With the Trump Bump in full swing, we Minnesotans have an obligation to explain to our fellow Americans how these political crushes work. Been there. Done that.
Category Archives: Humor
Why Aren’t The Best and Brightest Flocking to the Minnesota Legislature?
Both political parties are busily approaching new candidates to seek seats in the Minnesota Legislature for the 2016-2018 legislative session. This is a noble cause. For those of us who care about good public policy, this is an opportunity to recruit Minnesota’s best and brightest to elevate the level of discourse, analysis and decision-making that will guide our great state forward. I’m thankful to all who do this work.
So if you know anyone who has the right stuff, encourage them to run!
HELP WANTED:
Become a member of our dynamic Minnesota House of Representatives team! We are seeking candidates with deep professional experience, strong educational background, extensive community ties, impeccable personal ethics and morals, outstanding interpersonal skills, uncommon diplomatic acumen, stellar leadership qualities, deep policy expertise in several different areas, and a highly photogenic family. Come associate your good name with an organization that has the approval of a historically low 17 percent of your friends and neighbors. Candidates must be willing to work round the clock, seven days per week, surrounded by often manipulative, self-serving colleagues and associates, many masquerading as friends. Even the most talented employees should be expected to remain largely silent and powerless for several years, due to seniority rules that ensure that major decisions are shaped by senior committee chairs and caucus leaders from gerrymandered-safe legislative seats. Employees will be constantly criticized by news reporters, snarky bloggers and anonymous Tweeters, often based on inaccurate or incomplete information. Employees shouldn’t be surprised if they are audited, scrutinized and prosecuted for partisan purposes. Even the most highly accomplished employees will be automatically fired every two years. However, employees willing to work round the clock may earn rehiring, following thousands of job interviews conducted by hostile and lightly informed interrogators who are often basing their rehiring decision on just one of the thousands of official decisions the employee has made over the course of their career. To finance the rehirement attempt, employees will be expected to continually raise large sums of money from friends, relatives, neighbors, strangers and interest groups making shady demands. The non-negotiable salary for this position is less than the average salary of a sewage worker, $31,141 per year.
I ask you, what thoughtful Minnesota citizesn wouldn’t jump at such an opportunity?
Note: This post was republished on MinnPost.
Gayja Vu
Who Negotiated That Stadium Deal Again?
Vikings PR people like to tell Minnesotans that the team’s owner, billionaire Zygi Wilf, is paying about 60 percent of the ever-growing $1.2 billion stadium cost. The truth, as Star Tribune/1500ESPN columnist Patrick Reusse pointed out back in May 2012, is that something like $450 million of the Wilf’s share will be paid by people other than the Wilfs. For instance, season ticket holders will be making exorbitant seat license payments to the Wilfs, the National Football League will be paying a subsidized “loan” to the Wilfs, and U.S. Bank will be making naming rights payments to the Wilfs. All of this will offset the Wilf’s stadium costs by about $450 million.
Taking all of that into consideration, Mr. Wilf looks to be shelling out more in the neighborhood of $250 million of his own money, or 21% of the cost of the $1.2 billion total, not the 60 percent the Vikings claim. It’s difficult for an outsider to come up with precise numbers, but that seems like a pretty fair, pardon the pun, ballpark estimate.
Meanwhile, state and local taxpayers are paying about half a billion dollars for the Vikings’ stadium, or about 40 percent percent of the stadium cost. In other words, taxpayers are paying significantly more than the billionaire owner.
Despite being the majority investor, taxpayers have no say in the name of the stadium, and will be getting 0 percent of the estimated $10 million per year of corporate naming rights payments that U.S. Bank will be paying over the next two decades. The billionaire Wilfs will be getting 100 percent of the $220 million in naming rights payments.
It’s bad enough that U.S. Bank looks to be getting more corporate visibility than Chairman Mao demanded for himself at Tiananmen Square. To add insult to aesthetic injury, taxpayers aren’t getting a single penny for putting up with U.S. Bank’s excessive corporate graffiti.
And so ladies and gentlemen, I give you U.S. Bank Stadium, formerly billed to skeptical taxpayers as the “people’s stadium.” State leaders should be doing some retrospective soul-searching about how they got so thoroughly fleeced by the Wilfs on this deal.
Five Reasons I Can’t Get On The Wild Bandwagon
It’s not that I’m opposed to fans jumping on bandwagons. I not only am tolerant of bandwagon fans, I highly recommend the practice. Supporting chronically losing teams is something with which I have a lot of experience, and I can attest that it is not at all good for your mental health.
Still, I’ve decided I can’t jump on the Wild bandwagon. As inspiring as their dramatic comeback in the second half of this season has been, I can’t make myself into a bandwagon hockey fan, even when the hometown boys are the hottest team in the National Hockey League (NHL).
This realization caused me to do some reflection. These are the five reasons why I decided that I can’t get on the Wild bandwagon.
#5. The grammar is too awkward. I don’t have a lot of hard-and-fast rules in my life, but I do have this one. Sports teams must be named after nouns, preferably critters or violent human beings. They should never be named after adjectives. They also must be plural, not singular, because the team name is referring to a group of people. In my book, any team that forces me to awkwardly exclaim “The Wild are, um is, um are, um is, going to kick your ass” in a moment of passion is not worthy of my face paint.
#4. Toddler fans screaming for entrails during fights. Fist fights happen in other sports, but in other sports they are greeted with immediate league expulsion, stern sportscaster condemnation and the vast majority of fans sadly shaking their heads. But in hockey, bloody fist fights are greeted with bored referees picking up teeth instead of breaking up the fight, and fans of all ages enthusiastically jumping to their feet to cheer for maximum bloodshed. Though starting a fight results in penalty box time that would seem to weaken your team’s chance of winning, it is still universally celebrated in hockey culture as being savvy and heroic. It’s not that I’m too pure for violent sports – football is my favorite – but even I have my limits.
#3. Overregulated anarchy. For a sport that celebrates lawlessness and fighting like none other, there sure are a lot of confusing penalties in hockey. Some of them are pretty self-explanatory. “Elbowing,” “Eye gouging,” “Kicking”, “Headbutting,” and “Spearing” are pretty clear to me, though I still am baffled about when each qualifies as a minor penalty, major penalty, misconduct penalty, game misconduct penalty, match penalty, gross misconduct penalty, stacked penalty, and penalty shot. But I do know one thing for sure: I will understand the theory of relativity, how to cure cancer, the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the meaning of life before I will understand “Icing.”
#2. The focal point of the game is invisible. Even when I had much younger eyes, I couldn’t begin to follow the puck when watching hockey on TV. When you can’t see the puck, all there is to see are a mass of bodies chaotically gliding and colliding until punches are thrown or horns are sounded and celebrations ensue. I’m sorry, but a sport in which the focal point of the game is invisible to fans lacks a minimum requirement to be considered a spectator sport. Until they bring back the FoxTrax glow puck, I’m not going to stare at the screen for three hours pretending that I have a clue about what is happening.
#1. Not their turn yet. The final reason I can’t get on the Wild bandwagon is this: As a long-suffering Vikings, Timberwolves, Twins and Gophers fan, I have to say that the Wild has or have (see what I mean) not suffered nearly long enough to have earned the right to succeed. In Minnesota, it is considered impolite to win championships after a mere 18 years as a franchise. The Twins waited 26 years. The especially snakebit Vikings have been in the hunt for over a half century. So it wouldn’t be fair for me to cheer for the Wilders so early in their fans’ misery cycle.
Note: This post was also republished on MinnPost.
Dirty Job Dayton Dusts Himself Off
Governor Mark Dayton is Minnesota’s political version of Mike Rowe, the star of the Discovery Channel television show “Dirty Jobs.” Rowe’s show is all about him taking on difficult, disrespected and grotesque jobs that others avoid, such as being a sewer inspector, road kill scavenger, worm dung farmer, shark repellent tester, maggot farmer, and sea lamprey exterminator. Who knew that worm dung needed farming?
Dirty Job Dayton
Governor Mark Dayton may not be farming worm dung, but consider just a few of the filthy tasks Dirty Job Dayton has already embraced in his five year’s in office.
Taxing Most Powerful Minnesotans. Before Dayton, non-partisan analyses were showing that the wealthiest Minnesotans were not paying their fair share of taxes. So Dayton ran for Governor unabashedly championing tax increases on the state’s most wealthy citizens, which earned him some very powerful enemies. At the time, progressive political consultants considered advocating almost any kind of tax increase political suicide for candidates. But Dayton ran on a platform of large tax increases, won a razar thin victory at the polls, and then promptly passed the tax increases into law as promised.
Implementing Unpopular Obamacare. Dayton wasn’t done there. One of his very first acts of Governor was to champion Obamacare, which many politicians were extremely nervous about at the time. In contrast to his fellow Governors in neighboring Wisconsin, Iowa and South Dakota, Dayton embraced Obamacare’s Medicare expansion to cover 35,000 of the most vulnerable Minnesotans. The Governor had Obamacare protesters shouting him down in his announcement news conference, but he let them have their say and stuck to his principles without looking back. As a result of taking on a number of controversial Obamacare implementation tasks, Minnesota now has the second best rate of health insurance coverage of any state (95%).
Resolving Vikings Stadium Quagmire. Then there was the Vikings Stadium debate that had been festering for almost a decade before Dayton came to office. Despite polls showing that subsidizing the stadium was unpopular, Dayton provided active backing for legislation to publicly subsidize the Vikings Stadium. While noting that he is “not one to defend the economics of the NFL,” he plugged his nose and embraced a job he didn’t welcome, but felt was necessary to keep the Vikings in Minnesota and boost a then-suffering construction sector.
Cutting Coveted Social Safety Net. Early in Dayton’s tenure as Governor, he even made significant cuts in state safety net programs, which is one of the very worst jobs any progressive can ever get. Faced with a large budget shortfall, he proposed cutting $950 million in planned spending, told agencies to cut their budgets by up to 10 percent, and cut the state workforce by 6 percent. That work had to leave even Dirty Job Dayton feeing grimy.
Love these positions or hate them — and Dayton himself didn’t relish many of them — no one can accuse Dayton of political timidity.
Dirtiest Job Yet
But this winter, Dirty Job Dayton finally met his Waterloo. With no political allies in sight, he attempted to push through salary increases for state agency commissioners, who are making less than their peers in many other states. Dayton said he “knew there would be negative reaction,” but, as is his habit, he plugged his nose and pushed forward anyway.
How did that go for him? Well, in the last few weeks Dayton learned that attempting to raise bureaucrats’ pay makes shark repellent testing look like a walk in the park.
Fresh off that experience, one might expect that Dayton would now stick to clean, safe, and easy jobs for the remainder of his time in office. But if you believe that, you obviously don’t know Dirty Job Dayton very well.
Next Up: Slinging Asphalt
After the salary increase shellacking Dayton endured, he has already found a new thankless task to champion – fixing Minnesota’s deteriorating roads and bridges. While Republicans want a modest short-term fix funded out of the current budget surplus, that would be much too easy for Dirty Job Dayton. Dayton is attempting to put in place an ambitious decade-long $11 billion solution. Such a long-term fix necessitates a 16 cent per gallon (at current prices) increase in the gas tax. Not surprisingly, the polls are looking a little rough at the moment.
But Dirty Job Dayton doesn’t care. Like Mike Rowe, if the assignment stinks, scares, or stings, he’s in!
MN GOP: Bribe Seniors To Stop Them From Fleeing Best State In America
Minnesota has the best quality of life of in the nation, and we must bribe seniors to stop them from escaping it, say two stories from today’s news coverage.
First, we have Politico doing a comprehensive meta-analysis of a variety of quality-of-life analyses. The St. Paul Pioneer Press summarizes Politico’s sunny assessment of our little Minne:
Politico ranked Minnesota as the best state of the union. Among Minnesota’s neighbors, Wisconsin ranked No. 17. Iowa was No. 7 while North Dakota was 15th and South Dakota was 21st.
The rankings are based on 14 criteria: Per capita income: Minnesota is seventh, at $30,913. Lowest unemployment: eighth, at 3.7 percent. Percent above poverty level: ninth, at 89.5 percent. Homeownership: second, at 72.5 percent. Percent of high school graduates: second, at 92.1 percent. Life expectancy: second, at 81.1 years. (Fewest) infant deaths per 1000 births: fifth, at 4.49. Percent of obese residents: fifth, at 22 percent. Average eighth-grade math score: fourth, at 295. Average eighth-grade reading score: 10th, at 271. GINI index (income inequality): 11th, at 0. Lowest violent crime rate per 100,000: ninth, at 223.2. Percent employed in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) jobs: 13th, at 6.1 percent. “Wellbeing” score: fourth, at 69.7.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the same edition of the Pioneer Press, we learn that Minnesota Republicans have announced a new tax code bribe for seniors who agree to stay in the best state in the nation:
(Senator David Henjem’s) “Retire in Minnesota Act” would phase out Minnesota’s Social Security tax over 10 years, at a cost of $127 million for the first two years.
Republicans said the tax could help Minnesota by encouraging retirees to stay here instead of relocating to one of 38 states that don’t tax Social Security income.
The Retire in Minnesota Act aims to stem the flood of Best State residents escaping to sunbelt states, such as Arizona, South Carolina, New Mexico, North Carolina, Florida, and Texas, all of which have a low tax/low service approach to governance that leaves them ranked in the bottom 15 in the quality-of-life rankings.
A New Sin Tax For Our Times
“Sin taxes” focus on activities that are considered by polite society to be undesirable and/or harmful. They’re imposed to discourage the activity, and consequently limit the harm caused by the activity. When citizens are forced to pay sin taxes, they, as a group, typically engage in the targeted behavior less often. For this reason, we have long imposed sin taxes on alcohol, gambling and tobacco.
In the age of the Interwebs, I hereby nominate a newer activity that is highly undesirable and causes great human suffering. I speak, of course, of warm weather Facebook photos and posts.
You know what I’m talking about. Those gorgeous families perpetually promoting their endless vacations to balmy locations. Those bronzed boasters photographing their grotesque toes wiggling contentedly in the foreground of an idyllic beach. Those smug snowbirds constantly reminding you that they have ample time and money to spend the winter months engaged in poolside bingo marathons. Worst of all, those Minnesota expatriates who provide constant updates about the temperature differential between their old and new home states. Traitors!
I don’t mind telling you, it hurts man. It hurts a lot. From the moment Minnesota winters begin in September until they end in July, most Minnesotans are the target of this adult brand of cyber bullying several times per day. Talk about kicking a guy when he’s down.
Think I’m over-reacting? Well, I’ll have you know that Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) plagues millions of citizens in northern states, causing us to stare catatonically into full-spectrum lights, binge on Vitamin D supplements, huff ionized air, and go bankrupt buying crap from garden, golf and fishing catalogs that we can only use a few weeks out of the year. You think that’s fun?
And the worst part? None of it even remotely makes us feel any better. Meanwhile, oh look, here is another half dozen adorable little Facebook photos of your so-called “friends” on Gilligan’s effing Island to remind you of the charms of the latest polar vortex. Isn’t that PRECIOUS?
So I say, if you can’t beat ‘em, tax ‘em. Athletes get penalized for taunting. School kids get penalized for bullying. Employees get penalized for harassment. So citizens should have to pay a tax penalty of, say, $1,000 for every Facebook tropical taunt, to offset the serious pain and suffering they are causing.
Will the Tropical Taunting Tax stop the abuse? Nope. You can’t legislate morality, and these immoral bastards will stop at nothing to promote their tans.
But maybe the Tropical Taunting Tax will slightly limit the damage done by serial taunters. Maybe the revenue raised can be used to subsidize SAD therapies for victims.
If nothing else, the new tax will give frozen Facebookers something snarky to say in comment threats. And goodness knows, that would improve my mental health more than any full-spectrum light ever could.
Note: The wind chill is minus 35 degrees in the SAD author’s hometown today.
Daytonomics Drags MN to Disastrous 3.7% Unemployment Rate
Over the last several years, Minnesota business leaders and conservatives like Tom Emmer and Jeff Johnson have predicted that Governor Dayton’s combination of 1) asking the wealthiest citizens to pay their fair share of taxes, 2) increasing the minimum wage and 3) refusing to enact Pawlenty-style government spending cuts would lead to disaster for the state’s economy. This has been their war cry for years.
Minnesota business leaders are now here to tell us that their prediction has proven correct.
Following Dayton’s implementation of those three pillars of Datyonomics, Minnesota currently has a 3.7 percent unemployment rate. Meanwhile, the Twin Cities metropolitan area has a 3.2 percent unemployment rate.
Minnesota’s 3.7 percent unemployment rate compares very favorably to the nation’s 5.8 percent rate. It also looks strong next to the 6.0 percent unemployment rate corporate darling Mitt Romney boasted he could achieve by the end of 2016 if Romnomics polcies were enacted. Conservative Romnomics –tax cuts for the wealthy, no mininum wage increase and massive government spending cuts — essentially would have been the polar opposite of Daytonomics.
While a 3.7 percent unemployment rate in the wake off Daytonomics may look like proof that conservatives and business leaders were incorrect about the destructive impacts of progressive policies, Twin Cities Business reports that Minnesota business leaders disagree. While they acknowledge that high unemployment under Daytonomics would have been bad news for the economy, they now stress that low unemployment under Daytonomics is also bad news for the economy.
“…some business leaders around the state had previously expressed worries about a cooling economy this winter, citing a potential labor shortage as the unemployment rate drops.”
To summarize, if the unemployement rate under the DFL Governor’s progressive policies would have remained at Pawlenty-era peaks (8.3 percent), that would have been proof that Daytonomics was hurting the state economy. But now that unemployment under Dayton policies is low (3.7 percent), that is also evidence that Daytonomics is hurting the economy.
In other words, progressive Daytonomics simply cannot be considered a success. Just ask Minnesota business leaders and conservatives.
– Loveland
Ad Agency Self-Gratification
A lot of us got a chuckle out of news that South Dakota public safety officials had launched, and abruptly aborted, a public education campaign about erratic driving practices. In case you missed it, the ad campaign used a double entendre– “don’t jerk and drive” — to caution South Dakota drivers to avoid jerking vehicle steering wheels too abruptly. In the unlikely event that you don’t follow the entendre, think naughty and adolescent.
Entirely predictably, the residents of this no-nonsense midwestern state populated with plenty of senior citizens, religious people and conservatives didn’t appreciate the gag. After hearing from them, the state’s Department of Public Safety quickly jerked the campaign.
“I decided to pull the ad,” Trevor Jones, secretary of the Department of Public Safety, said in a statement. “This is an important safety message, and I don’t want this innuendo to distract from our goal to save lives on the road.”
Equally predictably, the ad industry is now indignant that their cleverness has not been sufficiently appreciated by shallow-minded outsiders. Ad Week opines:
The campaign, from Lawrence & Schiller in Sioux Falls, was apparently getting great visibility—outperforming previous public safety campaigns 25 to 1 in terms of driving traffic to the DPS’s social media channels, according to the Argus Leader.
Maybe it’s the DPS who overcorrected here.
Ah yes, the familiar rejoinder of seemingly every ad agency who has ever embarrassed their client. “But look at all the attention it got?!”
Wrong Kind of Attention Generated
If simple campaign gag awareness were the only goal of ads, advertising would be pretty easy. One would only need to slap naughty or outrageous images and/or references into ads, and watch the social media sharing spike, for all the wrong reasons.
This agency was paid to get South Dakota drivers to focus on erratic driving. Through a flurry of campaign-related discussion over the last few days, I heard no one talking about the nature of the problem of erratic driving. I heard no one talking about the specifics about how to do better. Instead, I heard tons of tee-heeing about masturbation. I heard angry ranting about stupid, naive and wasteful government officials. I heard debates about whether this was good or bad advertising.
That’s attention, but it’s the wrong kind of attention. All of those those topics distract and detract from the intended mission-oriented message.
Wrong Tone For This Sponsor
Beyond spotlighting the public service message, another goal of the ad agency should be to enhance, or at least maintain, the long-term credibility of their client as a messenger and recipient of public funding. After all, if a campaign causes an ad sponsor to become less credible or funded, they lose their future ability to pursue the public education parts of their mission.
In this case, the ad agency’s ads caused the DPS, and South Dakota state government in general, to be ridiculed by the taxpayers and policymakers they rely on to fund their current and future operations. So, the agency failed their client on that level too.
It’s obviously a very different situation if an agency’s client has a brand that is provocative and edgy by design, such as Abercrombie, Axe, or Armnai. But the tonality needs of the South Dakota Department of Public Safety could hardly be more different than the tonality needs of those brands. Lawrence & Schiller probably wishes DPS was a more edgy client, but ad agencies get the clients they are handed, not the clients they wish for.
Appealed to Wrong Audiences
Sure, some loved the campaign. And if South Dakota were a state dominated by adolescents, irreverent hipsters, ad industry employees, or Europeans (because we are constantly being reminded by ad industry folks that the Europeans aren’t nearly as repressed and humorless as Americans), “don’t jerk and drive” would have been a brilliant approach.
But the population of South Dakota looks a little different than that. Again, ad agencies get the target audience they are handed, not the target audience they wish for. And frankly, for an ad agency to act otherwise is nothing more than, well, self-gratification.
MN Loses A Treasure: Reporter Jim Ragsdale
Veteran Twin Cities political reporter Jim Ragsdale was smart, decent, savvy, warm, and oh-so witty. Pancreatic fucking cancer got him today at 64 years old, and I’m going to miss him like mad.
Great musicians get their most heartfelt ovations when they come out to present one of their masterpieces as an encore. So, the best way I can think of to honor my pal Rags is to feature one of his many masterpieces as an encore:
Minnesota — broke, a little bloated, and now looking for a new love
By Jim Ragsdale
Updated: 05/20/2010 05:58:46 PM CDT
He goes on long trips without explanation. He comes home and criticizes my appearance, even as he pays greater attention to his own image. Where there once was fondness and love, now all I get is, ‘Your taxes are too high! You’re spending too much! You have to cut back!’
I hate to say it after seven wonderful years, but I, Minnesota, can avoid the truth no longer. My governor, Tim Pawlenty, is seeing someone else.
Am I the last to figure this out? My neighbors, particularly, Iowa, said he has been seen there often, giving their presidential voters the affection I once received. Bigshot pundits who are on the make for a new star delight when he trashes me. But I thought that was, you know, just business, and not really serious.
I admit I have problems. My taxes and spending are on the heavy side — although I’m not as bulky as he likes to say. But hey, I’m Minnesota. I think I carry the weight well. And he knew all this going in back in ’03, when all was kisses and hugs. Why is he dumping me now for slimmer, sexier states?
Sorry — my bitterness occasionally gets the best of me. Deep breaths — in, out. Now, let me give you the whole sad story.
Gov. Tim was born and raised in Minnesota. He has lived and studied and worked here his whole life and he seemed to really care about me. We both knew there were things he didn’t like. He’s “red” and I always go “blue” in presidential years. He’s a fiscal conservative and I have a long tradition of high taxes and generous services.
But he was so cute back when he became governor in 2003. He had a charming way of saying he would try to nudge me in his direction, understanding that I was Minnesota, after all, and would never be, say, Texas or Mississippi. And he did just that. He pushed and prodded and battled and got me shaped up pretty good.
He said he loved my forests and lakes and trees and blue skies, and he was very protective and passionate. Green — good heavens the man was green!
That’s why I loved him back then, despite our differences, and why voters put him back in office for a second term, beginning in 2007. We were pretty happy for a while longer, at least as far as I knew. I never failed to deliver the goods on walleye opener — how ’bout that 22-incher at Kabetogama on Saturday? — and I know he appreciated that.
Then, almost overnight, everything changed.
That bigshot John McCain put him on the V.P. shortlist in 2008, getting him around the nation to red-hot audiences. And right after that, Jan. 20, 2009, happened. A new president — a blue president — took office. Gov. Tim began talking more about national politics and about running for president himself.
He began wandering. First to Iowa. Then New Hampshire. The South. Even the West. States that were trimmer and more red-hot than me.
I saw it but I didn’t see it — know what I mean?
Those floozy states were filling his head with ideas about how great he is, how good-looking and smart and presidential. I couldn’t compete with that. I was broke and a little bloated — just trying to keep home and hearth together — and when he came back, I could tell he no longer had that gleam in his eye.
I’d display my woods and waters and he’d be on the cell-phone with someone in South Carolina. We’d run into our usual budget problems and all he do is scold me to reduce eligibility here, cut benefits there, slim down all over. “Stop snacking on Local Government Aid!” he’d say. “They’re just empty calories!
I am so tired of hearing that.I thought of hiring a private investigator. But then I saw the evidence in black and white, from Eastern pundits. They said the only way he can get love from them is to withdraw it from me. It’s right here in the Wall Street Journal — every time he calls me fat and ugly, he wins points with them.
And trust me, the verbal abuse makes it worse, because when I’m stressed, I tend to binge on the K-12 funding formula.
Well, I may be dowdy and past my prime. I will always suffer through seasonal cold and hot flashes. But I’m not ignorant. The last thing I need, in the middle of a severe bout of economic recession, is my governor trashing me.
So I hereby free him to transfer his affections to those red-state red-hots, those governor-grabbing gigolos, those low-tax lovergirls who have turned his head.
As for me, I’ll survive. I’m getting my budget balanced and I’m having some work done on the out-biennium. But like I said, I’m Minnesota. I’ll always have big bones.
There are a lot of fish in the political sea, of the blue and red and even purplish variety, who will be darn proud to be seen with me. I wish him well in his quest for national stardom. And I hereby issue this request for proposals: I’m looking for a new Gov to be my true love.
No one will ever do “politics on wry” quite like Jim Ragsdale. Rest in peace JImbo.
Loveland
Minnesota Senate Candidate Mike McFadden Wins Another Blockbuster Endorsement
Saint Paul, Minnesota – In news that could shake up Minnesota’s previously sleepy U.S. Senate contest, Republican candidate Mike McFadden announced today that he has landed the endorsement of his young daughter Molly McFadden.
“With just two weeks left in the campaign, we decided to launch our October Surprise,” said McFadden, a CEO of an investment banking company from Sunfish Lake.
Ms. McFadden’s announcement was made through a new television ad produced by the McFadden campaign. The transcript of Ms. McFadden’s ad follows:
My dad, Mike McFadden, is running for Senate. He really tries. But he’s not very good at this political stuff.
Problem is, dad’s super honest. He works hard. And he’d rather help people than attack them.
Dad’s been all over Minnesota telling people about his plan.
But I can tell you this: He’s a good guy, with a great heart, and he’ll give everything for Minnesota.”
The announcement continues a red hot streak for the McFadden campaign, having secured the endorsement of the candidate’s Obamacare-hating peewee football players, fiscal analyzing son Conor, and now his political analyst daughter Molly.
“Amazingly, Mike is on the verge of getting endorsed by every one of his offspring, while liberal Al Franken hasn’t been endorsed by a single McFadden child,” said McFadden campaign spokesperson I.O. Koch.
In a rare moment of political harmony, the Franken campaign released a statement agreeing with Ms. McFadden: “While we dispute the ad assertions that Mike is honest, doesn’t attack people, and has a plan that he is sharing, we cannot disagree with the ad’s observation that Mike “is not very good at this political stuff.”
Note: This post is satire. Though Mike really did release a series of sappy ads featuring endorsements from his young players, son, and daughter, the reaction quotes are fabricated for my own amusement.
News Flash: GOP Activist Reveals That Veteran GOP Consultant Is Supporting A GOPer for Governor
MinnPost reporter Cyndy Brucato is breaking the blockbuster news that 2010 Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Tom Horner is, gasp, crossing party boundaries to support Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson! The reporter breathlessly reports:
Another leader in the Minnesota Independence Party is gravitating toward support of a Republican statewide candidate. Tom Horner, the Independence Party candidate for governor in 2010, is meeting this week with GOP candidate for governor Jeff Johnson to discuss joining his campaign.
Wow, if that happens, that does sound like huge news!
Unless you pay close attention to politics.
If you do pay close attention to politics, you know that Tom Horner is a long-time Republican staffer, supporter, consultant and pundit. Before Horner spent one year as a right-leaning Independence Party candidate for Governor, he was the head staffer for Republican U.S. Senator Dave Durenberger, has advocated for Republican candidates like Norm Coleman his entire adult life, has long counseled Republicans, and served for many years as the Republican voice on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and other news outlets.
In short, for decades Horner has been one of the most visible Republicans in Minnesota. Reporter Brucato is aware of this because she was a lead staffer for Republican Governor Arne Carlson and Norm Coleman. But she mentions none of Horner’s GOP bona fides in the article.
In other words, the real headline here is actually a wee bit less newsworthy. It’s more like:
GOP Activist Reveals That Veteran GOP Consultant Is Supporting A GOPer for Governor
Zzzzzzzzzzzz.
I like and respect Tom Horner a great deal. Though we disagree on many policy issues, Tom is intelligent, has integrity, and Mr. Johnson is lucky to have his policy and PR counsel. But let’s get real. This hardly qualifies as the blockbuster news the reporter makes it out to be.
I support MinnPost relying on a ex-staffers of politicians for opinion pieces. That’s an appropriate role for an ex-staffer. But they shouldn’t rely on ex-staffers from either party for news reporting like this, because their advocacy background naturally calls their objectivity into question.
While the lede was blown way out of proportion, I did find a few things intriguing about the article that left me hungry for deeper reporting. On taxes, Horner says:
“I wasn’t opposed to raising more revenue, but the way the governor went about it is not in the best long-term interest of Minnesota. Just adding fourth tier only reinforces a tax system that isn’t suited to a global market. Maybe we need more revenue but tilt the policy much more to tax consumption and more to reward investment.”
And on health care, Horner says:
“MnSure is where Republicans could play an effective role. It’s good that we’re expanding access and covering children and have a more robust marketplace. Now how do we control the underlying drivers of health care?”
The fact that Tea Party-backed Republican gubernatorial candidate Jeff Johnson may be bringing in a pro-tax, pro-Obamacare consultant for policy advice raises additional questions that were not posed by the reporter:
- Does Horner think tax increases were only needed in the past, or does he think that more may be needed in the future? If so, which taxes would he favor increasing?
- Which parts of health reform would Horner favor retaining? Medicaid expansion? Tax credits? The insurance exchange system? Pre-existing condition reform paired with the insurance mandates? Other? How would Horner propose Mr. Johnson could better control health care costs?
- Does candidate Johnson share Horner’s opinions on taxes and health reform?
- What do key Tea Party-friendly supporters of Johnson think of bringing in Horner to advocate for these positions?
The answers to those questions would have been informative, and would have qualified as actual news.
– Loveland
New Poll Shows Secret of GOP Candidate Jeff Johnson’s Early Political Strength
A new survey released today finds that Minnesota Republican gubernatorial nominee Jeff Johnson now trails incumbent DFL Governor Mark Dayton by just nine points, 39% to 48%. Johnson, a Hennepin County Commissioner, has never won a statewide race before.
While the findings are a surprise to some veteran political observers, a closer look provides a clue why the relative political newcomer may be showing so strongly. About 78 percent of likely Minnesota voters who say they are supporting Johnson believe that he is either their co-worker (26 percent), neighbor (21 percent), business associate (17 percent), or relative (14 percent).
According to U.S. Census data, Johnson is the most common surname in Minnesota, surpassing the ubiquitous Andersons, Olsons, Petersons, and Nelsons in Minnesota’s top five.
Asked of 800 likely Minnesota voters, the survey’s margin of error is minus or plus 3.9 percent.
Note: This post is satirical, false, and not-to-believed, but somehow also feels plausible.
Franken-McFadden Ad Wars: Credibility v. Likeability
The tone of the TV ads of Senator Al Franken and challenger Mike McFadden could hardly be more different.
CEO McFadden has crafted his ads to remake his public image from Millionaire Mike into a jocular, lovable common man, a sort of Clark Griswold Goes To Washington.
Meanwhile, recovering comedian Franken has crafted his ads to remake his public image from shock jock Al into a earnest, wonky, propeller-headed legislator, a sort of congressional Mr. Fixit.
All of this raises an old political messaging argument: How important is likeability in politics? Is it more important for a candidate to be liked or respected?
In his quest for likeability, McFadden’s ads stray into the absurd. The millionaire explains the difficulty of living on a budget, with his polished McMansion on display over his shoulder. He scripts grade school football players to ape his critique of the complex federal health care policy. He goes for groin-shot guffaws and shallow symbolism in lieu of serious policy debate.
After all, who wouldn’t want to “have a beer with” the good time Charlie who goes soprano after pretending to get hit in the privates?
There is obviously a method to McFadden’s sophomoric madness. He is trying to make his public self likeable in order to win over swing voters — moderate Republicans, conservative Democrats and independents — who McFadden apparently believes are not interested in the more detailed policy discussions Franken is featuring in his ads.
Who knows, McFadden might be onto something. According to conventional political wisdom, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton particularly drew a lot of swing voter support due to their supposed want-to-have-a-beer-withism, while Mike Dukakis and Al Gore particularly suffered from appearing distant, dour and dorky. Just because Millionaire Mitt made a mess of his 2012 likeability tour doesn’t mean that Millionaire Mike shouldn’t try to connect with voters on a non-millionaire level.
Meanwhile, Franken seems content to sit out the likeability contest. In Franken’s rush to prove to Minnesotans that he is no longer a cartoonish comedian or pugnacious pundit, he is going all Mike Dukakis on us.
Mo Fiorina, a professor of political science at Stanford University, has researched the connection between likeability and winning at the presidential level, going back to 1952. Professor Fiorina has good news for Franken. He told National Public Radio (NPR) in 2010 that likeability is only a “minor factor” in voting:
“There’s very little historical evidence for it. The fact is we decide who is likeable after they win, not before they win. If I had been advising Mitt Romney, I would have said in the end the American people are not going to decide who they are going to have a beer with, because the American people know that they are not going to have a beer with any of these people. They are going to decide on the base of who they know is going to do the job.”
Still as a Franken supporter, I would be more comfortable if Franken wouldn’t completely cede the likeability ground to McFadden. Right now Franken’s TV ad persona is grim and flat, and even a “minor factor” ought to matter to a guy who only won by 312 votes in 2008, a much better year for Democrats than 2014 is likely to be.
If only Franken knew a good comedic writer with political instincts who could write a TV ad to lighten him up. Know anyone like that, Al?
– Loveland
Note: This post was also featured in the MinnPost Blog Cabin Roundup.
Minnesota Senate Candidate McFadden Releases New Humorous Ad
Saint Paul, Minn. — Minnesota U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden (R-Sunfish Lake) followed an earlier campaign television ad that ended with a child-inflicted injury to his groin with a new television ad that uses thinly veiled flatulence-based humor to further make his case for election to the U.S. Senate.
“We’re just trying to have some good clean fun, while making a very serious point about Al Franken’s big government, job-killing stuff,” said McFadden.
The ad opens with a fog rolling over a grainy black-and-white photo of a frowning Senator Al Franken. Ominous music drones throughout the spot, and two 10-year old boys on a playground chime in in a sign-songy tone.
Male adult announcer: “Something is very, very rotten in Washington.”
Male child actor #1: “Al Franken says the Iraq War and Great Recesssion are not his fault. But he who smelt it, dealt it.” (giggle)
Announcer: “Death panels. IRSgate. Benghazi. Al Franken wants to keep it silent. But we all know, they’re silent but DEADLY.”
Male child actor #2: “Whoever rebuts it, cuts it.” (giggle)
Mike McFadden: (Giggling and holding his nose ) “I’m Mike McFadden, and I declare it, so Al can no longer blare it.”
(McFadden then sits on whoopee cushion. McFadden and kids giggle in unison.)
Mike McFadden: “Oh no, not again, Al!”
The ad began running across Minnesota today. Like the groin ad, it was created by Washington-based Sophmoric Productions.
– Loveland
Note: This post is satire and the featured ad doesn’t exist, for now.
Minneapolis Stepping On It’s Applause Line
So Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges is directing Minneapolitan social media mavens to tweet on over to #bragmpls to brag about Minneapolis, and run down other cities.
“When you go to their cities,” she joked, “talk about how disappointing they are compared to Minneapolis.”
I can hear it now.
“Yeah, New York City is nice and all, but frankly Central Park is a little disappointing compared to The Yard.”
“Chicago? I hate to be mean, but I was a little disappointed that the architecture was all so old, kind of like Minneapolis had before we had the good sense to demolish it, and replace with a fresh 1970s look.”
“San Francisco, meh. I looked everywhere to find a Culver’s, but was sooooo disappointed to learn that they haven’t arrived there yet. I couldn’t wait to get home.”
Okay, I acknowledge Mayor Hodges was making a joke when she talked about expressing disappointment in other cities. Still, the hashtag cheerleading campaign is no joke to Mayor Hodges and her public relations team. And to me, her public begging for hashtags is a wee bit #pathetic.
Of all of the contrived things about contemporary professional sports stage management, nothing is more inauthentic than the Jumbotron exhortations for fans to “Make Some Noise!” The piped-in artificial rhythmic clapping and the mind-numbingly chirpy D.J. Casper song “Everybody Clap Your Hands” fall into the same category. Inevitably these perky little pick-me-ups come when the bats are silent, the defense is porous, and the hometown ownership is starting to worry about meeting its beer sales targets.
But here’s the thing: Minneapolis’s bats are not silent.
In fact, Minneapolis is kicking some serious ass right now. Two new mega-expensive LRT lines are flowing through Minneapolis, and a third appears to be on the way. An iconic billion dollar football palace is rising out of the ground to replace the embarrassing Metrodome. The metro area has the lowest unemployment of any metro area in the nation. Minnesota has the second lowest uninsured rate in the nation. The city’s population is growing, driven by a remarkable residential housing boom in the downtown area. The Super Bowl, the most visible sporting event in America, is coming. And baseball fans from around the world are watching professional baseball’s All Star Game in one of the best ballparks in the world, with a rainbow framing it, right here in our Minnie Apple.
The applause is happening organically. So turning on the flashing “Applause!” sign and publicly waving the mayoral pom poms in the midst of genuine, unprompted applause constitutes stepping on your own applause line. Methinks we’re trying just a little too hard.
– Loveland
Note: This post was also featured on MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.
One Headline GOP Gubers Won’t Chase
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported today that Republican gubernatorial candidates have been having daily one up-manship contests over who can have the earliest and nastiest news conference railing about a Dayton-related headline of the day.
Minimum wage adjustment! Pant, pant. Sex offenders!! Lather, lather. Medtronic acquisition!!! Podium pound, podium pound.
That’s their savvy strategy — cry “wolf” daily. They read the morning news, race to the podium and rant. In their (bulging) eyes, every Dayton-related development is an outrage, the next “-gate.”
That’s what passes for their policy agenda. That’s the even keel leadership style they are showing voters.
But here is one headline the gunslingin’ gubers won’t be chasing today:
Minnesota adds 10,300 jobs in May; jobless rate lowest in 7 years
Kurt? Jeff? Scott? Marty? Anyone?
– Loveland
Super Bowl Bid Bust: Why Are We Destroying The Yard With The Pole Building?
You may have seen the artist renderings. The drawings lay out a vision for The Yard, the planned four-acre urban park adjacent to the mammoth new Vikings Stadium. In the winter versions, the park is shown populated by happy, hearty Minnesota families skating, admiring ice sculptures, making snow angels and generally laughing in the face of Old Man Winter.
When I look at that rendering, I can clearly hear the soundtrack.
“When it snows,
ain’t it thrilling?
Though your nose
gets a chilling.
We’ll frolic and play
the Eskimo way.
Walking in a winter wonderland.”
That, my friends, is us. Minneapolis has the best park system in the nation, because Minneapolitans loves them some outdoor activities in all seasons. That’s why this little outdoor space has emerged as one of the more intriguing, unifying and endearing elements of the Minneapolis stadium area vision. It is a quintessential Minnesota kind of space being built on Minnesota’s most visible stage.
But the corporate types dreaming up the Super Bowl bid don’t see it that way. They promised the NFL muckety-mucks that they would replace The Yard with, well, The Pole Barn.
Well, technically, I guess it’s going to be a tent, but in the artist’s renderings, the ginormous grad party tent looks more like a poultry pole barn to me. To be fair, it does have a very snazzy Super Bowl LII logo on the roof, making it one of the more swank pole barns I’ve ever seen.
I understand what the Vikings owner Zygi Wilf and his merry band of corporate boosters are shooting for with this idea. They wanted to reassure delicate NFL billionaire owners who have heard nasty rumors about Minnesota weather that we are in possession of heat, and are prepared to pipe it in wherever the partying swells desire it.
But making The Yard into the The Pole Building is going too far. We don’t want the Goodyear blimp’s panoramic shots of Super Bowl LII to portray a generic Super Bowl scene. We want those shots to portray a uniquely Minnesota Super Bowl scene. We want to show the world happy, hearty Minnesotans laughing in the face of Old Man Winter.
After all, we are who we are, and we should be proud of who we are. We want to show the world that Minnesotans don’t just survive winter weather; we find ways to have fun in winter weather. Showing everyone skulking into an ugly heated tent paints quite the opposite picture.
To be clear, I’m strongly in favor of heat in February. By all means, heat the airport, taxis, buses, trains, transit stations, skyways, hotels, convention center, shopping centers, restaurants, bars, strip joints, water parks, indoor skating rinks, theaters, museum and, of course, stadium. Heck, I’d even be okay cranking it up a few extra degrees for those couple of weeks.
But don’t, repeat don’t heat, sterilize and corporatize the outdoor space that we are building to frolick and play the Eskimo way on the national stage. Super Bowl week or not, let’s let Minneapolis be Minneapolis.
Loveland
Note: This post also appeared on streets.mn.
Stewart Mills’ Ad On Truth Serum
This is the script of a political ad that was recently released by conservative Republican Stewart Mills III, who is running against DFL Congressman Rick Nolan in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. The ad shows young Stew the third sporting the orange shirt worn by front line employees at the Mills Fleet Farm chain of big box stores that his family operates.
I’m Stuart Mills. My family operates Mills Fleet Farm.
As a teenager, I worked here stocking shelves. (chuckle) Then I got promoted to mopping floors.
Now I run the health care program for thousands of our employees and their families.
Everyday, I see how Obamacare hurts small businesses and the middle class.
As your congressman, I’ll replace it.
I’m Stewart Mills and I approve this message, because we need to grow the middle class and get Minnesota back to work.
If Stew the third were injected with truth serum, the ad might sound more like this:
I’m Stewart Mills the third. My family operates Mills Fleet Farm.
As a teenager, I worked there stocking shelves. (chuckle) Then I said, screw this, daddy, make me a top executive faster than everyone else. And he did.
In other words, I was born on third base, but think I hit a triple.
Now I’m fighting to protect my millions of dollars in inherited wealth.
But every day in Minnesota I see how 350,000 minimum wage workers have gotten a raise, 95,000 have new Medicaid coverage, and 2.3 million with pre-existing conditions have gotten their coverage protected through Obamacare.
As your congressman, I would oppose those things, and offer no alternatives.
I’m Stewart Mills III, and a bunch of other folks with inherited wealth approve of this message, because they want a fellow silver spooner growing the upper class and putting ordinary Minnesotans back in their place.
Note: This post was featured in Politics in Minnesota‘s Best of the Blogs.