Category Archives: 2012 Election

What A Pill: Parry the Puerile Pill Policeman Pops Off

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Today, Republican congressional candidate Mike Parry charged that Governor Mark Dayton is “scary” because Parry supposedly witnessed the Governor taking 15 or 16 pills at a breakfast meeting.

Then the news cycle takes off:  Dayton says the claim is a lie.  Parry says that it may not have been that many pills, but doesn’t back off the rest of his statement.  The Star Tribune notes that Dayton takes anti-depression medication, and that Parry stopped short of calling the Governor a drug addict.

All of the sudden, the Governor has to deny he is a drug addict?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

You want to know what is truly “scary?”  It’s scary that anyone would even think to make the alleged taking of medication before a meal an issue.  Though the Governor says Parry’s story is not true, and we should take him at his word, SO WHAT if it was true?

Go ask some of your older friends and relatives how many pills – prescription, over the counter and supplements — they take every day.  You may very well hear a number that could be approaching 15, or could be mistaken by nosey onlookers as being in that range.

And you know what?  That makes them neither scary nor a drug addict.

I have a confession to make.  I too am “scary.”  Today, I took three fish oil capsules, a baby aspirin, a multivitamin, over-the-counter allergy medicine, and two types of prescription asthma medications.  If someone who hated me was watching me take my handful of daily meds, he might delude himself into believing that this handful of pills makes me a scarry drug addict.

Despite those eight medicines, I run about 20 miles per week, have healthy vital signs, and only am certifiably crazy when I hear about things like Mike Parry’s  accusation.

I suspect that the inneuendo game Parry is playing is to remind his fellow Dayton haters that Dayton, gasp, takes depression medication, something Dayton long ago disclosed, prior to be elected Governor.  I suspect that in Parry’s very small mind, taking depression medication somehow equates to “scary.”

But may I remind the wannabe Congressman that about 10% of the population – 27 million people – take depression medication, and the vast, vast majority of them function extremely well in their chosen fields.

Unless I’m missing something here, Mike Parry owes an apology to the Governor, the millions of people who are responsibly and effectively treating their depression and the millions more who take multiple medications per day to keep themselves healthy.

If Mr. Parry must worry about addiction, maybe he should worry about his own apparent addiction to childish personal cheapshots.

– Loveland

Twenty Debates? Oh No, Mr. Bills!

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“Less is more,” minimalist designers tell us.  “The law of diminishing returns,” economists explain.

And so it goes with campaign debates.

Campaign debates serve a lot of important purposes for our democracy. They are a more efficient way to communicate with voters than door-knocking or pressing the flesh one clammy hand at a time.  They get candidates off-script, which captures rare moments of candor, humor, humanity, intelligence, stupidity and reality.  They cover more issues than ads, direct mail and other forms of political communications, which exposes candidates’ depth, or shallowness.

But clearly, there can be too much of a good thing.  In the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Mark Dayton, Tom Horner, and Tom Emmer debated and debated, and debated some more.  They debated an eye-glazing 25 times.  Most of the debates ended up getting ignored by reporters, and just about everyone else, because they became complete and utter re-runs. I mean, even if you love Gilligan’s Island, and who amongst us does not,  the 25th time you see a re-run about Gilligan’s pedal powered bamboo car is significantly less riveting than the first 5 times.

As Washington University political scientist Steven Smith observed about the 2010 marathon debate-a-thon:

 “…there is a point of diminishing returns and I think in the Minnesota case we may have reached the point in the last month where there have been so many debates that the individual debates just don’t receive much attention.

Now in 2012, State Representative Kurt Bills wants to debate U.S. Senator Amy Kloubachar 20 times over about 90 days.  This desire likely has less to do with Bills‘ love of debates than it does with the fact that his campaign is broke and having a difficult time delivering his oddball Wellstonian-libertarian fusion messaging.

Though Kloubachar is a bright and skilled debater, her campaign strategists would prefer to keep the popular incumbent in highly controlled settings until Election Day, to preserve her large lead.  Therefore, so far they have agreed to two debates.  For context, former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman agreed to debate challenger Al Franken five times.

Somewhere between Kloubachar’s 2 and Bills’ 20 is a reasonable number.  I’d say the number is no higher than 10.

Here is my rationale:  Most of what is learned by undecided voters through debates is conveyed through news coverage.  After all, the people actually attending the debates, or monitoring them start-to-finish on TV or radio, are predominantly voters who made up their minds long ago.  So, when the news coverage stops, the debates pretty much stop yielding benefits for undecided voters.

Minnesota’s newsrooms continue to shrink dramatically, and are decreasingly willing to cover politics, particularly broadcast news outlets.   Given those unfortunate trends, I find it difficult to believe that the Minnesota’s press corps will give decent coverage to more than about 10 debates.

So, I’m all for debates.  And two is not enough.  But oh no, Mr. Bills, not 20.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post also was featured as a “best of the best” on MinnPost’s Blog Cabin feature.

Sponsor a Starving Minnesota Republican Party Leader Today

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Just pennies per day.

That’s all it will take to sponsor a starving Minnesota Republican Party official suffering under the most brutal fundraising drought in years.

Drought conditions in the troubled land of AynRandia have reached catastrophic proportions.

  • Beluga sturgeon caviar at GOP fundraisers is being rationed with Death Panel-like barbarity.
  • Tri-corner hats for Tea Party rallies are in desperately short supply.
  • GOP leaders’ extramarital liaisons are having to take place at mere four-star hotels.

Relief workers in the front lines have described conditions as “horrific.” Continue reading →

Pawlenty and Romney Both Benefit from Third Party-Related Luck

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In Minnesota, we know a little bit about the power of a third party to swing an election, even when the third party doesn’t reach double digits in electoral support.

After all, Tim Pawlenty never would have been a two-term Governor, and subsequently on the verge of being nominated to be a heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world, without a lot of help from third parties.

In 2002, prominent DFL career politician Tim Penny won 16% of the electorate and Green Party Ken Pentel took another 2%.  That may be why Pawlenty was able to defeat DFLer Roger Moe 44% to 36%.   I’m not completely convinced about that, because Penny had more Republican appeal than a typical Democrat, but a former Democratic and Green candidate siphoning off 18% of the vote did look to be a net positive for Pawlenty.

In 2006, however, I’m convinced.  Third parties clearly prevented Pawlenty from being swept out of office.  Independence Party candidate Peter Hutchinson, who had served for years in prominent roles in DFL administrations, and Green Party candidate Ken Pentel combined to win 7% of the vote.  With DFLer Mike Hatch only losing to Pawlenty by 1%, 46% to 45%, Pawlenty clearly would have lost the 2006 race without Hutchinson and Pentel on the ballot.

University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs concurs with this conclusion in a recent Nation article:

“Both elections featured Independent candidates, which exit polls showed drew more votes from Democrats in close races,” says Jacobs. “I looked closely at the data and there’s no doubt that Independence Party candidates accounted for Pawlenty’s margin, particularly in his re-election (in 2006).”

All of which leads me to one of the most significant, and underreported, political developments of 2012, the quiet demise of the potentially game-changing third party Americans Elect.

Americans Elect was the national third party movement that was to choose its nominee via an Internet-based “convention” this June and place them on the ballot nationally.  It burst onto the political scene with fanfare, and the reform halo the news media tends to bestow upon third party movements.  As New York Times columnist and bestselling author Thomas Friedman breathlessly described Americans Elect:

              Make Way for the Radical Center

“What Amazon.com did to books, what the blogosphere did to newspapers, what the iPod did to music, what drugstore.com did to pharmacies, Americans Elect plans to do to the two-party duopoly that has dominated American political life — remove the barriers to real competition, flatten the incumbents and let the people in.”

Such hyperbole aside, the Americans Elect movement was gaining momentum.  It was on the ballot in 28 states, including several swing states, such as Florida, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada and Ohio.  The party-hating party was starting to look like a serious force in American presidential politics.

But the Americans Elect revolution crumbled before it formally began.  Under Americans Elect rules, to win the nomination candidates had to first prove their viability by winning a minimum number of preliminary votes of support via a complex Internet voting system.  As it turned out, no candidate met the viability threshold.  So on May 15th, Americans Elect unceremoniously folded its e-tent, and will not have a nominee on any ballots after all.

Meaning, May 15th may turn out to be the luckiest day of Mitt Romney’s political life.

Here is why:  The candidates who were leading contenders to get the Americans Elect nomination were Republican Congressman Ron Paul and Republican Governor Buddy Roemer.  As I understand it, both Paul and Roemer supporters were fairly close to achieving the Americans Elect qualification requirements.  (The Roemer campaign maintains that website irregularities held him back.)

If either of those Republicans had gotten on the ballots as Americans Elect candidates in key swing states, it’s not hard to imagine that they could have impacted the outcome of the General Election in President Obama’s favor, even if the Americans Elect nominee’s level of support stalled in the single digits.

Both because Roemer and Paul are Republicans, and because the polls show that Republican Romney is not generating as much enthusiasm among his supporters as President Obama is, it would have been very bad news for Romney if Paul or Roemer had gotten their names on 28 state ballots.  Unenthusiastic Romney supporters would be tempted by a Republican-leaning third party alternative right now, and it wouldn’t take very many defectors to impact what is expected to be a razor thin race.

Because third parties are rarely a threat to win elections outright, it’s easy for pundits and political reporters to cavalierly dismiss their relevance.  But if you want to understand what a difference a third party winning “only 7%” of the vote can make, and what a huge bullet Mitt Romney dodged on May 15th, Minnesota’s Mike Hatch could explain it to you.

 

Note:  This post also was featured as a “best of the best” on MinnPost’s Blog Cabin feature.

Missing: Kurt Bills

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If anyone has seen this man, please notify the authorities immediately.  His name is Kurt Bills, and he has been missing since the moment in mid-May that he was endorsed by the Minnesota Republican Party.

It is feared the man is squandering his donor’s money on bizarre, inscrutable ads that are invisible to the swing voters that he needs to win over in order to have any hope of defeating overwhelmingly popular U.S. Senator Amy Kloubachar.

The man is likely dressed like Rod Sterling, muttering about the gold standard, and attempting to use “Minnesota Dollars” to purchase additional cryptic ads.

His Party is worried about him, and would appreciate any clues about his whereabouts.

Why Aren’t Minnesota Reporters Asking: ‘What the Frack Is Pawlenty Up To at Smart Sands?’

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The new Bain of Tim Pawlenty’s existence is a corporation called Smart Sands.  Smart Sands provides Wisconsin sand for fracking,  a very controversial method of extracting natural gas from the ground that potentially contaminates groundwater supplies and causes earthquakes.   Since Pawlenty’s political wells all went dry, Smart Sands has become his financial fracking gambit.  Pawlenty was named a Smart Sands Board of Director in June 2012.

While news outlets such as the Saint Paul Pioneer Press have noted that fracking is “increasingly controversial,” they haven’t asked the kinds of questions national reporters will ask if Pawlenty becomes Mitt Romney’s choice for the GOP vice presidential nomination:

  • How much is Smart Sands paying Pawlenty?
  • What major local, state and federal regulatory issues is SmartSands facing?
  • Has Pawlenty made any contacts to government officials on the company’s behalf?
  • Is the fracking industry subsidized through the tax code, or through other means?
  • Is Smart Sands involved in any controversies?
  • How is the safety record of Smart Sands, and fracking in general?
  • How is the environmental record of Smart Sands, and fracking in general?

Whether or not Pawlenty is chosen, Minnesotans and Wisconsinites derve to know what the frack Governor Pawlenty and Smart Sands are doing.

The Unofficial Backgrounder For Getting To Know Tim Pawlenty

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For the national news media scurrying to cover Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s impending Vice Presidential nomination by Mitt Romney, here are a few facts that may not be included in the Romney for President news release:

The “Fees”.  Like any obedient GOP presidential aspirant, Tim Pawlenty HATES him some taxes.  He will stress this fact dozens of times per speech.  But the less publicized aspect of our former governor is that he actually loves him some “fees.”  GOP former Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson points out that Pawlenty actually passed the largest tax increases in Minnesota history.  But national reporters should not listen to people like Arne Carlson.  Fees are revenue collected from citizens by government so the government can provide services, and national reporters should understand that is completely different from a “tax.”  Reporters covering Pawlenty will need to take a crash course on how to speak Pawlentese. Continue reading →

Grover Norquist: Pawlenty Is “A Little Scott Walker”

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Yesterday’s New York Times brings us an interesting quote about Minnesota’s favorite son candidate for the GOP veep nomination, former Governor Tim Pawlenty.

"A little Scott Walker"

Grover G. Norquist, who leads the group Americans for Tax Reform, said the full scope of Mr. Pawlenty’s record was strong, despite the tax increase. He pointed to his leadership on a 44-day transit strike in 2004, where he won a fight over compensation and retirement benefits.

‘He was a little Scott Walker before Scott Walker,’ Mr. Norquist said…”

The GOP primaries and caucuses are over, so hard core conservative voters are no longer Romney’s biggest need.  At a time when Republicans desperately need help winning over middle-of-the-road moderate Republicans and Independents, it’s not helpful for TPaw to be compared to a perhaps the most polarizing political figure in the Republican Party by one of the most polarizing conservative ideologues in the nation.

For 30th Time, Bachman and the Gang Misread Obamacare Public Opinion

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When it comes to Obamacare, Minnesota Congressman Michele Bachman could not be more certain that she has public opinion behind her.  For instance, in her latest broadside, she signed a letter to all 50 Governors urging them to avoiding implementing Obamacare insurance exchanges to help Americans obtain affordable coverage, Bachman cited an oft repeated myth:

I urge all Governors to let Congress finish the job the American people sent us to do, to fully repeal Obamacare and replace it with common-sense free market solutions.

“…the job the American people sent us to do, to fully repeal Obamacare and replace it…” Whether they are spinning or they actually believe that, they are wrong.  This notion that a majority of the American people want the Affordable Care Act repealed or weakened is demonstrably false.

A June 2012 Kaiser Permanente poll is the last latest to show that a majority (53%) either wants to “keep the law as is” (25%) or “expand the law” (28%).

At the same time, only 38% of Americans support what the Republicans propose.  The Kaiser poll finds that 18% of Americans said Congress should “repeal the law and replace it with a Republican-sponsored alternative,” and 20% said Congress “repeal the law and not replace it.”

So, yes, a majority doesn’t support the law as is, because so many Americans, myself included, would have liked the law to have been stronger…if there had been congressional will to do so.  But it simply is not true that a majority of Americans want to do what the Republicans propose to do to the Affordable Care Act — real it or repeal and replace it.

And so today, for the 30th time, Michele Bachman, John Kline, Erik Paulsen, and Chip Cravaack will vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  And for the 30th time, they will be dead wrong about the will of the American people.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post was also featured as part of the “Best of the Blogs” feature in Politics in Minnesota’s Morning Report.

Hey General Mills, Make Pop Tarts, Not Politics

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In this morning’s news, Best Buy and other corporations announced that they are joining a growing list of corporations pulling out of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) ).  The corporations are doing so because they were worried about their valuable brands getting muddied from fallout due to ALEC’s aggressive advocacy of “stand your ground” gun laws, such as the one at the center of the tragic Trayvon Martin murder case in Florida.

Best Buy’s decision is smart brand management.  Goodness knows, it has enough issues of its own to solve.  Best Buy doesn’t need to add to its woes by putting its  brand in the middle of the political knife fights over the most polarizing political issues of our times.

Which brings me to General Mills and its opposition to the marriage ban amendment that will be on Minnesota ballots in November. Continue reading →

Why Tim Pawlenty Will Help Romney Win Minnesota

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Dear Mitt Romney:

Whatever you do, please don’t pick Tim Pawlenty for your Vice Presidential nominee.  As an avid Obama supporter in Minnesota, I would HATE to see that.  It would guarantee that you would immediately erase Obama’s large lead in Minnesota, and shake up the nation’s electoral map.

Pay no attention to bitter bloggers who claim that Pawlenty is politically impotent in Minnesota.  It is true that he ended his tenure as Minnesota Governor with record low approval ratings from Minnesotans.  But that was a long time ago.

And, yes, Pawlenty campaigned night and day for months to try to win Minnesota for John McCain, only to get pasted by 10 points.  But that was just a fluke.

Sure the negative Nellies also point out that Minnesota’s bemulleted favorite son also was trailing President Obama in his own home state, before his premature evacuation from the GOP nomination fight.   But Governor Tim is right, you can’t believe polls any more than you can believe the climate scientists.

And it is true that, after Governor Pawlenty pulled out of the primaries, he threw all of his Minnesota political muscle behind you, only to see the Pawlenty-backed Romney campaign lose the Minnesota GOP caucus vote, by 28 points, to a protest candidate endorsing legalized hookers and heroin.  But this was clearly the media’s fault.

Finally, never you mind that Pawlenty currently would be getting pummeled by 15-points  by Minnesota’s freshman  Senator Amy Kloubachar.  Maybe the poll has a 15-point margin of error?

So Governor Romney, whatever you do, please DO NOT choose Minnesota’s favorite son as your running mate.  Such a stunningly brilliant move would ensure a Minnesota massacre for Barack Obama.

DFL Statewide Media Campaign Needed: “Replace The Worst Legislature Ever.”

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“All politics is local,” Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously proclaimed.   To question this proclamation in DFL activist circles is a bit like questioning the Gospel in church circles.

But, unusual times dictate that the DFL candidates for the State Legislature broaden their messaging beyond the predictable O’Neilian “I brought home the bacon” messaging.  After all, the reality of these fiscally austere times in St. Paul is that Minnesota legislators have been bringing home festering carcasses, not bacon, and that is not going over real well locally.

(Incidentally, at the congressional level, New York Times whiz kid Nate Silver makes a compelling case that “all politics is local” hasn’t been true for a long time.)

Therefore, in 2012 I’d argue “all politics is local” is a dumb strategy for for DFL legislative candidates.  This year, the Minnesota DFL should use more of a statewide messaging and media strategy than they typically do.

I nominate this theme for a statewide TV and radio campaign to serve as an overlay for individual candidacies:

“Replace the worst Legislature ever.”

Real subtle, right?  And I’m not kidding.  This rallying cry works because it is simple, provocative, sticky, and, most of all, true.

Just ask the people of Minnesota.  The current GOP-controlled legislature is the proud recipient of a 19 percent approval rating, which appears to be the lowest approval rating  anyone can find on record.

Ponder on that for a moment.  The worst approval rating ever.  This is a truly putrid moment in Minnesota political history.  Therefore, the minority party needs to make “worst Legislature in history” the rallying cry of a unified TV and radio campaign to unseat the majority party that gave this special gift to Minnesotans .

Such a campaign might sound something like this:

 Who says the Republican-controlled Legislature is the worst in Minnesota history?

Minnesotans.  In surveys, Minnesotans give this current Legislature the lowest approval ratings in the entire history of our state.

Not just lousy.   Not just terrible. The.  Worst.  Ever.

Why?

Their shameful use of our local school funding as their own personal ATMs.

Their bizarre obsession with policing Minnesotans’ personal lives.

Their stubborn refusal to take a balanced approach to the state budget.

Their reckless shutdown of our state parks and government.

For the past two years, Minnesotans have watched all of this in horror.

Now, it’s time to send a clear message:  It’s time to replace the worst Legislature in Minnesota history…and move forward with a new Legislature, and a fresh start.

Tying together legislative races into more of a statewide campaign would mean the DFL would need to focus much more than usual on statewide messaging and media, and much less on localized messaging and media.   That’s an extremely unpopular proposition with local candidates, who want the campaign to be more about them personally.  But in times like these, statewide political leaders need to have the courage to seize the historic political opportunity before them.

Many voters – particularly the much larger group of less active voters that turn out in presidential election years – don’t know much, or anything, about the candidates in down ballot races.  A memorable theme can guide them.  “Replace the worst Legislature ever” does that.  “Support good old Senator Bob because he brings home the bacon” does not.

So sorry, Tip, this campaign needs to focus on the smelly statewide whole, not the local parts.  This year, the DFL can, and should, run a unified statewide campaign against the the Republican Party’s Frankenstein — the Legislature that Minnesota citizens say is the worst ever.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post was also featured as part of the “Best of the Blogs” feature in Politics in Minnesota’s Morning Report.

Racial Minorities Overwhelmingly Support the Photo ID Amendment That Suppresses Their Vote

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The case against the state constitutional amendment to require photo identification at Minnesota voting sites is that the requirement will disproportionately suppress turnout of, among others, racial minorities.  State Senator Patricia Torres-Ray:

 It’s going to make voting more difficult for thousands of law-abiding Minnesotans, and the brunt of that burden will fall on communities of color.

Amendment opponents need to more effectively make their case to communities of color, because in a obscure crosstab of a new Public Policy Polling survey released this week it is clear that racial minorities in Minnesota are currently overwhelmly supportive of the amendment, even significantly more so than white Minnesotans.

To state the obvious, a particular specialty of mine:  If opponents can’t even convince the primary victims of this amendment to oppose it, the Photo ID Amendment is headed for easy passage.

There is a LOT of work to do here.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post was also featured as part of the “Best of the Blogs” feature in Politics in Minnesota’s Morning Report.

Will Changes Among Religious Minnesotans Make the Difference In Minnesota’s Gay Marriage Vote?

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One politically interesting aspect of the marriage ban amendment on Minnesota’s ballot this November is the potential Lutheran Effect.

Even if we didn’t have Garrison Keillor to constantly remind us, it’s no secret that Minnesota has a lot of Lutherans.  Wikipedia tells me that something like a million Minnesotans are Lutheran (24% of the state), with 81% of Minnesota worshiping under the banner of the  Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), which is much more progressive than the Missouri Synod brand of Lutherans.

In fact, Minnesota has one of the highest percentages of Lutherans of any state in the nation.  The religious landscape in Minnesota is vastly different than it is in, say, North Carolina, which recently was the latest in a long line of states to pass a marriage ban amendment.    Luternans are 24% of the population in Minnesota, but just 2% in North Carolina.

All of this raises the question:  What impact will Minnesota’s Lutheran-heavy religious landscape have on the marriage ban amendment Republicans have put on Minnesota’s November ballot.

Relatively speaking, the Lutherans are progressive on the issue of gay rights.  Four synods of the local ELCA-ers recently formally opposed the Minnesota marriage ban amendment pushed by Minnesota’s social conservatives, and I don’t think the votes were close.

Lutheranophile Garrison Keillor observes:

“Lutherans…are the sort of people you could call up when you’re in deep distress. If you’re dying, they’ll comfort you. If you’re lonely, they’ll talk to you. And if you’re hungry, they’ll give you tuna salad.”

And if you’re discriminated against?

This charitable attitude looks to be even stronger among young Lutherans.  For instance, a popular song among Lutheran youth, “Party in the ELCA” (a parody of Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA”) has the following lyrics:

“We’re coming as we are (sinners and saints),
Doesn’t matter if you’re straight or gay.
YEAH! It’s a party in the ELCA!
”

“Doesn’t matter if you’re straight or gay,” indeed.  This “Party in the ELCA” is not exactly the type of religious party the Minnesota Republican Party is hoping for on Election Day 2012.

And it’s not just the Lutheran Effect.  It’s now also the Methodist Effect.  Over the weekend, the Methodists just took  basically the same position as the ELCA.  Methodists make up another 4% of Minnesotans, making them the fourth largest denomination in Minnesota, just behind the Baptists at 5%.

And what about Catholics, who are almost tied with Lutherans as the top religion in Minnesota, claiming 25% of the population?  Can we presume that Minnesota Catholics want to ban gay marriage?

Yes, but it’s not as overwhelming as some might think.  If Minnesota Catholics are anything like national Catholics, 46% of national Catholics support gay marriage, rapidly trending upwards from 40% in 2007.

Hmmm, the times are changing for Catholics too?  “Doesn’t matter if your straight or gay?  It’s a party in the Opus Dei?”

Many Minnesota social conservatives seem to make the mistake of assuming that the  marriage ban amendment debate is a strictly battle of the religious versus the irreligious, and that they will therefore easily win because the irreligious are so few (14% in Minnesota).

But increasingly, religious Minnesotans – looking to the empathetic teachings of the Golden Rule and the tolerance teachings of the Sermon on the Mount – are opposing gay bashing schemes like the proposed marriage ban amendment.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post also was featured as a “best of the best” on Minnpost’s Blog Cabin feature.

Minnesota Now Has To Look To South Dakota For Interesting Political Ads

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For a time, the nation looked to Minnesota for innovative political ads.  Working with local ad pros in 1990, an obscure college professor’s “Fast Paul” and “Looking for Rudy” TV ads were a national sensation.

Since then, Minnesota’s pols have gone conventional.  Most ads now follow The Recipe:

Ominously droning music.  Grainy photo of Evil Opponent caught in an unflattering facial expression. The Big Accusation(s).

Transition to heroic music!  Lovely images of Our Photoshopped Candidate helping school children read, seniors do paperwork, and veterans secure their lapel pins! Images of Our Photshopped Candidate working at his desk in the wee hours, and in front of a sea of flags inspiring the masses with a forceful finger jab in the air! Call-to-action!  Logo!  Disclaimer.

Sound familiar?  The ingredients to The Recipe never change appreciably.  Just add special interest money, and repeat ad nauseum.

The Recipe produces ads that are so similar in tone and feel that it is very easy for voters to tune them out.  Nothing about them sparks enough curiosity to prevent voters from closing their ears, changing the channel, or skipping the commercial via DVR.  For this reason, The Recipe remains more effective than most tactics, but much less effective than it once was.

Still, year after year, political consultants convince politicians and special interests to bake up enormous batches of The Recipe.  Consultants push it because it is relatively fast to produce, low-budget, and low-risk.  Just shoot stock video and drop it into the template.  Those are somewhat defensible reasons.  But consultants also push mass production of The Recipe because it earns them a high profit margin, in the same way that any assembly line has higher profit margins than customized craftsmanship.  The Recipe often serves the constulant’s needs more than the candidate’s needs.

In every election cycle, there are a few exceptions to the rule.  Wellstone in 1990 was one.  Jesse Ventura had a few.   A couple of years ago, Steve Novick in Oregon was another.  This month, there is a pretty decent non-conventional web video from South Dakota congressional candidate Jeff Barth:

Scoff at the production value if you like.  Look down your nose at the campy humor.  But this video, airing for free, has had over 150,000 YouTube viewings, due to peer-to-peer sharing, and referrals from free airings on news programs.  For a primary candidate in a state of 380,00 voters, that’s a big deal.  And unlike conventional ads, it is airing for free.

Why is something like this successful? After all, it’s not nearly as glossy, glib or compact as The Recipe.  Barth’s video is successful because it is many things that the 30-second cookie cutter ads are not.  It’s unique enough to draw you in.  It’s funny enough to cause you to want to share it.  It’s informative enough to make it worth your while.  It’s provocative enough to stick in your memory.

Even if you only watch this video once, you come away knowing something about the candidate’s background, personality and approach to life and politics.  This video leaves me thinking this guy Barth might not be another risk averse  congressional clone.  In a year when job approval ratings for Congress are at 10% that “not like the others” message is a strategically important leave behind.

Will anyone in Minnesota be imaginative and courageous enough to do anything unique with their political ads this election cycle, or can we look forward to heapin’ helpins of The Recipe?

Loveland

In Minnesota, Romney’s 6% Unemployment Goal Sounds Like Underachievement

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Mitt Romney is pledging to bring the national unemployment rate to 6% by 2016.  The current national unemployment rate is 8.1%.  So, happy days are here again, the skies above are clear again, right?

Romney’s 6% pledge may inspire confidence in Nevada, where unemployment is running at almost 12%.  But to Minnesotans’ ears, it sounds like Romney is promising an economic downturn.  Minnesota’s unemployment rate has already decreased in the Obama years to 5.6%, and by Romney’s 2016 deadline for reaching 6% Minnesotans certainly expect to be below today’s 5.6%.

After all, in the last three years Minnesota’s unemployment rate has improved from 8.3% in April 2009 to 5.6% in April 2012.  If that rate of improvement continued in Minnesota, we’d be down around 3% before Romney’s 2016 deadline for getting us to 6%.  Even if there is no improvement at all over the next three years, Minnesota under Obama will still be outperforming the Romney goal for four years from now.

It is far from certain that Romney’s proposed return to the Bushonomics that preceded the economic meltdown will now somehow improve the economy.   Romney wants Bush tax rates and Bush-style deregulation of banks, Wall Street and other corporations, so I’m not sure why we might expect that will produce a different result than it produced for Bush.  Governor Romney also wants to add austere spending cuts in programs that help the middle class, which economists say will retard consumer demand and economic growth.

But even if Romney’s 6% unemployment goal is doable under Bushonomic policies, a very big “if,” as a political rallying call 6% sounds very weak in many states.

Minnesota is not the only place where Romney’s pursuit of 6% unemployment within four years sounds like underachievement.  Romney’s Six Percent Solution also rings hollow in swing states such as Iowa (5.1% unemployment), New Hampshire (5.0% unemployment) and Virginia (5.6% unemployment).

The Obama Administration learned a hard lesson about naming unemployment rates.  Though Politifact says that Republican claims that Obama promised unemployment rates below 8% are “Mostly False,” the whole political back-and-forth about that claim shows how dangerous it is to make any numerical proclamations about unemployment rates.

In states like Minnesota, Romney may now learn that lesson.

Buffaloed By Bills

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Minnesota Republicans endorsed State Rep. Kurt Bills to challenge Democratic Senator Amy Kloubachar in November.  His nomination win was an impressive feat, fueled by support from delegates supporting Ron Paul, the libertarian presidential candidate who promises to legalize heroin, cocaine, and prostitution under the banner of “the party of traditional family values,” which makes perfect sense.

Republican Convention delegates seemed particularly smitten with Bills’ anger at the federal debt.  Anger is the coin of the realm at party conventions, and, make no mistake, Bills is hopping mad about the debt.  (Not the debt that he put on Minnesota schools as a member of the State House, a different debt.)

Fair enough.  The federal debt is a big issue.  So let’s take a look at the causes of it:

In summary, to address the causes of the skyrocketing debt, the answer is pretty clear:  Undo what Bush did.    If you do that — cut off war spending and the Bush tax cuts — the debt trend line very quickly flattens.

What are Rep. Bills’ positions on these issues?  Well, I couldn’t tell a lot from his slim website position paper or media clippings.  There looks to be a good reason why MinnPost’s Erik Black recently wrote a piece called “Guessing Where Kurt Bills Stands on The Issues.”  (Black can’t get an interview.)  So guess we must, along with a little help from his website.  From what I can tell, it doesn’t look like Rep. Bills is too keen on putting the breaks on the primary drivers of the debt increase:

  • BILLS WON’T CUT BUSH’S TAX CUTS.  It doesn’t appear Rep. Bills supports eliminating the Bush tax cuts, the largest cause of the debt increase.
  • BILLS WON’T CUT BUSH’S FOREIGN WARS.  If Rep. Bills is for immediately withdrawing from the middle east wars, another big driver of the debt increase, he doesn’t mention it in his website foreign policy section.

I imagine Rep. Bills was opposed to the Recovery Act.  But you can see the Recovery Act cost is a much smaller contributor than the Bush wars and tax cuts.  Moreover, the up to 2.4 million jobs the Recovery Act created prevented additional debt that would have been caused by an even more severe economic meltdown.  Finally, the Recovery Act is now done, so in terms of Rep. Bill’s future debt reduction plan, it is a mute point.

Instead of undoing what Bush did to create the debt, Rep. Bills seems to want to double down on Bushonomics — tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of high flying industries and aggressive use of the military.  If that’s true, “Bills” could end up being a prophetic name.

– Loveland

Three Myths About Minnesotans and Same Sex Marriage

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A recent SurveyUSA poll of Minnesotans included this question:

“President Obama says that same sex couples should be able to get married.  Do you agree with the president? Or disagree?”

The poll findings bust three popular myths about Minnesotans and same sex marriage:

Myth #1:  “Over Greater Minnesota’s Dead Body.”   The political conventional wisdom goes like this:  “The purple haired hipsters in Uptown may be for gay marriage, but traditional Main Street folks in Greater Minnesota will never stand for it.”  That conventional wisdom is wrong.  There is very little regional difference in support for gay marriage.  Support is roughly the same in the Twin Cities (53%), southern Minnesota (54%), and western Minnesota (51%).  Those three regions all fall within the 4% margin of error.  Only northeastern Minnesota (49% support) falls below the majority threshold, and is statistically different from the Twin Cities, but just barely.   Republicans need to realize that Main Street is not Narrow Street.

Myth #2:  “Only Radical Liberal Extremists Want Gay Marriage.”   This has been the conservative line for years.  But it doesn’t stand up to the data.  A pretty solid majority (55%) of self-described “moderates” and “independents” (54%) in Minnesota agree with the President on gay marriage.  If a majority of moderates support something, it can hardly be considered radical.  Support for gay marriage is now a mainstream position in Minnesota.

Myth #3:  “Marriage ban amendments pass everywhere, so it can’t be defeated in Minnesota.”  This poll found that 52% of Minnesotans support the President’s position and 42% oppose it.  There is a long way to go before the November election, but if this isn’t a dead myth, it is surely a rapidly dying one.  Literally.  The biggest source of opposition comes from people over 65 years old (only 33% support) support, and as time marches on younger generations will hold more electoral sway.  The support among Minnesota’s 18-34 year olds is running at an overwhelming 68%.

It’s very clear where this issue is headed.  In 2012, gay Minnesotans are hardly the societal aberrations they’ve been portrayed to be my whole life.  Statistically speaking, the 82% of Tea Partiers who adamantly oppose Obama on gay marriage are now the societal aberrations.

Loveland