The Weekly Wrap 8-17
It was a light week in Minnesota politics, but a few items bubbled up.
♣ Here’s the first sentence of a recent MPR story:
A record 35 candidates have filed to run for mayor of Minneapolis.
Which makes baby Thomas Jefferson cry. But no worries, you can rank your favorite three!
Ranked Choice Voting has some advantages over the traditional voting system, I won’t deny that. The elimination of the primary election though is not one of those. Having 35 candidates in the field (even if only a handful are serious) benefits no one and annoys everyone.
The reason people still remember that California gubernatorial recall election with hundreds of candidates isn’t because they are fondly remembering a great exercise in Democracy. It’s because they remember how stupid the whole thing was.
♣ Politics in Minnesota discussed the resurgent(?) Tea Party:
But if the last few months are any indication, the party’s not over. Energized by watching a full legislative session of DFL control and continued inaction in the federal government, new branches of the Tea Party have been springing up throughout the metro area. From April through the end of this month, five new suburban Tea Party groups will have held inaugural events.
As we have seen since it’s inception, the Tea Party can be both a boon to the GOP and a bane on it’s existence.
While the political climate that resulted in the Republicans taking back the United States House of Representatives as well as both chambers of the Minnesota legislature in 2010 can somewhat be attributed to the Tea Party. So too can the resulting intransigence and unwillingness to actually govern in a serious way that cost them in 2012.
The success of the Tea Party in 2010 has created real problems for Republicans in 2012.
Do you think they learned their lesson though? Well, if they were the type of people who learned life lessons, they wouldn’t be Republicans in the first place now would they.
♣ In the aftermath of losing the race for the White House despite backing up semi-truck loads of cash in front of Karl Roves house on a daily basis, many super-rich donors began to question whether such a tactic was wise.
One such super-rich person is Minnesota’s own Stanley Hubbard. He recently advocated for a return to the strategy, except send the trucks of money to some other guy:
In a fundraising letter, Stanley S. Hubbard of Hubbard Broadcasting and Thomas J. Rosen of Rosen’s Diversified, said they have each committed $50,000 to the Minnesota Action Network. They urged others to join them. With Democrats currently in charge of the governor’s office and the Minnesota Legislature, they said their goal for the 2014 election is to “return balance” to the Capitol.
To be fair to Mr. Hubbard, if you are going to continue with your truck loads of cash strategy, AAN may be just the group to send the trucks to. As I pointed out back in March:
It should be noted, AAN had one of the best cycles of all the Republican dark money groups in 2012. According to information compiled by the Sunlight foundation, AAN had a return on investment (ROI) of 60%. Compare that to some other well known Republican PACs like the Club for Growth (41%), Chamber of Commerce (7%) and American Crossroads (1%) and it’s clear that Coleman’s group is either better run, picks better candidates, or both.
Also, Stanley Hubbard is supporting the “buy local” movement this way as well! Who knew he was such a dirty hippie?
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