Rambling from the North

I have just been informed by a source that Senator Wes Skogland has dropped out of the senate race. This leaves only Alex Eaton for the senate seat. What a lucky break for him.

Sadly I was wrong. It was revealed that Patty Wetterling will not be joining Mike Hatch in the governor's race. I hope she doesn't get into the congressional race. It would be bad. I hope she doesn't run for anything at this point now. There isn't something she could do that would be a good political move on her part. We'll see what happens in upcomming days though.

Yesterday, the Stonewall DFL caucus voted on endorsements. They endorsed the following candidates. Most of these weren't surprises, except in the governor's race and the Ramsey County attorney's office race. Some commentary is provided below:

64a: Erin Murphy- This appears to be one of the hottest races in the DFL right now. I admit I don't know anything about the candidates except that it is Matt Entenza's seat and there are 5 or six of them.

Hennepin County Attorney: Andy Luger-Honestly I dont' know much about this race either.

Ramsey County Attorney: Susan Gartner- This one surprised me. I have heard a lot of murmerings within the DFL that people consider her basically a republican. I haven't heard much from her but I have seen Corey Tennison a lot of places, and he does impress me.

State Auditor: Reggie Edwards- There was no surprise here. As popular as Rebecca Otto is, she upset alot of the stonewall and gay commnity when she continually promised to protect gay rights, and then one of her first votes in the house was anti-gay.

Secretary of State: Christian Sande- No surprise again. The gay candidate getting the gay endorsement is not that much of a shocker.

Attorney General: They Endorsed Matt Entenza previous to the conventon. No one seems to be challenging him yet

Governor: Steve Kelley- This came as quite a shocker. Mike Hatch didn't bother screening, so he was out. Then, apparently they moved that Kelly Doran not be found acceptible. I do not know if that passed or not other then there was serious discussion on it. The Governor's race was the most highly contested, with people who had left earlier in the day being brought back, just so a quorum was not lost at the end of the day, it came down to Becky Lourey and Steve Kelley. Lourey's people were pushing for no endorsement but ended up just shy of that. Kelley's people some how, barely, came through.

Senate: Amy Klobuchar- Der.

Since I seem to have a much larger readership then I actually thought I did (Go me!) I'm going to ask for a debate (Hence the name!) in the comments section. I am on several DFL/Political newsgroups and some of them are having intense debates about primaries versus the endorsements so I thought I would open it up and see what the readership is thinking.

Pro-Endorsement-- You are running a democrat/republican, you should get the party's blessing

Pro-Primary- Party's don't always know what the general public wants and chose the most left/right candidate.

WHat do you agree/disagree with? Lets get some debate going!

Ok, so I promised a few retiring people- I will give you a taste of what I've learned recently-

Dan Sparks, John Hottinger, and Barb Goodwin will all be retiring this session. These aren't all of what I've heard but these are some of the bigger ones, especially Representative Goodwin, who has chosen not to make this very public yet, so Shhhh! Don't tell anyone!

Bell continues to commit political suicide. As much as I hate to say it, MDE pointed out how he called Shumer the junior senator from New York. Thats just sloppy. He also hired Olin moore as campaign manager. Doh!

Ok, so apparently I'm being yelled at for my comment about being to lazy to listen to Otto or Edwards. I apologize. I was being sarcastic and attempting to go for the easy humorous way out of blogging about their speeches-but since the readership wants me to, here it goes.

Edwards was much better than I've seen him ever be. His rainbow shirt colors of his staffers leave much to be desired however. His speech sounded like he was up preaching the gospel rather then at a DFL event. This kind of speech giving is well received because it's unique, I certainly doubt Amy Klobuchar could get up there, talk about the Auditor's office, while in the back of your mind all you can think about is how you're going to hell if you don't repent.

Otto's speech was nothing fancy, nothing really new. She touched on the same points as she has the past couple months. Otto is fairly confident she has it in the bag so she's not really trying. Problem is, she's not pushing for anyone besides the DFLers at this point. She needs to expand. I would like to hear her talk a lot more about the office then she does in her speech. She attacks republicans, but not even really the current auditor. If we're going to have a battle for that office, make it a battle.

So I attended the DFL SCC meeting today, mostly to listen to the candidate speeches, and I'd like to post some breaking announcements and some hilarious analysis of the candidates that spoke (Note, I will not cover everyone, I am to lazy to listen to either Reggie Edwards or Rebecca Otto for instance)

We'll start off with the big one- Patty Wetterling did speak. She re-affirmed her endorsement of Amy, thanked the DFL for their support, and said she wanted to take some time to think before making any decision. She did have a good line though, "I keep wondering what I'm going to do next, so I turn on the TV to hear what they tell me I'm about to do" It was a good speech, good reception, ect.

This moved right into Amy's speech, who spent a lot of time praising Patty. I'm pretty sure Brian Melendez, chair of the DFL, didn't bother timing speeches, hers seemed to go on for twenty minutes. Oye!

At this point I'm pretty sure Ford Bell wanted to go cry in the corner, so he did the next best thing. He got on stage and insulted democrats! He began to rant about Senator Chuck Shumer. I'm not quite sure why but this was probably the most pointless and stupid thing he could have done. I guess he's gone suicidal.

On the topic of Ford Bell, A person representing Deborah Watts made an appearance to announce she would not be running this year. Thank God, perhaps the third can get a real candidate this time... nah.

Christian Sande spoke, was well received, well applauded, and loved by all. He was swarmed after his speech. So amazing.

After Christian, Mark Ritchie got up and rambled on for too long. He made various claims that he's done some amazing things and been covered by tons of newspaper. Unfortunately I could only find one example of him appearing in newspapers. He was cut off and chastised by Chairman Melendez, the whole crowd laughed.

Melendez again got some laughs at the end of Mike Hatch's speech. Hatch, spent the first minute or so of his speech talking about his engagement to his wife, saying, "I proposed to her and it took her five years to finally accept, but we've been married for 30 years now. So patty, I can wait, I'm patient." Quite the good line, but Hatch ran overboard and Melendez began standing on the podium to make him understand, a good comedic gesture, Hatch had made his point and is popular enough to not need to make much of a speech anyways.

Everyone else was mediocre at best. Kelly did alright, Doran was pointless, kissing dems butts because he knows he isn't one... Nothing to exciting.

Patty Wetterling announced from the state capital today that she will drop out of the US Senate Race and endorse Amy Klobuchar for Senate. This is a huge boost to Amy, now if only Ford would drop we could focus so much better on beating that dog Kennedy.

So, Patty Wetterling is holding a press conference tomorrow to announce the future of her campaign for Senate.
My prediction is she'll announce she's bowing out and is joining up with Mike Hatch as his Lt. Gov. She'd do a dang good job and they'd be a very strong team together. I hope this is what happens. Although I have to say, when last I talked to her and her staff they were intent on the campaign for senate, but perhaps her low fundraising numbers have changed their minds. Who knows.

Well I have to admit, I'm not a fan of the ford bell campaign. My biggest problems surround some of his campaign staff who may or may not currently be employed by him. But besides that he has never wowed me. His fundsraising leaves much to be desired, he is fairly standoffish, he has done very stupid things like endorse candidates running for other positions (I scratch your back you scratch mine mentality?). I think he has no chance of beating Amy for the senate endorsement.

MN Publis however came out with a recent rumor post, that adds to something they posted earlier. It talks about Ford may jump into the third district. I hope he does. IT'd be nice, first to see some competition for that spot. Anyone over the age of 25 can pretty much get accepted to run for congress, a la Watts. I know Deborah Watts, I knew her campaign people last year. She is probably the most worthless candidate in the third since... well I suppose since Darryl Stanton and his muscle shirts! She's a nice person (as is Darryl) but neither were fit for the third district, neither of them had a prayer of even having a close election. We need someone with blood and energy and a viable shot. Thats not Watts- That might be Ford however. I hope he does jump, just like I hope Patty sides with Mike and goes for Lt. Governor, then we can start working now, rather then later on beating the republicans.

So, Wellstone Action has been doing some odd things since they were started. Many of these things in my opinion are very un-wellstonian (Now comes in verb, adjective, and noun flavors!). The largest one that I would like noted is the fact that I, and many others, feel that Wellstone action is attempting to set up their own party within the party. Their most recent move of hiring Peggy Flannegen away from the DFL, a departure that has yet to be announced to DFL faithful, just illustrates my point.
Since its creation, Wellstone action has done some very good things. Most notably are the training camps that they have been putting on. But around these camps, there is more going on. Jeff Blodget, head of Wellstone action has gone out of his way to endorse candidates and in my viewpoint, used his connections and the resources of wellstone action to aid these candidates. He has done so however in contrasting with the DFL party. I have had many people approach me and relate to me the fact that they were asked by Wellstone action to donate to them, instead of the DFL, and were told not to donate tot he DFL for various reasons.
I don't really understand what Blodget is doing at this point aside from creating his own little fiefdum and thereby huring democrats even more. I hope him, and all of Wellstone action, will cease the intraparty struggles and concentrate on what is more important, winning elections.

It has been brought to my attention that several notable DFLers will not be seeking re-election this coming fall. Most of these names have not been made public. Tomorrow I will post a small list of the ones I have for sure confirmed are not running for re-election. Some of them may have publicly announced and I just missed it, others have not. Stay Tuned!

Ok, this has to be the best court ruling of the year bar none. A women, trying to claim she can drive in the carpool lane because the fetus counts as another passanger. Even the anti-choicers shouldn't buy this one!

This link was just sent to me by a friend. Wow, Just Wow.

I agree we should all be praying for these people, praying they don't ruin our country anymore then they have. Perhapes praying for some of that God-given wisdom they keep claiming they have. Wisdome enough to get us out of Iraq, to rebuild the US economy, to aid foreign countries that are actually in need, and most of all, pray for a democratic white house from now on!

The first candidate out of the door with a running mate is DINO Doran. All of the rumors are speculating that Doran will chose tri-partisan Senator Shelia Kiscaden as his running mate.

DFL gubernatorial candidate Kelly Doran's plan to introduce his running mate in Rochester has sparked speculation that his choice will be Sen. Sheila Kiscaden, a veteran state legislator from Rochester with a tripartisan political background.
Neither Kiscaden nor the Doran campaign would comment Friday on a published report in the Rochester Post-Bulletin pointing to the four-term senator as Doran's likely pick for lieutenant governor.
Doran has scheduled an initial announcement at 9:30 a.m. Monday in Rochester, followed by news briefings at noon at the State Capitol and 2:30 p.m. in Duluth.

I dont' know how I feel about Senator Kiscaden, I haven't paid much attention except every time she switched. What I can say is this will be the straw that killed Doran's chance of the endorsement. Its no surprise he's stopped showing up to party events for the most part. At this point he is running in place of a third party candidate, he might as well ask Jesse to endorse him and call himself an "independent"(Who donates to both the republicans and the democrats depending on how he feels that day).

So, MDE finally revealed himself to be... exactly who we all knew he was. I can't say I'm surprised. I don't think anyone was after he screwed up months ago revealing his identity. He makes this seem like its some giant secret. Its not. We don't care. We all knew who he was. We all believe he is getting his info directly from the republican propaganda machine, and we've all moved on with our lives.

The background behind this unveiling however, is not explained very well in his post. The Star Tribune, for whatever reason on the day when there is so many more important things to cover, covers this:

The suit alleges that Brodkorb, citing an unnamed source, defamed the St. Paul-based public relations firm New School Communications when he posted a claim that New School had become publicly critical of the congressional campaign of Coleen Rowley only after Rowley rejected a contract with the firm.

Despite being told that New School does not perform political campaign work, Brodkorb, the suit says, continues to make the claim, even though his source "may, in fact, be a fabrication."

MDE is claiming of course that this is a mistake, or a mix-up, or something to that effect. Well that's not true. We've all known MDE was making things up from the get go. He hasn't been able to back up anything, and when you ask him to reveal his sources, he says he wont' for "journalistic integrity". Except, as any journalism student knows, integrity is used for non-partisan purposes. You sniff out the crime/lies, and point them out. You don't spin things for the republicans. That's all MDE did, spin. Well now he's being called out for one of his lies, and the bloggers are not going to step up to his defense.

Personally I think bloggers Should be held to the same standard as regular newspaper writers. We are attempting to disseminate facts, sometimes with a bit of spin, but its in the guise of news/editorials. If standards don't exist, we have no chance for the truth to be worked out. I could just claim anything I wanted, like Tim Pawlenty is a raging closeted homosexual who sleeps with little boys. Eventually, enough people will take notice, and start believing. But we have laws preventing me from making such bold assertions, at least without evidence. MDE is no better then the laws and he needs to be held up as an example of what bloggers shouldn't do. Lie.