Category Archives: Political messaging

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.

An Ad to Save American Democracy

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If I were a billionaire who loved American democracy, I would pay for a TV ad something like the following to run steadily in the coming year in places where the data tell me swing voters are viewing.

“America was founded on this principle: No one should be above the law.

That’s why all of these powerful Democratic politicians were convicted.

So when you hear Republican politicians whining, remember this long list of convicted Democrats.

Is former President Trump guilty? We’ll see. We’ll see what a jury of ordinary Americans decides based on the facts and the law.

That’s how we do it in America. Because no one in either party, no matter how powerful they are, should ever be above the laws that apply to the rest of us.”

—

The image on the screen throughout this voiceover would be the following names, among others, scrolling steadily:

Dan Rostenkowski (Democrat-IL) – Convicted.

Harrison A. Williams (Democrat-NJ) – Convicted.

Mario Biaggi (Democrat-NY). Convicted.

Edwin Edwards (Democrat-LA). Convicted.

Don Siegelman (Democrat-AL). Convicted.

Nicholas Mavroules (Democrat-MA). Convicted.

Albert Bustamante (Democrat-TX). Convicted.

Joe Kolter (Democrat-PA). Convicted.

Austin Murphy (Democrat-PA). Convicted.

Mel Reynolds (Democrat-IL). Convicted.

Jim Traficant (Democrat-OH). Convicted.

Frank Ballance (Democrat-NC). Convicted.

Bob Ney (Democrat-OH). Convicted.

William J. Jefferson (Democrat-LA). Convicted.

Laura Richardson (Democrat-CA). Convicted.

Jesse Jackson Jr. (Democrat-IL). Convicted.

Chaka Fattah (D-PA). Convicted.

Corrine Brown (D-FL). Convicted.

Rod Blagojevich (D-IL). Convicted.

Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Convicted.

Why that ad? It’s not the least bit clever, cutting, or captivating. It’s in no danger of winning any awards.

But we need ads something like this because they inject information that is missing from the current debate. We need them to set the context for the upcoming Trump trials, a context that too many voters with short memories lack.

Former Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-IL), who was impeached by his own party, forced out of office, convicted, and jailed for eight years on federal charges of public corruption

We need that messaging to bust the “only Republicans get prosecuted by the DOJ” myth being promoted non-stop by Fox News and other conservative propaganda outlets.

We need that message informing discussions on this topic at family, friend, and work gatherings.

We need messaging like that to prevent Trump, if he is convicted, from achieving martyr status amongst the swing voters who will decide if Trump ultimately regains the presidency in 2024, which would empower him to pardon himself and his co-conspirators and inflict punishment on prosecutors, political opponents, critics, and America’s most important democratic institutions.

Finally, we need paid advertising like that because we can’t rely on news reporters to repeatedly provide this important context, out of fear that it will somehow appear biased.

For billionaires, paying for this kind of messaging campaign would not diminish their lavish lifestyle. And it might just save American democracy.

So, what say you, Buffet? Soros? Bloomberg? Steyer? Sussman? Simons? Anyone?

Is Minnesota Really A “Big Spending” State?

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This past winter and spring, the DFL-controlled state House, Senate, and Executive branch produced much more for ordinary families than Republicans ever did when they were in power.  It’s not close.

As a result, things are getting heady for Walz and DFL legislators. To cite just one example of the national acclaim they’re getting, Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne recently lavished praise on the Minnesota DFL’s 2023 legislative tour de force with a sloppy wet kiss of a column.

“The avalanche of progressive legislation that the state’s two-vote Democratic majority in the Minnesota House and one-vote advantage in the state Senate have enacted this year is a wonder to behold.

It’s no wonder former president Barack Obama tweeted recently: ‘If you need a reminder that elections have consequences, check out what’s happening in Minnesota.’

Democrats in the state are known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party from their merger with a third party in the 1940s. True to the name, the party’s agenda combined social concerns such as abortion rights with what Long called “bread-and-butter, populist things that sell everywhere in the state.”

Well, E.J., thanks to the rural-urban division that the Minnesota Republican Party relentlessly promotes on the campaign trail, the DFL achievements don’t actually sell well “everywhere” in the state.  According to an early May 2023 KSTP-TV/Survey USA poll, Walz still has much lower approval ratings in rural parts of the state (51% in the southern region, 42% in the western region, and 46% in the northeastern region) than he has in the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area (60% approval).

Still, Governor Walz’s 2023 performance is selling relatively well statewide. He has the approval of 54% of Minnesotans, compared to the disapproval of 41%. In a purple state that Trump only lost by 1.5 points in 2016, Walz’s 13-point net positive approval rating is impressive. Progressivism is selling pretty well in this purple state.

However, the political debate is just heating up. We can expect Republicans campaigning in 2026 to focus on the unpopular, vague notion of “government spending increases,” rather than the DFL’s specific policy changes.  After all, polls show that individual DFL-enacted achievements are popular. For instance, 80% of Americans support paid family and medical leave, 80% of Americans support more child care assistance for families, 76% of Minnesotans support universal background checks for gun purchases, and 69% of Americans support more school funding, to name just a few of the many popular policies that DFLers passed during the 2023 session. Therefore, Republicans will focus on how much more the DFL-controlled state government is spending, not the DFL’s signature policy achievements.

It is true that the state budget is increasing under DFLers in 2024. But is state government spending really that high?

According to usgovernmentspending.com, state spending in Minnesota in 2024 will be 10.15% of the state’s GDP, making it a middling 25th among the 50 states. Yawn.

So, sure, our Republican-controlled “race-to-the-bottom” neighbors in Iowa (9.87% of GDP), Wisconsin (9.64% of GDP), North Dakota (9.08% of GDP), and South Dakota (8.12% of GDP) are spending less than in Minnesota. No surprise there.

But state spending in Minnesota is nothing like what is happening annually in the top ten states of New Mexico (17.64%), Alaska (16.96%), West Virginia (16.42%), Vermont (16.12%), Hawaii (15.88%), Kentucky (15.18), Oregon (15.14%), Mississippi (14.94%), Louisiana (13.78%), and Maine (13.51%).

Despite Minnesota Republicans’ red-faced hyperbole about the DFL’s “out of control spending,” in a national context Minnesota is, meh, just average. 

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.



Infrastructure Investment or Dog Sleds?

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Editor’s Note: The utterly disposable Homo sapien known as Joe Loveland has hereby been replaced by artificial intelligence (AI), Chat GPT to be precise.
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The following was generated on Chat GPT with the human prompt “A humorous blog post about Republicans being wrong to oppose infrastructure spending.” Before generating the post, Chat GPT advised “As an AI language model, I do not take political sides or promote political bias. However, I can help you come up with a humorous blog post that highlights the importance of infrastructure spending.”

So, what do you think, dear readers?

— ChatGPT Overlords

Well, well, well, it looks like Minnesota Republicans are at it again, blocking infrastructure spending like they’re trying to win some kind of backwards competition. If there was a prize for being short-sighted and stubborn, they’d surely be in the running for the trophy.

I mean, come on, guys. Infrastructure spending is like investing in the foundation of your house. Sure, it’s not the most glamorous or exciting thing to spend money on, but without a solid foundation, the whole thing is going to come crumbling down eventually.

And let’s face it, Minnesota winters can be brutal. I’m pretty sure the roads here have more potholes than a slice of swiss cheese. If we don’t invest in repairing and maintaining our roads, we might as well just invest in a whole lot of new tires.

But maybe the Republicans have a different plan. Maybe they want us all to get around on dog sleds or something. Sure, it would be environmentally friendly, but I’m not sure how practical it would be for commuting to work or taking the kids to school.

And don’t even get me started on bridges. I mean, we’ve had some pretty high-profile bridge collapses in recent years. If we don’t invest in making sure our bridges are safe, we might as well all start practicing our swimming strokes.

So come on, Minnesota Republicans, let’s put aside our differences and agree on one thing: we need to invest in infrastructure. It’s not just good for our economy, it’s good for our safety and well-being. And who knows, maybe we’ll even get some new, exciting potholes to drive through.

A More Consequential Assignment for the Lincoln Project

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I have a suggestion for the Lincoln Project, the much-celebrated organization formed by a collection of Never Trumper GOP and former GOP political consultants and activists who banded together in the 2020 presidential election cycle to help defeat Trump.

The Lincoln Project

If you haven’t heard of the Lincoln Project, starting in the 2020 election it raised money to air brutally pointed ads criticizing Trump. Liberals like me loved watching their ads, but I wasn’t convinced how effective they were.

While always cathartic for committed Trump opponents, the ads too often seemed to pick topics and a tone that they thought would get under Trump’s skin or raise money from Trump opponents, rather than topics and a tone that would prove most persuasive to the decisive right-leaning swing voters. 

But overall, I don’t mean to criticize the Lincoln Project. Co-founded by recovering Republicans Rick Wilson and Reed Galen, it was well-intentioned and helpful. It produced a huge volume of ads and social media videos that were widely aired and shared. Those ads served as a primal scream for Republicans who had watched in horror as their party got hijacked by the most corrupt, inept, and bigoted president of our times. It “fired up the base,” which is one important need in any campaign. In the process, it developed a huge database of Trump opponents from across the ideological spectrum, which helped it raise over $80 million in the 2020 cycle. 

A New Focus for Lincoln Project Money

But in 2024, more of this “singing to the choir” advertising isn’t the best way for the Lincoln Project to keep Donald Trump or his Mini Me Ron DeSantis out of power. Instead, the Lincoln Project should back a strong Republican running as a third-party candidate.

Such a right-leaning third-party candidate could serve as an Election Day safe haven for people who hate Trump or DeSantis, but will never be able to stomach voting for Biden, who has been a committed and effective champion for liberal causes. 

If such a right-leaning third-party candidate could even draw 1 percent of the vote in 2024, that could be enough to keep Trump or DeSantis out of power.  If the candidate could draw something like 10 percent, it could lead to the kind of landslide loss that could perhaps finally cause the party to jettison its Trumpian fetish, which is the Lincoln Project’s long-term goal.

Also, a conservative third-party candidate could completely or partially offset any otherwise-Biden votes that might be peeled away if a more left-leaning third-party candidate is on 2024 ballots, such as Andrew Yang. Yang is the businessman and 2020 Democratic presidential primary candidate who left the Democratic Party to form the Forward Party. A third-party candidacy from the left without a counter-balancing third-party candidacy from the right could easily help Trump or DeSantis gain power.

Even a modestly successful conservative third-party candidate could swing the 2024 election.  Keep in mind, Trump could have escaped defeat in 2020 if he had only gotten about 44,000 more votes in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona. That is only about 0.08 percent of the 154.6 million people who voted for president in 2020. Those 44,000 votes wouldn’t have been enough for Trump to have overcome his 7 million popular vote loss, but because the United States is stuck with the profoundly undemocratic Electoral College system, it could have given Trump an Electoral College tie.

Source: National Public Radio

Third-Pary Liz Could Prove Decisive

The ideal choice for a Lincoln Project-based third-party run is Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.  The Cheney surname is well known, and she gained a great deal of national visibility and respect during the congressional January 6 insurrection investigation and hearings.  She is the most well-known and politically talented of the Never Trumper elected officials. 

Photo credit: Politico magazine

Perhaps most importantly, Cheney has the background, knowledge, demeanor, and inclination to make an aggressive case against Trump that will connect with some right-leaning swing voters. When it comes to Trump, she clearly is not inclined to pull punches, and the news media covers what she has to say.

While Cheney is vehemently anti-Trump, with a voting record that aligned with Trump 91% of the time, she is not so moderate that she would tempt many liberals or left-leaning independents to vote for her instead of Biden.

One of the primary reasons running as a third-party candidate is so daunting is that it’s very challenging to raise enough money when not affiliated with one of the two major political parties. The Lincoln Project is the only Never Trump-oriented organization that can raise anything close to the amount of money it would take to help a Republican third-party candidate get onto state ballots and make sufficient amounts of noise.  Again, the Lincoln Project raised $80 million in 2020, so it already has the donor database to raise a substantial sum in a hurry.

The Lincoln Project leadership should go all-in supporting a Cheney candidacy, whether as the Lincoln Project as currently constituted, or as Lincoln Project leaders disbanding and formally joining the Cheney campaign. Doing so would be a more effective way to keep Trump out of power than pumping more snarky Lincoln Project ads in an environment that will already be plenty thick with tough anti-Trump ads.

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.

With Enemies Like Scott Jensen, Who Needs Friends?

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Up until this weekend, I haven’t been much of a fan of Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen.  But maybe I’ve been too hard on him. I wanted to give him credit for some really great work over the last few days.

I am sincerely grateful that Scott Jensen did DFL Governor Tim Walz a solid by holding a news conference that resulted in highlighting a credential that Walz too infrequently spotlights himself – the fact that Walz volunteered for National Guard service for 24 years. 

By holding that news conference, Jensen arguably delivered better front-page PR for Walz than Walz’s PR staff ever has.  In the process, Jensen exposed Walz’s opponent to be an incompetent hypocrite who refused to enlist as Walz did.  I hope Walz sent Jensen a thank you note and some nice flowers.

Here’s hoping that Jensen will continue to similarly publicize other Walz achievements.

Perhaps Jensen could hold a news conference exposing the fact that Walz only dedicated himself to the noble public service career of public school teaching for part of his life, instead of his entire life. 

Or Jensen could lambaste Walz for only coaching Mankato West High School to its first ever state football championship, while failing to win the championship every single year.

Maybe Jensen could publicly scold Walz for only being named Outstanding Young Nebraskan and Nebraska Citizen-Soldier of the Year, while totally failing to win those honors in any other state. 

Bring it on, Scott!  With enemies like Scott Jensen, who needs friends?

Scott Jensen’s Unanswered $15,000,000,000 Question

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Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen proposes to eliminate the state income tax.  At first blush, that might sound good to inflation-weary taxpayers. But to balance the state budget, such a change would necessitate $15 billion per year in service cuts and/or increases in other types of more regressive taxes.

Quite irresponsibly, Jensen won’t say what services he would cut, or what taxes he would increase, to balance the state budget.  But make no mistake, serious pain would result.  Jensen’s plan would necessitate massive cuts in education and/or health care, and/or a huge increase in property taxes, or other types of taxes that are more regressive than the state income tax. 

Shifting from the progressive state income tax to the regressive property tax is popular among the wealthiest Minnesotans, because that change would greatly benefit them. The progressive state income tax requires that the wealthiest Minnesotans pay a higher share of their income in taxes than is paid by the poorest Minnesotans.  On the other hand, regressive property, sales, and/or excise taxes put more of a burden on lower-income Minnesotans compared to the wealthiest Minnesotans.

Wealthy doctors like Jensen, multi-millionaire professional athletes like his running mate Matt Birk, and the most financially privileged Minnesotans who disproportionately fund Republican candidates don’t want to pay their fair share in taxes.  This is a political payoff to them.

Jensen’s proposal not only is a grossly inequitable giveaway to the wealthiest Minnesotans, it’s also dishonest.  Jensen only discloses the benefits – no more income tax bill! – without disclosing the costs – crippling school cutbacks, slashed health care services for vulnerable Minnesotans, and/or crushing property tax increases. All of those costs are enormously unpopular with Minnesotans, so Scott Jensen simply refuses to answer that critical $15,000,000,0000 question.

Jensen isn’t explaining the downside of eliminating the state income tax, but reporters should be doing that. Unfortunately, it’s barely happening.  Compared to heavy front page reporting on Walz’s actions related to a nonprofit fraud prosecution and the debate over the number of debates, this hugely consequential policy proposal has received relatively scant coverage.

One exception is the Minnesota Reformer. Though the Reformer has relatively light readership, it has done thoughtful and constructive reporting, such as this: 

“Minnesota has a steeply progressive individual income tax, meaning households with higher incomes have a higher tax rate as a share of their income compared to lower income households. Eliminating individual income taxes would disproportionately burden low-income Minnesotans while giving huge tax cuts to the state’s wealthiest.

‘Progressive income taxes are integral to having budgets that can meet the needs of all citizens, and they’re also really important in ensuring racial and socioeconomic equity,’ said Neva Buktus, state policy analyst for the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. ‘Eliminating the personal income tax would completely throw that out the window.’

Each year, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy creates a ranking of state tax systems and how they foster income inequality.

The six least equitable in the U.S. are among the nine states with no individual income taxes. Minnesota’s progressive personal income tax makes it one of the least regressive in the country — 47th out of 50. That means our lowest income earners get a better deal than nearly every other American when it comes to state and local taxes. 

‘If you’re going to eliminate the income tax, there’s no way to spin it. It disproportionately benefits the wealthiest Minnesotans by a long shot,’ Buktus said.”

At other major news outlets, my best guess is that reporters are shrugging off the issue relative to other issues because they believe that elimination of the state income tax could never pass the Legislature.   

It’s not reporters’ jobs to gauge likelihood of passage.  After all, no one knows what the future makeup of the Legislature might be if voters sweep Republicans into office, as historical trends portend.  Instead, reporters are supposed to explain the candidates’ major policy proposals and analyze the consequences so voters can make fully informed decisions.

That’s just not happening as much as it should. Whatever the thinking in Twin Cities newsrooms about Jensen’s most radical and reckless policy proposal, their silence on the topic has been deafening. 

Walz Cooperation With Law Enforcement Deserves Praise, Not Punishment

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In the past, one thing that Democrats and Republicans could always agree on is that “cooperating with law enforcement” is a good thing.  As near as I can tell at this stage, that’s what the Walz Administration and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison did when they learned of Covid relief funding being misused. 

As an aside, this is much more than I can say about Republicans like gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen who apparently has absolutely no problem with Governor Ron Desantis (R-FL) using millions of dollars Covid relief funds to shamelessly abuse vulnerable asylum-seekers for political purposes.  The Washington Post reports:

“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) appears to have turned to an unexpected funding source to help pay for his plans to fly migrants to liberal-leaning communities: the interest earned on his state’s federal coronavirus aid.

A little-noticed part of Florida’s recent budget dedicated about $12 million to the relocation campaign, an escalating effort that saw the state send two planes filled with dozens of migrants — children included — to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., on Wednesday.

When Republicans learned about DeSantis’s fraudulent use of Covid funds, they not only didn’t notify the FBI, they cheered on Desantis.

But I digress.  Let’s recap the basics of what seems to have happened in the Minnesota case.  When the Walz-appointed education officials suspected misuse of funds, they reported it to the FBI. They cooperated with law enforcement.

When the FBI reportedly asked the state education officials to not tip off the investigation by cutting off funds, the Walz education appointees and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s staff again cooperated with law enforcement.  Pioneer Press:

“’The FBI repeatedly made it clear to the Attorney General’s Office and MDE that it should not disclose the existence of the investigation in Feeding Our Future’s state court lawsuit so that it could proceed without tipping off Feeding Our Future and the target of the investigation,’ Ellison’s office said Monday.”

(Note: At this point, the FBI can’t publicly verify that they asked the state officials to not cut off funding. As we’ve seen in dozens of cases over the years, the FBI won’t comment on an ongoing investigation. Still, there is no reason to believe that all of these state officials are lying, knowing full well that the FBI could eventually expose them as liars.)

Likewise, when the judge reportedly said that cutting off funds during the investigation could be a problem for the investigation, the education officials didn’t create such a problem for law enforcement.  The Pioneer Press’s Dave Orrick explains:

Judge John Guthmann never ordered the state to make payments, according to the court record and Guthmann himself. However, he did, in at least one court hearing held over Zoom, tell an attorney for the state that they could have a “problem” if they didn’t keep making payments.

Why would the FBI not want the Walz Administration to immediately cut off funding?  That’s a very fair question. But there is a perfectly reasonable answer. Former federal prosecutor and current University of St. Thomas law professor Mark Osler explains:

“Think about a drug network,” Osler, who prosecuted cocaine rings in Detroit, said in an interview with the Pioneer Press. “Often, if we want to take down an entire drug network, you have to wait. It’s better to take it down with the whole story known and the key players identified. … I think pretty much anyone who’s worked in law enforcement at a higher level will say that fast isn’t always good and sometimes you do need to hold.”

And yes, Osler said, speaking generally and with no direct knowledge of the Feeding Our Future investigation, that can included allowing money to keep going out the door to suspected criminals. “A lot of the time, that’s done with the confidence of trying to get the money back later, and they’ve begun that process,” he said.

Indeed, federal authorities have said that of at least $250 million they’ve alleged to have been stolen, they’ve recovered some $50 million.

Despite all of this, Walz’s increasingly desperate gubernatorial opponent Scott Jensen, who is consistently trailing the polls, wants to convince Minnesotans that this is the equivalent of the Teapot Dome scandal or, like, you know, “BENGHAZI!” or “HER EMAILS!” 

But to me it looks like, yawn, Walz’s education appointees “cooperating with law enforcement” to do what they were told to do in order to prosecute some pretty extensive fraud that they initially uncovered. 

As such, the Walz Administration deserve praise, not punishment.

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.

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.

Why Is Doc Jensen Still So Obsessed With His Long-Disproven COVID Claims?

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Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen has one huge advantage over DFL Governor Tim Walz – rural voters.  If Jensen wins in November, and he might because of frustration over crime and inflation, it will be because he successfully energized rural Minnesota. Rural areas have gotten reliably Republican, so yesterday’s FarmFest debate was the Twin Cities resident’s big opportunity to close the deal by stressing his rural development ideas.

Photo credit: Dana Ferguson, Forum News Service

But instead of using all of his time to make that case, Jensen apparently spent quite a lot of time emphasizing what he always seems to emphasize — COVID-related cray-cray.

I just don’t understand why Jensen is convinced that this is such a winning political issue for him.  Early on, when little information was available, Jensen became a star on conservative news outlets like Fox News recklessly speculating about how the pandemic might turn out. But now that actual research has emerged, it’s clear that Jensen’s early guesses have turned out to be spectacularly, embarrassingly wrong.

Still, Jensen just can’t stop himself from going there:

  • Quite incredibly, Jensen, a physician by training, still remains unvaccinated. Keep in mind, over 95 percent of physicians are vaccinated, putting Jensen in a very small minority of extremists in his profession. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of Minnesotans made a different decision. Seven out of ten (3.946 million) of them have gotten them fully vaccinated. Among the states, Minnesota has the second best rate of residents that have been boosted.
  • Jensen also still expresses skepticism about vaccine effectiveness. But the facts are now in. They show that the vaccine has been highly effective in reducing hospitalizations and deaths, and have enabled Minnesota’s society and economy to return to normal. Despite all of this, Doc Jensen apparently still thinks preaching anti-vax myths to the small group of holdouts is wise political strategy.
  • Beyond Jensen’s incessant vaccination nonsense, he somehow continues to recommend Minnesotans use the antiparasitic drug ivermectin. The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved ivermectin, because a number of medical studies have proven it to be ineffective and dangerous. But apparently Team Jensen is convinced that pushing this discredited quackery is going to get him elected.
  • And then there is public health. Jensen maintains that Walz’s public health measures to limit COVID spread were unnecessary and ineffective.  But the facts are now in, and Minnesota under Walz had one of the region’s best rates of COVID deaths per capita. If Walz had adopted the conservative hands-off public health approach used in neighboring South Dakota, 5,000 more people would have died, according to an analysis done by Dane Smith.  That’s roughly equivalent to the population of Minnesota towns like Circle Pines, Luverne, Redwood Falls, Lindstrom, and Morris. Still, Jensen apparently is convinced that championing the demonstrably deadly South Dakota model is the best path to victory in November.
  • Finally, Jensen claims that Walz protecting Minnesotans during the deadliest pandemic in a century destroyed the Minnesota economy. Again, the facts now tell us a very different tale. Minnesota currently has the lowest unemployment of any state in the nation (1.8 percent), a historic low.  Minnesota’s state budget outlook is strong enough that it also recently had its bond rating upgraded to AAA for the first time in nearly 20 years.  But Jensen remains convinced that Minnesotans will buy his contention that Walz’s pandemic response made the state into a dystopian economic hellscape.

Stop, Doc, just stop! Take it from fellow Republican Bill Brock: “Let me tell you about the law of holes: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

The next time Jensen gets in front of a group of farmers and rural residents, he should abandon his stale, disproven COVID kookiness. Instead, he should try focusing on things that actually impact his audience’s lives, such as drought relief, broadband expansion, education investment, paid family and medical leave, health coverage affordability, and road and bridge improvements.

Minnesota Legislature, What Are You Chewing?

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For years, Minnesota legislators from both political parties with puritanical and law-and-order instincts have fought hard to preserve the prohibition of marijuana, a plant that is much less addictive and lethal than already legalized alcohol. 

But marijuana prohibition in Minnesota is now effectively over, kinda sorta. The Star Tribune explains one of the most surprising and senseless moves the Minnesota Legislature has made in my lifetime:


“A new state law took effect July 1 that allows Minnesotans 21 and older to buy certain edibles and beverages containing small amounts of THC, the ingredient in marijuana that produces the high associated with the drug.

The new law allows the sale and purchase of edibles — such as gummies, hard candy or chocolates — and beverages that contain up to 5 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per serving and 50 milligrams per package, and no more than 0.3% THC by weight. Products containing THC, as well as those containing cannabidiol (CBD), must be clearly labeled and can only be sold to those 21 and older. Edibles must be in child-proof and tamper-evident packages and carry the label “Keep this product out of reach of children.” Serving sizes must also be clearly defined.

THC products sold in Minnesota must be derived from legally-certified hemp containing no more than 0.3% THC by weight, according to the law. Marijuana flower and all THC-containing products derived from it remain illegal in Minnesota for recreational use.

The law places no limit on how many CBD and THC products can be purchased and does not regulate who can sell them.”

This shocking development is at the same time encouraging and frustrating.  Legislators have lots of high-minded (sorry, couldn’t resist) explanations about how they were merely trying to keep Minnesotans safe from low-THC hemp with new regulations. But regardless of actual intent, the Legislature has legalized intoxicating THC products. That’s great for those who partake and don’t want to go to jail, but bad for those who care about sensible public policy.

The Legislature, wanting to show their constituents that they’re being prudent with “low and slow” dosing, essentially created the THC equivalent of 3.2 beer, or beer with no more than 3.2 percent alcohol by weight.  Anyone who came of age in the 3.2 era knows that past generations of Americans did street research and discovered a clever workaround for that law:  Consume more weak product, and get as wasted as your heart desires.

Similarly, there is a fighting chance that today’s Minnesotans will make a similar discovery about the Legislature’s new half-baked model. Obviously, Minnesota’s relatively low-THC gummies can get you every bit as high as the higher-THC gummies available in states where marijuana is fully legalized. More bites begets more buzz.

Equally stupid, the Minnesota Legislature is also requiring that companies produce the THC-containing gummies in the least efficient, most expensive way possible.  In Minnesota, companies are required to make THC-containing gummies out of relatively low-THC hemp plants, instead of high-THC marijuana/cannabis plants.  

This is like requiring that companies produce sugar from tomatoes rather than sugar beets.  It’s feasible, because tomatoes have a relatively small amount of sugar in them, but why do it that way? The massive inefficiency of this hemp requirement ultimately causes huge additional growing and processing costs to be passed on to inflation-weary Minnesota consumers, for no good reason.

But that’s not all. Because legislative hemp regulators quietly snuck into the back door of THC edible legalization without wanting to wake sleeping prohibitionists, they didn’t include any taxation provisions in the new law. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars in THC product taxes will not be collected to fund badly needed public services, such as education, early learning, or environmental protections.  That’s a huge missed opportunity.

Worst of all, the Legislature didn’t expunge the criminal records of Minnesotans whose lives are being needlessly harmed because of past marijuana-related convictions.  As of July 1, 2022, Minnesotans can now legally get high as the IDS Tower at the same time their fellow Minnesotans — disproportionately people of color, because of shameful racial bias in Minnesota’s law enforcement and judicial systems — continue to be harshly punished for having consumed the very same chemical.  That’s layering an outrageous new injustice on top of the outrageous old injustice.

To summarize, Minnesota’s THC edible legalization framework offers a good buzz, but no consumer cost-containment, public improvements, tax relief, or justice. We can now “get stupid,” but we will never get as stupid as this regulatory framework.

Despite all of those flaws, THC edibles are now finally being enjoyed by Minnesotans of all political stripes.  Because of that, this product will quickly get more normalized in Minnesota society. As a result, bringing back prohibition, as some Republicans propose, will be more unpopular than ever.

Ultimately, that normalization should pave the way for the future passage of a more thoughtful, comprehensive legalization framework, presuming a wave of extreme marijuana prohibitionists aren’t swept into office in the 2022 midterm elections. That could happen because of voter frustration over crime and inflation, but it won’t be because of this issue. Minnesotans support marijuana legalization by a 14-point margin.

The Minnesota Legislature will probably eventually get to a sane legalization framework that produces lower consumer prices, better funded government services, and justice for thousands. Winston Churchill famously said that “The United States can always be relied upon to do the right thing — having first exhausted all possible alternatives.”  Unfortunately, marijuanaphobic Minnesota is currently in the process of exhausting a particularly ludicrous alternative on its path to the right thing.

On Election “Cheating” Charge, Scott Jensen Should Be forced To Put Up Or Shut Up

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It’s one thing to lie for political gain.  That happens all the time. But until Donald Trump became a political figure, it was almost unheard of for politicians to incite angry mobs with unsubstantiated calls to jail political opponents. 

But the disease of authoritarianism is contagious.

Recently, the Star Tribune obtained an audio recording documenting GOP gubernatorial nominee Scott Jensen sounding like a whole lot like a dictator.

Speaking April 23 at the Minnesota Third Congressional District Republican organizing convention in Plymouth, Jensen sparked loud cheers from the crowd when he warned that “the hammer’s coming down” on Simon, a DFLer.

“We are not voter suppressors. We have a simple attitude: Make sure that every ballot in the box belongs there. Make sure that it’s easy to vote, hard to cheat, and if you cheat, you’re going to jail,” Jensen said. “And Steve Simon, you maybe better check out to see if you look good in stripes, because you’ve gotten away with too much, too long under [Minnesota Attorney General Keith] Ellison, and the hammer’s coming down.”

Understandably, this Putin-esque moment in a state whose residents can’t stop telling the world how “nice” it is made national news. The audio shows that Jensen is stooping as low it takes to win authoritarian-loving Trump voters who get aroused bellowing “lock him up” about anyone with differing views.

Just because Jensen looks at first glance like a kindly made-for-TV doctor doesn’t mean this isn’t scary stuff. When a politician becomes willing to act like an authoritarian in order to appeal to voters with authoritarian instincts, that politician has become an authoritarian.

At the risk of becoming Secretary of State Simon’s cellmate, I must point out that Trump did lose. In fact, he lost “bigly,” by 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes, the largest popular vote loss by an incumbent president since Herbert Hoover. In 2020, Trump lost by the same margin that Trump in 2016 characterized as a “landslide.” Trump’s 2020 loss has been upheld by dozens of Republican election officials and Republican-appointed judges.

Given all of that, what exactly has Simon “gotten away with,” to use Jensen’s vague language? He is simply telling the truth about Trump’s substantial 2020 loss. There are no credible facts indicating any law-breaking by Simon. There is no evidence of mass voter fraud happening under Simon’s watch.

During the worst pandemic in a century, Simon oversaw a state electoral system that produced the best turnout of any state in the nation. The Minnesota Republican party’s standard bearer really thinks he should be jailed for that?

An accusation this baseless and irresponsible should not be shrugged off by political reporters, or treated as a “one and done” story. This is not some innocent gaffe about a harmless issue. Reporters should be following up to demand that Jensen either 1) produce evidence substantiating his allegations and file charges or 2) publicly correct the record and apologize for his outrageous recklessness.

I can already feel the whataboutism coming my way from conservative trolls, so let me add that this standard absolutely should also apply to any Democratic office holder who calls for jailing of opponents without supporting evidence.

While some Democrats have called for jailing Trump and Trump officials, they have done so pointing to a mountain of credible evidence (e.g. a Trump signed hush money check to Stormy, financial documents filed in court indicating manipulation of asset values to commit tax fraud, etc.) and, in many cases, formal investigations and court filings (e.g. the 19 legal actions pending against Trump). With the Simon allegations, nothing of the sort exists.

With an allegation and call to action this dangerous, the guardians of democracy in the fourth estate have an obligation to make Jensen “put up or shut up.”

Think about it this way: If a politician witnessed a rape, carjacking or murder, and could identify the wrongdoers but opted to not to file charges, their refusal would be, quite justifiably, huge news. That politician rightfully would be held accountable for not doing his or her civic duty in order to protect the public from further harm.

On the other hand, if follow-up reporting uncovered that this politician’s version of the alleged violent crime was bogus, that also would and should be banner headline news.

The same should hold true with these allegations of mass voter fraud. Jensen is accusing Simon of destroying the most important thing in our beloved representative democracy — free and fair elections. If someone elected to run elections really did somehow defile America’s democratic crown jewel, he should be punished to the full extent of the law.

But again, where is Jensen’s evidence of that crime? Where are Jensen’s formal charges that can be scrutinized in an independent judicial proceeding? If neither evidence nor charges are forthcoming, where is Jensen’s unambiguous correction and apology?

And finally, and importantly, where is the follow-up reporting that a democracy needs to survive this growing tide of demagoguery and authoritarianism?

Jensen Blocking Improvements for Education, Nursing Homes, Roads, and Mental Health

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GOP gubernatorial nominee Scott Jensen says he wants a special session to address public safety. 

Great. Despite the GOP insistence that DFL candidates support “defunding the police,” DFL Governor Tim Walz has proposed $300 million in public safety improvements. DFL legislators have some other ideas of their own for improvements.  For his part, the Trump-supporting Jensen hasn’t proposed any funding, saying he would leave such minor details to the Legislature. But Jensen does have a brief fact sheet which makes it seems as if he supports a lot of the same general approaches as Walz.

So, here is a rare case of bipartisan common ground, right?

Nope. Despite the fact that Minnesota has a massive $9.25 billion budget surplus that can help Minnesotans in multiple ways, Jensen is stubbornly insisting that public safety be the only issue addressed in a special session. Everyone, including Jensen, knows that such an insistence is a deal breaker when dealing with a bipartisan representative body that has broad-ranging responsibilities to the Minnesotans it serves.

To be clear, Jensen’s narrow-minded demand that the Legislature have an anti-crime only special session means the party that claims to be all about tax cuts is effectively blocking the largest tax cut in Minnesota history. Stop and think about that for a second.

And that’s not all.

The Republican party that insists it isn’t anti-education is blocking $1 billion in improvements for a struggling e-12 education system.

The party that historically relies on large majorities of seniors to get reelected is blocking a massive amount of funding that is needed to keep struggling nursing homes open.

The party that claims to be best for the economy is blocking a huge amount of investment in transportation and infrastructure that economists say is necessary for economic efficiency and growth.

The party that calls for improving the mental health system after every tragedy that is enabled by easily accessible guns is blocking a $93 million mental health package.

And the party that is opportunistically running a “tough on crime” campaign is demanding a “my way or the highway” legislative approach that is serving as the death knell for a sweeping anti-crime bill pending at the Legislature.

When Jensen made this announcement, the headlines in numerous publications were variations of “Jensen Pitches Public Safety Plan.”  That’s accurate, but incomplete.

It would have been just as accurate, and more complete and illuminating, if the headlines had said something like “Jensen Blocks Improvements for Education, Nursing Homes, Roads, and Mental Health.”  That’s an equally important part of Jensen’s extreme right-wing candidacy that is currently being under-reported.

Why Did Minnesota GOP Legislators Effectively Quit Their Jobs?

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In your career, imagine that you faced a deadline to deliver on an employers’ assignment — a report, a construction project, a patient treatment, a classroom unit, a research paper, a production goal, a sales pitch.  Then imagine that despite your best efforts, due to factors beyond your individual control, you run out of time. 

It happens to all of us all the time. Do you double down on effort and finish your assignment, or point fingers, declare defeat, quit your assignment, and refuse to return to it? 

If the latter, I’m guessing you probably have been fired at least once, or denied advancement.

Well, the Minnesota Legislature had an assignment from their employers, the constituents they are sworn to serve.  The promise each of them made to their bosses on the campaign trail was to make life a little better for them during challenging times.  But the legislators encountered challenges that were outside their immediate control–principally disagreement from the opposition party, which is to be fully expected. Because of the challenges, they ran out of time.

So, they walked away from the job, and say they’re not coming back to work until 2023. See ya!

So Close

Quite remarkably, legislators actually appeared to be very close to at least partially delivering on the assignment that their constituents gave them.

Tax deal? Done. It’s not everything that Democrats wanted, and not everything that Republicans wanted. But it was agreed upon and done.

Overall fiscal deal? Done.  It outlines how much in tax cuts and supplemental spending would be acceptable to both parties. Again, the compromise agreement was equally satisfying and disappointing to both Democrats and Republicans.

Those two parts of the task are arguably the most difficult that legislators faced. That’s where past Legislatures often have failed.  But to their credit, this 2022 Legislature got that difficult work done, along with deals related to unemployment insurance, health reinsurance, farm disaster aid, and other items.

But by the time the legislative clock ran out, this year’s Legislature hadn’t agreed on the specifics for how to divvy up already agreed upon sized budgetary pies for public safety, education, and health and human services.  To be sure, those are challenging assignments for two parties with fundamentally different values.

But this Legislature got other difficult tasks done this year, so this final task is imminently doable. 

Why Quitters?

If you try, that is.  Democrats are willing to keep trying in a special session. Republicans apparently are not. 

For now, Republicans are saying they won’t give one more second of effort to help those who clearly will be hurt by their refusal to come back to work – taxpayers, renters, seniors, children, parents, child care providers, nursing home operators, police officers, and crime victims.

Minnesota Republicans looked at those struggling constituents, shrugged cavalierly, and walked away before the assignment their employers gave them was done.

Why? I’m speculating here, because I’m not a mind reader. But I suspect it’s not because Republicans are lazy or incompetent.  They seem industrious and competent bunch, at least when it comes to things they care about, such as campaigning. 

I’m also guessing that it’s not a negotiating ploy. I hope I’m wrong, and that they’ll be back. But right now it doesn’t look like that’s what they’re doing.

I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect worse. I suspect they just don’t care about their job assignment.  That is, at their core they don’t really think that making their constituents’ lives better as soon as possible is sufficiently important to merit the extra work and headaches associated with a special session.

Sure, these Republican legislators love much of what comes with the job — the title, office, public platform, power, and respect.  That’s presumably what keeps them running for reelection year after year. But the work assignment itself? I’m just not convinced.

Worse yet, a few who are disproportionately influential on their caucus actually seem to feel that their work assignment is, in the name of conservative or libertarian ideology, to prevent the government from helping  taxpayers, renters, seniors, children, parents, child care providers, nursing home operators, police officers, and crime victims.

That’s not what they tell those groups on the campaign trail, but it’s too often how they govern.

Do Voters Care?

Back to the opening analogy. After failing to complete your task on time, how do you suppose this would go over with your employer?  “Yeah, I just don’t really believe in this job assignment, and it got really difficult, and the time clock ran out, so I quit and I’m not going back to the assignment you gave me.”

Yeah. Maybe it’s time Minnesotans reacted the same way.