Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report - Vol. 3, Issue 17 - 10/26/2007
Publisher's Note
Many thanks to everyone who answered our call for feedback on our Morning Reports. The compliments were nice; the criticism, much appreciated and extremely helpful. For those who missed the story about our Morning Reports in our last Weekly Report, here's what we're trying to accomplish: Provide readers too busy to surf various news sources with one place where they can find all the day's Minnesota political news. We summarize and link to major Minnesota print and broadcast media, greater Minnesota daily newspapers, national media telling Minnesota stories, and a selective compilation of what's new and interesting in the blogs. For a limited time, these reports are free. Sign up on our web site or shoot an email to staff@politicsinminnesota.com. Morning Reports are published Monday - Friday before 10 a.m. And, please do forward our reports to anyone you think might be interested in subscribing.
Some PIM staffing notes. Former DFL Rep. Betty Folliard continues to provide solid and much needed DFL insider intelligence and thinking. Joining us this week is Pam Steinle. Pam interned with publisher Sarah Janecek when she was in the lobbying business with Wy Spano in 2003. Since then, Bill Gates paid for Steinle to go to graduate school and she taught middle school for several years, got married and adopted two children. While Pam applies to law schools, we're thrilled to have her on board at PIM.
Finally, please note we have a fully-powered "Events Calendar" on our website. So many events, too little staff time. Our solution? Let our readers post their own events. How? First, register as a user at PoliticsInMinnesota.com. Second, send us a message that you want to post events (via dan@politicsinminnesota.com), and we'll enable that for you. Third, create an event using the Create Content > Event link on the left-hand navigation bar. Use the pop-up menus to set the event date and time. Just make sure you note at the very beginning of the event what organization is holding the event, and preferably a URL for more information. Put your material on the map. It's worth the few minutes it takes to get more attention, results from the search engines, and more attendees! (We may offer the same service for press releases. Please let us know your thoughts on such a service!)
The First Laddie
Former President Bill Clinton's first stop in Minnesota on Tuesday, which major media failed to note, in contrast to quotes from MN GOP Chair Ron Carey, was that before politicking, Clinton first opened the new Healthy Living Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester (the idea is to have Mayo employees be as healthy as their patients). Not bad for a man who himself nearly died in 2003 from bad eating habits. He expressed deep gratitude to the healthcare providers at Mayo, saying they saved his life. Dan Abraham donated $20 million to build the new clinic. Later Clinton said one of the key goals of the foundation he now runs is to combat adolescent obesity in the U.S.
Then the former President was off to three hugely successful fundraisers at The Graves 601 Hotel and the Historic State Theatre. The smaller room, where donors contributed the maximum dollar amount ($2,300 prior to the National Convention), held well-known Democratic supporters like Lois Quam & Matt Entenza, Vance Opperman, Ted Grindal, Ruth Usem, Mark Dayton, Alida Messinger, Joan Growe, Bill Luther, Janet Robert, El Tinklenberg, and Andy Luger; with many new, more diverse attendees than in previous early presidential high-dollar fundraisers. Supporters got to converse with the Former President and have their picture taken (to purchase online) with him. The crowded $1,000 room was a veritable who's-who of Democratic activists and new faces, with Mayor Chris Coleman throwing in his support. There Clinton gave a low-key version, sans hecklers, of the talk he later presented at the State Theatre. A short motorcade ride (2 blocks) and an hour late he dazzled a packed crowd of 2,000 Hillary supporters with his speech about why Hillary Clinton is the most qualified, most experienced candidate to be next President of the United States. Various DFLers gave pre-speeches to keep the crowd busy, including one gubernatorial candidate, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner. All in all folks were thrilled with Clinton's fifty-minute address, and general gaiety and energy of the departing crowd indicated that he was a huge hit. One gentleman remarked, "It was incredible!"
The press on Wednesday was favorable, though one DFLer wondered why a Fox 9 News report only showed men going into the top-dollar event when the room clearly was gender balanced.
Prior to this event, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) had out-raised Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in Minnesota, but the evening's take will certainly tip the scales. Hillary Clinton's Minnesota finance team set a goal of raising $250,000 for the night, and reports indicate that they exceeded their goal.
Speaking Of Hecklers
Coverage of the event and the hecklers at the big event in the Star Tribune on Wednesday did not pick up on one note: the hecklers were recognized as regulars on the Nicollet Mall, wearing the same tee-shirts and touting the same 9/11 conspiracy theories in front of the passersby for years. This writer can't help wondering: who pays these guys? [And someone more cynical down here wonders why we are supposed to believe the government's version of 9/11 in the first place].
Indian Summer
It may no longer be politically correct to characterize a warm spell in fall
as "Indian Summer," however, the expression seems relevant to the warmth
happening between Minnesota and other parts of the country towards India. These
are exciting political times for Indian immigrants, with Republican Indian
American Bobby Jindal becoming governor-elect of Louisiana, and Gov.
Tim Pawlenty signed India's first sister-state arrangement between
Minnesota and Haryana, a mainly Hindu state cradled in the Himalaya foothills.
The deal focuses on renewable energy, information, medical and food
technologies. Sen. Satveer Chaudhary (DFL-Fridley), whose family hails
from Haryana, experienced a deeply felt generational continuity, and a moment of
personal achievement: "Minnesota is the Haryana of the United States," he
told
the Star Tribune.
Additionally, J. Ashwin Madia, a former Marine who served in Iraq,
launched a campaign to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad in the
Third CD. Madia,
an
attorney at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, joined the Marine Corps
after finishing law school, and served six months in Iraq shoring up the
judicial system. His website is at
MadiaForCongress.com,
and proudly notes that he is a first-generation American whose parents got here
with $19 in their pockets and settled in Plymouth. He also served as student
body president at the University of Minnesota.
It's a good turn for overseas connections: India is a vibrant democracy with a
lively culture and millions of vegetarians who'd benefit from our agricultural
technology. With rising American anxiety about Asia from the Turkey to China,
it's good to earn prosperous friends from the sub-continent.
Where's Carol?
Democrats are wondering... With Governor Tim Pawlenty on a historic trade mission to India making daily headline news, and Speaker Margaret Kelliher off to Sweden with the family, how come we're not hearing anything about the person in charge of running the state: Lt. Governor Carol Molnau? Does she take a leave of absence from her other day job as Commissioner of Transportation to be at the helm?
In The Bayou And Our Backyard
We're always happy to shamelessly plug the accomplishments and products of our
advertisers. Congratulations to Brian Hanf, who founded
Trail
Blazer, a fully integrated campaign management software package. A direct
mail firm in Louisiana working for a legislative candidate found Trail Blazer
on the Internet. Now almost 20 legislative candidates in that state have
bought and are successfully using Hanf's program.
In
Minnesota, a group of citizens in Pine Island working to get a new school
built, "Vote Yes for Pine Island," is also using Trail Blazer. Candidates
and issue groups considering their campaigns should note that Brian backs up
his software with
personal
support services.
A Word About Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Hey, MDE readers, ever wonder why the headlines are so long? Michael
Brodkorb, the proprietor of
Minnesota
Democrats Exposed, has been in the GOP PR/spin game for a long time, and
he's maximizing the impact of his site upon the search engines with a few
tactics. Overly long headlines contain the relevant keywords, which helps (but
do they really have to be in ALL CAPS?). However, Brodkorb also knows how to
make a politically potent URL:
http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com/2007/10/22/double-edition-of-lies-and-
the-lying-liars-that-who-tell-them-al-franken-on-voting-for-
the-use-of-force-in-iraq-and-on-saying-%e2%80%9cwe-have-to-go-to-war%e2%80%9d/
This kind of thing actually works to bump up your results on the search
engine, and 'clean URLs', as they're known, are much more likely to take over
certain searches.
DFL.org and major
liberal sites like
Minnesota
2020 seem plagued with horrible URLs, loaded with meaningless hex codes
and brackets. Both Mn2020.org and DFL.org use products from
Avenet, and
DFL.org uses Avenet's
CampaignOffice
software, which is widely used. The rightie blogosphere, led by
True
North seems to favor the
Joomla Content
Management System (CMS), which also renders gibberish URLs full of meaningless
bits. PIM is among the growing set of content providers using
Drupal, another CMS
which renders decidedly cleaner -- and thus, better-ranked -- URLs. (Clean
URLs also make life easier, and links more reliable, for our PIM Morning
Report staff. Cleaner web addresses are less likely to get garbled.)
More
on clean URLs and SEO here.
Indoctrinate Me, Indoctrinate U
PAM SAYS: Speaking as the newest and one of the youngest PIM
staffers (I was born in the 80's), my college memories are relatively
fresh. I was a public school kid from preschool through a graduate degree, and
I just assumed there was nothing one could do about the liberal bias in
education. Maybe it was because I'm the biggest target for every "-ism" you
can think of: I'm a woman, I'm an Asian, I'm a Christian... and I'm a
Republican. Oppression seemed a way of life! To that end (the conservative
one), the Minnesota Association of Scholars and the Center of the American
Experiment are co-sponsoring an opening night gala tonight to celebrate the
first of fifteen shows of Indoctrinate U at the
Oak
Street Cinema. Indoctrinate U is the full-length documentary
follow-up to conservative filmmaker Evan Coyne Maloney's first two
award-winning documentaries that showcases the political environment on
college campuses across the country. If you miss the premiere tonight, the
show runs through Thursday, November 1. Shout out to blogger Mike Berg
for the reminder.
What's Coming Over The Wire?
Probably the best drama on American television today,
HBO's
The Wire recently wrapped up its fifth and final season, which will start
airing in January. Recently right-sized journalists rendered refugees from
their local media corporations will have reason to watch: each season of the
gritty Baltimore crime series has focused like a laser on different dimensions
of the crumbling post-industrial city. The first season revealed complex,
powerful drug trafficking organizations mirroring the police bureaucracy; the
second expanded to the dying longshoremen culture of Baltimore's port; the
third linked the war on drugs and the retailing of the city mayoral race; the
fourth analyzed how a failing school system handles pupils in an economy that
no longer needs them.
The fifth season finally brings in the media: The Baltimore Sun will be
reborn as a declining, layoff-wracked institution incapable of parsing the
disintegration of the society around it. The genius of The Wire is how it
coolly portrays how each individual, from Bubbles the junkie/police
informant to Mayor Carcetti, as real people, all trapped within the
rules of their respective institutions. This is not episodic network TV, but
almost a graphic novel; only after seeing The Wire it becomes clear how
network shows like Law & Order and CSI really pull their punches. The Wire
is filled with non-professional actors; Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt
Schmoke,
once
a crusader against the War on Drugs that shredded his city, appears as the
city Health Commissioner in Season 3 to help stage a secret legalized drug
zone in an effort to remove dealers from other neighborhoods. The fifth season
will be full of former reporters from the real Sun, and we suspect
media refugees like Eric Black and Doug Grow will see a trace of
their own fates among the frustrated, ink-stained wretches. (For the
uninitiated, a recent New Yorker
article
is a great intro to the show.)
Bits & Pieces
Our readers well know that this week marks the fifth anniversary of the tragic
plane crash that killed U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, his wife,
Sheila, daughter Marcia and three staffers, Mary McEvoy,
Tom Lapic and Will McLaughlin.
The
best tribute we saw or read this week was at KARE 11.
Talk about hands across the water: DFL State Party Chair Brian Melendez is hosting the 5th Annual Non-Partisan Party (!). And look at this line-up of hosts: GOP CD chair and former city chair Carleton Crawford, Green Party former St. Paul mayoral candidate Elizabeth Dickinson, GOP former city chair Lee Eklund, DFL city chair Keesha Gaskins, Green Party member Darrell Gerber, GOP city chair Gregg Sougstad, IP state chair Craig Swaggert, and DFL former city chair now DFL Party Affairs Director David Weinlick. The festivities take place Saturday November 17 from 7 p.m. until whenever, at Brian Melendez's home, 1777 Dupont Avenue South, Minneapolis. Contact Brian brian.melendez@usa.net or any of the other hosts for more info. It sounds like it's worth a look-see!
The Taxpayers League of Minnesota's 10-year birthday party has been set for November 18. The event promises to be a raucous affair. The "entertainment" is roasting founder and chairman Mike Wigley. Wines (Bordeaux) from Mike's cellar will be served, and many attendees will be wearing Hawaiian shirts (because Mike likes 'em). The roster of roasters has been set and includes U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN 6), former TCF CEO and GOP State Party Chair Bill Cooper (who, Democrats like to note, now lives in no-income tax Florida), Wigley's long-time business partner Gerry De La Vega, Builders Club CEO John Esmay, PIM publisher Sarah Janecek, U.S. Rep. John Kline (R-MN 2), GOP National Committeeman Brian Sullivan, GoldnerHawn managing partner Mike Sweeney, and former Speaker of the House Steve Sviggum. "Dr. No" himself, Phil Krinkie, president of the Taxpayers League, will MC the event. For more information, contact jordan@taxpayersleague.org.
The Twin Cities Media Alliance's 2007 Annual Citizen Media Forum, sponsored by Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library, will hold "Life After Newspapers: Challenges and Opportunities for New Media and the Public" on Sat. November 3 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the downtown Minneapolis Central Library. It's free, but pre-registration is requested, and a $7 box lunch is available. Contact forum@tcdailyplanet.net or call (612) 436-9188 to register. Citizen journalism, blogs, media conglomeration and all that other trendy stuff will be discussed. Media warrior Robert McChesney of Free Press is the keynote speaker, and other presenters and panelists include Abdirahman Aynte, editor of the Somali Hiiraan Online, MinnPost.com's Joel Kramer, DailyMole.com's Steve Perry, Rake media critic Brian Lambert, Eric Black, the Strib's online guru Matt Thompson, Twin Cities Daily Planet editor Mary Turck, Doug McGill, KFAI's Janis Lane-Ewart, MPR's Michael Caputo, and Nora Paul from the U's Institute for New Media Studies and NortheastBeat.com's Dan Haugen. You will definitely learn something.
The Emerging Digerati program at the U of M's Institute for New Media Studies, "a showcase and discussion of interesting and unusual applications of new media technology across disciplines from people throughout campus," rolls on for another year at the Walter Library (Room 401) on the first Monday of every month: The U's Digital Media Center is also involved. The Monday, November 5th program will feature "The UnConvention: A Counterpoint to the Contemporary U.S. Presidential Nomination Process" presented by Daniel Gumnit, the Executive Director of Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis. Jude Higdon from the College of Liberal Arts will offer "Leveraging and Critiquing Emerging Forms of Political Media" in the classroom.
We've been remiss in not noting that Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Eden Prairie) has added some key people to his Third District Congressional campaign. Veteran GOP operative Lee Birkhold will serve as chief fundraiser. She oversaw the House Republican Campaign Committee’s fundraising efforts when it raised over $3 million in the 2005-06 election cycle. She worked for Minnesota House Republicans during the time when Paulsen served as Majority Leader of the Minnesota House. [Birkhold will continue to do work for the Senate Republican Campaign Committee.] Josi Cecchini will work as field representative. She is a former field representative for the House Republican Campaign Committee and is active in Minnesota College Republicans. Goff & Howard's Chris Georgacas, also a former GOP state party chair, is one of Paulsen's key advisors.Barb Davis White has thrown in her hat in the ring to seek the GOP nomination against U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison in the Fifth CD. A community activist, her campaign website is at BarbWhite.org, and oddly features "The Flag Fights Back," a three-photo series portraying some protesters torching an American flag, and the flag in turn setting one of them on fire. Barb's political director is Daniel Riojas. The conservative TrueNorth super-blog introduced her.
Congratulations to Lars Leafblad. He left the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs after a four-year run as the school's development director to become vice president at the highly respected executive search firm, KeyStone Search. KeyStone has handled a number of high profile public affairs executive placements including Dane Smith at Growth & Justice and Gary Cunningham at the Northwest Area Foundation. The four principals at KeyStone are Rebecca Yanisch (well-known to PIM subscribers), Marcia Ballinger (vice chair of the American Red Cross), Mike Frommelt (board chair at Fraser) and Bob Schoenbaum (Mixed Blood Theater Board).
Several Minnesotans have joined what is being billed as the
"nation's
first independent political consultancy." The names are no surprise:
former U.S. Senator Dean Barkley (Ind.) and Bill
Hillsman, nationally known for creating the ad campaigns for several
Independents, including the campaign of former Independent Gov. Jesse
Ventura. Two non-Minnesotans join them in the firm of
D'Amore,
Hillsman,
Oliver,
Barkley
(DHOB). The firm's mission statement takes a shot at the status quo: "The
partners of DHOB are committed to providing the voting public with more
choices than the current two-party system allows. It is our belief that the
American political system is stagnant and far more concerned with money, power
and political partisanship than with providing the leadership and solutions to
real-world problems that our citizens deserve." We assume the new job means
Barkley
is no longer driving a Metro Mobility bus ... and we have no idea how his
match.com ad is working out. Well, we hope!
Brian Lambert and Deborah Rybak, in their
"To
the Slaughter" blog, hilariously dissect a Star Tribune CJ
gossip column and inject reality regarding what transpired between Sir
Ian McKellan and Spoonriver owner Brenda Langton. In so doing,
Lambert and Rybak nail why CJ hasn't written any interesting political gossip
in years. CJ has badly burned both DFLers and GOPers and neither party trusts
her to get the facts right.
Congratulations to Dan Miller, the former Senate GOP Caucus political
director. Miller has left the Legislature to join the government relations
team at US Bancorp. Senate Minority Leader David Senjem (R-Rochester)
and Caucus Chief Dan Wolf are currently interviewing possible political
director replacements.
Observing televised coverage of California wildfire press conferences, we noticed echoes of the I-35 bridge collapse. Messaging themes delivered by Maria Shriver reminded us of material recently posted on the Minnesota Public Relations Blog, run by Ryan May, noting a panel reviewing media and crisis communications around the I-35W collapse.
U.S. Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN1) is getting lots of attention in the 1st CD with his listening sessions on Iraq. No better man for the job (he's an Iraq vet).
ONE-YEAR-OUT: On November 3rd over 40 DFL One-Year-Out House Parties will be given across the state to energize and activate the DFL base one year prior to the 2008 elections in order to change America for the better in '08. DNC Chair Howard Dean and U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar will be conference calling into the parties throughout the day.
The House Republican Caucus has been hard at work on its website. Check it out.
One no-miss'um event for pro-choicers is the Minnesota Women's Political
Caucus's 29th Annual Luncheon Friday, December 7th, 11:30 a.m. at the
Graves 601 Hotel in Minneapolis. The featured
Speaker is California Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Tickets are $50-150.
For details about the event/sponsorships/free seating for youth call (651)
228-0995 or email
women@mnwpc.org .
The Precinct Revitalization Best Practices Symposium, a program of the Precinct Revitalization Project of the Hennepin County DFL (and supported by many groups) will be held Saturday, November 3rd from 1 to 5 p.m. at Iverson Hall, Bethlehem Lutheran Church, 4100 Lyndale Avenue South in Minneapolis. An on-site Gourmet Boxed Banquet Dinner will follow. Sen. Patricia Torres Ray (Minneapolis) will chair the Precinct Revitalization Best Practices Symposium with the assistance of a "Capitol gang" including Sen. Tarryl Clark (St. Cloud), Jim Davnie (Minneapolis), Carolyn Laine (Columbia Heights), Kate Knuth (New Brighton), Steve Simon (St. Louis Park), Sandra Peterson (New Hope), Jeremy Kalin (Lindstrom), Paul Thissen (Minneapolis) and others.
A couple quick tech notes: New web fonts were released by Microsoft, included in Windows Vista (PDF of samples). For PCs they're also available free: go there for a link to the latest free Powerpoint Viewer installer. On the Mac OS X side, OS X 10.5 is out today with spiffy new security and user interface improvements, and bloggers should check out the beta version of Ecto 3, a nifty tool for offline post composition.SCHIP It
Yesterday Congress passed the revised version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), falling eight votes short (265-142 from a needed 273) of a veto-proof majority. The most recent bill was meant to appease GOP concerns. After last week's veto by President George Bush, language was added to "clarify" contested sections that dealt with affordable health insurance for adults, illegal immigrants, and families. The revised bill was backed by all five Minnesota DFL Representatives - Congresspeople Jim Oberstar, Betty McCollum, Collin Peterson, Keith Ellison, and Tim Walz; plus GOP Rep. Jim Ramstad.
GOP Reps. Michele Bachmann and John Kline had expressed concerns in a letter to President Bush on October 18th, and again voted against SCHIP despite Democratic assertions that the issues in question had been addressed.
Lobbyist Watch
From the Minnesota Campaign Finance & Public Disclosure Board:
Morning Reports
