North Star Politics

I'd be remiss in not linking to a new brainchild of the Minnesota political blogosphere: Minvolved, the product of a collaboration between MNPublius' Matt and Clever Peasantry's Mr. Sponge. I'm excited to see this site develop; it has a lot of promise and its founders are bloggers I have a lot of respect for. Check it out, and check back as things start to get going.

There are a bunch of collaborative projects in this corner of the blogosphere, and I'm a huge fan of them. They aggregate a few viewpoints in one place, and they're usually very well-written and interesting, because nobody's going to invite a crappy, boring writer to their blog. DFLSenate is a good, if low-key, example of this, as is Knowledge (to which I post woefully infrequently). I think that we also have a head start on our Republican colleagues in this area, which is of course just another reason to keep pushing ahead.

As I write this, there is no story (on the Strib's politics page) about Patty Wetterling dropping out. Why? This is the major Minnesota political story today.

No word on her plans.

Gee, if I were them, I would be too. They've lost the center already, and if they lose their faithful, no one will vote for them in November.

Mr. Sponge speak, I listen. You should too.

UPDATE: Oh, the title of the post clearly doesn't refer to the right honorable Mr. Sponge, but rather to Republican Minnesota's assertions of Democrats' failing to return "Abramoff-tainted money".

From C&B, it looks like Patty Wetterling will drop from the Senate race. This leaves Amy Klobuchar the nominee presumptive. I hope that Patty will run in the 6th - it gives her a great chance to be a member of the 110th Congress, even if it's not in the position she had hoped for.

More soon.

Republican Minnesota has been trying my patience for the last few weeks with a series of posts that make me want to scream about how misleading, stupid, or outright false they are. I've been trying to post about them, but I just don't have the time at the moment. I'm just grateful there are excellent people in the blogosphere who write exactly what I'm thinking.

"WE'RE CORRUPT, BUT SO ARE THEY!"

Except not a single Democrat got so much as one dime from Jack Abramoff. Not one. Democrats aren't perfect, but they're sure as hell doing a lot better than Republicans these days. Can anyone really refute that?

State can collect tobacco feetax money, but not spend it.

Pawlenty's office should be reimbursing the state for the money they spend on fighting this in court. It would not be an issue if the governor was the least bit honest. It's okay, though; he didn't raise your taxes.

Today we remember a great man who gave his life in the fight for equality and justice - causes which, even today, we must continue fighting for.

Dr. King, you will never be forgotten.

This post by Trillin highlights an excellent question: why is Kelly Doran running the way he has been? Many of his political moves, capped by his pick of Sheila Kiscaden for Lt. Gov., have made almost no sense viewed in the context of winning a primary. It appears that he's counting on conservative DFLers and independents to make it to the general election, but these constituencies present a huge problem, namely that they're very unlikely to come out and vote in a primary in the kinds of numbers that are likely to carry the ticket. Doran's money will only win him so many more reliable primary voters, so the question must again be asked: how is he going to win?

I particularly agree with Trillin's assessment that Doran would have been much better off tapping a known DFL name. If I'd been giving him political advice, I would have said that he should pick a female, outstate liberal. While Sheila Kiscaden certainly fits the first two characteristics, she sure doesn't meet the third, which may well be the one that's most important to survive the primary. He's just not such a great candidate that he should be expecting unproven voters to show up for him in droves, especially when there's no proven progressivism on the ticket that more liberal DFLers can vote for. Doran's strategy would make a lot of sense if he was the only DFL candidate, or even the front runner, but unfortunately for him, the way the race looks, he's well on his way to a stomping in September.