Meet The New Boss
Some people have a hard time accepting change.
I've said it in this blog and on the show; Minnesota, as far as Republicans are concerned, is where the national party was 20 years ago. The Reagan Revolution skipped Minnesota, where the Republican Party had largely split with the national party after Watergate and skittered off to the left. James Lileks once joked to his friends in DC that Minnesota was a state where the gubernatorial race was between the pro-choice, pro-gun control, pro-tax candidate, and the Democrat - and in the MNGOP of Arne Carlson, that was the truth. Minnesota Republicans in the eighties and most of the nineties were like national Republicans in the sixties and early seventies; like Democrats with better suits, down to the broad approval for big government, big intervention, big spending.
The national GOP of course still fights with its past - George W. Bush is hardly the prototype Reagan conservative. But here in Minnesota - especially the Twin Cities - we still fight the battle daily. And nobody fans those flames like the Minneapolis Star/Tribune - which represents a DFL that benefitted from having a GOP that was basically a pale imitation of itself, in a Minnesota that fell meekly in line behind the Strib's lead on most things.
Nick Coleman is a symptom of this:
Republicans helped build these beautiful cities, of which we are so proud. Contrary to the propaganda, Democrats have not always ruled here. Only one Democrat (Rudy Perpich) has been governor in the past 30 years.
To be accurate, Arne Carlson (and Jesse Ventura) was a Democrat in all but name.
Which is, of course, the kind of Republican the Strib likes the most.
There's this bit of local mythology that's crept up ever since the Republicans started acting like Republicans, starting in the mid-nineties and switching to fever pitch when neo-conservative Tim Pawlenty won the governor's race in '02; "Minnesota was built on cooperation!". Supposedly, in the Minnesota of the sixties and seventies as in the America of the forties through the mid-seventies, everyone worked together with a utopian vision of a better Minnesota (that conveniently was exactly the DFL's high-tax, high-"service", high-intervention vision. And the "visions" came from the same exact place; Democrat control of the White House, Congress (and Saint Paul) from the thirties through the sixties (with an eight year break under Eisenhower, who we'd call a "RINO" on most fiscal issues today).
The Strib, like so much of the Minnesota establishment, pines for the good ol' days:
Rather than turning the Midwest "redder," we'd like to see the Republican Party, perhaps by osmosis, take on our shade of Minnesota purple. The party has lurched far to the right in recent years. Maybe a visit to the Twin Cities can inspire moderation and a regaining of equilibrium.
Where "equilibrium"="comfortable stagnancy for the nannystaters who long for the days when the Strib Editorial Board had genuine power in this state".
Posted by Mitch at
October 2, 2006 07:49 AM
| TrackBack
Since you're now revising the list of who's a Republican and who's a Democrat, it would be helpful to obtain some additional clarification about who is truly a Republican.
Let's start with Norm Coleman and Jim Ramstad. Republicans?
Posted by: Rick Mons at October 2, 2006 12:25 PMSince you're now revising the list of who's a Republican and who's a Democrat, it would be helpful to obtain some additional clarification about who is truly a Republican.
Let's start with Norm Coleman and Jim Ramstad. Republicans?
Posted by: Rick Mons at October 2, 2006 12:25 PMRick, you know damn well what Mitch and Nick Coleman are talking about: Kenwood Republicans, as we used to call them. The GOP never got anywhere in this state until we started ignoring them and paying more attention to the Taxpayers League types and what Eva Young calls the "theocrats".
Posted by: Kevin at October 2, 2006 01:24 PMRick, you know damn well what Mitch and Nick Coleman are talking about: Kenwood Republicans, as we used to call them. The GOP never got anywhere in this state until we started ignoring them and paying more attention to the Taxpayers League types and what Eva Young calls the "theocrats".
Posted by: Kevin at October 2, 2006 01:24 PMA plague on both your parties.
Posted by: PaulC at October 2, 2006 02:37 PMWhat would be great is to chuck the GOP altogether and start over with a Conservative Party.
Let Republicans have their Bush and their Pawlenty and other such things.
We need a Buckley. That's what we need.
nremypnp [URL=http://avhxzhaq.com]hahnyzqy[/URL] xnixrinw http://dhmzhxwv.com eaxyfutq yijicoro
Posted by: ezoneexz at October 2, 2006 05:10 PM"Nannystaters"?! What a laugh, your administration commits 320Billion plus to corporate croneyism and another 1.5 Trillion in tax cuts for the richest Americans, and you complain about needing government to take care of people?
Hypocrisy, thy name is Neo-Con. We've had 6 years of raiding the treasury for a lie to make the richest even more rich, but you decry the efforts to keep people from starving (if they are illegal imigrants)or provide assistance to autistic dependents in home.
You have some whacked-out priorities bud.
Posted by: ted at October 2, 2006 06:19 PMOh, Paul, while I don't agree with Buckley on all things, at least he's a lot more honest than Bush Co./Pawlenty and Norm. Smaller government is a fine idea as long was we can keep people from falling through the cracks and we recoginize that companies are in the business of making money AND being part of the fabric of a community. They are not there to abscond with federal or state dollars, as Pawlenty has done with the Twins, and Bush with Iraq.
I agree entirely, it is time for actual conservatives (those who are totally unlike M. Berg here, as they have the class and honesty to call a spade (Bush) a spade), to stand-up, speak truth to the corruption that exists, and work with people who may be more "bleeding heart" than they are, but who are interested in good policy being formed, not just blind obedience and political victory. Buckley is 1000 miles closer to that (as is Pat Buchannon and was Barry Goldwater) than is Pawlenty, one M. Berg, or Bush. For that matter, as a liberterian democrat leaning independent I'M one heckuva lot closer to Buckley than is Bush, Berg, or Coleman. They've tossed aside any faithfulness to small government, to principals and to honesty (and civil work to engage in development of real policy). Instead, they embrace a Rovian world of political dominance where failures are dressed up as successes. Woodward had it right, Bush and Co. have no interest in hearing anything bad, and so they repeat one failure after another, and claim the only real problem is the bad press.
News flash to Mitch, the issue isn't RINO's, it isn't the press, it's you, the abandonment of principal, and the incipid desire to cast your critics as the devil (or near enough) and something to be hated. Such a reaction has lead to zero real progress on really important issues. It's time for the honest conservatives to throw these bums out.
Posted by: ted at October 2, 2006 06:29 PM"They are not there to abscond with federal or state dollars, as Pawlenty has done with the Twins, and Bush with Iraq."
Posted by: Terry at October 2, 2006 06:53 PMThis sentence doesn't make any sense, Ted.
Newsflash to Ted:
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
PaulC:
Posted by: Kermit at October 2, 2006 10:22 PMGet off your dead ass and take control of the GOP. You have a better chance of forcing true conservative agenda there than you ever will through some candyland ego trip third party. Ask Harry Browne. Oh Wait, you can't. He's dead, and so is his "Party".
This just in...
Republican leaders wave the white flag...
QALAT, Afghanistan U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan guerrilla war can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Taliban and their supporters into the Afghan government.
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/ap/2006/10/02/asia/AS_GEN_Afghanistan_Frist.php
Posted by: Doug at October 2, 2006 10:31 PMRepublicans = traitors
Sucker.
http://www.volpac.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=483
Posted by: Eracus at October 3, 2006 12:51 AMBill Frist responds...
er... um... uh...
I didn't really mean what I said... I mean, don't use my own words to draw conclusions... I mean... the liberals distorted what I said...
I mean, yeah I SAID those things but you just heard it wrong...
Posted by: Doug at October 3, 2006 08:02 AMUm-hmm, sure. In an election year, the AP and the International Herald Tribune (owned by the NYTimes) would never ever distort the remarks of the Republican Senate majority leader traveling outside the country.
Posted by: Eracus at October 3, 2006 08:52 AMHey, Ted: Your post reeks of projection. Abandonment of principles? Check. Casting critics as the devil and something to be hated? Check. Sounds just like the DFL I know and loathe.
Posted by: Kevin at October 3, 2006 09:08 AMEracus said,
"...would never ever distort the remarks of the Republican Senate majority leader traveling outside the country."
So now printing quotes is tantamount to distortion?
Posted by: Doug at October 4, 2006 06:57 AMContext is pretty much everything, Doug.
Posted by: mitch at October 4, 2006 12:56 PM