Politics in Minnesota: The Weekly Report - Vol. 3, Issue 3 - 7/12/2007
There's No Business Like GOP Business
People who haven't attended a national political convention in recent years will be in for a shock the first week of September 2008 when the Republican National Convention comes to town. Security around the Xcel Energy Center will require many blocks to be closed. If we had to make a prediction now, we'd bet that I-94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul will be closed during certain times of the day as well. Events and protests will likely consume every public nook and cranny, along with lots of private ones. The local food and beverage industry will hit the jackpot. As will event organizers. While there are many long-time event management companies in the Twin Cities, there are three new ones that plan to cash in on their GOP connections.
GOP insiders and Capitol habitués will recognize many of the names involved. The three groups will compete head-to-head for many of the same clients, however, there will be so much business that all three groups are likely to make a killing. Besides event management, the firms also offer public affairs "stategerie" services.
The first group to organize a company is Take '08 Events Unlimited. The principals are Erich Mische, John Milne, Al Shofe, Ryan Kelly, Debra Anderson, Monica Notzon and Dana Harris and here are their bios. This group has a rather chipper website..."Who We are -- it matters!!!...Our Commitment!!!" Most readers will recognize Mische as U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's former long-time top aide. Mische's group is offering something the others are not, "Our promise is that anytime we have an opportunity to provide a service to our clients--that service will be provided by a Minnesota company! We are so confident in this commitment that we guarantee that we will not accept any contract with any client if we cannot commit to ensuring that those services will be supported by a Minnesota based company."
We're guessing that part of the Minnesota commitment is to smooth ruffled feathers about the group's initial formation in which news reports implied that Take 08 had the "official sanction" of the Republican National Committee. You have to hand it to Mische--he's one heck of a good promoter. Check out the video of Mische being named one of Channel 5's People Making News. We also hear lots of grumbling around town that some venues and restaurants are not pleased that Mische is asking them to sign exclusive arrangements with his firm, and implying that he's their only GOP convention meal ticket. Take '08 has designated Morrissey Hospitality as its "Preferred Caterer."
Another group is Twin Cities Strategies, "Taking Business Beyond Convention." The principals are Vin Weber, Joe Weber, Greg Johnson, Jack Meeks, Annette Meeks and Shelley Hymes. Interestingly, the group's brand new website is designed as one big flash animation. That means that specific pages on the site aren't linkable, a common practice when you want to make it difficult for competitors to use. For bios of the six partners, check out the site. Meanwhile, here are the highlights of what Twin Cities Strategies is selling.
- "Network Relationships...No other firm in Minnesota has relationships on K Street, on Capitol Hill or across the country that are as deep and varied as ours. Through these extensive relationships, we are able to maximize our clients lobbying objectives. Our ability to reach out to local and national VIPs is unrivaled. We can deliver 'star-power' to clients that desire marquee events."
- "Local Knowledge...We can locate and secure the most coveted Twin Cities venues for convention events--and offer insights into unique venues that can make the difference between an average event and an event your guests will be talking about for years to come."
- "Event Management...Large upscale galas with celebrity appearances...Hunting and fishing packages with VIPs."
Tommie The Commie Strikes Again
Last week the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial about Minnesota's "make flags in the U.S.A." law authored by Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia). The piece is now behind the WSJ's paid archives, so here it is in its entirety:
It's the week to wave the flag, as millions did on the Fourth. However, in the case of Minnesota, perhaps we should say "waive" the flag -- at least if it happens to have been made overseas.Thanks to a PIM reader, we obtained a copy of the letter to the editor that Rukavina submitted to the Journal. We're betting the paper doesn't print it, so here it is in its entirety:
In St. Paul this week, the legislature passed a law making it a misdemeanor to sell a non-made-in-the-USA flag anywhere in the state. "Nothing is more embarrassing to me than a plastic flag made in China," declared Tom Rukavina, who sponsored the bill.
Actually, we can think of several things more embarrassing, starting with Mr. Rukavina.
Under the Minnesota flag law, violators could be subject to a $1,000 fine and 90 days in jail. So under Mr. Rukavina's patriot gaming and thanks to the Supreme Court's 1989 decision in Texas v. Johnson, Minnesotans will be able to legally burn an American flag made in America, but could go to jail for selling one made in Shanghai.
Splendid.
Proponents say this protectionism is about national symbolism, so let's not tell them that Major League baseballs have been made in Costa Rica for years. We also won't tell Mr. Rukavina where his favorite hot dogs are made, much less what they're made of. The Commerce Department says about $5.3 million worth of flags were imported last year, so the ban will not make much of a dent in our trade deficit. According to the Associated Press, the biggest recent surge in flag imports came after September 11. Luckily for Minnesotans, Mr. Rukavina wasn't around to criminalize that patriotic sentiment.
Old Glory stands for freedom, including the right to trade with people of other nationalities. We suspect that when most Americans wave the flag, they care more about the ideas it represents than where it was made.
I was elated when a friend told me the Wall Street Journal editorialized on my bill requiring U.S. flags to be made in America. You see, I hardly ever agree with your views since at the Minnesota State Capital I proudly proclaim to be the country's worst capitalist.We're Number 10!
Your editorial missed the whole point of my bill, which is to buy American. You erroneously pointed out that baseballs and hot dogs are made overseas. While the inside portion of the baseball is made in Costa Rica, the leather cover is hand sewn by U.S. workers in Tennessee. While Mr. Steinbrenner may import the hot dogs sold in Yankee Stadium, the Minnesota Twins sell nothing but the best - Hormel hot dogs made right here in the Midwest.
If I had my way, American workers in American factories would manufacture many more of the products we use every day. I was taught by my parents to support the American worker. My father, a great union man, insisted on buying everything made in the USA; and while that's getting harder to do, I continue to try. In fact, just this week I bought a Filson jacket made in Seattle, a winter green polar fleece pullover made in Ely, Minnesota, and I just love my Red Wing hiking boots made in Red Wing, Minnesota.
In an era when only the bottom line matters to corporate executives and shareholders, businesses throughout our country have taken advantage of the substandard wages and working conditions in many third world countries. They have ignored the plight of millions of American workers who have lost their jobs, and feel no remorse for the squalid living conditions of the exploited foreign workers who have no choice but to work in the sweatshops. Their profits and quarterly earning reports are all that matter.
Let me get this straight. You think I'm an embarrassment for wanting our flags to be made in the USA. I tell you what, you buy your flag made in Pakistan by some eight year old whose parents may be hiding Osama bin Laden; I'll buy my flag made in the USA by a productive American worker.
I know you have a job to do protecting those fat cats on Wall Street. I've got a job to do too, and that is to keep fighting to maintain as many jobs in the USA as possible.
Forbes published the 2007 Best States for Business rankings this week. Minnesota moved up from 14th place in 2006 to 10th in 2007. That's terrific news for all of us and in particular, for GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Perhaps most significant to the Minnesota political psyche is our "quality of life" ranking: We're number 1!
Earlier this month, Forbes ran a story about The Best and the Worst States to Get Sued In. These rankings are based on polling done by the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. Minnesota rates as the second best legal environment for business in 2007. "Minnesota ... is now viewed more favorably by business since Lori Swanson replaced Michael Hatch as attorney general in early 2006."
Rah, Rah,
For Ski-U-Mah
Terrific news for the University of
Minnesota. Fox News and the Big Ten
Conference are launching the Big Ten
Network (BTN). The BTN will feature the
11 schools of the Big Ten Conference on a
national television network that
will include not only football, basketball
and other sports that are
traditionally covered but also sports that
rarely get any play including
volleyball and wrestling. Half the sports
programming will cover women's
sports and each school will get substantial
time for nonathletic programming
(academics, music, etc.). Check out the BTN's
website
for more information. [And smart move by
the BTN to hire
Dawn
Erlandson to handle the network's
communications and outreach in Minnesota.]
"What's in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet..."
The Taxpayers League Foundation has renamed itself the "Minnesota Free Market Institute." That's a good move to distinguish the group apart from its lobbying cousin, the Taxpayers League of Minnesota. The Minnesota Free Market Instititue will celebrate what would have been Milton Friedman's 95th birthday at an invitation only event where there will be "free drinks, free hors d'oevres and free markets."
Bits & Pieces...
The Star Tribune's union, the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, has unanimously voted to call for Star Tribune Publisher Par Ridder's resignation. The Rake's Brian Lambert writes more here, and notes that his sources tell him that St. Paul Pioneer Press owner Media News has already spent $3 million on its lawsuit against Ridder. The Guild put up SaveTheStrib.com recently.
Among the four top aides to Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who left his presidential campaign this week was his National Political Director, Rob Jesmer. Jesmer, a 1996 graduate of the University of St. Thomas, cut his political teeth as a teenager while working on the U.S. Senate campaign of Bert McKasy. After working on several other campaigns, Jesmer became a National Field Director for the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee in 2002. Jesmer was then the chief of staff for Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers. That led to a stint as a regional political director for the Republican National Committee. Three months ago, Jesmer climbed on board McCain's "Straight Talk Express" as the coordinator of the campaign's national political network. With funding evaporating, Jesmer left the campaign on Monday, along with campaign manager Terry Nelson, chief strategist John Weaver, and deputy campaign manager Reed Galen. It remains to be seen what Jesmer's next move will be, but friends of the affable operative expect that he will find a roll to play on a major campaign for 2008.
Congratulations to Kirsten and Brian Halloran. Liam Joseph Halloran was born on June 23, 2007 (21 minutes after the couple arrived at the hospital). That's the second child for the Hallorans. Declan is two and a half years old.
ECM Publishing's Tim Budig wrote a flattering profile of DFL State Auditor Rebecca Otto.
In an enticing email exchange with your publisher, former Independent U.S. Sen. Dean Barkley proffered that former Independent Gov. Jesse Ventura might be thinking about running for President.
Former would-be gubernatorial candidate Jonathon 'the Impaler' Sharkey has also just filed to run for President, according to his FEC filing. While Sharkey never made it to the state ballot because of outstanding warrants, but his proposal to impale captured terrorists on stakes in front of the Capitol amused many, along with his Website's claim that a bad romance turned him towards Satan.
Tough times in Duluth. The city faces a nearly $7 million budget shortfall.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar launched her new official Senate website today during her weekly meeting with Minnesotans in Washington D.C. The website klobuchar.senate.gov will give readers access to information on the Senator's work and positions.
Where is your $3.359 a gallon going? Middle East Emirs? Greedy Oil Company Execs? "Research" for alternative energies? Go discuss with the Citizens League's "Policy and a Pint®: The Price of Gas," Thursday, July 19th. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., program begins at 6:00 p.m. at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis (click here for directions). Cost: $10, $5 for students with valid ID. Click here to register online, or call Annie Levenson-Falk at 651-293-0575 ext. 16.
The Minnesota Campaign Finance & Public Disclosure Board fined Sen. Michael Jungbauer (R-East Bethel) for not disclosing a discount he recieved for model airplanes. Jungbauer bought 13 planes to sell at fundraisers from a company called Historic Sales. While Jungbauer maintains that he thought he was getting a discount because of the number of planes he bought, the Board ruled otherwise.
Norman Borlaug will be receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor in a ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda on July 17th. Borlaug, whose work with disease resistant grain landed him a 1970 Nobel Peace Prize, is a University of Minnesota Graduate.
Roger K. Johnson is joining Lockridge Grindal Nauen P.L.L.P. as a lobbyist. Johnson will advise, assist and advocate for physicians, physician group practices, practice administrators and specialty societies at the Capitol and in state agencies in St. Paul.
SuperRondo Superhighway? MnDOT, NASCO, and plans for the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway
St. Paul's Rondo Days festival is right around the corner on July 21st. Rondo, of course, was the primarily black neighborhood obliterated when I-94 was built and blasted through, a route selected because of the neighborhood's lack of political clout. Deploying the "Stops-4-Us" message, the University Avenue Community Coalition plans to raise awareness about the potential damage to their neighborhoods because of the proposed Central Corridor light rail project, which they fear will remove parking, disrupt commerce and fail to offer enough stops for their community. The federal government wants fewer stops on the Corridor to reduce trip time, or else federal funds will be jeopardized. As one UACC organizer said to PIM, this federal policy has effectively removed transit stops from other urban communities around the nation.
On a much larger scale, proposals are now being drawn up for large transportation networks across America piggybacking on the interstate highway system. PIM has obtained documents from the Minnesota Department of Transportation about proposals to create major international transportation corridors along I-35 and I-94. The documents were obtained from MnDOT via the Minnesota Data Practices Act by local lawyer Nathan Hansen and posted on his blog and law firm's website. We have packaged the PDFs into a 66 MB ZIP archive available here through PIM's website.
The major group coordinating this effort is North America's Supercorridor Coalition, or NASCO. The MnDOT files include many strategic public relations emails among NASCO, lobbyists, government employees across the country, in Canada and Mexico, as well as grant applications specifying the exact nature of NASCO projects. Many emails among MnDOT personnel are also included. These documents formed the basis for a report by Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily, which also discussed MnDOT's views of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's (R) position on the matter. (Officially, he doesn't have one). The documents confirm that MnDOT agreed to join NASCO for a specially discounted price of $15,000, money that perhaps could have been better spent patching I-35W's potholes.
NASCO's website declares that I-35 is already the NAFTA superhighway; the group is not trying to build some vast network. Oklahoma City's mayor recently agreed [GoogleVideo] that I-35 was "really a part of that NAFTA corridor," and the U.S., Canada and Mexico should really be one economy. Both publicly and privately, NASCO brushes off the supposedly sinister nature of their project, which they say is intended to benefit the economy and alleviate congestion. Also MnDOT provided NASCO an index of projects along I-35 and I-94 in an effort to get NASCO's Washington lobbyists to coordinate better funding.
Also released were NASCO public relations documents describing how to spin media coverage, and MnDOT emails about media incidents. Oddly, NASCO distributed PR material disambiguating themselves, the cross-border Security and Prosperity Partnership, and even the Council on Foreign Relations, among their materials sent to Minnesota.
Interestingly, NASCO discusses an advanced systems integration platform called NAFTRACS (North American Facilitation of Transportation, Trade, Reduced Congestion and Security Project), which would be developed by SAVI, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, which already handles shipping container logistics for the Pentagon's Global Transportation Network. The NAFTRACS "integration pilot program will automatically gather, correlate, and interpret fragments of multi-source (Radar, AIS, & GPS tracks, Open Source, Intelligence, Watch list & Law Enforcement Report, CCTV, Bioterrorism sensors) data together into one collaborative portal-based environment, an [sic] ultimately a Total Transportation Domain Awareness Center of Excellence." The NASCO Center of Excellence and Total Domain Awareness Center would be the "centerpiece of the corridor coalition; will engage in studies, development and deployment activities; will seek funding & investment for a broad array of projects relevant to both the corridor and of current & national significance," including "the US-Mexico-Canada Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP); Hurricane Katrina/Rita impact; Cross-border trade facilitation and information sharing; inland ports network; counter-terrorism and security." In the last couple PDF files, the development of NAFTRACS through Lockheed Martin's advanced military-oriented research facility in Virginia is discussed at length.
PIM hasn't heard anything about this project through the grapevine; only nativist and conservative media outlets (what some would dub "right wing whacko") have focused on plans for continental integration. It seems unlikely that massive superhighways will be built along I-35, but still, it's quite interesting to examine the flurry of communications, message management and cross-border integration exposed by this set of documents. Check out the raw material; it's really quite unusual and informative. While activists in Texas and Oklahoma are raising a ruckus about the potential Rondoization of their counties, Minnesotans would be wise to look south and keep an eye out.
Politics in Minnesota: Setting the Record Straight
A few issues back, we wrote that former Independent U.S. Sen. Dean Barkley was being solicited by the DFL to run against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN6). To be clear, Barkley has been approached by DFLers, not the official DFL Party, which has most definitely NOT committed to keeping a DFL candidate out of the race of Barkley runs.
Politics In Minnesota: Lobbyist Watch
--Who is working what issues--
Morning Reports
