The Coming Democrat State Government Shutdown

The Minnesota State Legislature will reconvene in early January, with a newly-minted Republican-majority House of Representatives.  One thing you can pencil in for 2015 is another state government “shutdown.”

Remember back to 2011, the last state budget cycle where Republicans held any power at the state legislature.  Democrat Governor Mark Dayton delayed for two weeks past the end of the fiscal year before accepting the Republican-passed budget.

As the Washington Post reported at the time,

Minnesota’s record-breaking shutdown could be coming to an end. Gov. Mark Dayton (D) has offered to accept the Republican deal put forward on June 30 in exchange for a few conditions.  [Emphasis in the original.]

In the Democrats’ calculus, any time that the government shuts down, Republicans take the blame.  Democrats are the party of government, so therefore, they always want government open.  Republicans are the party of limited government, so they must be ok with government shutting down.

In the Democrats’ mythology, the two-week partial shutdown of state government in July 2011 was the key factor in their election victories of 2012.  In their telling, Minnesota voters were furious with Republicans for denying them some of the free goodies that government benevolently bestows for those few days the previous July.

Democrats’ belief in this myth is bolstered by the sheer resources the party devoted to creating it.  In 2011, the Democrat-front-group Alliance for a Better Minnesota reports spending $777,851 on “budget battle advertising, which ABM describes as,

Increase public awareness of the implications of Minnesota’s state budget deficit.  Develop public understanding of the implications of state budget decisions at the Minnesota State Legislature.[1]

Of course, national Democrats tried this same tactic in 2014.  Despite blaming House Republicans for the partial shutdown of the national government in October 2013, Democrats suffered a historic election defeat in 2014 in both House and Senate races.

Despite the recent evidence to the contrary, I think that Democrats believe that a 2015 Minnesota government shutdown will lead to 2016 election wins.

The Minnesota State Senate is led by Democrat Tom Bakk, who must defend his majority in the 2016 election cycle.  Bakk is a past candidate for Governor, whose campaign committee continues to be active, according to records on file at the state Campaign Finance Board.

Governor Dayton is eager to regain one-party rule in St. Paul for the last two years of his final term.

Shortly after this month’s election, Mark Dayton was quoted by MinnPost as saying,

At a news conference Wednesday (November 5^th) Dayton was refreshed, relaxed, and pointed about how he intends to work with the Republicans who will have an 11-seat house majority.  

“I’m going to be as conciliatory as I can be and I’m just pointing to the past,” he said, referring to the government shutdown in 2011, the last time Republicans had control of the legislature. 

Democrats seem to believe that they have everything to gain from another shutdown.  ABM will throw resources into spinning the outcome and a compliant local media will go along with the Democrat narrative.

Circle July 1 on your political calendar.

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[1] ABM’s 2011 IRS Form 990 filing.  Page 2, Line 4a.

The Party of Yesterday

The Washington Post woke up after last week’s election and discovered that the ruling Democrats are old.  I mean really, really old.  The Post’s Dan Balz wrote,

The past two midterm elections have been cruel to Democrats, costing them control of the House and now the Senate, and producing a cumulative wipeout in the states.  The 2010 and 2014 elections saw the defeat of younger politicians—some in office, others seeking it—who might have become national leaders.

After Republican wave elections in 2010 and 2014, Democrats nationwide have been left with a thin bench to replace aging leaders.  Here in Minnesota, we see something of the same phenomenon at work.

Democrat Governor Mark Dayton is entering his final term as governor at age 67.  His Lt. Gov., Tina Smith, is 55.  Sen. Al Franken is 63.  Sen. Amy Klobuchar is 54.

The much-touted “youthful” former mayor of Minneapolis, R.T. Rybak, is turning 59 this week.  The only prominent state-level Democrats in their 40’s are incoming House Minority Leader Paul Thissen (47) and Attorney General Lori Swanson (47).

Former House Majority Leader Tony Sertich is just 38.  Former House Speaker Margaret Anderson-Kelliher is 46. 

On the other side of the aisle, state Republicans are rich in leaders a generation younger than the most-prominent Democrats.  Incoming House Speaker Kurt Daudt is 41 and the new House Majority Leader Joyce Peppin is 44.

The four most prominent Republicans running for Governor this year were all relatively young.  Nominee Jeff Johnson just turned 48.  Marty Seifert is 42, Kurt Zellers is 45 and Scott Honour is 48.  Nominee for Senate, Mike McFadden, recently turned 50.

Former House Majority Leader Matt Dean is also 48.  Big Republican vote-getters Congressman Erik Paulsen is 49, Sheriff Rich Stanek is 52, and Congressman-elect Tom Emmer is 53.

Republicans have a deep bench of office-holders in their 40’s and early 50’s, several of whom rose to prominence by way of Republicans victories in 2010 and 2014.

 

I’m sure I’m leaving out worthy names from both Democrats and Republicans in this survey.  But for once, time seems to be on the side of the Republicans.

Notes from state House races

Congratulations to Minnesota House of Representatives Minority Leader Kurt Daudt and House Republicans on recapturing control of that body in yesterday's elections.

It appears that Republicans will have 72 members in the incoming House, returning the party to the status quo ante before the 2012 election.  [MinnPost has an excellent visual of party control, see link.]

No House Republican incumbent lost this year and it appears that they will gain 11 seats.  The new contingent will be a little rural and a less suburban than the incoming class of 2010.

Nine of the 11 gained seats are in out state Minnesota.  Republicans captured seats in what are otherwise strongly Republican and conservative districts.

One measure in particular demonstrates the leanings of these seats.  In 2012, Republicans captured the top 12 seats where support of the same-sex marriage constitutional amendment was greatest.  In 2014, they captured nine of the 10 next strongest "Yes" vote districts that Republicans did not already hold.

As is stands, of the 26 House districts with the biggest Yes vote on the marriage amendment, Republicans now hold 25 of these seats.

The other two seats capture by Republicans last night include surburban 56A, where Republican Roz Peterson lost by only 170 votes last go around and 14B, the highly contested St. Cloud-area seat formerly held by King Banaian.  When all the dollars are counted, spending on that race may top $1 million.

Endorsement, Part 3

Here are the facts:  David Schultz is a professor at Hamline University.  He frequently appears on local media commenting on Minnesota politics.

In 2014 he endorsed a former student, a Democrat, for state House of Representatives district 44b.  On August 21, Schultz said he would not comment on this race in the media.

Here he is commenting on the 44b race in local media.

What should we conclude from this set of facts?

Polls, Part 2

Who knew?  It turns out that political polling companies want to get rehired for the next election.  So the polls coming out just days before the 2014 election show just about every race moving in the Republican's direction, confirming what the generic polls have been saying for months.

The latest poll on the Minnesota Governor's race shows just a five-point lead for the Democrat incumbent, Mark Dayton.  That's half the lead that poll showed just two weeks ago.  In fact, each of the last five polls at RealClearPolitics shows a lead smaller than the previous poll in this race.

No one knows what the result will be on Tuesday.  But Republicans still have about 30 hours to have an impact.  I plan to spend all day on Monday working to help Republican candidates win in Minnesota.

Professor

The Rochester Post Bulletin reports today on the hotly contested state House of Representatives seat in the Albert Lea area (district 27A).  Reports indicate that outside groups have already poured $377,000 into this contest, and Election Day isn’t until next week.

First-term Democrat Shannon Savick is running for re-election against former Albert Lea teacher-of-the-year Republican Peggy Bennett.  Reporters and readers alike are hungry this time of year for some independent, informed analysis to put all of this into its proper perspective.

In this instance, the Post Bulletin turned to University of Minnesota political scientist Kathryn Pearson.  The paper quotes Pearson,

University of Minnesota political science professor Kathryn Pearson said the sheer amount of money flowing into the House District 27A race makes it clear Republicans think they've got a good shot at picking up the seat.

"Savick is one of the most vulnerable DFL incumbents, so essentially for Republicans to gain majority party control, she and other story of similarly situated DFLers would have to lose," Pearson said.

At this point, Pearson said the battle for control of the Minnesota House is simply too close to call headed into Election Day.

If I were uncharitable, I would describe that last sentence as self-serving for Professor Pearson.  As I have documented before, Dr. Pearson serves on the board of the leftist political group womenwinning.org.  

Womenwinning, of course, has endorsed Rep. Savick in this race.  According to records on file at the state Campaign Finance Board, the group’s PAC has donated $1,000 to Savick’s campaign, the maximum allowed under state law.

Somehow, this conflict of Dr. Pearson’s did not make it into the story. 

Anatomy of a Poll

In the final week of the 2014 campaign, for Jeff Johnson partisans there is much hope to be found in the final Star Tribune poll.

In the previous poll, conducted by the Star Tribune in mid-September, incumbent Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton led Republican Jeff Johnson 45 to 33 percent.

The latest poll from the Star Tribune has Dayton leading 45 to 38 percent.

You read that correctly, in the past five weeks, Mark Dayton has enjoyed nothing by favorable press from local media, a massive advantage in paid advertising, and an endless parade of national Democrat heavyweights stopping in Minnesota to plead his case.  The result?  Not one additional voter has moved in his direction.

In the meantime, Jeff Johnson, whose campaign is written off anew on a daily basis by all of the professional pundits and political scientists, has done nothing but gain on his opponent.

From September to October, Dayton’s three-point lead among independents (25 to 22) has fallen to a 14-point deficit (27 to 41).

The latest poll indicates that 10 percent of voters are still undecided, and the vast majority of these are Republicans and independents.  Fifteen percent of independents are undecided against 12 percent of Republicans and just five percent of Democrats.  Johnson is overwhelmingly favored by voters in the first two groups that have decided on a candidate.

None of these observations guarantee a Johnson victory next week.  But after a four-decade career in public office, Mark Dayton has yet to close the deal with Minnesota voters.

MNsure Statistics

Better late than never, the Minneapolis Star Tribune limps in today with the acknowledgement that they were lied to by the Dayton administration about MNsure health insurance rates.  On the front page of today’s print edition (above the fold), the Star Tribune announces, cryptically, “MNsure prices a weighty issue.”  The subhead reads,

Republicans say premium increases are much higher than Gov. Dayton reported.

How odd.  “Republicans,” and many others, have been saying that since the new rates were first announced on October 1^st, more than three weeks ago.  The Star Tribune itself reported all of these facts, back on October 1st.

So what has changed that this nearly-month-old observation is suddenly front-page news?  The Star Tribune has finally decided that skyrocketing MNsure rates is a political story rather than a business story.  Ten days before the mid-term elections, the Star Tribune has handed off coverage of the MNsure rate cover up to a political reporter (Ricardo Lopez) from its healthcare business reporter (Christopher Snowbeck).

Earlier this week, Snowbeck reported (on the Business page) that the Dayton Administration pressured insurer Preferred One into offering below-cost rates on the MNsure exchange.  This reporting directly contradicts sweeping denials issued by Democrat Governor Mark Dayton and members of his Administration.

So all the facts that Snowbeck reported as business news at the start of the month, now have to be re-reported as political news, on the front page.

Interestingly, the re-reporting by political reporter Lopez appears online under the headline,

 

Experts question MNsure average rate increase of 4.5 percent:

Republicans say premium increases are much higher than Gov. Dayton reported.

 

The original Snowbeck headline had read,

MNsure premiums to increase in 2015:

Average increase is 4.5%, but some could see much higher premium jumps.

The facts haven’t changed, but their presentation has undergone a subtle shift, one that speaks volumes.  In the Lopez re-reporting, a photo of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman is featured.  Is he being set up as the fall guy?

Mark Dayton and his fellow Democrats have bet their re-elections on the public seeing MNsure as a success story.  Now that MNsure looks like something less than a triumph, Dayton is literally running away from the press to avoid answering awkward questions.

Now that the Democrat narrative of modest rate increases has collapsed, a few other items could stand for additional scrutiny.  Does Minnesota really have the nation’s lowest insurance rates?  That claim has been repeated ad nauseam by the Dayton Administration and reprinted in countless Democrat campaign ads.

What is the basis of that claim?  Has anyone ever looked behind the claim and examined it?  When comparing rates across states, are deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs incorporated?

Now that the façade has started to crumble, a Pulitzer (or Peabody) awaits the reporter who figures it out.

Public Safety Smears

If the pattern from the 2012 election holds again this year, Minnesota Republicans should brace themselves.  They are about to be smeared, again.

The shadowy left-wing group Public Safety Matters is gearing up to slander Republican candidates for state representative as "anti-police."

I profiled the group last year.  Today, according to records filed at the state Campaign Finance Board, the funding arm of the Alliance for a Better Minnesota (WIN Minnesota) transferred $75,000 to the Public Safety group.

WIN Minnesota is run by Adam Duininck, a board member of the Met Council regional government and married to one of the Deputy Chiefs of Staff of Democrat Governor Mark Dayton.

You have been warned.

Not So Fast! Still Two Weeks to Go in Election 2014

For at least the ninth time in the last two years, the 2014 election in Minnesota has been declared over, with Democrats said to be winning a historic victory.

For this outcome to be true, Minnesota has to be the only state in America to buck the current anti-Obama trend.

Earlier this month, Gallup compared national voter sentiment in 2014 to voter sentiment in the Republican-wave year of 2010.  Gallup found that the anti-Obama vote is actually running four points higher this year than in the “Tea Party” year of 2010.  In that mid-term year, Republicans picked up 6 seats in the U.S. Senate and 63 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

This result makes sense when you look at Obama’s job approval ratings.  Gallup has Obama at 40 percent approval as of yesterday, exactly 4 points below his approval rating in October 2010.  It has gotten so bad, that in deeply Democratic Maryland yesterday, the crowd started walking out of an Obama campaign rally after only 10 minutes.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has Obama’s approval in Minnesota at—you guessed it—40 percent.  But we are to believe that while Minnesota voters may no longer support President Obama, they still support the local variety of Obamaism.

Like those “Ready for Hillary” bumper stickers that are said to exist, the narrative goes something like this:  Obama himself may have turned out to be a bust, but Minnesotans love his mix of big government spending and higher taxes.

As Star Tribune columnist Lori Sturdevant explains, Minnesota voters finally reached the correct political answer by electing all-Democrat rule in 2012.  Even if the Democrat brand has lost some appeal to national voters, Minnesotans will never abandon the utopia we’ve created in just the last two years. 

I’m not so sure.  Minnesota doesn’t exist in a vacuum.  We follow the national news and are impacted by Federal policies.

With two weeks to go, expect to see a convergence of state trends with the national direction.

Democrats Stoop Even Lower to Conquer

Local media are in full election mode:  covering the press conferences, the candidate debates, dissecting the latest opinion polls, etc.  In other words, they are busy covering any topic besides the things that will drive results on November 4^th.

To understand what’s happening in this election, you need to get down to ground level.  Take, for example, this television ad by Democrat-front-group Alliance for a Better Minnesota being run against Republican candidate for state representative Barb Sutter.

It features “Frannie Olson” from New Brighton (nowhere near the targeted Bloomington district) complaining about the Koch Brothers efforts to end Medicare.  Of course, no such effort exists or ever existed.

But the visuals suggest that Republicans want literally to cut off the oxygen supply to an elderly man.  Nothing is out of bounds when the Democrat monopoly on power is under threat.

For its effectiveness, the ad counts on the low information voter not understanding that Medicare is a Federal program:  state representatives have no say—for better or worse—in how Congress and the President run the program.  Then again, voters can be forgiven for not knowing, since the ad never mentions the office Sutter is seeking, or even the level of government involved.

All of the “sources” cited by the ad (I don’t count The Nation as a source for anything useful) pre-date Sutter’s entry into the race.  Again, the ad counts on voters not knowing that Sutter is a first-time candidate. 

In fact, the ad implies that “politician Barb Sutter” is actually an incumbent.  The ad itself never bothers to mention the name of her Democrat opponent.  There is not a single claim or assertion in the ad that is true.  (Say, isn’t the Democrat incumbent also a politician?)

Falsehoods aside, on pure politics, the ad seems off target.  Seniors are, in fact, the most loyal Republican age group, according to polling conducted by the Pew Research Center.  Pew reports that seniors (65+) favor Republicans over Democrats by a 13-point margin.  As for the Koch Brothers, polls show that most voters have never even heard of them.

The ad seems off target only if you misunderstand the target.  This ABM ad is directed at getting out the liberal base in this off-year election.  Pew reports that, for Democrat voters, health care is their number one issue.  For Republicans, health care barely makes the top 5.

References to the Tea Party and the Koch Brothers are geared at getting the left-wing base motivated to come out and vote against Republicans.  The Koch Brothers in particular have taken on an Emmanuel Goldstein role on the far left of the Democrat party.

This copycat mail piece, put out by the state Democrat party, repeats the same false claims.

For starters, no voter under age 45 will know what a literal rubber stamp is, so they will not get the visual reference.  The picture of Sutter, meant to represent the rubber on the stamp, bears no resemblance to the actual human being.  Here is what Sutter actually looks like.

Just like the “scaring seniors” TV ad, including a black-and-white, grainy photograph of your political opponent is a time-dishonored tradition in political advertising.  However, there should be an obligation to include a likeness that actually represents the candidate.  In all seriousness, when I first saw this lit piece, I thought the picture was of the late actress Estelle Getty.

Again, the sources cited in this mail piece predate Sutter’s candidacy.  In fact, the piece cites two 2011 state House votes, a time during which neither Sutter nor her opponent were in office.  Like the TV ad, it does not mention the office Sutter is seeking or the level of government involved.

The rest of it is there:  the Koch Brothers, scaring seniors with Medicare, etc.  For good measure, they toss on the fictional “budget cuts for schools,” hoping something in the piece will get their dispirited voters to the polls.

As political propaganda goes, it’s not exceptionally competent.  But in Minnesota, it doesn’t have to be.  Fueled by infinite amounts of campaign money from public employee unions (taxpayer funded, of course), ABM and the Democrats can pump out ad after ad, piece after piece libeling Republican candidates.  Republicans, having to both pay their taxes and donate to their candidates, cannot hope to compete on a money basis.

Taking a step back, the Democrats’ 2014 Minnesota campaign illustrates why our politics are so completely dysfunctional.

Not a single issue of the day is addressed in these ads.  They are designed to attack character, not to persuade.  They are meant to libel, not to inform.  On Twitter last night, we were treated to Democrat ads featuring dead dogs and dead camels.  No really, camels.

Meanwhile, local media portray an election where issues are debated and polite exchanges rule the day.  In the trenches, it’s all Democrat mud and filth, lies and slander.  And no one is held to account.

Come and see the violence inherent in the system!

One recurring theme in this year’s Democrat campaign to retain control of the state House of Representatives is the undercurrent of violent fantasies.

In late summer, the liberal Citypages weekly newspaper reported that my state representative, Democrat Ron Erhardt of Edina, allegedly told a conservative activist “I'll blow your head off!”  (Direct quote, emphasis in the original.)

I previously reported on the bullet-riddled, Old West-style “wanted” poster issued by state Democrats against a Republican house candidate in the south metro.  Apparently, the bullet-riddled wanted poster is a generic template.  Here is almost the same mailer sent by Democrats in the adjacent house district.

The text is slightly different, but the threat is similar.  I’m not a campaign professional, so I don’t know how effective such scare tactics are against Republicans, in general, or perhaps, they are reserved for use against Republican women.

Here is another suburban, swing-district mailer, sent by state Democrats against former State Rep. Kirk Stensrud, running to recapture the seat he lost in 2012 by just 202 votes.

Perhaps you can tell me what the shiny metallic object is that has been drawn into the black-gloved hand.

 

Democrats swear it's supposed to be a crowbar.  No, really.  A crowbar.  On the other side, I guess Kirk is supposed to be the Hamburgler?

  

By portraying their political opponents as violent criminals, Democrats excuse themselves from having to address their arguments and the issues.  And we still have over two weeks to go until Election Day.

Wanted: A Better Politics

The same political party that has been battling against the second amendment takes a rather different view when it comes to the more serious matter of elections.

In a recent political mailing, Minnesota state Democrats issued this Old West-style “wanted” poster against a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives, Andrea Todd-Harlin:

Ms. Todd-Harlin is running in a south-Metro suburban swing seat against a first-term Democrat incumbent who defeated a Republican incumbent in 2012.

The Democrat mailer portrays Todd-Harlin as a dangerous outlaw and invites the voting public to take matters into their own hands.  Ironically, one of the “charges” they level against the Republican is for allegedly opposing background checks on gun purchases.  Incidentally, that specific poster is riddled with bullet holes, presumably from a gun fired by angry Democrats.

In the lit piece, state Democrats don’t specify if they prefer the Republican “dead or alive,” but it’s sick, sick stuff.

There is more in Part 2.

The Jimmy Carter Economy

Last month the Minneapolis Star Tribune conducted an opinion poll asking—among other questions—the following two,

Would you say the Minnesota economy is better than it was four years ago, worse than it was four years ago or about the same?

Is your personal financial situation better than it was four years ago, worse than it was four years ago or about the same?

More than half (54 percent) of respondents say the state’s economy is better off than it was four years ago.  But only 26 percent say that their personal situation is better.  Huh?

You would think that the state economy is merely the sum of each person’s individual economic situation.  But more is going on than that.

The public is responding Star Tribune headlines like this one from today:  “Minnesota jobless rate hits 8-year low.”

Each person is the world’s leading expert in their own economic situation.  Most people are all too aware that their own situation has not improved in the last 4 years.  Twenty percent say it’s actually gotten worse over that period.

But people respond to the daily headlines telling them that (improbably) everyone else in the state is doing better.  It turns out that you can fool most of the people most of the time.

The unemployment rate is indeed going down.  Some people are finding jobs, reducing the numerator of the equation.  But the denominator (the size of the workforce) is dropping even faster.  According to the state Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) the state’s workforce peaked in March at a little over 3 million.  It has been dropping since.

The state’s workforce participation rate has fallen for five months in a row.  It stands at 69.8 percent, a level not seen since September 1980.  Put another way, 3 in 10 working-age people have dropped out, neither working nor looking for work.

Put a third way, in the last 34 years, we’ve seen booms, we’ve seen busts, but we haven’t seen so many dropping out of the work force since Jimmy Carter was president.

At this point of every other economic “recovery,” the work force participation rate has risen, as more people leave the sidelines looking for one of the new jobs a growing economy is creating.  Not this time.

We are told that it’s demographics.  And yes, we have an aging population, with baby boomers retiring and few new babies being born.  But the labor force is moving in the opposite direction from expectations.

According to data at the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), over the past decade (2002 to 2012), more and more older workers are sticking around.  For all age groups over 55, work force participation rates are up, and expected to climb further over the next decade.  Older workers simply cannot afford to retire in this Jimmy Carter-era economy.

The BLS reports that for every age group under 55, work force participation rates have fallen, and will continue to fall for the next decade, driving the overall rate down even further.  New workers are increasingly not even bothering to look for work, because they know there are not any jobs out there.

Sorry, that’s not good news.

Democrats Stoop to Conquer

We frequently hear the lament that it’s hard to find good people to stand for public office.  Stacey Stout—an attorney in the U.S. Justice Department under Presidents Bush and Obama—should make anyone’s list of just the sort of person we need in public life.

This is her second try for an east metro seat in the state House of Representatives.  Democrats will stop at nothing to keep her out of the legislature.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on the latest shenanigans:  the state Democrat Party sent out an anti-Stout mailer where they photoshopped a different head onto a body to further a “guilt by association” attack.

Here is the mail piece,

 

The face of the man in the bottom photograph (captioned “Stout works for extreme Republicans) belongs to the state House Minority Leader Kurt Daudt.  The body belongs to Conor McFadden, the son of U.S. Senate candidate Mike McFadden, as illustrated in the Star Tribune's side-by-side comparison,

In case you haven’t kept up, “extremist” is the focus-grouped term Democrats use for Republicans (and more broadly, non-Democrats) this election year.

The Star Tribune quotes the Democrats’ campaign manager on the incident,

Zack Rodvold, who manages the DFL House's campaign operation, said photo changes like that are standard tools mailing designers use.

"Every major political party in every state in the United States uses Photoshop," said Rodvold.  "I don’t think this is unique."

 

Really?  Substituting one person’s head for another in a political photograph is something closer to Soviet-era tactics.  As I’ve pointed out before, everything about the Democrats’ campaign in Minnesota is turning out to be fake [1, 2 and  3], all the way down.

As everyone involved points out, there are no shortages of photographs including both Stout and Daudt.  So why do it?  Because they have, and will, get away with it.

An Island of Blue

According to the Washington Post, support for Democrats just hit a 30-year low.  The opening sentence in today’s Post reads as follows,

The Democratic Party is held in worse regard than at any point in the past 30 years, according to a new poll.

If you are a Republican, reading the front page of Real Clear Politics these days can be a real joy:  Republicans are taking the lead in Colorado and New Hampshire and elsewhere.  It may not turn into a “wave,” but prospects for Republicans in next month’s election are looking up.

Except in Minnesota.  In the North Star State, we’re told that just the opposite is occurring.  The local branch office of Democrats is said to be surging three weeks before the election and is certain to retain—if not extend—their one-party-rule at the state level.

Somehow, the national party’s troubles and the daily drumbeat of bad news—ISIS, Ebola, stock market collapse—haven’t reached Minnesota. 

Even as the Minneapolis Star Tribune is having to prepare its readers for disappointment at the national level (“Democrats' House chances fade”), we are reassured that nothing like that could happen here.  All politics is local, after all.

A number of theories have been floated in local media to explain why conditions here are diverging from the national scene.  In Minnesota, we have no unemployment, our local implementation of Obamacare has come off flawlessly, our elected officials are universally recognized as competent and energetic, etc.

Yet something tells me that even Minnesota may not remain immune from national trends.  My theory is that—when it comes to politics—low information voters pay more attention to the national scene than to state or local developments.  When they do start paying attention—on or about November 3^rd—they will vote accordingly.

Updated: Polls

[Updated, with the latest poll numbers.]

We fall for it, every time.  It’s Autumn of an election year.  A poll comes out that has the Republican behind, and we collapse into a puddle of despair and recriminations.  Yet somehow, on election day, the Republican candidate manages to pull out a win or loses by a whisker.

October 2006, a new poll comes out showing Democrat challenger Mike Hatch has blown the race for Governor wide open and leads Republican incumbent Tim Pawlenty by nine points.  On election day, Pawlenty wins a second term.

October 2008, a new poll comes out that shows Democrat challenger Al Franken has blown the race for U.S. Senator wide open and leads Republican incumbent Norm Coleman by nine points.  On election day, Coleman actually wins the initial count of votes.

September 2010, a new poll comes out that shows Democrat Mark Dayton maintaining a nine point lead over Republican Tom Emmer. The October poll has Emmer down by 7.  On election day, Emmer loses…in a recount by a few thousand votes.

September 2014, a new Star Tribune poll came out that showed Democrat Mark Dayton leading Republican Jeff Johnson by 12 points.  The October Star Tribune poll has Democrat Mark Dayton leading Republican Jeff Johnson by only 7. 

The purpose of these pre-election opinion polls is not to track voter intentions, but to suppress Republican interest and turnout.  And it works almost every time.

In 2014 the effect was particularly insidious: just as Johnson was gearing up his general election campaign, the September poll was indicating--against all available evidence elsewhere--that Johnson was falling further behind.

In October the lead has been, effectively, cut in half.  That is no accident.  Should Johnson prevail on election day, the Star Tribune will claim that the race was "late breaking" and their poll reflected the late tightening of the race.  Because that is what they say every year.

Election Day is still more than a week away.  Don’t give up!

Mark Dayton: Career Placeholder

Once Democrat Mark Dayton’s political career comes to an end, he will—no doubt—be hailed in certain quarters as a colossus:  as consequential a figure as Cicero or Bismarck.

His record (to date) as an electoral politician stands at a pedestrian 3 wins and 2 losses.  Upon closer examination, a clear pattern emerges.

Every few years—1982, 1990, 1998, 2000, and 2008—the wealthy department store heir could be counted on to offer his famous family name and a considerable chunk of his personal fortune to taking back a seat held by a Republican.

Until 2014, each time he had previously succeeded he declined to run for re-election.  In 1990, he took the post of state auditor from then incoming Republican Gov. Arne Carlson.  In 1994, he did not run for re-election, and the seat fell to then-Republican Judi Dutcher.

In 2000, he defeated incumbent Republican Rod Grams for a seat in the U.S. Senate.   After a widely panned term (cf. Time magazine:  “Mark Dayton: The Blunderer”), Dayton declined to run for re-election, clearing the way for up-and-coming Democrat Amy Klobuchar.

So as the end of Dayton’s first term came into sight, it was widely assumed by political insiders, particularly on the left side of the political spectrum, that Dayton would step aside for the next big thing in state Democrat politics.  Even as Dayton began his run for a second term, the rumors persisted that he would drop out at some strategic point—after the caucuses, after the endorsement—to pave the way for a hand-picked successor who would avoid a bruising intra-party battle.

When those scenarios didn’t pan out, the talk naturally turned to more fantastic notions:  that he would stand down early in a second term to make way for his chief of staff/Lt. Governor.  How such loose talk so quickly became conventional wisdom—hailed by insiders as a desirable outcome—betrays an underlying contempt for the current holder of the office.

It’s as if those on the inside believe that career placeholder Dayton has gone back on some imagined deal:  he was merely supposed to keep a seat warm for the next one in line, and he has the ingratitude to want to stick around.

If Dayton achieves something he has never done before—get re-elected—and he follows through on his promise to serve—look for rocky days ahead.  The intra-party succession battle began a year ago, and will now rage on.

Panelist

According to the hosts of the local public television public-affairs program Almanac, the most popular group of guests that appear on the show[1] is the political scientist panel, a semi-regular feature of the program.

One of the area’s political scientists that appears on the program from time to time is Kathryn Pearson of the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Pearson appeared on Almanac as recently as August 22, 2014.

She is one of a handful of political scientists that are ubiquitous in local media, both print and broadcast.

Among the many accomplishments that Prof. Pearson lists on her official curriculum vitae is her position as an Executive Board Member of the political group womenwinning.  She has held membership on the board since 2009.

Her relationship with the group dates back even further.  According to records on file at the state’s Campaign Finance Board, she is listed as a financial contributor to the group every year from 2008 to 2011, donating a total of $1,425 to the group during this period.

Womenwinning was founded in 1982.  The 501(c)(4) political charity formed its state-level political action committee in 1990. 

Its stated mission is

to encourage, promote, support, and elect pro-choice women of all political parties to all levels of public office.

True, Republican and former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe was a speaker at a recent womenwinning event.  However, when it comes to handing out cash to candidates, only Democrats receive the financial backing of womenwinning.  In 2014 (through Sept. 16^th), womenwinning donated to 23 candidates for the state House of Representatives, and all 23 were Democrats.  Womenwinning donated to candidates in four of the 20 most critical house races.

As I’ve written before, Pearson’s fellow Almanac panelist David Schultz is openly backing a Democrat candidate in another one of those 20 swing seats.  Both of these political scientists appear on Almanac and other venues providing commentary and analysis on political topics in which they have personal stakes.

They are certainly entitled to donate to and to support any political candidate they wish.  My problem is with the media venues that put them on as unbiased, neutral observers of the state’s political scene.

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[1] TPT Almanac, August 22, 2014 episode, 40:28 mark.

Fake All The Way Down

Democrat Governor Mark Dayton has a new TV commercial out, his second of this election year.  In the breathless hype of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the ad

showcases a real Minnesota family, as the governor describes their worries and argues that policies he pursued have helped ease middle-class burdens. 

Yes, you read that correctly, the voice you hear on the soundtrack is alleged to be that of the Governor himself.  As for the featured family (Steve and Lindsey Port), they are “real” in the sense that they are corporeal beings.  As for being a “typical” Minnesota family, that turns out to be a different matter entirely.

The Star Tribune gives the game away by noting that,

The Dayton campaign said Lindsey Port is also on the campaign team of state Rep. Will Morgan of Burnsville.

I’d say their involvement amounts to more than just that.  Combined, Steve and Linsdey have given $1,000 to the re-election campaign of state Rep. Morgan in just the past two years.  Not many “middle-class” families have the resources to drop a grand on an obscure local politician.

The Port’s are in no sense “middle class.”  Steve Port owns his own business in Burnsville, employing several staff.  In true, “What’s the Matter with Kansas” fashion, I’m not sure the Port’s—by supporting Democrats—are operating in their own self-interest as small-business owners in Minnesota.

But they do support the Democrats.  Besides the sizable campaign donations, Lindsey Port recently wrote a letter to the editor supportive of the Democratic cause.

I’m continually amazed at the inability of state Democrats to find a single unaffiliated person to appear in their ads and promote the cause.