October 3, 2014
Oct 03 02:00 Highlighting McFadden's leadership Oct 03 04:30 Debate, Johnson vs. Dayton edition Oct 03 06:25 MnSCU, more money, no oversight Oct 03 09:12 Highlighting Gov. Dayton's spin Oct 03 11:46 Forum endorses McFadden Oct 03 18:45 Walker's surge continues
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Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Highlighting McFadden's leadership
During Wednesday's debate, one important point kept getting made. Though the DFL and Al Franken want the point to that Al Franken voted with Harry Reid and President Obama 97% of the time, that isn't the important point. These videos highlight the truly important point:
Here's the transcript of Sen. Franken engaging in DCSpeak:
So much of the rail use is for the Bakken crude. Now I've been going to the Surface Transportation Board since I got to the Senate. Captive rail is something that I've been very interested in. I actually worked with Sen. David Vitter, the Republican of Louisiana, to get the cost of filing a complaint with the Surface Transportation Board, which regulates the railroads, from $20,000 to $350 so people can file a complaint.
Here's Mike McFadden talking about solving the railcar shortage crisis:
Here's the transcript:
Al, with all due respect, your lack of an energy policy and the lack of an energy policy from President Obama has caused the rail car shortage. There's not been one pipeline built. You haven't approved any pipeline. The Keystone Pipeline has been under the review process for 6 years. That is crazy. That is too long. Pipelines are proven to be the most effective, the most efficient, the most environmentally sensitive way to transport oil. Until you start passing pipelines, we'll have a railcar shortage. I know how to fix this economy. I know how to get us back on the road to growth and prosperity and you are putting Band-Aids as opposed to going to root causes. We need pipelines in this country. I want everyone in this room and in this state I am for pipelines. I will get them built.
Sen. Franken essentially told Minnesota he talked to the Surface Transportation Board to show he wasn't ignoring people. It wasn't that he'd solved farmers' problems. It's that he did something.
Meanwhile, Mike McFadden told Minnesotans that he'd find a solution to the railcar shortage that's hurting farmers and miners. He presented himself as a solutions-oriented man and as a leader. Al Franken isn't a leader. He's a rubberstamp. He's kept his head down because opening his mouth on important issues would expose him as an ideologue who does what Harry Reid tells him to do.
In the past, Minnesota's senators have been leaders. Al Franken isn't following in those footsteps. He's just doing what Harry Reid and the environmental extremists have told him to do.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2014 2:00 AM
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Debate, Johnson vs. Dayton edition
Wednesday night, Jeff Johnson highlighted the differences between his main street governing approach and Gov. Dayton's metrocentric governing approach. This video highlights that difference:
Here's the transcript of Commissioner Johnson's response:
There was an increase in local government aid last year under the all-DFL government we have but there was also the largest portion, I believe, that we've ever seen of local government aid going to Minneapolis. That's at the direct expense of communities in Greater Minnesota. And that has been a pretty common theme in the Dayton administration. Greater Minnesota, in many ways, has become an afterthought in this state, whether you're talking about where we're spending our transportation dollars at, whether you're looking at K-12 education funding formula, whether you're looking at some of the regulations that are killing our farmers and our miners and our loggers in this state or whether you're looking at LGA. There's a very metrocentric philosophy at the Capitol right now.
That reply exposed the DFL's metro-first governing philosophy while highlighting Commissioner Johnson's prioritizing Greater Minnesota. A vote for Gov. Dayton isn't just a vote for reckless spending. It's a vote for the DFL to ignore Greater Minnesota for another 4 years.
This was the biggest jaw-dropping moment of the debate:
Earlier in the day, Gov. Dayton said that he hasn't lost sleep over MNsure in his attempt to sound like MNsure's problems are fixed. They definitely aren't fixed. Here's the next bombshell that Commissioner Johnson dropped on Gov. Dayton:
Saying that he'll "fire the entire MNsure board and top staff because they're incompetent" was definitely unexpected. It's definitely justified, though. When Pat Kessler says that he thinks that people at MNsure lied to him . Jim Nobles, the Legislative Auditor, is auditing MNsure .
I didn't notice this initially but it's noteworthy because it's Gov. Dayton's government-knows-best moment:
This won't hurt Gov. Dayton within the DFL but it might hurt him with women. It's possible that they'll say that they know what their families need and that they don't need government telling them what they need.
It took more than 40 minutes but they finally got to the Dayton-DFL economy before jumping into PolyMet. Commissioner Johnson's back-and-forth with Gov. Dayton was especially interesting:
Gov. Dayton better hope that people on the Range don't hear him say that he's opposed to pushing mining without a lengthy, expensive, environmental review. They've endured 9 years of review for PolyMet. There's no question that it's safe. The only people who think precious metals mining isn't safe are the environmental activists in the Twin Cities, which is the dominant wing in the DFL right now.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2014 4:30 AM
Comment 1 by Rex Newman at 03-Oct-14 08:20 AM
I was there, and posted some comments over at Bill Glahn's site: http://billglahn.blogspot.com/.
Everything you say is true, except I doubt more than 4.5% of Democrats can even understand what we're talking about. Most Democrats were probably just relieved that the Governor got through most of the debate, though his closing statement should give us all pause as to his true medical situation.
MnSCU, more money, no oversight
Apparently, the DFL is trying to pander to MnSCU executives. This article sounds like the DFL's attempt to pander to MnSCU voters:
DFL leaders said today they would work to provide more money for higher education and work closely with the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system to ensure each system is becoming more efficient in order to better direct state dollars toward tuition stabilization and reduction.
That's DFL demagoguery at its worst. The DFL never insists that government becomes more efficient. The next time they insist on MnSCU spend the taxpayers' money efficiently, it'll be the first time that the DFL will have insisted that MnSCU spend the taxpayers' money efficiently.
The DFL chairs of the House and Senate Higher Education committees didn't find out that Chancellor Rosenstone had gotten a big raise and a new contract until 9 months after the fact. They didn't know that Chancellor Rosenstone paid McKinsey and Co. $2,000,000 until after the fact. Here's how important it was to hire McKinsey:
Dean Frost, a professor at Bemidji State University and a former management consultant who reviewed some of the documents McKinsey produced, said the playbooks feature general, common-sense instructions on conducting a task force. He said the supporting research mostly includes publicly available materials rather than reports generated specially for MnSCU.
In other words, the work McKinsey did wasn't particularly enlightening but it was expensive. Now the DFL expects me to buy the notion that they'll actually pay attention? They expect me to buy into the notion that they'll reform MnSCU? Why would I buy into that? This part leads me to think that the DFL isn't trustworthy:
In an election year where candidates are promising to make education more affordable, the Minnesota House DFL says it wants to freeze tuition at Minnesota's public higher education institutions until 2017. The effort would build on an existing tuition freeze through 2015.
That isn't what happened in 2013-14. First, the DFL legislature imposed a tuition freeze on MnSCU universities in 2013. In 2014, the DFL legislature passed a supplemental appropriation of $17,000,000. Then it negotiated a contract with the IFO. When MnSCU got the $17,000,000, it didn't spend the money on the new contract, which is what the supplemental appropriation was supposed to pay for. It went elsewhere.
That means the DFL legislature froze tuition, raised the universities' biggest cost substantially, then told the universities that they'd have to figure out how to pay the higher contract costs without raising tuition. Meanwhile, Chancellor Rosenstone paid McKinsey $2,000,000 for work they could've done in-house and President Potter insists that losing $7,500,000 in 5 years on the Coborn's Plaza Apartments is a great success for SCSU.
That last part is especially galling considering the fact that a) Zach Dorholt is the Vice-Chair of the House Higher Education Committee and b) SCSU is in his district. He's paid no attention to SCSU except to rally students for his campaign this fall.
These aren't the actions of politicians that are committed to making sure that the taxpayers' money is spent efficiently on necessities. They're the actions of politicians pandering to voters. Period.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2014 6:25 AM
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Highlighting Gov. Dayton's spin
This AP article highlights Gov. Dayton's spin that the DFL isn't metrocentric:
"Greater Minnesota in many ways has become an afterthought in this state, whether you're looking at where we spend our transportation dollars, whether you are looking at K-12 funding formulas, whether you're looking at some of the regulations that are killing our farmers, our miners and our loggers in this state," said Johnson, a Hennepin County commissioner. He said he'd rejigger aid programs to send fewer dollars to center cities and more to distressed towns.
Dayton took offense and pointed to a massive Mayo Clinic expansion project underway and a water pipeline project deemed critical to southwestern Minnesota. "The facts just don't support what Commissioner Johnson alleges," Dayton said.
First, it needs to be highlighted that the DFL fought tooth and nail against the Lewis and Clark water pipeline project. Next, let's highlight what Jeff Johnson said and how Gov. Dayton didn't reply on topic. Jeff Johnson highlighted things transportation funding and K-12 funding formulas, things that are usually talked about during budget sessions. Gov. Dayton didn't talk about those things. Instead, he talked about a bonding project that the DFL didn't initially support and a special project.
My first question to Gov. Dayton would be to ask how building the Lewis and Clark water pipeline project and the DMC expansion help loggers, miners and farmers. I don't want to criticize the Lewis and Clark project but what does that have to do with regulations affecting agriculture, mining and logging? The only way to streamline regulations affecting loggers, miners and farmers is to streamline regulations affecting miners, farmers and loggers.
The Dayton administration has appropriated tons of money for Twin Cities transit projects but it's spent a pittance on roads and bridges in outstate Minnesota. These are verifiable facts. They aren't in dispute, at least amongst honest people.
Gov. Dayton tried portraying Minnesota's economy as robust, a point that Commissioner Johnson rebutted with last week's BLS report that shows Minnesota had the slowest private sector job creation in the Midwest. Gov. Dayton tried to obfuscate but the facts are the facts. They're laid out perfectly in a report from President Obama's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The strategy behind Gov. Dayton's spin is to distract attention away from MNsure's failures and how expensive health insurance is under MNsure/Obamacare. When Gov. Dayton says that Minnesota has the lowest rates in the nation, he's spinning. It's technically true but it's misleading. Health insurance premiums have gone up under the ACA. When people in the Small Group Market renewed their policies this past summer, they learned that their premiums went up by 30%-106%.
The only person that thinks that's a success is Gov. Dayton. The people paying those big increases certainly don't think it's a success.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2014 9:12 AM
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Forum endorses McFadden
This week, Forum Media endorsed GOP Senate candidate Mike McFadden:
If Mike McFadden brings the enthusiasm and focus to the U.S. Senate that he has brought to his candidacy, Minnesotans will be well served. Republican McFadden is challenging first-term Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and on balance the challenger is making the case for change.
Frankly, I've been impressed with Mr. McFadden's campaign. He's raised lots of money. He's put together a better-than-competent GOTV operation and he's a policy heavyweight.
While Franken has raised tons of money, the thing he doesn't have is gravitas. Honestly, Franken's a policy lightweight.
Nonetheless, McFadden's conservative recipe for Senate service comports well with the needs of Minnesota and the nation in the 21st century. His success in the private sector, while not necessarily a requirement for public office, is an impressive tool in his public policy kit. His dedication to education, including work in Minnesota to demonstrate what can be done if student-centered policies are implemented, can inform his Senate service.
McFadden's grasp of public policy helped him pummel Franken during their debate Wednesday.
After Franken talked about talking to the Surface Transportation Board about Minnesota's railcar shortage, McFadden pounced, saying that we'll have a railcar shortage until we start building pipelines. In a single exchange, he highlighted his leadership and grasp of policy. Meanwhile, Franken sounded like a typical politician who talks about things that are somewhat related but doesn't solve problems.
Franken's kept his head down so long that he hasn't figured out how to solve problems. He hasn't voted to create more pipelines, which is causing the railcar shortage. He hasn't pushed the EPA to accelerate the regulatory review process on PolyMet.
In other words, the thing Franken's famous for is taking up space in the Senate. Otherwise, they could train a yellow dog to vote with President Obama 159 times out of 161 votes.
Forum is right. Mike McFadden is making a substantive case for why he should be a US senator and why Al Franken simply isn't qualified to be a US senator. Few people can say they're better off today than when Barack Obama and Al Franken took office. The only people who are better off are stock traders and government employees. Their lives are going gangbusters.
Small businesses and people working in heavily regulated industries are taking a beating. Mike McFadden has a plan to grow the American economy at 4-5% annual growth. Al Franken and President Obama have proposed and voted for economic policies that have led to the slowest growing recovery in modern history.
The opportunity is now. We can vote for economic vitality or we can vote for more of the same. We can vote for leadership or we can vote for an erstwhile comedian who's kept his head down while Minnesota's economy struggled.
That's a pretty each choice.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2014 11:46 AM
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Walker's surge continues
The latest polling in the Walker-Burke race show Walker expanding his lead:
MILWAUKEE (News Release) - A new Marquette Law School Poll in the Wisconsin governor's race finds Republican Gov. Scott Walker receiving the support of 50 percent of likely voters and Democratic challenger Mary Burke receiving 45 percent support. Another 3 percent say that they are undecided or that they do not know whom they will support, while 1 percent say that they will vote for someone else. Likely voters are those who say they are certain to vote in the November election.
This is important because a) it's the first time Gov. Walker has topped 50% and b) it's a likely voter screen, which is typically the most predictive polling.
The Walker surge still isn't complete. There's still time for more momentum swings before the election. Still, there's no denying that Burke's credibility has been hurt. There's no question that the turning point was the plagiarism scandal. Since then, she's been on the defensive.
Ms. Burke wants to change the subject. That isn't happening because the media keeps finding discrepancies between her statements and new documents. Those documents show how extensive the plagiarism was. That's gonna hurt Burke until Election Day, in my opinion. Apparently, people have tuned her out because they can't trust her. It's one thing when the people think of politicians as corrupt. It's another when they're given verifiable documentation that the politician has lied repeatedly to them.
The trust that a candidate has built can crash in an instant because of a lie. If the candidate lies multiple times, that trust becomes difficult to rebuild. In this instance, it's led Gov. Walker out of a 3-point deficit and lifted him into a 5-point lead.
It's taken a little over 3 weeks to swing the polls. While I think Ms. Burke is damaged goods whose hopes are diminishing, that doesn't mean I think she can't mount a comeback. Gov. Walker should still run like he's 2 points down with 3 weeks to Election Day. He's just jumped into the lead. He needs to finish the race strong. That's the best way to fight complacency and arrogance.
Posted Friday, October 3, 2014 6:45 PM
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