Category Archives: Abortion

Fact-Checkers in the Trump Era

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I’m a fanboy of journalist fact-checkers. With all of the myths floating around politics and social media, that service has never been more necessary.

But in many ways, Trump has fact-checking journalists unable to make sense of his dizzying manipulations. Tom Tomorrow’s “This Modern World” explains in this insightful ‘toon.

At least two things are in play with fact-finding in the Trump era. First, journalists are confronted with a steady stream of tens of thousands of Trump’s lies — over 30,000 lies in Trump’s first four years alone. Because there are so many Trump lies to run down, journalists seem to feel obliged to scold Harris in roughly equal measure.

Trump era reporters want to appear balanced, even if the amount of lying and misleading between the two major party candidates is clearly out of balance. For this reason, some of the Harris scolds sometimes get to be a stretch, as the Tom Tomorrow cartoon satirizes.

The other Trump tendency that ties fact-checkers into knots is this: Trump famously takes multiple conflicting positions on many issues. His policy positions are consistently inconsistent.

Therefore, a Trump opponent attempting to characterize Trump’s record and positions perfectly accurately would require them to articulate lengthy explanations of Trump’s dizzying number of contradictions. That simply isn’t practical for a Trump opponent trying to be clear and concise on the campaign trail.

Abortion is a recent example. Trump has repeatedly boasted about overturning Roe abortion rights. But now that this “achievement” is clearly unpopular with impacted women, two-thirds of whom want abortion to be legal in all or most cases, Trump is claiming he will oppose policies that continue to limit or block abortions on a national level.

Forget that Trump’s record of overturning Roe says more about his position than any spin he subsequently uses. Forget that the Project 2025 playbook written by 28 of Trump’s top aides clearly lays out new ways for Trump to ban more types of abortions in more states, and that Trump has never specifically said he wouldn’t implement those things.

No, now when Harris points out that Trump wants to take away reproductive freedom, the ever-earnest fact-checkers have declared that she must point out that Trump has also taken a different position recently. They say that Harris’s failure to note Trump’s walkback spin makes her less than truthful.

That kind of fact-checking inadvertently misleads readers, many of whom only read the fact-checkers’ headlines and labels (e.g. “Kamala Harris’s Attack of Trump on Abortion Is Misleading”). The headline fails to note that Trump’s frequent lies are at the heart of Harris’s struggle to concisely characterize Trump’s ever-changing positions.

The New York Times’ David Leonhardt explains the strategy behind Trump’s walkbacks that aren’t walkbacks.

It’s become a pattern: President Trump says something outrageous. He later grudgingly retracts his statement, or members of his administration retract it on his behalf. And then he quickly undermines the retraction.

So what explains it? What could Trump possibly be accomplishing with this blatant dissembling?

Something important and devious, actually. He is sending two different messages, each intended for a different audience.

With the initial statement, he’s talking to his primary audience. Often, that audience is his political base, and Trump is signaling that he’s with them…

And then, in short order, come Trump’s walkbacks. But I think it’s crucial to understand the value that these walkbacks have to Trump. Almost no matter how silly they are, much of the media coverage tends to treat the walkbacks as serious. The walkbacks — and the credulous repetition of them — allow Trump’s fellow Republicans to pretend that he never really meant the initial statements.

Leonhardt is focusing on how Trump manipulates Republicans, but Trump similarly manipulates fact-checking journalists.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a different kind of example. In his first term, Trump promised he would eliminate the ACA and replace it with a secret plan that he promised would be better than the ACA. After getting elected on this promise, Trump tried and failed over 70 times to kill the ACA, and never produced a replacement health reform plan that would be better for Americans.

(Only very late in the debate did Trump share a detailed “TrumpCare” plan. It would have caused more than 20 million Americans to lose their health protections. It was so destructive that only 17% of Americans supported it.)

Now, after that very telling history from Trump’s first term, in the 2023-24 campaign, Trump is again saying he would eliminate the ACA and replace it with a plan to make things even better. Sound familiar?

When Harris uses shorthand and explains to voters that Trump again wants to take away ACA protections, she gets scolded by fact-checkers who want her to give Trump credit for his latest promise to produce his latest secret plan. Given Trump’s long history of deception on this issue, it’s perfectly reasonable for Harris to assume that Trump has no viable ACA replacement plan. If he did, he would surely be happy to share it with Americans.

Again, I loves me some fact-checkers. They’re vitally important. We need more of them. But they do need to do a better job of understanding and explaining Trump’s manipulative games.

Five Things That Should Keep Trump Up At Night

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Politically speaking, Trump has a lot going for him. Very early in the primary season, he is the runaway front-runner for the GOP nomination.  Wrapping this up early will save him a lot of money and allow him to aim resources at Biden, instead of at his fellow Republicans.

He is battle-hardened. He has already endured dozens of serious scandals that would have ended most candidacies – two impeachments, 91 criminal indictments, a videotaped incitement of insurrection, the “grab em by the” lady bits tape, dozens of embarrassing gaffes, a porn star hush money conviction, a sexual abuse conviction, popular vote losses in 2016, 2020, 2022, and 2023, etc. 

Despite all of those calamities and more, Trump somehow still has around 35-ish percent of voters consistently enthusiastic about him and another 15-ish percent of voters who currently seem willing to hold their noses and vote for him.

After all of that, it’s difficult to imagine what could cause Trump to lose much electoral ground in the next 10 months.

Moreover, Trump has the good fortune to be running against a politically wounded, gaffe-prone octogenarian who has had to endure post-pandemic economic headwinds throughout his term.

Add to that the very real possibility of a third-party candidate siphoning off anti-Trump voters from Biden, and it can’t be denied that Trump has one hell of a strong political hand. At this stage, he should be considered the favorite to win in November.

But if I were on Team Trump, these are five challenges that especially would concern me.

Surviving a Conviction(s)

A major conviction, especially on the insurrection-related charges, could weaken Trump with a block of undecided voters. The Washington Post recently reported:

“…election-day surveys showed 31 percent of Iowa caucus-goers and 42 percent of New Hampshire GOP primary voters said Trump wouldn’t be fit to serve as president if he’s convicted of a crime.

Those are big scary numbers, but I would add two caveats to them: First, with an army of Trump lawyers trying everything possible to delay proceedings, it’s going to be very challenging for prosecutors to get a conviction and subsequent appeals completed before the November election.

Second, I’d be surprised if even one-quarter of those people who today say a conviction would be a deal breaker for them would actually abandon Trump. After hearing Trump and his supporters endlessly claim how the conviction(s) was the product of a politically motivated witch hunt, I think many cynics will agree with that cynical argument.

Still, if even a relatively small fraction of that large block of conviction-sensitive voters abandon Trump because of a conviction(s), that could be decisive in a close general election.

Moving Beyond “The Base”

Also, Trump is currently weak with swing voters. While much is made of how loyal Trump’s base is, once the primaries are over the MAGA base is not anywhere near large enough to give Trump a general election win.  He needs to win over the non-affiliated independents, soft Democrats, and soft Republicans who will decide this election. Like Biden, Trump has a lot of work to do to win over those voters.

Trump should be very worried about his poor showing with independents so far. MSNBC’s data geek Steve Kornacki noted a remarkable 71-point difference between how New Hampshire independents voted for Haley by 21 points compared to how the state’s Republicans voted for Trump by 50 points.

Fox News exit polls in New Hampshire found that 35% of GOP vote primary participants, many of whom were independents, indicated they would be so dissatisfied if Trump won the Republican nomination that they wouldn’t vote for him.

Again, if even a fraction of that holds in November, that could seriously hurt Trump’s chances in battleground states.

The Economy, Stupid

Then there is the economy. The state of the economy has traditionally been very important to swing voters – independents, soft Republicans, and soft Democrats.  Up until now, that has helped Trump pull ahead in the polls.

But as pandemic-related economic challenges have eased, the economy under Biden has very quietly gotten robust – historically low unemployment, consistent economic growth, much lower inflation than earlier, interest rate decreases likely on the way, a historic boom for the stock market/retirement funds, wage growth outpacing inflation, and, at long last, increasing consumer confidence.  The United States under Biden has the strongest post-pandemic economic recovery in the world.

Even if that good economic news only neutralizes the enormous past advantage Trump enjoyed on this issue, rather than turning it into a strength for Biden, that could help Biden win over persuadable swing voters.

Doh! Roe!

Trump also continues to face tricky political winds related to abortion rights. Surveys show that two-thirds of Americans think the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision that kept abortion legal and safe was a mistake. Meanwhile, Trump is out there telling anyone who will listen that “I’m the one who got rid of Roe v. Wade.”  That’s music to Democrats’ ears.

The 2022 elections showed how much Republicans’ post-Dobbs abortion bans have hurt Republicans, particularly in suburban battlegrounds where battleground state elections are often decided.

Now congressional Republicans are promising a national abortion ban. That just adds fuel to this fire.

That would also worry me a lot if I was a Trump supporter.

Trump Being Trump

Getting voted out of the White House and kicked off Twitter has made Trump’s outrageous behavior a bit less visible than it was when he had the presidential bully pulpit. To the extent that Trump has been visible, a lot of the news coverage has been focused on how resilient he remains with the relatively narrow band of Americans who make up his political base. That success appealing to Republicans has made Trump look, up until now, relatively strong and normal.

But in a general election campaign, Trump’s steady stream of outrageous comments and actions will once again be more visible. Trump can’t keep himself from sounding childish, bigoted, incoherent, unstable, and dictatorial. That persona led Trump to lose the popular vote by 3 million in 2016 and 7 million in 2020.

Highly visible “Trump being Trump” news coverage is great for Trump when the task at hand is appealing to the Republican base. But a constant stream of Trump outrageousness doesn’t always help him with more moderate swing voters. Moreover, his undisciplined stream-of-conscious blathering keeps him from repeating the most persuasive anti-Biden messages and pro-Republican messages.

Again, Trump is far from politically weak. He is rightfully favored to win in November. But if I were a Trump operative, these are five things that would certainly keep me up at night.

MN GOP Running Again on Taxes? Yes, Please!

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Minnesota Republicans think they have found a golden issue to run on in 2024. In the 2022 elections, campaigning on interfering with women’s healthcare decisions, blocking gun protections, banning books, censoring teachers, and championing insurrectionists didn’t go that great for them. Therefore, Republicans have settled on an old reliable “bread and butter” issue — fighting to cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations.

Bam! Take that, big-taxing progressives. Here come the trickle-down “Reagan Republicans.”

The problem is that this isn’t 1984, and most Americans do not want the wealthiest and corporations to have lower taxes. According to a March 2023 Pew survey, a jaw-dropping 83% of Americans are bothered — 61% “a lot,” 22% “somewhat” — that “some corporations don’t pay their fair share of taxes.” A nearly identical number are bothered that “some wealthy people don’t pay their fair share.” Only 17% agree with Republicans on that issue.

Looking at these numbers, you would be hard-pressed to find a worse issue for Republicans to emphasize during the 2024 elections. DFLer activists should consider contributing to Republicans who are paying to put their “shame on the DFL for taxing the wealthy and corporations” messages in front of voters. That messaging does Republicans much more harm than good.

If only Minnesota DFLers had a way to show the swing voters who will decide close races how they are fighting to ensure that wealthy people pay their fair share of taxes to support state infrastructure and services.

Enter the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). The national think tank recently found that Minnesota currently has the #1 most equitable state and local tax system, thanks to changes made by DFLers.

How does Minnesota have a more equitable system than other states? The breakdown for Minnesota by the Minnesota Budget Project shows that Minnesota’s highly progressive state income tax offsets out highly regressive sales and excise (e.g. alcohol, tobacco, gasoline) taxes. 

You may recall, that in 2020 GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen and his followers ran on eliminating that state income tax. That 2020 election didn’t go particularly well for Johson and his party.

Based on the polling and Jensen’s shellacking, shouldn’t Minnesota’s tax fairness ranking be something that DFLers tout to the 83% who agree with them? Shouldn’t they “go on offense” on this issue?

Dean Phillips isn’t Close to Being MN’s Strongest Presidential Candidate

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U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips (DFL-Edina) seems to be relishing the national attention that comes with his months of hemming and hawing about a long-shot potential challenge of Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. To be clear, Phillips is far from the best Democrat in the nation to serve as an alternative to Joe Biden. In fact, Phillips is not even close to being the best presidential candidate in little old Minnesota.

Phillips is fine. The former CEO of Phillips Distributing, his step-father’s inherited business, is thoughtful and decent, if also sometimes dull and self-righteous, as centrist politicicans tend to be. His bipartisan instincts have made him a good fit to represent the purple-ish 3rd congressional district, which is anchored by Minnesota’s most affluent western suburbs.

However, it’s time for Phillips to come out of the TV studios and return to representing his district. As Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH) said in today’s Star Tribune:


There’s no path. There’s no outcry. Personally, I think it’s a vanity project by Mr. Phillips, and I think it could do serious damage by emboldening the Trump Republicans.”

To be clear, the most talented politician in Minnesota isn’t Phillips. It’s DFL Senator Amy Klobuchar, and it’s not even close.  Reports about Klobuchar’s erratic behind-the-scenes behavior are concerning when it comes to the world’s most pressure-packed job. Still, no Minnesota politician is better than Klobuchar at doing what presidential candidates must do well – sell progressive ideas and positions in both wholesale and retail settings to a wide variety of audiences. Whether on big or small stages, Klobuchar consistently comes across as warm, sincere, tough, bright, thoughtful, prepared, nimble, and persuasive. As such, Minnesota’s senior senator would be a much more compelling presidential candidate than Phillips.

While Klobuchar is Minnesota’s most skilled politician, DFL Governor Tim Walz ranks second. At the same time, Walz has more marketable policy accomplishments than Kloubachar or any other Minnesota pol. 

In a purple state with a slim one-vote DFL advantage in the state Senate, Walz can boast on national stages that he signed many state laws that national Democrats want to see on a national level, such as legislation creating a family and medical leave system, securing abortion rights, legalizing marijuana, expanding child care access, creating new gun violence protections, making voting more accessible, providing free school lunches for all, investing much more in public education, building a public option for health insurance, and requiring disclosure for dark money donors. 

All the while, the Minnesota economy has outpaced a relatively strong national economy, with a lower rate of inflation and unemployment than the nation as a whole.

Walz’s long list of significant policy accomplishments would be popular among the national Democrats he would need to win over in a primary challenge against Biden. Importantly, it also would be popular among the swing voters a Democratic nominee will need to win over in a 2024 presidential general election.  Politically speaking, Walz is well poised to make a “we will do for America what we did for Minnesota” pitch to Democrats clutching their pearls about Biden’s electoral viability.

State Capitol insiders are quick to point out that Walz’s myriad policy wins had more to do with House Speaker Melissa Hortman, Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic, and a number of very capable DFLers chairing key committees. But that kind of inside baseball would largely be ignored by national pundits and reporters if Walz ran for President. Walz vocally supported those progressive changes and signed them into law. Therefore, it would be fair for him to tout them in early Democratic primary states.

But Klobuchar and Walz aren’t going to be in those states, not as candidates anyway. They have enough political sense to understand that they’re never going to defeat an accomplished, albeit ancient, incumbent, and that trying to do so at this late hour would irreparably ruin their reputation with the leaders and activists they need in order to be effective.

Phillips, for all his strengths, appears incapable of understanding that part.

Surveys: DFLers Haven’t Overreached On Their Electoral Mandate

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Governor Tim Walz and Minnesota DFL state legislators are getting glowing national attention for passing an array of progressive changes in recent months.  NBC News recently reported:

Nearly four months into the legislative session, Democrats in the state have already tackled protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access — and they have signaled their plans to take on issues like expanding paid family leave and providing legal refuge to trans youths whose access to gender-affirming and other medical care has been restricted elsewhere.

“When you’re looking at what’s possible with a trifecta, look at Minnesota,” said Daniel Squadron, the executive director of The States Project, a left-leaning group that works to build Democratic majorities in state legislatures.

In fact, the Legislature passed more bills in its first 11 weeks of the current session than in the same time frame of every session since 2010, according to an analysis by The States Project.

To me, the lesson is clear: When voters in gridlocked purple states elect Democrats, Democrats deliver on changes that are popular with a majority of voters. However, Republicans who have blocked these same politics for decades see it differently. They’re crying “overreach.” And crying. And crying. And crying.

What’s “overreach?” Republicans claim “overreach” every time something passes the Legislature that they and their ultra-conservative primary election base oppose.  A more reasonable definition is passing something that a majority of all Minnesotans oppose, If DFLers are doing that, it would reasonable to conclude that they have gone beyond the electoral mandate they were given in November 2022. 

By that definition, DFLers aren’t overreaching.  For instance, survey data show that 67% of Minnesotans oppose abortion bans, and therefore presumably support DFL efforts to keep abortion legal in Minnesota in the post-Dobbs decision era. Likewise, gun violence prevention reforms are extremely popular with Minnesotans – 64% back red flag laws and 76% want universal background checks. Sixty percent of Minnesotans support legalizing marijuana for adults. Sixty-two percent support making school lunches free. Fifty-nine percent say everyone should receive a ballot in the mail.

I can’t find Minnesota-specific survey data on all of the other changes DFLers are making, but national polls give us a pretty good clue about where probably Minnesotans stand.  Given how overwhelming the size of the majorities found in the following national surveys, there’s no reason to believe that Minnesotans are on the opposite side of these issues: More school funding (69% of Americans support), a public option for health insurance (68% of Americans support), disclosing dark money donors to political campaigns (75% of Americans support), child care assistance for families (80% of Americans support), and paid family and medical leave (80% of Americans support). 

Granted, Minnesotans may be a few points different than national respondents on those issues. But it’s just not credible to believe that there isn’t majority support among Minnesotans on those issues.

The only issue where there might be a wee bit of overreach is on the restoration of the vote for felons.  While national polls find 69% support for restoring the vote for felons who have completed all of their full sentence requirements, including parole, that support might be a little weaker for restoring the vote before parole is completed, which is what DFLers passed. A survey of Minnesotans conducted by the South Carolina-based Meeting Streets Insights for the conservative Minnesota-based group Center for the American Experiment found only 36% support on this question:

“Currently in Minnesota, convicted felons lose their right to vote until their entire sentence is complete, including prison time and probation. Would you support or oppose restoring the right to vote for convicted felons before they serve their full sentence?”

I don’t suspect that restoration of the vote for felons is a top priority issue for the swing voters who decide close elections. Moreover, the strong 69% support found in surveys for restoring the vote after parole indicates that if DFLers are perceived to be “overreaching,” it likely will be viewed by swing voters as a relatively minor one.  Republicans probably will try to characterize this as “a power grab to stuff ballot boxes with votes of convicted criminals” in the 2024 general election campaigns. But they won’t have much luck with that issue, beyond the voters who were already supporting them based on other issues.

I understand that the loyal opposition has to say something as DFLers hold giddy bill-signing celebration after celebration on popular issues. But survey data indicate that Republicans’ “overreach” mantra is, well, overreach.



DeSantis “Anti-Woke” Agenda Falling Flat With Voters

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In 1910, writer Jack Johnson nicknamed white boxer James Jeffries the “Great white hope” as Jeffries prepared to fight the black fighter Jack Johnson.  Apparently, Mr. Jeffries represented something that many fans found discomforting about Mr. Johnson. 

Similarly in 2023, Republican elites are desperately searching for a Great Non-Trump Hope, sometimes quietly referred to as “Trump with a brain, “Trump without the crazy,” or “Trump without the chaos.”  Most Republicans have settled on the charismatically challenged Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, fresh off his landslide reelection win over Democrat Charlie Crist.

At this point, a lot of Republican voters outside of Florida don’t know much about DeSantis. They know he’s not as undisciplined as Trump, and that he has handily won recent elections at a time when Trump has been regularly rejected by general election voters. 

But beyond presenting himself as a stable winner, DeSantis is pushing a set of extremist policies that appeal to anti-“woke” Republicans.  That may make sense as a primary election strategy, but how about as a general election strategy?  How popular will DeSantis’s Republican-friendly platform be with the all-important swing voters in battleground states?

Here DeSantis faces stiff headwinds, according to a recent University of North Florida survey. Remember, these toxic findings are from DeSantis’s home state, where he just won reelection by 19 points.

These numbers are jaw-dropping. If DeSantis wants to run ads promoting his stands on these issues, Democrats should offer to pay for them.

An overwhelmingly unpopular policy agenda isn’t even DeSantis’s biggest challenge. His more limiting political leg iron is that he can’t begin to match the Trump bombast and charisma that seems to be the primary driver of Trump’s enduring popularity with Republicans. That will become much more apparent as the primary campaign season heats up, once DeSantis and Trump start appearing on the same stage together. The man the former President belittles as “Tiny D” will shrink in that setting.

In other words, the problem with the pursuit of “Trump without the crazy” is that a majority of Republican primary voters adore “the crazy.”

DeSantis’s other problem is that even if he somehow finds a way to defeat Trump in the primary, and I don’t think he can, Trump’s brutal and relentless attacks will drive DeSantis’s unfavorability ratings sky-high, including on issues important to general election swing voters, such as DeSantis’s past efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare.  Also, the possibility of a Trump third-party candidacy looms large.

DeSantis won’t look nearly as attractive facing general election voters in the spring of 2024 as he looked to Republican primary voters in the winter of 2023. And if Trump somehow loses the Republican endorsement, he will continue attacking DeSantis long after the primaries are over.  All the while, DeSantis’s “anti-woke” policy agenda will further sully him with general election swing voters, particularly suburban women, people of color, and young people.

All of which is to say, it ain’t easy being DeSanctimonius.

Dueling Visions for Minnesota: Scandinavia or South Dakota?

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Elections in a purple state can give you whiplash. 

After red wave elections, we’re led by Republicans like Tim Pawlenty who push for low taxes, poor services, and culture wars.

After blue wave elections, we’re led by DFLers like Tim Walz who push for higher taxes, better services, and cultural tolerance. 

After elections with more mixed results, legislative stalemates cause us to keep the prevailing status quo frozen in place.

That makes every election cycle extremely consequential.

The South Dakota Vision for Minnesota

In 2022, a decidedly purple Minnesota – at the time, it was the only state in the nation with one chamber of the state Legislature controlled by Democrats and the other controlled by Republicans – held a particularly high-stakes election. 

If Minnesota voters had elected ultra-conservative former physician gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen and a Republican Legislature dominated by far-right Trumpers, Minnesota would have become a conservative promised land, much like its neighbor to the west, South Dakota. 

During the campaign, Jensen and other Republicans proposed a race-to-the-bottom on taxes, including eliminating the state income tax, which would have led to dramatically worse services.  Republican spinmeisters prefer to say “smaller government,” but the reality is that it would have meant much worse services. The anti-vaxxer Doc Jensen also pledged a South Dakota-like war on public health and culture war initiatives to force conservatives’ thinking on gays, guns, God, and gynecology on all Minnesotans. 

In other words, think Kristi Noem, with a stethoscope prop.

The Scandinavia Vision for Minnesota

Fortunately, 192,408 more Minnesotans voted for incumbent Governor Tim Walz than Jensen. More surprisingly, since it was predicted to be a historically horrible year for Democrats, Minnesotans also elected narrow DFL majorities in the state House and Senate.  The all-important Senate majority is especially razor-thin at 34-33.

Walz and the DFL-controlled Legislatures are armed with a $17.5 billion budget surplus and are offering a vision that is more like a social democratic-led Scandinavian country in the 1970s than South Dakota in the 2020s:

  • Paid family and medical leave;
  • An enormous funding increase for public schools;
  • A targeted child tax credit to dramatically reduce childhood poverty;
  • Free school lunches for all students;
  • An opportunity for people without employer-based health insurance to buy into public health insurance (MinnesotaCare/Medicaid), instead of only being able to choose private insurance;
  • Down payment assistance for first-time home buyers, homelessness prevention, affordable housing, and rent vouchers;
  • A huge package to save the beleaguered childcare sector and make child care free for poor families and more affordable for middle-class families;
  • Large subsidies for weatherization, electric vehicle infrastructure, and solar energy expansion to combat climate change;
  • A range of gun violence prevention reforms, such as universal background checks, red flag laws to prevent people who could be perceived as a threat to themselves or others from getting guns, raising the legal age for obtaining military-style rifles to 21, and banning high-capacity magazines;
  • Legalized marijuana and expunged records for past offenders;
  • Driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants;
  • Automatic voter registration;
  • Enfranchising felons who have served their time; and
  • A capital gains tax hike for the wealthiest Minnesotans.

The list goes on. Overall, think Bernie Sanders, with a Fargo accent.

This is the most dramatic swing of state policy in my lifetime, and perhaps in the history of the state. And if somebody you may have never heard of, Judy Seeberger (DFL-Afton), had received just 322 fewer votes in her state Senate race, most of those changes would never have been possible. Without Seeberger’s handful of votes in the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Minnesota would still be stuck in limbo between the South Dakota vision and the Scandinavia vision. 322 votes.

If You Think Republicans Can’t Ban Abortion in Minnesota, Look No Further than Iowa

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Though Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen told anti-choice extremists that he would work to ban abortion, he has since been busily telling more moderate general election voters that he can’t, due to a Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling which held that the Minnesota Constitution guarantees a right to get an abortion. 

But here’s how quickly Minnesota’s current reproductive health care protections can disappear. 

  • Step One: A few weeks from now, Minnesota voters elect Jensen and a GOP Legislature.
  • Step Two: The GOP majority appoints anti-abortion judges, who overrule the state constitutional right to abortion at the first opportunity.
  • Step Three: Republicans enact legislation banning abortion, which the far-right U.S. Supreme Court now empowers states to do.

Bam, reproductive health freedom could be gone in Minnesota that quickly. 

If you think it can’t happen, look no further than Iowa. Planned Parenthood’s Tim Stanley explains in the Minnesota Reformer:

Much like current abortion protections in Minnesota, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in 2018 that “a woman’s right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy is a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution.”

Reynolds and her predecessor have appointed five Supreme Court justices, building a strong conservative majority on the bench.

Fast forward to June 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court didn’t think twice about “stare decisis,” fulfilling the role they were put there to do: They overturned past judicial precedents and reversed the decision that purported to secure a right to abortion in the state constitution. 

Now, with nothing protecting abortion in Iowa, the Iowa Legislature can completely ban abortion, which it is unfortunately expected to do.

As the Iowa example clearly proves, an abortion ban is on the ballot in Minnesota. Elect Republicans and it will happen pretty quickly.

Scott Jensen’s Dramatic Fall Shows Ads Still Matter

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Among campaign professionals, debates continually rage about whether to invest in field organization or advertising. 

Advocates for organizing – phone-banking, door-knocking, yard sign placement, volunteer recruitment, helping voters vote, etc. – say that the best way to persuade and activate someone is one-on-one, preferably face-to-face.  They make the case that saturation advertising is increasingly tuned out by ad-weary voters and therefore is largely ineffective and a massive waste of limited campaign resources.

Those folks need to pay attention to the Minnesota gubernatorial race between incumbent DFL Governor Tim Walz and challenger Republican Scott Jensen.  KSTP-TV explains:

“There could be many explanations for why Republican challenger Scott Jensen has fallen so far behind incumbent Democrat Gov. Tim Walz two months before Election Day, but Jensen’s initial position on abortion and the resulting millions of dollars of TV ads on the issue is likely the biggest factor.

According to our exclusive new KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, Walz leads Jensen by 18 points, 51% to 33%. In our May survey, Jensen trailed by just 5 points.

“The results of this current poll are nothing short of stunning,” says Carleton College political analyst Steven Schier, citing the barrage of TV ads criticizing Jensen about abortion and education funding as difficult for the Republican to overcome. “The Jensen campaign has no money for messaging compared to the Walz campaign and the Walz campaign allies.”

As of late July, Walz had 10 times more cash on hand than Jensen, nearly $5 million compared to just over $500,000 for Jensen. Plus, a special interest group supporting Walz, Alliance for a Better Minnesota, pledged millions to run TV ads attacking Jensen.

Walz and his supporters have used advertising to put Jensen in a deep hole with only two months to go. The ads frame Walz as a unifying Governor who managed the state well during a difficult pandemic and is now presiding over a booming economy. They describe Jensen as an extremist whose own words show he wants to ban abortion and cut school funding, which are both unpopular positions in Minnesota. 

During the time those ads have been running, there has been a massive 13-point change.  Even if that poll is off by half, which is possible but unlikely, that still would be a very significant shift. 

Just as importantly, the pro-Walz ad campaign also frames the abortion issue as being about respecting doctor-patient relationships, and difficult, highly personal choices that women face. That is in stark contrast to the “baby-killing” arguments that anti-abortion candidates and groups have used to good advantage over the years.

In other words, progressives are, for once, using their advertising budget to play offense on this issue. It’s working, particularly with women voters who would be most affected if Jensen were elected and was able to ban abortion in Minnesota.

The race in this purple state — the only state in the nation with a divided state legislature — is sure to tighten over the next couple of months, in part because the cash-strapped Jensen will eventually start advertising his own charges and defenses at a time when inflation is high and the Democratic President is unpopular. But the last three months are a strong case study illustrating the power of advertising.

So yes, community organizing warriors, continue to knock on those doors and make those calls! (Just not at this crotchety introvert’s house.)  But campaigns also must continue to invest in repetitive messaging through carefully targeted, multi-media advertising.  As the beleaguered Scott Jensen will tell you, that still matters, a lot.

Did the Vikings and NFL Just Blacklist Another Left-Leaning Player?

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I’m not a great NFL offensive line talent evaluator, but I’m told a player named J.C. Tretter has had himself a fine eight-year career as an NFL center. 

At the same time, the center position just happens to be a chronic weakness of the Vikings.  First round draft choice Garrett Bradbury has been a huge disappointment, which particularly limits their passing game and endangers their skittish franchise quarterback. The Vikings don’t appear to have a good Plan B to replace Bradbury.  

The good news, it seemed, was that Mr. Tretter had interest in coming to Minnesota. But alas, according to Sports Illustrated (SI) the interest was not reciprocated by the Vikings’ front office:

The former Browns center, one of the best, most durable players at his position over the past five seasons, had interest in playing football in 2022. After being released by Cleveland in the spring, Tretter and his representation looked around to see if they could find him a new team in free agency. He told Sports Illustrated’s Alex Prewitt that his list of ideal destinations included the Panthers, Cowboys, and Vikings. Tretter cheered for the Vikings as a kid and felt that playing for them would “put a bow on (his) childhood.”

Despite having a major need at center due to Garrett Bradbury’s struggles, the Vikings apparently never returned his call. They declined to comment for the SI story. Minnesota wasn’t the only one, though; per the story, “none of the seven teams that his camp contacted reciprocated his interest.”

So Tretter, feeling at peace with his career, announced his retirement on Thursday.


Now, I’m certainly open to the possibility that Tretter was too beat up to play any more, though he denies that. But why wouldn’t the Vikings, or any other NFL team, at least conduct a physical and do some diagnostic scans? That refusal to even investigate his health just doesn’t pass the smell test.

I’m also open to the possibility that Tretter, at the ripe old age of 31, had no more gas in the tank. But offensive lineman frequently pay well into their thirties, and just last year Tretter still had plenty of game left in him, according to statistics compiled by Cleveland Browns blogger Barry Shuck.

With the 2021 season, Tretter played 1,038 snaps and allowed only one sack. His Pro Football Focus grade this past year was 78.7 and was ranked the #6 center out of 39 candidates.

So what could have caused an accomplished veteran like Tretter to get the cold shoulder from the Vikings and every other NFL team’s front office?  Some, such as Tretter’s former teammate Joel Bitonio, make a very convincing case that Tretter, an Ivy League (Cornell) graduate, has been effectively blackballed by the NFL because he was an outspoken two-term President of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), the labor union that represents players in negotiations with the NFL’s billionaire owners on issues such as pay, benefits, workplace conditions, racial equity, health, and safety.

“When you have a guy that’s top-five, top-10 at center in the league and he’s not on a roster, you know, and he’s the NFLPA president and maybe some of the owners don’t appreciate what he brings to the table on certain topics when he’s trying to protect player safety and things of that nature, it seems a little suspicious to me,” Bitonio said, via Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “But, again, I don’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. I don’t know what his conversations have been with teams and stuff, but just from an outside perspective usually players that are close to the top of their game get picked up. Teams want to win in this league. So it’s an interesting topic, for sure.”

Mike Florio, an attorney and NFL analyst for NBC, profootballtalk.com, and KFAN radio in Minnesota, agrees that it is very possible:

Would it be crazy to think that owners are shying away from Tretter because he has become an agitator to the oligarchs? Nope. That’s another reason why high-profile (and highly-compensated) quarterbacks should be more involved in union leadership. They’re far less likely to be blackballed, and they’re far more likely to take command of the rank and file if/when a line must be drawn in the sand — even if it means a work stoppage.

For now, it makes sense to pay attention to what happens with Tretter. If the goal is to keep him out of the league because he helps run the union, ignoring it makes it easier for the owners to pull it off.

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Keep in mind, the NFL and the Vikings have a history here.  As I have written on this blog, there are strong arguments that both the Vikings and the NFL engaged in blacklisting others — racial equity champion quarterback Colin Kaepernick and gay rights champion punter Chris Kluwe — who dared to speak their minds about what the NFL considers to be “political issues.”

Interestingly, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had no concerns with former Vikings center Matt Birk, who was an outspoken advocate of banning abortion long before he started his gaffe-filled run in Minnesota politics. Birk’s position could have been considered by the NFL to be “controversial,” given that surveys show that two-thirds of the nation opposes banning abortion.

But the NFL not only didn’t blacklist Birk, it hired him as a top executive, Director of Player Development, after his playing career was done. The NFL owners’ political leanings are in full view here.

Again, keep in mind, when the analytics publication Pro Football Focus (PFF) ranked the top half of centers in the NFL, they put Tretter near the very top, at number five. PFF didn’t even list the Vikings current starter Garrett Bradbury in the top half of options.

Yet Bradbury, who Vikings Head Coach Kevin O’Connell continues to question, will be the Vikings starter again this year, and Tretter apparently can’t even get his phone call returned by the Vikings front office.

The Vikings’ billionaire owners Mark and Zygi Wilf love to assure long-suffering fans that they will do whatever it takes to bring a Super Bowl Championship to Minnesota, the state that paid half a billion dollars for a sports palace that has caused the value of the Wilf’s NFL franchise to skyrocket by over a billion dollars.

Unless, apparently, that means employing players who advocate for racial, gay, and worker rights.

Jensen’s Abortion Ban Promises Come Back to Haunt Him, Thanks to Oppo

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Particularly in closely contested purple states like Minnesota, the game for Republican candidates has become to run as an extreme right-winger in Republican primaries, then pretend to be a “moderate” in the general election by walking back much of what you promised in the primary. 

This “pivot to the center” is done to appeal to “swing voters,” or voters who tend to swing back and forth between voting for Democratic and Republican candidates. These voters often prove to be key in general elections.

There’s one impediment to politicians’ deceptive strategy–opposition research.

A lot of people tend to think of campaign opposition research, or “oppo” for short, as being unsavory or unethical. They envision political hacks “digging up dirt” about opponents, private investigator style.  In reality, opposition research is most often just documenting the opponents’ public statements. Typically, a relatively low-level staffer is hired to catalog news coverage and go to the opponents’ public events to record what the opponent is saying. 

Gathering and organizing this information is horribly tedious work — more like an archivist than a private investigator — but the messaging fodder it produces can be decisive in close elections. And it brings more transparency to politics.

For instance, in the Republican primary, Scott Jensen promised Republicans in unequivocal terms that he would try to ban abortions in Minnesota.  MinnPost summarizes his position during the Republican primary campaign:

“In March, before Roe was overturned, Jensen told MPR News he would ‘try to ban abortion’ if elected governor. And in a May interview on WCCO radio, Jensen, a practicing family physician, said he wouldn’t support exemptions for rape and incest…”

ABM even says Jensen told the St. Thomas University Young Republicans in December 2021 that he would throw a party if he was able to limit abortions.

“If I get a chance to sign a pro-life piece of legislation, we’re not just going to sign it, we’re going to have a party.”

But alas, abortion banning statements that produce thunderous ovations from ultra-conservative primary voters produce lusty boos from more moderate swing voters.  After all, about two-thirds (65%) of Minnesota voters oppose new severe abortion restrictions. Most Minnesotans clearly don’t view abortion banning as party-worthy.

Therefore, once Jensen won the primary, he began frantically trying to walk back his promise, saying he would grant exceptions in the case of rape and incest.  (Or as Jensen’s running mate Matt Birk might put it, Jensen “played the rape card.”)

For a while, it felt like Jensen’s flip-flop was working a bit. The news coverage of his flip-flop muddied the waters and made Jensen seem more moderate than he is (e.g. Based on his policy positions, Jensen has a 100% rating from the extremist anti-choice Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life).

But thanks to a behind-the-scenes opposition researcher, a devastating ad is currently being heavily aired by the progressive Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM). The ad is holding Jensen accountable for his primary election promises.  (I’d provide a link to the ad here, but ABM inexplicably doesn’t seem to be making it available online.)

The ad captures Jensen’s original promise to ultra-conservative primary voters and plays it back to more moderate general election swing voters.  It also includes a chorus of Minnesota women expressing outrage about Jensen’s abortion ban promise. It’s powerful.

Though news media coverage exposed Jensen’s flip-flop on abortion, the ABM ad does several important things that news media coverage can’t.  For instance, ads provide brevity for voters who don’t have the patience to dig into detailed news stories.  They are carefully targeted to reach persuadable voters who often don’t follow the news closely, or at all. Finally, unlike news coverage, ads deliver message repetition, which makes the issue and the messaging stick in voters’ minds.

So, if Governor Tim Walz ends up being reelected this November because pro-choice suburban voters swing in his direction, don’t give all the credit to the candidate, field organizers, and his big-buck political consultants.  Remember to give a little love to the lowly bottom-feeding staffer who captured and shared that audio clip to prevent Jensen from deceiving his way into the Minnesota Governor’s  office.

Matt Birk: Rape Victims Are “Playing the Rape Card?”

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Today, the Star Tribune is reporting that Minnesota Lieutenant Governor wannabe Matt Birk is an ignorant bigot, proving that there are some things even a $216,000 Harvard education cannot fix.

Speaking at the National Right to Life conference in Georgia last month, Birk said American culture “loudly but also stealthily promotes abortion” by “telling women they should look a certain way, they should have careers.” Birk said abortion rights activists who oppose bans that do not have exceptions for victims of rape or incest “always want to go to the rape card.”

An abortion, Birk said, is “not going to heal the wounds of that.”

“Two wrongs is not gonna … make it right,” said Birk, a former Minnesota Vikings center who’s the running mate of GOP-endorsed governor candidate Scott Jensen.

First, the “rape card” crack. When a woman is raped, impregnated, and defends her right to an abortion, she is not “playing the rape card.”  She is not playing any card.  She has been forcibly dealt a trauamatic card by violent criminal.  A very difficult decision has been forced on her by the worst kind of thug, and the subsequent decisions about how to deal with that trauma must be made by her and her alone, not Matt Birk or any other smug, judgmental politician.

By the way, this pooh-poohing of crime victims is coming from the candidate running on an anti-crime platform.  Isn’t that rich?

And then there is the career comment. Women don’t have careers because liberal society forced it on them. They have careers for the same reason men do. To support themselves. To support their families. To chase their dreams.  Whether we’re talking about this career choice or the choice of whether, when, and how to have a family, these kinds of choices should be made by the woman involved, and not judged by pompous politicians like Matt Birk.

This shocking chapter of the 2022 gubernatorial campaign is yet another reminder that Minnesotans know almost nothing about Matt Birk the politician. Birk is revealing himself to be an extremist, just like the person at the top of the ticket, Scott Jensen. As I noted earlier, reporters should probe to learn where he stands on a whole host of issues:

Public funding for free birth control, which is proven to dramatically reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions?  Codifying marriage equality? Paid family and medical leave?  Giving Minnesotans the option to buy into MinnesotCare?  Prayer in public schools, and which religion’s prayer? Taxpayers subsidizing billionaire sports team owners’ stadiums?  Making the wealthiest 1% of Minnesotans, which includes Birk, pay higher taxes to fund education improvements?  Accepting Obamacare funding for Medicare expansion in Minnesota? “Don’t say gay” laws to punish teachers who mention gay people in school? Allowing parents to ban books from school libraries? 

Maybe Birk would accuse me of playing the “issue card” here, but Minnesotans need to know more about a guy who cavalierly characterizes rape victims as “playing the rape card.”


For the Gander

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Guest post by Noel Holston

As we know, thanks to the leak that hit front pages like a Russian missile, the U.S. Supreme Court’s carefully cultivated conservative majority almost certainly will strike down Roe v. Wade later this year, throwing decisions about the legality of abortion back to the 50 states.

Especially if you live in state where virtually all abortions will be banned, it’s time to start thinking about what can be done to equalize the personal liberty that is being taken away from women.

Given that men are responsible for upwards of 99% of unwanted pregnancies, it’s only fair that guys should be required to step up.

Call it what you will — turnabout is fair play or equal justice under the law – but one answer is penis licensing.

Abortion foes should insist that all males over the age of 15 should be required to register immediately as potential procreators. Boys can will tested for reproductive ability as they approach puberty. Once they’ve come of age, they’ll have to register as well.

The penile equivalent of concealed carry will be legal. But a guy removing his willy from his pants for sexual purposes will need to show his license to his prospective female partner, known in blue states and cities as a woman, in red zones as a vessel. He’ll also need to get his female partner’s written consent and have his sperm card stamped and notarized.

Neighbors, relatives and wingmen will be able to collect monetary rewards for reporting penile misuse that results in an unwanted pregnancy. Convicted violators will be subject to fines for first offenses, jail terms for subsequent offenses. There will be no procreative equivalent of capital punishment, however. We are an enlightened society. Exceptions will be granted to men who undergo certified voluntary vasectomy.

What’s oppressive for the goose may be just as oppressive for the gander, but at least we would avoid a hypocritical double standard.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He regularly shares his insights and wit at Wry Wing Politics. He’s also a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” by Skyhorse.