Tag Archives: Mike Hatch

Is the Jensen-Birk Campaign Minnesota’s WOAT?

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RELEASE: Birk to Join Dr. Scott Jensen's Gubernatorial Team

Despite cruising at freeway speeds, I had the camera ready to snap a shot of the giant billboard hanging over the I-35W/I-35E interchange up by Forest Lake. I had blown by it a couple times before without getting a shot and was determined not to screw up again.

But it was gone. Replaced. And it wasn’t even Labor Day.

What was it? What did it say? It was a Jensen-Birk campaign ad, in Golden Gopher colors, with their two smiling faces and a tag line that read, “For lower gas prices.”

That’s right, folks. Vote for those two and they’ll bring down the price of gas. Because? Well, maybe because they’re on a first name basis with the Saudis and can convince them to pump more oil to Minnesota. Or maybe it’s just another thing they (very) clumsily hope/assume their voters are dumb enough to believe.

My blogging compadre, Joe Loveland, aka El Jefe, covered the miserable-to-dire state of the Jensen-Birk campaign in his last post, so I won’t retrace his steps. Other than to add this … even by the deeply debased standards of our Peak Polarization era, these two, a (presumably) licensed physician and a Harvard graduate are engaged in one of, if not the most, inept political campaign our fine state has seen since Harold Stassen’s 13th or 14th gubernatorial runs.

Like many of you, I often ask myself, and hear the question asked by others, “Do you think they really believe any of this [bleep]?” The “they” usually being Trump-era Republicans defending the indefensible or blithering about the tinfoil hat conspiracy theory du jour. (You’re following the latest? How the real issue with Trump stealing and hiding Top Secret nuclear documents is … the FBI and DOJ leaks about it?)

To many, politics is all about winning, so it hardly matters what you believe. That is not a news flash. Politics is a sales game. You say whatever you think you need to close the deal. We all get that.

But as with so many other examples, the equivalency factor — where “they all do it” — things are gravely, absurdly, farcically distorted in our current era. True, every year Democrats will warn voters that Republicans are coming to take away their Medicare and Social Security. But when you’ve got characters like U.S. Senators Ron Johnson and Rick Scott saying essentially that, the worst you can give Democrats is One Pinocchio. Because it’s, y’know … kinda … not-so-remotely … possible.

But Jensen and Birk. OMG.

I’ve met Birk — the Harvard grad and ex-football player. Casual event. Cordial conversation. He presents well. He’s upright, groomed, doesn’t drool and speaks in complete sentences. But, good lord, what is he possibly thinking when he spins out medieval, fundamentalist Mormon idiocy like how liberal culture promoting abortion rights encourages women “to have careers?”

You could have flunked out of North Pokegama Community Tech and known that “the gals” — 51.7% of the state’s workforce — would hear a line like that and think, “What a [bleeping] idiot.”

Then just recently Birk, who may have impulse control issues, took the bait in a Twitter war with the well-known, and very publicly reformed-Republican insider, Michael Brodkorb. Responding to Brodkorb’s entirely fair observation that current polling looks bad for Jensen-Birk, the Harvard grad blasted back, “Michael – never heard of you so I looked you up. Google says your expertise is in adulterous affairs and driving while drunk – nothing about politics. Might want to sit this one out bud.”

Again … OMG.

And have I mentioned Jensen comparing to the Walz administered COVID lockdown to … the Holocaust?

Much like bringing down the price of gas — (the cheaper for Birk to commute back to his gated, $4 million Naples, Florida home) — Jensen and Birk, chastened by the national blowback to the repeal of Roe v Wade, are now all over crime, and how “Walz failed.”

Crime of course is a campaign standard, like cutting taxes (and Jensen has … wait for it … vowed to eliminate Minnesota income taxes). But what sort of potential voter actually believes they could do anything to stop (gang banging) gun violence? I mean without serious gun reform?

More to my point here, what level of cognition are educated guys like Jensen and Birk projecting on their ideal persuadable voter?

Answer: Only angry fools would actually buy what they’re selling. Which is why they’re exuding a palpable scent of contempt for the voters they’re appealing to.

The Jensen-Birk miasma is of course a new standard in Republican campaigns. And it flows downhill from the master.

As a recent Politico piece, titled, “How Trump Taught Everybody to Be Obnoxious and Cruel” said, “… [it] might be that Trump is not the cause of the new crudeness and rudeness of contemporary politics — just an especially florid manifestation of much deeper trends. The paradox of modern technology, especially as harnessed by social media, is that it is especially proficient in unleashing primitive dimensions of human character. That suggests a renaissance of insult, indignation and conspiracy theory — the signatures of the politics of contempt — is going to be with us for a long time to come no matter what happens to Trump.”

A lot of campaigns are not ready for prime time. But Jensen-Birk are sliding into a rarefied zone, especially since they can’t explain away their astonishing blundering and crudeness to a lack of quality formal education.

Which leaves me only to mention … Judy Dutcher. The DFL’s 2006 lieutenant governor candidate is credited for sinking Mike Hatch’s race against Tim Pawlenty with one … one … screw up. Not a half dozen every day.

Fairview-Sanford Merger: The Right and Wrong Questions to Ask

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Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson is right to scrutinize the proposed merger of Fairview Health System and Sanford Health System.  It could have a big impact on Minnesota taxpayers, and it shouldn’t only be discussed by Sanford and Fairview C-suiters.  The discussion should be out in the open.

So now that Attorney General Swanson has moved the Fairview-Sanford merger issue into the sunshine, what questions should Minnesotans be asking about it? So far, some of the questions have been excellent, and some have been silly. Continue reading →

Pawlenty and Romney Both Benefit from Third Party-Related Luck

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Make Way for the Radical Center

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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