ScaifeNet because we can't let Soros have all the fun...

Sheila Corbett Kihne from the excellent blog “Activist Next Door” did something nobody else in the Twin Cities media seems to feel the need to do; she started asking questions about Mark Dayton’s biography: Mark Dayton’s current website biography reads: After college, I taught 9th grade general science for two years in a New York City [...]

With all the distractions and disruptions brought about by the ubiquitous digital devices of the day, it's no wonder that parents worry about their children enjoying the same sort of carefree childhood experiences that they did. But firsthand experience with three young boys has taught me that these fears are mostly overblown. For while it's easy to see how much things have changed, when you stopChadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03781053410876242483noreply@blogger.com

While it's always problematic to look at polls before Labor Day, the latest from Minnesota Public Radio on the governor's race shows a dead heat between Tom Emmer and Mark Dayton. Both have the support of 34%, with Tom Horner checking in at 13% and 19% not offering an answer.

You can look at this a number of ways. Here are a few things I'd suggest:

• Dayton and his minions (and I would include Matt Entenza in that collection) have spent millions of dollars demonizing Tom Emmer all summer long, with very little response from the Emmer camp. If the best they are able to do is get a tie, that doesn't bode well for Dayton.
• There's no point in pretending that Emmer's campaign hasn't had a few hiccups up to this point. The tip credit flap was an unforced error and he's been slow to respond to some of the calumnies that have been heaped upon him thus far. While it's good to see him starting to respond now, his passivity has been puzzling and often maddening. It's not what we saw in the primary.
• The current economic conditions in Minnesota aren't as dire as they are in, say, Nevada, which has allowed Dayton to run the sort of campaign that would have been laughed off elsewhere. That could change, though. One thing worth remembering is that many voters will start seeing the first fruits of Obamacare in October, when they get the bad news about their insurance premiums going up. That won't help the standard-bearer of the party that is responsible for these increases.
• Some observers think that Horner will be a big factor, but I'm not convinced of that. He has the same problem that Jesse Ventura has: even if he could get elected, he'd have no friends in St. Paul and would have very little ability to move the debate. While it's been nearly a decade since ol' Jesse was in office, there are enough Minnesotans who remember what that was like and won't relish a repeat.
  

So much stuff in the hopper; so little time to finish it all. But there are a few things in the works here that I thought I’d mention – partly to “tease” it, partly because posting it makes me feel committed to getting it all done. How The Hell Does Emmer Win This Thing?: Not really a [...]

It’s just an MPR poll. But we’re just about two months from the election – so we’re getting to the point that a well-done poll is getting to be worth something. The poll – which focuses on likely voters, whom conventional wisdom says tend to break for the GOP – shows that the money Dayton’s spent on [...]

I thought this part of MPR’s piece on the MPR/Humphrey Institute poll was interesting: While Democrats in Minnesota often rely on the lopsided support of women to win elections, a significant gender gap has not materialized in the 2010 gubernatorial race. Women favor Dayon and men favor Emmer by similar margins as in the education gap. The [...]

Reading through MPR’s piece on the latest MPR/Humphrey Institute poll: Both Dayton and Emmer are seeing the effects of voter backlashes as both President Obama and Gov. Tim Pawlenty appear to be hurting their party’s chances. Of likely voters in Minnesota, 64 percent say the U.S. is on the wrong track, while 53 percent say the [...]

The latest MPR/Humphrey Institute poll is showing a tossup Tom Emmer and Democrat Mark Dayton are running are running even in the 2010 race for governor according to a new MPR News-Humphrey Institute Poll… …Among likely voters, Mark Dayton and Tom Emmer are even at 34 percent support each. Independence Party candidate Tom Horner received 13 percent [...]

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius might want to hit the rewind button on this one:


“Unfortunately, there still is a great deal of confusion about what is in [the reform law] and what isn’t,” Sebelius told ABC News Radio in an interview Monday.

“So, we have a lot of reeducation to do,” Sebelius said.

I believe they call that inartful phrasing.

Alaska’s Libertarians freeze the state’s U.S. Senate race. With the GOP primary between Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Joe Miller headed into overtime, Alaska’s Libertarian Party suddenly found their own Senate prospects switching from irrelevant to relevant.  Between D.C. rumors of Murkowski courting the LP for ballot access and the willingness of the party’s own Senate nominee to step [...]

I’d like to thank Hugh Hewitt and Duane Patterson for inviting me on the Hewitt Show at the Fair this evening. For those of you who might be new to the blog, here are some of the stories I referred to when talking with Hugh: Here’s my takedown of a half-witted Star Tribune hit piece on Tom [...]

THE ELDER RIBBITS: The resemblance is uncanny, with the main difference being that Kermit projects a far more masculine appearance than our Commander in Chief.JBhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03228486535363352996noreply@blogger.com

One of the highlights of my social season (such as it is) is the Northern Alliance Radio Network’s broadcasts from the MN State Fair.  We always do two Saturdays (in and among a few weeknights here and there), and it’s always a blast. And this year, I have a camera (sorta)! Walking onto the fairgrounds this year [...]

Watching this piece from “UN Watch” – in which a retired British army officer defends the IDF’s relentlessly-scrupulous efforts to avoid civilian casualties during their last counter-terror assaults against Hamas in Gaza… …I’m reminded of my conversation with Keith Ellison last year on Marty Owings’ “Radio Free Nation”. ME:  (after reading the part of the Hamas Charter [...]

Rally Funnels Anger Toward Washington (WSJ-sub req):Attendees on Saturday packed nearly a mile of the Mall at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial, in an event that carried the tone of a religious revival. Many at the event said in interviews that they were drawn by a sense of deep disenchantment over the country's direction, alarm over government spending and a sense that the country's political Chadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03781053410876242483noreply@blogger.com

Getting ready to go on the Rob Port show on AM1100 The Flag in Fargo.  Tune in! UPDATE:  Talked about the Tracker story, and the rumors about Mike Hatch’s interest in the gubernatorial race. UPDATE 2:  Here’s the audio:

Count the references to the crowd at the Beck/Palin rally being “overwhelmingly white“.  Why, it’s almost as if there’s a back-channel discussion group for the liberal/mainstream media to coordinate chanting points and narrative peaks or something. Although slipups happen.  Heads will no doubt roll. How desperate was the leftymedia to find some evidence – any evidence at [...]

It occurred to me this morning. The key thing about the scurrilous ads that Mark Dayton has subcontracted Alliance for a Better Minnesota is this: the attacks on Emmer have more to do with Dayton's flaws than Emmer's. The two best examples:

• If you keep hammering Emmer about drunk driving arrests from 20 and 30 years ago, it makes it more difficult for Emmer's campaign to mention that Dayton's problems with the bottle are far more extensive, and far more recent, than anything Emmer has faced.
• If you hammer Emmer about missing votes in the Legislature (side note: how many votes did Barack Obama miss while he was running for president?), it makes it far more difficult for Emmer's campaign to mention that Dayton shut down his offices in 2004.

You have to give the Dayton people credit for figuring that out.

The word’s been knocking around the blogosphere:  The “Socialist Party of America” had named seventy “socialist” US Senators and Representatives. The problem?: Quote: The Socialist Party of America announced in their October 2009 newsletter that 70 Congressional democrats currently belong to their caucus. The problem here is the Socialist Party of America does not exist. The second problem is [...]

It’s interesting; while the Dayton campaign is jumping up and down like a mountain baboon about Emmer’s supposed lack of specifics on the budget (so far), Dayton is being pretty vague on another wedge-y issue: In direct conflict with FOCA, a Dayton spokesperson said in a WNMT Radio story Thursday that Dayton supports parental notification for [...]