Schizophrenic Voters of Minnesota

I live in a state where it is not unusual to see brand new cars adorning green Wellstone bumpers stickers. Senator Wellstone died tragically in a plane crash eight years ago, God rest his soul. He's not coming back...

This is of course the state that elected independent Jesse "the body" Ventura in a stunner back in the 90's as well as comedian turned politician Al Franken in 2008. Our senior Senator is a true leftist and so is our Secretary of State. This is a state that hasn't broken for a Republican Presidential candidate since Nixon in 72. In 84 we were the only state that didn't.

Despite all this we have not elected a Democrat Governor since the 80's. We have had several prominent Senators from the GOP including Norm Coleman and Rod Grams, two of the nation's most accomplished Senators without multiple terms under their belts. We've had constitutional officers from both parties that have been elected one after another, each from the far end of the political spectrum in their policies and their governance - enough real difference I tell you to cause whiplash!

Today, in 2010, we sit on the verge, if the polls can be believed of electing Mark Dayton, a serious flake, as our next governor. Succeeding Tim Pawlenty, who has been a decent steward of our state during tumultuous times, Dayton would be an about face of schizophrenic proportions. I can not image the tax burden placed on our citizens and our corporations had Pawlenty not been there. He has been blamed for kicking the can down the road on funding a 5 billion dollar deficit, but the truth is the Minnesota legislature is just slightly on the black side of the legislature in Sacramento California when it comes to spending money they do not have. Per capita our $5 billion deficit is on par with California's $25 billion. Pawlenty vetoed several out of whack budgets passed by the legislature - kicking the can this time was a joint compromise...

Mark Dayton is a former Senator of some repute. His claim to fame in the six years he spent in DC was to be the only politician to close up his office and flee when the terrorist threat level reached ORANGE. He looked a fool when nothing happened and shortly thereafter he announced he would not seek another term. Today he tops the polls for the office of Governor. How can this be?

Dayton's chief rival is Republican Tom Emmer. While I know little of Emmer - I supported the other guy in the primary, he seems a typical conservative who values small but effective state government and wants lower taxes and lower regulation on business expansion and formation. What I have found out since the primary that Emmer is actually the Devil. Satan himself. He eats little babies for breakfast and old people and immigrants for lunch. And how do I know this? Why I heard it on TV commercials funded by PAC's that support Dayton. When you look into the biggest of them, Alliance for a Better Minnesota and WIN Minnesota you find they are funded in large part by Dayton's own family. In case you didn't know this is old family money from the Dayton Hudson Department store chain which is now part of Macy's. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been donated by family. Not illegal, but not forth coming either.

No one except a few right wing bloggers have investigated Dayton's funding. The papers and TV news stations have been silent. But not so for Emmer. When certain prominent local corporations like Target and Best Buy donated to a PAC that has supported Emmer they were taken to the proverbial woodshed by progressives with a cause. Isn't funny that Target which is a spin-off of Dayton Hudson would prefer the other guy? Target was a "target" of a boycott by GLBT activists for daring to indirectly support Emmer. Target apologized and promised not to do it again! You see Emmer's sin is to support the notion that the citizens of Minnesota should be able to vote directly on same-sex marriage issues. What a tyrant!

Much has been made of Emmer's DWI arrests from his younger days but the local media doesn't breath a word about the fact that Dayton is an alcoholic (recovering) having relapsed as late as 2007 and has been institutionalized for mental health problems.

Emmer is not helped by the fact that a third party candidate, Mr. Common Sense Solutions is on ballot again this year. The schizophrenic voters of Minnesota love common sense in theory, but since they have none Tom Horner will likely siphon votes from Emmer because Dayton's supporters don't really like common sense that much (common sense says that over taxing the producers of jobs, ie: the rich, is stupid).

So, if Dayton wins Minnesota's reputation will be intact. We seem to love the fact that we're different up here, or maybe we don't. Maybe we only think we're different. We know that you know that we know we're only different on election day, otherwise we have the same differences as everyone else except for those who say they're different when deep inside they're really the same.


CW