killed the omnibus tax bill, because of concern that it included property tax increases for businesses. So the DFL caucused today, and Dallas Sams moved for reconsideration, at which time Sen. Keith Langseth introduced an amendment -- approved -- that struck the property tax.

It's being debated again at this hour, Sen. Warren Limmer calling it "the Easter bill" because it has risen again. More later.

(Update) -- The bill passed on a 37-to-30 roll call vote.

Fun with buzzwords

Posted at 2:06 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

I'm catching up on stuff because I had to leave work yesterday with yet another attack of Meniere's, so....

I don't really understand the technical stuff he's talking about here but Norwegianality has a blurb on how the Amy Klobuchar Web site focuses on certain "buzzwords."

He says...at least I think it's a he....

The words Klobuchar uses are pretty much an index of her power/action words that consultants have told her to use in order to win the election. Here, in alphabetical order, are Amy's eleven biggest buzzwords:

Read 'em.

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Select A Candidate redux

Posted at 2:26 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins

It looks like maybe next week -- or the week after -- we'll have the first of several Select A Candidates ready for public consumption (and criticism). I've contacted all the campaigns for their positions and a few have answered; most have not. That reminds to write something sometime on what an utter waste of time submitting anything via a candidate's Web site can be (with some exceptions).

Anyway, democracy is participatory and so is Select A Candidate. So if you've seen anything anywhere that sounds like a position from those below, please forward it to me at bcollins@mpr.org.

Mike Hatch
* His position on a statewide smoking ban
* Whether he considers tax increases necessary in the budget mix?

Peter Hutchinson
Huchinson has made it clear to me, through his communications director, that he's not going to "respond to any surveys." I asked about his plan for creating jobs and was told they'd get back to me. They didn't. So...
* Position on dedicating sales tax receipts to natural resources etc.
* Position on dedicating motor vehicle sales tax receipts to transportation.
* His job creation plan.

Sue Jeffers
We've got 'em all. She was, without question, the most accessible candidate for the purposes of SAC.

Steve Kelley
I got 'em all.

Becky Lourey
* Position on dedicating motor vehicle sales tax receipts to transportation. (I could get this is if SF3764 ever sees the light of day in the Senate. I see it just got yanked out of the Transportation Committee and sent to Finance, btw).
Got 'em.

Tim Pawlenty
I got 'em.

What might have been

Posted at 2:48 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

Via Kennedy v. the Machine, handled expertly by my good friend Gary Miller (even though he incorrectly puts Polinaut under the Loathesome Lefties category) , is a transcript of Mark Kennedy's appearance on the Hugh Hewitt Show (heard locally on AM 1280, I'm told and I'll check it out).

I get the whole part about playing to the base and all that. I call it the "Don Cherry method" in honor of my favorite hockey coach who got the Boston Bruins to play well by whipping them up into "the world's against us" frenzy. It worked great until the players wised up.

This paragraph is worth analyzing. It started with a question of how many millions it'll take to take the Senate seat:

MK: Well, we've said...you've asked before, and I've said 15. It might need to be higher than that, but when you say we're not going to get any help from mainstream media, they're just not going to tell our story. We've got to tell our own story. And yes, there'll be a lot of outside groups coming in, but they can't really say this is a guy who is...grew up sharing a bedroom with three brothers. My first job was at age 14. I did everything from washing dishes at a bakery to pumping gas at a bait shop, to be the first boy in my family to go to college. I'm going to take that same zeal to keep the American dream alive for our kids. The message we have, I think, will resonate with Minnesotans. We just have to have the resources to get it out there.

Fair enough. Mainstream media: bad. I get it.

So I decided to take another look at the Mark Kennedy page on Campaign 2006.

Here's what I see:

* Thirteen separate UNFILTERED audio tracks from the senator on specific issues.

* An unfiltered and unedited interview with Rep. Kennedy that Tom Scheck did. (Listen)

* An hour live and unedited interview with Kennedy on March 2, 2006 (Listen)

* Kennedy's complete -- and unedited -- announcement he's running for re-election (Listen)

* Kennedy on MPR's Midday in November after his trip to Iraq. (Listen).

* Full and unedited audio of the March 3 debate between Klobuchar, Bell, and Kennedy in Mounds View (Listen)

* A story on Iraq with Kennedy given every opportunity to explain "his story" (Read)

* Mark Kennedy -- and only Mark Kennedy -- reacting to the president's proposed budget (Listen)

The thing is Hewitt set Kennedy up for the answer earlier in the interview with this puffball:

HH: One of the things that strikes me when we go to the fair, and I hope we'll be at the fair this Summer so we can check in with you there, I know we're coming in September, is that Minnesota Public Radio is a real dominant media player in your state. A lot of good people working there, but it is decidedly left of center. And when you add in the Strib, the Pioneer Press,there isn't a lot of opportunity for a insurgent Republican campaign based on good government and good accounting to get much of a fair shake.

Really? What's all that stuff I just listed?

Personally, I think a good answer might have been, "Hugh, have you actually seen MPR's Campaign 2006 site? You can actually go there and listen to all sorts of information on a page devoted exclusively to me. Unfiltered. Unedited. It's really a great service and, of course, the page on me dwarfs any other resource available. I don't particularly like public radio, but I gotta admit, that's a damned good Web page and if people really want to know more about me, that's a darned good place to start. Granted they've got information about my opponent(s) too, but what can you do, eh Hugh? Democracy is funny that way."

But it wasn't. Don Cherry isn't the coach of the Bruins anymore and just look at the sad state of that team. So I'm not stupid. I get why it wasn't.

But maybe the next time Kennedy is on Hewitt's show, he'll revisit the issue. Because if he's on for the same length 4 more times, he'll equal the length of time Kennedy gets for a single appearance on MPR.

By the way -- and again for the record -- the first mainstream media to talk to Mark Kennedy way back when he was a nobody running for David Minge's seat, wasn't Hewitt. It was Minnesota Public Radio. I know. It was me. He even told the "red ribbon" story. Beat you by six years, Hugh.

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest, and despair most fits."

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The future of the conservative movement

Posted at 8:10 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins

MPR's Midday takes a look at the future of the conservative movement with two of its long-time stars starting around noon on Friday. Newt Gingrich and Vin Weber take part in the broadcast, originating from MPR's The Forum.

What is the Democrats' message?

Posted at 8:26 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Apparently it's "we don't have one," according to Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press.

One message? Hmmm. I don't know. Let me think about it," Alvaro Cifuentes said after a long pause. Several minutes later, the head of the Democratic National Committee's Hispanic Caucus said, "You can't try to simplify your politics with a slogan. You can't."

Anyway, the Dems are having their spring meeting in New Orleans. Apparently their message -- at least until they come up with a better one -- is going to be "we're not the Republicans," is what the head of the Indiana Democrats seemed to be saying.

"If your opponent is self-destructing, let them do it," said Mike Edmondson, executive director of the Indiana Democratic Party.

That ignores a few commonly held principles of successful branding. First, you don't define a positive with a negative. And, two, you don't define who you are by who you aren't.

And don't expect Fleetwood Mac to help you out, either.

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Gas prices become campaign focus

Posted at 11:24 PM on April 20, 2006 by Bob Collins

Yeah, you're right. Polinaut never sleeps.

In the early morning papers, The New York Times does a piece on how the rising gasoline prices are becoming the centerpiece of several Democratic campaigns. Guess which one locally?

Now, I know you didn't ask but here's Polinaut's handy, dandy method for controlling high gas prices in the family jallopy.

1. Put $20 in gas in at the start of the week.
2. Plan on not putting another $20 in until next week.
3. Stop driving if you run out of gas.

Trust me. This works.

"Special interests" choosing sides

Posted at 8:20 AM on April 21, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Analyst has an excellent post (the only kind he has), on the PAC contributions in the 6th District. Turns out, he discovered a reporting error in the FEC filings that excluded all of the Native American tribal donations, most of which seem to be going to Phil Krinkie, an opponents of state-operated casinos.

As I've pointed out before, there's not a lot of difference between Jim Knoblach and Phil Krinkie on the issues. The exception is the question of gambling -- specially, state sponsored gambling.

Apparently the tribes noticed that too.

One politician's pork...

Posted at 11:54 AM on April 21, 2006 by Bob Collins

I got a press release today from the National Taxpayers Union, offering up a spokesman for an interview on how Congress is loading up the spending bill for continuing operations in Iraq and hurricane Katrina Relief with "pork." I don't have anything to do with what MPR News covers so I ignored the guest and started looking at the alleged problem instead.

First, Congress makes it virtually impossible for the average person to find these bills and I'm not all that convinced it's an accident. But with a little digging around you can find some of these things.

I found Washingtonwatch.com to be somewhat helpful even though I have no clue whether HR4939 is the one the Taxpayers Union is shouting about, and they make a major mistake when they don't include the bill number in their calls to arms.

However, Washingtonwatch.com says HR 4939 is "H.R. 4939 makes emergency supplemental appropriations for the Defense Department, the global war on terror, and hurricane recovery." So I think that's the one.

They say it costs the average family $360.23.

I read the subject headings of what was in the bill, and came away completely unable to figure out what was what. Again, probably as designed. I was looking for the "bridge to nowhere" type of project that usually ends up in stump speeches.

However a conservative Web site, Human Events Online, has a list of pork.

What caught me was this one:

$4 billion for farm bailouts, which comes on top of the $25 billion that will be spent this year on farm subsidies, even as farm income reaches near-record highs;

... because I haven't heard a candidate for statewide office in Minnesota yet add farm subsidies when they rattle off the list of pork spending.

I also noted this one:

$594 million for highway projects unrelated to the Gulf Coast—some as far away as Hawaii;

.. and I'm dying to know how a mere mortal like me can find the list of projects to see if there's a Minnesota road on there. Because when it comes to "bringing home the bacon," man, do we ever love road projects.

If I were elected to the House or Senate, I think I'd have a two-year/four-year migraine trying to figure this stuff out.

Dayton's grade: F

Posted at 12:27 PM on April 21, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

OK, let me ask you this -- and feel free to use the comments section for discussion purposes --- Tim Penny left Congress because he didn't think he could change anything. Mark Dayton says the country is going in the wrong direction and he can't do anything about it.

If sitting senators and congressmen can't change anything, and we keep electing people who say they will, and nothing changes... what do they expect us to do about it?

(AP)- Mark Dayton told a group of students that
if he was going to grade himself on his accomplishments as a U.S. senator, he'd give himself an "F."

But it wasn't for a lack of trying, the Minnesota Democrat told students at Renville County West High School on Thursday. He said being part of the minority party in Congress had much to do with keeping him from achieving his goals.

Asked by a student whether he was satisfied with his accomplishments in the Senate, Dayton replied, "Definitely not." And he added that he'll be leaving office "frustrated."

Dayton announced in February 2005 he would not seek re-election for a second term. Speaking in general terms, Dayton told the students he feels he country "is going in the wrong direction. "I can't do anything about that and it bothers me," he said.

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Peace and harmony in the 6th

Posted at 12:38 PM on April 21, 2006 by Bob Collins

The GOP held a news conference today in which 6th District candidates pledged to abide by the endorsement process, and avoid a nasty primary battle. Phil Krinkie wasn't there but he had a late night last night and an early one today with stadium hearings, since he chairs the House Taxes Committee. He told Tim Pugmire a couple of weeks ago that he also intends to honor the endorsement.

Here's the audio from the news conference.

Update 2:12 p.m. - OK, so the whole "cohesiveness" thing wasn't entirely without bumps. Turns out Krinkie is refusing to sign the pledge. Bill Walsh, of the Krinkie campaign, says the candidate's "word is good." He then took some shots at the other candidates who, he says, sign pledges and then don't live up to them.

Update 2:14 As I was typing that, this release came into the INBOX.

Rep. Phil Krinkie warned delegates and voters today to be wary of any new written pledges signed by his two major opponents for the 6th District Republican nomination because they have not kept their word in the past on similar written pledges. Sen. Michele Bachmann and Rep. Jim Knoblach both signed a written pledge not to raise taxes on the citizens of Minnesota on April 15, 2005 and then violated that written pledge just 89 days later by voting for a $400 million tax increase.

"Candidates should be judged by their actions, not their words," said Krinkie. "When I said I wasn't going to raise taxes, I kept my word. When I say I'm not going to run against the endorsed Republican candidate, I mean it."

Rep. Krinkie could not attend a pledge signing ceremony sponsored by the Republican Party of Minnesota today because he was busy chairing the House Tax Committee.

In other campaign developments, Sen. Bachmann distributed a campaign flyer on the issue of immigration using the now infamous defense that she voted against giving children of illegal immigrants in-state tuition before she voted for it.

"Once again, saying you are against something after you've voted for it does not work with the voters – just ask John Kerry," added Krinkie.

One big happy family.

Peterson on Peterson

Posted at 4:57 PM on April 21, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

I've always found 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson among the more interesting politicians in Minnesota. The DFL is glad to have his seat, but generally ignores him. At the national conventions, whenever the Minnesota delegation is having a breakfast meeting and someone comes in to whip them up into a frenzy over all the DFLers they're going to put in Congress (or re-elect), I've never heard a single person utter Peterson's name and it's too glaring an ommission to be anything but intentional.

The media -- at least in the Twin Cities -- hardly ever talks to him. So maybe he's the one politician who really doesn't get fair shake from the media and, ironically, he's the one politician who's not complaining about it.

Anyway, I say that to pass along that I've just finished up putting a series of audio files corresponding to issues in the 7th District, on Peterson's page in the Campaign 2006 section.

Credit goes to MPR reporter Dan Gunderson in Moorhead.

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Maybe a stadium is no longer a political poison pill

Posted at 5:42 PM on April 21, 2006 by Bob Collins (7 Comments)

So the Twins stadium bill has emerged from its years-long death sentence and now looks like a certainty at the Capitol. There were some interesting things about this afternoon's vote.

One thing I always chuckle over is the legislators who don't cast a vote until they get a better sense, I guess, how the legislation is faring in the vote. Rep. Ron Erhardt and Rep. Larry Howes, both passed on their turn to vote, and eventually voted no, after it was assured that the bill would pass. Or maybe they just couldn't decide after 20 hours of hearings over three days.

Second, since I'm sort of "in" to streaks, political combatants Phil Krinkie and Jim Knoblach are now 9 for 9 voting the same way on issues this legislative session that Votetracker is watching. Who'll blink first?

And finally, it's always interesting to me when DFLers stand arm-in-arm with their GOP counterparts at the Capitol. Here's the breakdown of the vote sorted by party, courtesy of the fabulous MPR Votetracker. That's some good-old-fashioned bipartisan ... something.

Legislator	Party	District	Vote
Irv Anderson	Democrat	03A	FOR
Joe Atkins	Democrat	39B	FOR
Connie Bernardy	Democrat	51B	AGAINST
Jim Davnie	Democrat	62A	AGAINST
David Dill	Democrat	06A	FOR
Mike Jaros	Democrat	07B	AGAINST
Lyle Koenen	Democrat	20B	FOR
Ann Lenczewski	Democrat	40B	AGAINST
John Lesch	Democrat	66A	FOR
Paul Marquart	Democrat	09B	FOR
Joe Mullery	Democrat	58A	AGAINST
Tom Rukavina	Democrat	05A	FOR
Katie Sieben	Democrat	57A	FOR
Ron Abrams	Republican	43B	AGAINST
Laura Brod	Republican	25A	FOR
Gregory M. Davids	Republican	31B	FOR
Chris DeLaForest	Republican	49A	ABSTAINED
Dan Dorman	Republican	27A	FOR
Ron Erhardt	Republican	41A	AGAINST
Larry Howes	Republican	04B	AGAINST
Jim Knoblach	Republican	15A	AGAINST
Paul Kohls	Republican	34A	AGAINST
Philip Krinkie	Republican	53A	AGAINST
Morrie Lanning	Republican	09A	FOR
Peter Nelson	Republican	17B	FOR
Dean Simpson	Republican	10B	FOR
Ray Vandeveer	Republican	52A	AGAINST
Andrew Westerberg	Republican	51A	FOR
Kurt Zellers	Republican	32B	AGAINST

And, finally, the non vote by Rep. Chris Delaforest is puzzling to an outsider. He voted on several amendments during the day, participated in the three days of hearings, but when it came time to vote, he either wasn't still at the hearing or decided not to vote. I have no idea which. Or why.

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The 5th District debate

Posted at 7:21 AM on April 24, 2006 by Bob Collins

Candidates for the 5th District had their first debate yesterday.

I'll have the full audio available in a few hours.

Here's the full nearly two-hour debate. (Real Audio)

How much is your vote worth?

Posted at 11:13 AM on April 24, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

$3.82, if you're a Minnesota resident, according to an analysis of the 2004 election cycle in the state by The Institute on Money in State Politics.

Almost $27 million was raised by candidates. In the House elections, those who won raises rased an everage of $36,028 and those who lost raised almost half that - $19,776.

Republicans were slightly more prolific in fundraising, but most of that is because of money that poured into Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who wasn't on the ballot in 2004.

The top contributor, was you, in the form of the public subsidy to candidates. But the top candidate was Rep. Denise Dittrich, who raised an astounding $98,364. She knocked off inbumbent Reublican Bil Hass by fewer than 1,000 votes in 47A.

In terms of special interest contributions, these were the top:

Contributions Total $ Percent of Total
Public Subsidy 494 $1,709,949 6.44%
Party 926 $595,148 2.24%
Labor 709 $218,735 0.82%
Candidate Contributions 537 $198,539 0.75%
Finance, Insurance & Real Estate 704 $164,415 0.62%
Lawyers & Lobbyists 520 $120,017 0.45%
Health 512 $119,762 0.45%
General Business 337 $87,505 0.33%
Transportation 157 $45,782 0.17%
Other/Retiree/Civil Servants 201 $44,661 0.17%
Communications & Electronics 176 $42,361 0.16%
Construction 150 $31,797 0.12%
Agriculture 159 $29,989 0.11%
Energy & Natural Resources 90 $20,565 0.08%
Ideology/Single Issue 43 $14,553 0.05%
Defense 6 $290 0.00%

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District conventions

Posted at 2:41 PM on April 24, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

The North Star Liberty blog has a very excellent write-up of the weekend's Senate District 43 convention.

Likewise, Broken Nails has a look at the CD 4 confab.

If there are others, kindly let me know and I'll add 'em.

Update:

Northern Debater on CD 4

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Too far

Posted at 5:28 PM on April 24, 2006 by Bob Collins

Last week, in this spot, I told you about some "unflattering" images of lawmakers that a group supporting the same-sex marriage ban had produced for a newspaper campaign.

Here's the update. One of those legislators -- Sen. Satveer Chaudhary -- said he received a letter, pieced together from the ad, that said, "You didn't vote 63 times last session. What the hell are you doing? Eating curry?" He says it included a photo of Chaudhary with a bullet hold drawn on the forehead.

Capitol Security, the State Patrol and the Fridley Police Department are investigating.

When is lobbying not lobbying?

Posted at 6:13 PM on April 24, 2006 by Bob Collins

Patrick Condon of the Associated Press just moved a story that is likely to cause a ruckus.

The two groups pushing hardest for a constitutional ban on gay marriage in Minnesota have not filed lobbyist disclosure reports, despite their work at the forefront of a debate that's dominated the Capitol much of the last three years. Instead, Minnesota for Marriage and Minnesota Citizens in Defense of Marriage have designated themselves as political committees working on a ballot question. The distinction means they face less stringent reporting requirements for salaries, advertising and PR campaigns, among other things, than do registered lobbyists.

Stuff going on

Posted at 7:30 AM on April 25, 2006 by Bob Collins

Seems like there should be a place on Polinaut -- or on Campaign 2006 -- where we can post political stuff that's going on. We do have a political calendar on the site, but it's mostly official dates of events; I'm talking about general stuff -- people in town flogging their books, or speeches etc.

MPR does have an "event" calendar, but as near as I can tell it's mostly arts & culture-type stuff and there's no way to filter out political stuff. There's got to be a more glamorous way of doing this?

What to do? While I noodle on that, maybe I'll just set up a revolving thread or something. Here are two that have been appended to various comments over the last couple of weeks. If you have more, feel free to add them here.

THE DAILY KOS GUY Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, author of "Crashing the Gate" at the 331 Club in Minneapolis, Tuesday May 2, 6-8 p.m. At Arise Bookstore, 12-1:30 and at Louisiana Cafe in St. Paul, 7-9 a.m. on Wednesday May 3. (More). The Midmorning folks tried to book him. But no go.

CD 5 CANDIDATES - At Drinking Liberally, Drinking Liberally. Wednesday, April 26th 6-9 pm 331 Club, 13th and University in NE Minneapolis

Jeffers on Midday

Posted at 12:01 PM on April 25, 2006 by Bob Collins

The folks at Midday have let me know that current Libertarian-possibly-Republican candidate for governor Sue Jeffers will be on their show under their "Meet the Candidates" series, Wednesday at 11 a.m.

Apparently she has tried to have a meeting with GOP boss Ron Carey about being allowed to speak at the GOP convention; no word on that yet, however.

Sykora leaving

Posted at 12:57 PM on April 25, 2006 by Bob Collins (3 Comments)

Add Rep. Barb Sykora to the list of legislators calling it quits. She's out in that neck of the woods that's been trending fairly moderate recently so that coud put the 33B seat in play.

Let's see, it's been a long time since I've typed this list, but here's all the soon-to-be-former legislators:

House
Entenza (D)
J. Johnson (R)
Bradley (R)
Dempsey (R)
Goodwin (D)
R. Johnson (D)
Westerberg (R)
Sykora (R)

Senate
Kierlin (R)
Hottinger (D)
Marko (D)
Randum (D)
Skoglund (D)
Kiscaden (I)

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Environment, culture and arts, oh my!

Posted at 1:06 PM on April 25, 2006 by Bob Collins

Good debate underway at this hour on the floor of the Minnesota House relative to the sales tax dedication to environment and arts funding being on the ballot in November as a constitutional question (SF 2734).

Update 12:07 pm - Republicans Phil Krinkie and Mike Charron going at it over Charron's amendment to dedicate 5 percent of the take on arts and cultural programs. And Charron's amendment eliminates non-commercial networks with more than 10 licenses from getting anything. (Hmmm...who is that aimed at?). You usually don't see Republicans firing mortars at each other on the floor.

12:18 Tom Rukavina takes over from Krinkie (there's gentle irony here somewhere) in taking Charron out for a ride. "What are you going to cut to pay for this," Rukavina asks, invoking this as a Cadillac. "We don't buy a Cadillac at my house," Charron responded. "I think we bought a little Chevy." Memo to self: swing by Charron's house on the way home and see what's parked in the driveway.
Rukavina promises a "no" vote on the whole bill.

12:20 p.m. Margaret Kelliher, House-Minority-Leader-In-Waiting, defends Charron and his amendment. I check House membership bios again to double-check party affiliations.

12:22 p.m. - Charron amendment breezes, 115-16. I think Woodbury's other rep, Karen Klinzing (Klinzing and Charron nearly always vote the same), voted against it, then voted for it. But don't quote me.Tom Rukavina votes for it. I hit my head on table.

12:24 p.m. - With down being up and up being down, and his caucus seemingly coming apart at the seams, House Majority Leader Erik Paulsen calls for a GOP caucus. He asks for 15 minutes. It'll be an hour. Heads will roll.

** Still sitting on the speaker's desk is an amendment to increase the sales tax by 3/8s of one percent -- a potential poison pill. It's from Rep. Ron Erhardt. **

1:14 p.m. - The House returns in session. I feel like grabbing popcorn.

1:17 p.m. - House Speaker Sviggum acknolwedges Erhardt's amendment (to raise the sales tax) is sitting there. He's not putting it up for discussion yet, however. Not sure why.

1:30 p.m. Dennis Ozment amends the bill so that 63.5 percent of the take is spent on fish and game programs, specifically hunter and angler access, 31.5 percent on cleaning up lakes and rivers, and here's the language of what would be on the ballot:

"Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to provide funding beginning July 1, 2009, to provide hunter and angler access, and for conservation to improve, enhance, or protect the state's game and fish habitat; its lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, and groundwater; and its parks and trails by dedicating the sales and use tax receipts by 3/16 of one percent on taxable sales?

1:37 p.m. Rep. Jean Wagenius asks -- basically -- if we've got poor rivers and streams now, what are we waiting until 2009 for?

2 p.m. Tony Sertich moves to amend the amendment to change the start date to 2007. Coincidentally -- or maybe not -- I see that Laura McCallum has a story coming tonight that the House leadership has bottled up spending bills rather than have members debate spending increases, thus inviting an intra-party squabble. You know, like what we saw 90 minutes ago.

2:26 "Is this a tax increase," Sertich says. "No. It's a bill to put it before the voters." If I were back in college and this were a drinking game, I'd set up some rules now for what happens when someone refers to the same-sex marriage amendment.

2:28 Bottoms up! Rep. Erik Paulsen says "let's be consistent in our arguments," as he refers to the marriage amendment.

2:35 Rep. Ray Vandeveer, a Republican, says he's being swayed by Sertich's argument. Referring to the soon-to-be-crowned Twins bill, he says "at least you allow the people to vote on the tax increase," he says. Sertich responds, "I don't like referendums that much. I think it means 'lazy legislating.'" Oh, and Sertich's bill dedicates 22 percent to arts, culture, and public broadcasting. But not...well...you know who. I'm missing my stories.

2:45 Rep. Karen Klinzing's "Tax Freedom Day Press Release" arrives in my mailbox:

Minnesota's Tax Freedom Day doesn't arrive until May 3 this year. Our state has the 5th highest tax burden when all taxes are included. We will spend 123 days working to pay taxes - that's $13,890 per capita or 33.6% of income. We rank #4 for state and local tax burden, and #11 for federal tax burden. Minnesota's state and local taxes comprise 11.9% of our income.

She gets her numbers the Tax Foundation. But the 2004 Census shows Minnsota ranked at #12 for total tax burden ("Total tax burden in US dollars, includes local and federal tax.). 12th? 5th? Somebody's wrong somewhere. Maybe she's including "fees". As near as I can tell, by the way, nobody votes against taxes more often than Klinzing up there.

2:47 - Sertich's attempt to start things in 2007 loses 65-67. Sound familiar? Sounds like the hastily-called caucus move worked. Vandeveer moves to reconsider the vote since he voted on the prevailing side. I think he pushed the wrong button. They vote again. Sertich's amendment loses 67-66, which means someone got hustled out of the men's or ladies room and back onto the House floor for a vote. I decide that this is better than West Wing the year Aaron Sorkin left.

3 Charron's amendment is still in play but Erhart finally pushes his own, saying he'll probably vote for the whole deal. He gets points anytime he ends a sentence with, "aw, what the hell."

3:12 Rep. Tom Emmer (See feature) calls Rep. Erhardt "Erdahl," then says it was Freudian. That sends Polinaut to Wikipedia to figure out what's Freudian about that. Former Secretary of State and Congressman Erdahl? I don't get it but I found an old joke there.

Two psychiatrists are discussing their weekends over drinks and one of them tells the other that he now believes that Freudian slips really do exist. His friend pressed him on the matter and asked what had happened.

"Well, we were having dinner and I asked my father to pass me the mashed potatoes. Somehow it came out as 'why did you ruin my life, you sonofabitch?'"

3:18 - Rep. Marty Seifert fires a grenade by submitting an amendment that brings road construction into the beneficiary list of the bill. Out goes arts and culture. According to my watch, the debate has been going 30 minutes since a DFLer spoke. Pass the popcorn.

3:21 - Margaret Kelliher breaks the streak and suggests Seifert is running for Congress.

3:25 - Rep. Sviggum rules that Seifert's amendment is germaine to the bill. I should've taken today off to watch this at home. It's too good to be paid to watch. Seifert's the majority whip. This isn't an accident. It's an attempt to sink the whole bill. Fur's gonna fly now.

3:31 - On a 66-65 vote, Sviggum's ruling is upheld. That vote total sound familiar? OK, now we know what the caucus was all about. They take out the arts and culture, insert the roads stuff, try to get the amendment passed, then get the roads stuff out of there, and the bill becomes a "pure" natural resources bill again. Just a prediction from someone who paid $390 for a share of Yahoo! Methinks, as a casual observer, I've witnessed a masterful game of politics. If it were a polo match or something, I'm sure I'd be chortling "good chop, sir." And head to the bar. OK, I have no idea if "chop" is a polo play but I realize I don't really know any snicketty pseudo-athletic terms.

3:36 p.m. Debate now is about who "hijacked" a game and natural resources bill. Margaret Kelliher says Seifert did. Seifert says the folks who put public broadcasting and arts in the bill in the first place. Suddenly, it's back to a Republican vs. DFLer debate. Maybe Entenza should call a time out and go caucus.

3:50 p.m. It's open season on the game bill. Amendments -- apparent poison pills -- start pouring into the Speaker's chair. Mark Olson proposes an amendment for no new taxes for 7 years after the constitutional amendment is approved. Rep. Vandeveer tosses in a Taxpayer Bill of Rights and another to dedicate motor vehicle sales taxes to transit and transportation. Can an abortion amendment be far behind.

3:52 p.m. "Republican leadership just drew up a 'gotcha' provision," says Rep. Tony Sertich. If you vote against this amendment, he says, there'll be a campaign flyer in the next election that he voted against a road in his district. He says if you just turned this on on TV, you'd think we "were in the Twilight Zone." Another vote in favor of turning off the TV and turning on Polinaut.

3:55 p.m. "Gotcha!" shouts Rep. Mark Olson in what is becoming the most cantankerous debate of the session. I count 2324 25 2627 28 29 "gotchas" in his speech. I think, again, about a college drinking game. I begin to realize why Minnesota is a top state in binge drinking.

4:03 p.m. Erhardt withdraws his amendment, which also kills the Seifert amendment to the amendment, in the same way one sacrifices a torpedo to sink a battleship.

4:14 Olson's amendment barring tax increases for 7 years passes, he withdraws the other one. Vandeveer withdraws the Taxpayers Bill of Rights. No more amendments. Let the debate on the bill begin!

4:15 Ron Abrams takes over as Speaker. Jean Wagenius says the bill is now "too little, too late (because it begins in 2009)... fish need clean water now," she says.

4:47 Had to go do a Current newscast so I've missed a great deal but Rep. Mark Olson just referred to "casters and blasters," for hunters and fisherpeople. Olson's the one who got the amendment through guaranteeing no new taxes for seven years if the voters -- and I guess that includes casters and blasters -- approve it. He also said "gotcha" one more time, which was at least enough to get the Bee Gees tune out of my head that's been stuck there all day.

4:56 p.m. Channel 17 is bagging the coverage!!! Bagging the coverage! For what. Sesame Street? Geez. Guess I'll have to go monitor the Web. You know, this is about a provision for funding public broadcasting, you'd think Channel 17 would stick with it.

4:57 That's it. I'm not renewing my membership. They bagged out of the broadcast as Hackbarth -- at least I think it was Hackbarth -- said former Rep. Bob Lessard was probably watching this "and Sesame Street is coming on soon so I hope we can vote before that for Bob Lesar......" bingo. Plug pooled. You can't make this stuff up.

5:04 p.m. Rukavina returns to the floor to urge a "no" vote, saying the state can't create $148 to pay for the bill. He nominated it for his Bonehead Bill of the Year. "You can't just create money on trees,'" he said.

5:09 p.m. - The bill passes 78-to-55. Off to conference committee she goes. I'll have the roll call on Votetracker shortly.

The streak is over

Posted at 9:11 PM on April 25, 2006 by Bob Collins

6th District competitors Jim Knoblach and Phil Krinkie have ended their streak of voting the same way on the House floor at 9 (major legislation) with Krinkie voting FOR and Knoblach voting AGAINST referendum to determine whether a portion of sales tax revenue should be dedicated to hunting, fishing, arts etc... so says Votetracker.

A reach too far

Posted at 9:47 PM on April 25, 2006 by Bob Collins

National Journal writer Josh Kraushaar says Michele Bachmann benefits most from the agreement by GOP candidates in the 6th District to abide by the endorsement.

He also blurbs something fairly unrecognizable in a conclusion about Tinklenberg and Wetterling before saying, "Bottom line, if either convo reaches too far to the wings for its nominee, then the other party may have their opening."

Reaches too far to the wings?

Huh?

Food fight in the 6th - Part IXXX

Posted at 11:45 AM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Up until now, I wasn't planning on going to either the DFL or the GOP state conventions (although MPR I'm sure will be well represented). But now I'm thinking it may be worth working at least the GOP convention just to see the looks on the faces of the non-endorsed 6th Congressional District candidates as they stand their....all unified and everything....arm-in-arm...waving.... one big happy family.

I don't see it happening. But maybe.

It's just a darned nasty race, which is, of course, good for the news and blogging business.

Phil Krinkie fired another missile last night with this release:

Sen. Bachmann Continues to "Sand off the Truth"

Lie Number 1 -- "I was the victim of DFL redistricting"

Michele Bachmann recently mailed a 20 minute video to delegates in the 6th Congressional District and in the video she described her 2002 match-up with DFL Senator Jane Krentz.

"I suppose it was a back-handed compliment to be the number one target of the Minnesota Senate Democrats.

"They redistricted me out of my Senate seat so I had to run in a completely new district against a 10 year DFL female incumbent."

It was the court, not the Democrats, who drew the map for the 2002 elections. They created a new Senate district for Senator Bachmann with a higher GOP index than her old district and paired her with a DFL Senator. She went on to under-perform the rest of the GOP ticket by more than 10 percentage points.

There is no basis for truth in this statement. It is a lie.

Lie Number 2 -- "I've run in heavily Democrat areas"

In a recent interview with Congressional Quarterly, Michele Bachmann discussed her electability:

"I’ve run in Democrat areas and I've won by a significant margin, and I've proved that, even though I'm a very vocal conservative, I can win even in heavily Democrat areas. And get a lot of crossover vote from Democrats."

Michele Bachmann has run for the State Senate twice in two different districts, both with a strong GOP index. In 2000, every single Republican candidate on the ballot won in her Senate district. In 2002, while she underperformed the GOP ticket by 10 points, Governor Pawlenty lost only one precinct in her Senate District, and he was running in a three way race!

Lie Number 3 -- "Marcus and I will soon be empty nesters"

In her speech to the delegates at the Wright County Convention on Saturday, Michele Bachmann said she and her husband look forward to being "empty nesters" soon.

The Bachmann's have three young daughters, ages 11, 13 and 15 at home. Unless they are planning to send their children to boarding school, the Bachmanns will not have an "empty nest" for over seven years.

Thank You

OK, the thing about the daughters is a little icky and as someone who is really about to become an empty nester, I'm not at all sure they ever actually, you know, leave. But that's a discussion for another day.

Krinkie is right about redistricting. The Legislature wasn't up to the task, so the court, under Republican Kathleen Blatz, had to do the job. And, of course, redistricting was the best thing that ever happened to Republicans in the 6th District as it chased incumbent Bill Luther to the 2nd, where he lost to John Kline. Luther knew he couldn't win in the 6th anymore, thus opening the door for Mark Kennedy. Of course, the court admitted it made a mistake by redistricting Kennedy out of his 2nd District seat. But that ended up working pretty well for the guy.

Here's some good background from MPR:

Redistricting: An exercise in politics

Redistricting brings identity crisis home

Suburbs get more clout from new plan

Incumbents paired under court's redistricting plan

Sue Jeffers on Midday

Posted at 12:11 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Former-Libertarian-turned-Republican candidate for governor Sue Jeffers was on Midday today. I'll have the audio posted in a bit. Here's the audio. And at some point over the afternoon I'll slice up the answers for her page on Campaign 2006.

The individual audio cuts of her position are now posted on her page on the Campaign 2006 site.

Just noodling here but if Jeffers ran as a Libertarian in November, wouldn't she likely take votes away from Pawlenty? So if she's allowed to run as a Republican, doesn't that give the GOP a chance to wipe her off the November ballot?

Grams on a comeback

Posted at 3:19 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Brian Bakst of the Associated Press is reporting that Rod Grams might challenge Rep. Jim Oberstar.

He was, of course, heading for a U.S. Senate race until cooler GOP heads prevailed and the way was cleared for Rep. Mark Kennedy.

Select A Candidate

Posted at 5:11 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

Select A Candidate v3.0 has been released.

Herding cats - special campaign edition

Posted at 9:26 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins

It's always been a challenge for us here at MPR to give any real coverage to legislative races. Consequently, in all honesty, we don't. We might do a piece a week before the election on some key races, and that's about it. I've never been able to come up with a solution to the problem since, it's been my position, that you're more likely to be affected by the Legislature than any of the other races that we cover.

But I get why we can't do much more than tell you who's running in each district (which is the next component to get added to Campaign 2006). That's a lot of people for 2 or 3 political reporters to cover.

Thus, my long-winded -- and overdue -- acknowledgement to the great work that Minntelect does updating the status of these races. I wish I had the ability.

I am interested in the comments on the Northfield area races for I was thinking about this while watching the stadium debate on Tuesday.

A year ago, mostly on the MPR Forum (which I don't visit much anymore since Polinaut started, but will again after Election Day when Polinaut vanishes), I said that Rep. Ray Cox was the most impressive legislator of the last session, and really found a voice for himself when the Republicans and, separately, DFLers, as a group only had one.

This session I have not seen him use that voice in floor debates as I have in the past. Why? Beats me. Maybe it's still early.

He's in a re-election battle with David Bly. He beat Bly by about 44 votes in '02, and won a not-as-close election in '04.

Anyway, that'll be an interesting race.

Twins stadium vote

Posted at 9:55 PM on April 26, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Courtesy of Votetracker, here's the roll call of the vote for a Twins stadium bil in the House today. Do me a favor, though, and sort it by districtWhy? Well, the lower numbers are rural Minnesota and as you get into the high numbers, you're in the metro. Notice anything?

The people who've put Votetracker together have talked in the past about taking the database that drives it and integrating it with the program we use on election night to draw the red and blue districts so you can see -- better than this -- how some votes shake out based on geography. I think this is one of them.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that idea has gone to the place where good ideas go to die, but it's still something I think would be cool.

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Maybe she meant baseballs

Posted at 7:53 AM on April 27, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

We deal with big weighty issues here at the "desk;" none bigger than yesterday's, which was: what to do with this from Sue Jeffers?

We elected Tim Pawlenty to vote against publicly-funded stadiums. Do you think he has the balls to veto that? I don't think so.

But what about the radio piece that Laura McCallum did? Can you say "balls" on the radio? Should we have bleeped it?

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Ruth resigns

Posted at 10:08 AM on April 27, 2006 by Bob Collins

I've never met DFL communications boss David Ruth. In fact, I don't think I've ever met any of the current DFL honchos. But I've seen people post good things about his work on various blogs, so here's the deal: he's quitting.

DFL Communications Director David Ruth today announced his resignation, effective in mid-May. “I'm looking to devote more of my attention to family matters and personal interests," said Ruth, who is exploring a career opportunity that is not yet public. "During my tenure with the DFL Party, we have won special elections, held the Republicans accountable for their failed policies and promoted our positive DFL message statewide. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with the DFL Party, and I look forward to watching them achieve all their goals in upcoming elections."

As a casual observer, that job must have a high burnout factor because this seems like the gazillionth DFL communications director since I moved to Minnesota. The GOP seems to spin through 'em fairly regularly too.

Can't be an easy job.

Maps Maps Maps

Posted at 10:25 AM on April 27, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

I talked briefly last night -- late last night (don't you just love when the Legislature's in session?)-- about the idea I had for Votetracker 3.0 to automatically draw maps.

David Kirchner at the Analyst has done it, proving once again the superiority of the talent of the blogosphere. It cannot be denied.

You know, I don't know if it would be helpful or not, but maybe we should consider exporting the Votetracker database to a public XML file or something for people to come up with applications for it. OK, now I know the folks in the MPR I.T. department just spit their coffee when they read that. But I'm just thinking out loud. And there's a whole room with my old ideas anyway.

Anyway, back to David's maps, boy, there's a whole lot of Republicans who have warmed to taxes, eh?

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How to dismantle a crisis

Posted at 11:39 AM on April 27, 2006 by Bob Collins

I've commented a number of times here about how politicians get themselves into trouble when they do contortions to admit messing up; something that the people -- who really aren't stupid -- can accept. We saw it from the GOP Party in the same-sex marriage CD story, which would've gone away in an hour if they had said, "whoops, we messed up." And we saw it in the Dean Johnson controversy, which similarly would've disappeared a lot quicker for the guy if he'd ignored the instincts of politicians to shift to damage control.

Need proof? Check the City Pages blotter, where Steve Perry does a mea culpa on the "satirical" comment that meth is the Twin Cities Best Cheap Thrill. A comment that politicians were quick to make hay out of yesterday.

For good, not evil

Posted at 8:14 AM on April 28, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Sunlight Foundation opened its doors this week. This Web site oranizes the best blogs and media that shine a light (Get it? pretty clever, eh?) on the dark corridors of power.

Our goal is to use revolutionary power of the Internet and new information technology to enable citizens to learn more about what Congress and their elected representatives are doing, and thus help reduce corruption, ensure greater transparency and accountability by government, and foster public trust in the vital institutions of democracy.

There's plenty of goodies there on what, to me, is a pretty exciting step forward in organizting the power of the Internet and blogging. I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being the vehicle that mainstream media uses to pick up stories.

Abrams to the bench

Posted at 11:09 AM on April 28, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

Another House seat opens. Rep. Ron Abrams has been appointed to the bench by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. One of these days, I'll have to tally up how many House and Senate seats have been opened in the last few years by people Pawlenty has plucked for bigger things.

Anyway, that's a Minnetonka seat. But it won't open until after the session since Abrams says he wants to finish his legislative work too.

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Secret candidacies

Posted at 12:09 PM on April 28, 2006 by Bob Collins

I got another call today from a candidate in the 5th Congressional District, why there's no profile of him (I didn't catch his name) in the 5th District section of our Campaign 2006 site. Sorry to repeat a Polinaut entry but here it is: you have to tell me you're running. Simple, eh?

So if you're a candidate, send me a photo, your biography (data of birth, city of residence, hometown, family, religion etc.), your education information, your previous political experience, your occupation and a statement of candidacy (for the snapshot), your Web site, if you have one.

That should about do it. It's no secret why some candidates might not find a page on the extensive Campaign 2006 site: they're a secret to me. It's not great science.

Well, there's something you don't see everyday

Posted at 2:52 PM on April 28, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Senate Taxes Committee just killed again -- at least for now -- the Gophers stadium bill on a 6-6 vote, instigating a public spat between Sen. Larry Pogemiller and Sen. William Belanger, that revealed the behind-the-scenes dealings on this bill since yesterday, when the same committe tacked on a 13-percent sports memorabilia tax to raise the annual state payment to the stadium -- then killed it on a tie vote. Still with me? Good, that makes one of us.

So today, Pogemiller pulled the tax out of the bill, and separated it from the Twins and Vikings legislation, apparently under assurances that the votes would be there to pass it.

They weren't.

Sen. Belanger's "no" vote was the key. He had apparently said yesterday that if the tax were removed, and if the Gophers stadium was voted separately, he'd vote for it. He didn't.

That led to Pogemiller "revealing" that the governor's office has been involved in negotiations over the last day to get the stadium passed and that Belanger agreed to vote for it.

"I don't mind going public with that," Pogemiller said, as he called a recess and immediately left the room.

Get the feeling there's more to this? Yeah, me too.

The committee will apparently work all weekend.

Here's the roll call vote in Votetracker.

Unfortunately, they're serious

Posted at 2:52 PM on April 28, 2006 by Bob Collins

Politicians and the news media go head-to-head quite often. To a large degree, one side has a lot of contempt for the other (sometimes not, just for the record). But you know, they deserve each other sometimes. How else can we explain this exchange from the transcripts of the White House press briefing between reporters and Scott McClellan aboard Air Force One yesterday.

Q It's come to my attention that there's been requests -- this is a serious question -- to turn these TVs onto a station other than Fox, and that those have been denied. My question would be, is there a White House policy that all government TVs have to be tuned to Fox?

MR. McCLELLAN: Never heard of any such thing. My TVs are on four different channels at all times.

Q Because you have four different TVs. But every time I've ever been --

MR. McCLELLAN: Every TV in the White House also has channels every -- has a split screen, where they can --

Q Well, they always seem to be tuned to Fox, and there's been requests, and these are paid for by taxpayer dollars. And my understanding is that you guys have to watch Fox on Air Force One. Is that true?

MR. McCLELLAN: First time I've ever heard of it. First time you've brought it to my attention, meaning the first time the press corps has brought it to my attention. In fact, I've watched other channels on here.

Q There's one --

MR. McCLELLAN: Hang on, Jim, come on. I've watched other channels on here, so I don't know where you're hearing that. But it's the first time anyone in the press has raised that question with me.

Q You've watched other channels other than Fox?

MR. McCLELLAN: On here, yes, sure.

Q I've never seen -- they're always turned to Fox, which a lot of people consider a Republican-leaning network.

Q Scott, is it one -- on the airplane, is it one for all? I mean, if it's tuned for Fox here, is it Fox everywhere?

MR. McCLELLAN: I think that certain areas may be interconnected, but I'll have to double-check which.

Q Is yours off, wherever you are?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the conference room, or the senior staff office, the staff office, they're different TVs, and you can switch to different channels. I'm not sure if some of these in the back are connected to some of the others that are watching right here, right now. It doesn't look like it to me. I've never known anyone that's raised a complaint about a request from back here to watch a different channel.

Q I'm officially raising it and officially complaining about it.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I'm going to go see if we can change the channel for you. Have you called up?

Q I was the Fox victim, and I was told -- the quote was, "No," when I asked for CNN.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't know who you talked to, so -- it didn't come to my attention. You don't know who you talked to either?

Q Well, the magic people at the other end off the phone.

MR. McCLELLAN: The magic people at the other end of the phone. Well, I'll see if this cabin is --

Q I was told, "We don't watch CNN here, you can only watch Fox."

MR. McCLELLAN: As I said, it's hard to respond to something when I don't know who it is you talked to.

Q I used the phone back here.

MR. McCLELLAN: I find this all quite amusing, to tell you the truth. I mean, there are a lot of people on this plane that do watch that channel.

Q I've never been told, no. They're such nice guys up there.

MR. McCLELLAN: First time you brought it to my attention. I'll go see what we can do on it.

* * * * *

MR. McCLELLAN: We just called up. They're going to be changing it, at your all's request, to the channel that you requested, which is CNN -- from the press corps.

Q Thanks, Scott.

Checks and Balances goes paid

Posted at 5:03 PM on April 28, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Checks and Balances, the blog out of the Capitol, is going to start charging for access, according to an announcement today. $59.95 for a year and $99.95 for two years.

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Rush arrested

Posted at 5:15 PM on April 28, 2006 by Bob Collins

Yeah, I guess this comes under politics.

Rush Limbaugh has been arrested for prescription drug fraud.