Update: Please don’t get distracted thinking that I’m a huge supporter of Phoenix or anything, this post is about control and who has it. The grassroots controlled party OR people who look at us as an obstacle.

I was at the CD4 GOP convention Saturday. Well, I visited CD3, 5, and 4. But ended the day at CD4. Near the end, Pat Anderson announced that the MNGOP has already decided to hand over its database operations and ownership to outside group(s), that everyone running for state leadership agreed and that it was going to happen. She said this is exactly what the DFL does and its time for the MNGOP to do so as well. - I’d heard the rumors about this, and have even supported the idea in the past.

The idea is supposed to be along the line of “The Colorado Model” where business, owners, big donors, or other interest groups or associations, etc  (like the Chamber & MN Biz Partnership) and/or “Super PACs” take over  and run the database. They build a system (or buy one), clean up the data, and allow people to use it. Its a good model if you have a singular goal, or agreed upon terms. It works very well for the DFL because their base knows that a Democrat winning is the most important thing. We as Republicans, have more principled values, and winning isn’t always all that matters. Many believe some if not most Republicans in public office are no different than Democrats.

When it comes time for the DFL GOTV machine to kick into gear, they push straight ticket no ‘ifs, and’s or but’s about it. They don’t moan and kvetch over this guy or that gal that voted this way once or didn’t pay their BPOU the respect it thought it deserved. Nope, for the DFL, the only thing that matters is that (D) after the name on the ballot and their activists, volunteers, and GOTV goon squad will fight tooth and nail for each and every voter to cast their vote for the Democrat, no questions.

MNGOP activists don’t work that way. While we need to learn from many of the DFL’s tactics in operations, our activists are not lemmings or slaves. If you take a good honest look, the DFL is an anti-grassroots party. Their conventions have checks and balances built in to prevent “getting it wrong” and if they do, their endorsed candidate usually loses in the Primary anyways to who ever the Unions want. Heck, they have quotas to get elected Delegate, walking sub caucuses designed to derail proceedings from the floor of taking control of the business before the body.

But enough of why I am glad I am not a slave in the DFL party.

The 3rd party database model for the MNGOP is probably going to have a buy in process. So if a candidate wants to have the data, there will be a fee or commitment made. I’m not sure if that would be financial, or pledge, or what. But just because BPOU Chair from SD99 says so and so is good so send them the password (like we currently have), isn’t going to fly when someone else owns that data now.

There is apparently a growing desire to go with a 3rd party database  in the MNGOP. Meanwhile, there’s also chest thumping about fighting June Primary because it would allow the Chamber and rich people to undermine the “grassroots” endorsement process. 

Do you spot the huge problem that I do?

On the one hand we want to hand over control and ownership of our biggest resource (data) but on the other we don’t want to trust these very same people in candidate selection.

Why is this a problem? In the DFL, if a local BPOU or CD isn’t doing what it is told to and the DFL needs that District for their plan, they send in the unions or send the work through an outside group. One of their local volunteer leaders isn’t cutting it or doesn’t like the candidate, in comes the paid professional staffer to run local operations.

While I see the merits of that strategy when it comes to winning at all costs, I know that MNGOP activists would scream ‘top down’ and say that you are supposed to walk on the green side of sod not the roots. (attempt to be funny and clever. FAIL)

On a statewide basis this could work, I do believe we GOP activists have to approach endorsements with a much more, just let the primary sort it out” approach. Sorry, but 2 duds in a row and well, fool me once….. I do fully support the endorsement process for Congressional & Legislative races. Its just that a contest of “last man standing” (how I explain the Caucus/endorsement/Delegate selection process) to have 2000 people decide who is best to appeal to 2 million Minnesotans is proving its own faults. The only people to have had any electroal success statewide in Minnesota have run in spite of the objections of the grassroots, that can’t be ignored.

Here’s an example of why the 3rd party model has serious flaws.

DFL Senator Terry Bonnoff is supported by right leaning groups that are likely to have control of the new 3rd party owned database Pat Anderson mentioned on Saturday. The MN Chamber endorsed DFLer Bonoff in 2010 over Republican Liberty Caucus Chair Norann Dillion and again in 2012 over GOP grassroots endorsed David Gaither.

If you are naive enough to think that the people “allegedly” ready to spend their 3rd party war chests to fix our data problem, are going to give a crap if the Executive Committee from SD99 hates the chosen candidate…. Heck, GOP State Rep. Ernie Leidiger endorsed the DFL opponent for GOP Sen. Ortmann. That kind of crap doesn’t work in the business world, and chances are, the business community and professionals are not going to have much patience for the usual grassroots infighting. They will see it as unproductive and quickly solve the problem, and that won’t be finding a new candidate. That will be cutting the problem out of the loop.

Going forward, if the MN Chamber or 3rd party entity,  controls access to the database, what happens to the GOP endorsed candidate or primary winner is different then theirs? Who gets the data? On whose authority? And what if the BPOU doesn’t agree? Do they pull support or access if our guy beats their gal because they know our guy just can’t and/or shouldn’t win?

Think about this folks. You wanna hand over “the data” to the very people you don’t trust to pick the candidates. What happens when grassroots activists pick a candidate other than the Chamber does? Who gets the data? Look at it from their point of view, they have a vested interest in winning elections, not our principles or platform.

Phoenix is far from perfect. I get that. But the party owns it. The party controls it. And the party is responsible and held accountable by the grassroots.

Now let’s get in to the case for why we should stay with Phoenix.

We own it, for better or worse, but *WE* own it. The Party owns it and everything in it. No one can tell us what we can and cannot do with it, and more importantly, no one can tell us what we can do “to” it.

Short of someone finding about $1.5 million dollars laying around give to the party to buy a brand new system, to replace all our VOIP phones, servers, websites, and other things, (This is above and beyond the current debt) the only other options are the 3rd party “Chamber” model” or the RNC system. I’ve gone over some of the bad points above on the 3rd party model so let’s look at the RNC system.

I believe the RNC system is no longer called Voter Vault, its something like Data Center or what not. But here’s the big rub, scrapping Phoenix and going tot he RNC system doesn’t remove the Phoenix budget line item from the party’s budget. From what I understand, we don’t just plug in to some server in DC. Its a DC based system but run locally. Basically they wrote the software, and we have to run it here locally.  We would still have to run and maintain that data here. (Just like we are right now.) It is shared back and forth, but we would still need staff, servers, resources, and money to run the RNC system for just Minnesota.

The fact of the matter is, in some states or select Congressional Districts, yes the RNC helps and pitches in, but given the condition of the Republican Party of Minnesota compared to the footing of the DFL’s and the recent electoral calamities that we have put forth for statewide officer, the RNC wisely won’t waste resources here on a losing proposition. Nor should they in my opinion. They shouldn’t subsidize  poorly run and performing state parties. Its time for the grassroots to share some blame in our state party’s last 4 years. Everyone is great at pointing fingers until they get in front of a mirror.  I’ll save that for a later time, but the point is, we elected Carey, Sutton, and Brodkorb as well as endorsed Emmer & Bills. The results speak for themselves. So does that ash heap over there known as the party.

Frankly I am getting sick and tired of fighting over who to blame for what went right and what went wrong.

Unless Joe Mauer retires from Baseball to run against Mark Dayton, the RNC & Governor’s association are not going to even take a phone call from Minnesota. And if we still haven’t had anyone begin to start talking to the general public and not focussed entirely on GOP Delegates, until next May or June after the endorsement, they will block our phone number because that’s too late.

And even if Matt Birk does run against Al Franken and we have the name ID battle on the same page, the NRSC & RNC are not going to even consider spending a dime in Minnesota. Their logic firmly grounded in the 2012 US Senate results where the grassroots candidate had the worst election performance in modern history for a statewide candidate from a major party, and there have still not been one single set of reforms or at least mea culpa’s over the condition of the party or quality of the candidate. (And yes, I am looking at you grassroots)

In my opinion, the notion of “I hate Phoenix because it doesn’t do what I want so anything has to be better”, it is a lateral move at best, but one we would regret forever. 

Because the chance of a Republican winning statewide in 2014 appear to be, logically, somewhere between slim and fat chance. Its funny, because that’s about the same odds as us getting a bunch of big names in for fundraisers or for RNC staffers and national money to be airdropped in. So if we think that the RNC system we agreed to use, should be changed to do something that works for a BPOU or even if we at the State level want it to be able to perform some new specific function, the RNC isn’t going to change it just for us. Its a one size fits all solution and that’s a problem. Minnesota is a unique state.

Admittedly, I never seen or ever used the RNC system so maybe it is perfect. But what if it isn’t? What if it can’t do everything that Phoenix (whether it does it well or not) currently does for us? What if they don’t allow every single endorsed candidate to use it? During GOTV, I may or may not have seen  local volunteers deciding to add local candidates to GOTV calls. Some may have even  written the names of their County Commissioners into the script, or strayed from it in ways that would be, let’s just say, hard to explain to certain people. Some locals like to do things their own way, and more power to them, but when you buy in to someone else’s system, you work for them now. Its everything on the RNC’s terms. Go ask Bill Paulsen to tell you about the RNC… in case you missed his stump speech.

No matter whether we go 3rd party or RNC on a new database, we’d lose grassroots control and make the Republican Party at all levels virtually useless.

No more meaningful endorsements, no more database. Well what good is a state party with a 3rd party owned database who also controls the candidate selection? Do you think they will care if you endorsed someone else for Mayor, County Commissioner, or State House than they did? Do you think they would have left your phones on, if they knew you were going off script? No, they’d shut you down from DC. Your phones would go dead on GOTV weekend. There’s no incentive for big donors to give anymore. The State Party and all its affiliates would shrivel and die because, unfortunately, a platform is not enough to stand on let alone run a statewide organization on.

Plus, do you really think that they will actually give the grassroots access to the system? I’m guessing it would be read only and you won’t even be able to make changes if you find out someone is really a Democrat, but is marked as a Republican. Either way, they will have delays in updating as chances are it will be verified first. If you think Phoenix is slow, just wait until Minnesota is the lowest priority on that RNC data guy’s list and he  has a stack from every other purple or swing state ahead of Blue State Minnesota’s.

Just think about the logistics for a while folks because this will have lasting effects on the party. While we may enjoy conventions and monthly meetings, they will serve no real purpose. The people with the power and control will no longer be at those meetings.

So, on to the case for Phoenix. 

Since we own Phoenix, we can control not only who has access (as in candidates & BPOUs) but also how it works and what it can do. If there’s a problem or glitch, we can fix it. If it doesn’t do something we need it to, we can fix that. That’s something that will not be possible with the outsourcing options. Yes, it takes money to run our own database, and no it hasn’t been done that well. But just like we hastily and for suspect reasons went to Phoenix, change for change’s sake is not a good enough reason.

Phoenix isn’t perfect, it may not even be good, but its the best option we have to keeping grassroots control of our party. Its going to take work. Its going to take money and effort to get it better and the data better. But, that’s going to have to happen anyways. Someone will have to fix the data, the system, the question is, after its done, who has control of it?

The grassroots, or the people we are supped to be afraid of taking away our endorsement process?

Update 2: I’ve talked to a number of people today.  Contrary to what Ms. Anderson said, this is NOT a done deal and  most people are wondering who she was talking. Maybe this will make them realize that they shouldn’t trust her, but hey, that’s just me.

But there is something happening. And it has to. The question is about who controls controls access and how. Its become clear today that there are different tiers involved, and not everyone understand they aren’t at the head table.

I thought I had the full picture, but did not. Still don’t, but the more I learn the less worried I am. That being said, its a major change and people should be aware of what is happening.

Chose your party leaders wisely,.
I trust Keith Downey, Kelly Fenton, & Chris Fields to make the right call at the State Executive Committee level.
 

(This is one of my messages I wanted to convey to my fellow hyphenated Republicans)

Twin Cities morning radio is tough for a sports loving conservative. KFAN’s Powertrip is awful now that they fired Mike Morris….  And Davis & Emmer is like an old couple arguing over who’s great idea it was to buy the pulp free orange juice, oh and how badly all Republicans suck, every single day. The “why bother they are just like Democrats” rants may get ratings, and back slapping emails from a few people, but its not ‘moving the ball’ in Minnesota politics.

If they want to be shock jocks, fine, but I know that they aren’t the usual radio schleps who talk tough on air for show but go home and don’t care about anything. BOb and Tom are both activists and have influence and interactions with activists. On this morning’s David & Emmer show, they crossed an intellectual line for me, and exposed one of the major problems facing the Republican Party.

They decided to promote a poll from Public Policy Polling, about who, it says, Republicans prefer to take on Mark Dayton next year. The polling company appears to have been tasked with testing the waters on a host of issues to gauge support for liberal policies and officials in Minnesota. Favorability of Democrats, gun bans, gay marriage, you name it, Democrats had their poll show liberalism rules the day here in Minnesota. The press has been spewing it out religiously.

The poll also showed Norm Coleman as the leading Republican for the 2014 Governor’s race. Davis and Emmer railed on Coleman this morning and the notion of him being the Republican candidate. No solutions, no better alternatives, no suggestions on how maybe a rock solid conservative could beat Dayton (ahem). Instead, mashing of teeth, wailing, moaning, complaining, kicking and screaming, and threats of staying home…..

PPP polling is a Democrat influence poll. Sorry, but its an automated left leaning poll and if a Republican is citing it to tank a candidate they don’t like, they are as intellectually lazy as the biased media in Minnesota who is also using this poll to undermine all center right politicians and thought.

Perfect Is The Enemy Of Good Enough

Here’s the deal, unless all “factions” or sub caucuses with in the Republican Party: conservatives, moderates, libertarians, tea party, pro-life, hawks, doves, etc etc.-  let’s just call the “hyphenated Republicans”- commit to building an election system that can find, communicate with, and turn out 50% +1 of the voters each and every election, we have to be realistic on what kind of candidate we can run statewide. Bachmann can’t win the 5th, but Ellison can’t win the 6th. Same goes for Legislative candidates. The people who win in one place for a specific issue, can’t win on that in someplace else. Northern Anoka County is super pro-life, but Southern Anoka County is Pro-choice. Who’s more pro-life wins in one part, but loses in the other…. The same applies statewide. What works for a candidate in one area, hurts someplace else.

The litmus tests we have as a party, not so thinly veiled in our party platform, is hurting us, not helping us win elections. Can you hold a Republican who loses an election accountable? Yes, but the Democrat who wins won’t  listen to you. I know some of you are saying, “Good!” right now, but look at the State Legislature in 2013. All DFL controlled, Dayton is Governor and can do whatever he wants to do. Republicans can’t stop him because we are in the minority.

And why are we in the minority? Hint: It wasn’t messaging. We got out worked and out spent.

We have to win elections, most of them, in order to make Minnesota how we want it. 

If we are going to make sure  a few hundred activists in our party are 100% happy with the candidate they chose, it means we fight our battles surrendering Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth to the Democrats. Its what’s happened the last 2 cycles. They win those areas 80-20. Which is fine if we take tactical steps to counter that. Those steps are that we  need to turn out “our areas” 80-20 to make up for losing 30+% of the population by a 4 to 1 margin.

Think back to 2010, if you take Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth out of the mix, Tom Emmer won by 8% or so. In 2012, Ellison won 80-20 against one of the best Republicans ever. They knew it was a great year for themselves, yet they still put their foot on the accelerator and smoked us.

On the other hand, in a very bad year for Republicans in Minnesota, Mitt Romney got more votes than any other Republican with zero ground game and a state party that could barely pay its rent let alone run a statewide GOTV operation…. Sorry, but true.  Romney, the guy most activists and people demanding changes in the party love to hate, did better than anyone else on the ballot. That’s telling folks. Maybe our vision of the kind of Republican voters want isn’t the same statewide as it is, in our County District, BPOU, or CD. MAybe electability has to be taken into consideration in endorsements.

Heck, think back to 2008 and Coleman. 237 votes is what Franken won by. Do you think maybe there were 237 Republican voters who wanted to send Coleman a message? Trashed him online, to their friends, and refused to help him because they were upset with him for not being as conservative as we were? I’m pretty sure the answer is ‘yes’. I didn’t actively ‘help’ him, or defend him very much, but I did vote for him. But it didn’t matter, he lost, and Al Franken became the 60th Democrat and now we are stuck with Obamacare. He got the broader public support, well at least enough to come really really close, but he didn’t have the support of his own base and that ended up costing him. Partially his fault, but also partially ours.

We are at a fork in the road as a party.

Do we stand on “principle” and look for the perfect candidate and cross our finger that the name on the sign and face is enough to win? A Russian roulette model, of sometimes it will work, sometimes it won’t gamble.

OR

Do we build the perfect election system and structure of the party and movement to elect which ever Republican is our candidate?

The fact is we can do both, we should do both, but that takes a commitment and buy in from all the “hyphenated Republicans”. If we were a party that while arguing over the degree of perfection we were willing to accept, but was still working data, finding voters, messaging, and fundraising – we could argue with ourselves like we do and currently are. But it needs to be our hobby not our drive and focus. It needs to be done at the end of the long days of working the voters, and can’t be considered the cure for what ails us.

If we are going to strive to make sure Davis & Emmer, The Queen B, Sue Jeffers, Craig Westover, and (yes) the old Andy Aplikowski’s are 100% satisfied, we’d need to cancel the debt now, quit fighting, and get to work. No offense, but that’s the write off 30% of the state plan. That’s the anti-Coleman-Pawlenty-Bush-McCain-Romney plan. 5 guys who did better than we care to honestly admit they did. Norm has actually won a statewide race (technically 2but we we lost the SOS race, so Norm got hosed in 08) . Pawlenty won twice. In 2004 Bush got more votes than any Republican, Romney 2nd in 2012. And the people who are currently threatening to take control of the party consider them Democrats and won’t support or vote for them. Do you agree with the hyphenated Republicans or the huge number of Minnesota voters?

The voters of Minnesota gave 2 guys we hyphenated Republicans can’t stand, more votes than any guy or gal we have ever endorsed. Please think about that. Its something I have come to learn and painfully accept. Maybe what I believe isn’t what 50% of Minnesotans want to hear, or maybe we need to build a better machine to communicate our “why” to voters so we can win.

The only person who can represent you 100% of the time is yourself.

Maybe we  hyphenated Republicans can have the guy or gal we want, but the party will still need to be strong enough and fine tuned enough to make sure we can win. We need to craft our message to the voter. We have t track what people say they want to hear, and have our candidate communicate on the voter’s terms. Not how a few hundred activists or a couple radio hosts want them to. That doesn’t mean changing our principles, it means finding, scientifically and professionally, how to explain why individual voters should vote for our candidates.

That’s what the party is for, winning. Not for debates, not so a Republican can hear us boo them, and not so we can pass a platform plank so we can go hammer a specific Republican you don’t like on Facebook or something. The What of the party is winning. We need to work on the How and Why. 

Jim Abeler is a great example. If Republicans push him out, guess what, he’ll run anyway from us and he’ll still win but now he’ll work against us and won’t listen. He has bi-partisan support. Is it better to have him in our tent, our relationship not perfect, but on speakable term so we get his vote for Speaker? Or should we chase him out of our party and into the Democrat one? Sometimes we have to deal with candidates we don’t like. There are other examples, but now that I share a Senate District with Rep. Abeler, I understand red side blue side so much more.

Sometimes you have to do what is necessary to win.

One way or another, we have to tackle the party debt.

There were about 50,000 Republican Precinct Caucus attendees in 2012. We are reportedly $1.7 Million in debt still. If each person who voted in our straw poll last year gave the Republican Party of Minnesota $35, it would bring in $1,750,000 and we could hire a field staffer or two. Woohoo!

Why is that important?

The most unifying message or issue the hyphenated Republicans have, is fiscal conservatism and financial stewardship. We claim to know the best way to run Government more efficiently, which gives us reason to cut taxes, spending, limited Government, etc. Blah blah blah. You and I know that, but how does the public see us?

Our own party can’t pay its bills, racked up crazy debt, and can’t perform the tasks it is supposed to. How can you blame voters for trusting Democrats more to pay the Government bills, avoid crazy debt, and perform the tasks they need or expect Government to do?

Here’s the bad news, the chances of the big money people stepping up and just taking care of that debt (for us little guys who want to pick the candidates) is nil. In many of the big donors’ eyes, its the base’s fault we were $2 million in debt. And I tend to agree. We elected Sutton, Brodkorb, and Carey who ran the party into the ground operationally while paying friends for terrible work, pushed divisive issues, did and said dumb things, and so on and so on.

If you ran your business like they ran the party, would your bank continue to extend you that line of credit? No, and the big donors didn’t. Just like us conservatives who were mad about the Twins Stadium, or Vikings, or you name it stopped donating, the big money people stopped donating to the party that was hemorrhaging money and not getting results (winning).

There’s something to be said for one time, short term, operational debt to run a special TV ad, or fight a recount (if its truly one that you can win). But if you hire failed consultants, lawyers, unproven vendors, and wage a recount war you know you can’t win, just because you want to do it better this time to show the base that you need to reelect you as chair, that you’ve learned something, well, kiss the big money good buy.

Its not personal, its business. 

And that get’s me to another reason you can say it is the base’s fault. Look who we have endorsed. Some candidates we have put forth have embarrassed us all. Some have had serious skeletons, others have no filter between their brain and their mouths. Some run terrible campaigns and some blame the big donors for just not handing them blank checks.

Its the Davids vs. Goliath battle for the party.

We need to do some serious soul searching as a party. But we also need to understand that just picking the right candidate doesn’t mean everything else falls into place. Kurt Bills is a great example of just because one group of hyphenated Republicans is happy, others were not, push out, or excluded from the advisory and vetting process. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.  If you pull the party one way, you lose people on the other side of the spectrum. If you forcibly drag the party right, and you lose some people WE NEED in the middle, you get further from 51% than closer.

Emmer vs. Seifert is another example. Emmer ran a terrible campaign. Again, sorry to my friends who were on it, but its true. He should and could have won. Unforced errors, poor strategy, and refusal to fight back left him at the mercy of Dayton’s ability to ID Emmer in the minds of voters.  But anyone who thinks Dayton wouldn’t have unloaded millions on Seifert is a fool. Maybe his marginally less rock solid conservative record would have faired better in voters’ eyes, but Emmer’s DWIs were not why Alida Messenger spent millions and millions in 2010. She wanted to win and did whatever it took to do so. Who we picked didn’t matter. And her war chest will be back in 2014, so we better get out schtuff together right quick.

And that my friends, is where pickles come from. 

Back to that How, What, Why video.

What: The 2014 goals for the Republican Party of Minnesota should be winning back control of the State House and defeating Mark Dayton.

How: Even if we did somehow pay off the debt, we will need money to run the operations. We need staff, new systems in place, and we are going to have to be able to run ads. In a perfect world we should try to raise at least $6 million over the next 2 years.

Why: Because Republicans believe in a different kind of Government than our opponents, where decisions that affect the lives of Minnesotans are made at their kitchen tables, not in committee rooms at the Capital…..

Do you have a plan?

Is anyone out there actually talking about a plan to do that? To fix the party, rebuild it, and elect Republicans? We have less than 2 years.

Are Davis and Emmer harping on ways to raise money for the party to build the party into something that can actually do what they want it to?  Because no offense, the biggest problem we have is the lack of money to do what we need to do to win elections. Even if what the hyphenated Republicans say we should do is right,  and would attract voters, we don’t have the ability to great them, track them, and turn them out to vote. The Democrats, through Obama & Dayton’s campaigns have done that.

We know what we need to do to be competitive in Minnesota. Few people are willing to say it publicly like this, but its the truth. We need to model our system on what the Democrats have. Not the message, the machine.

Everyone always wants to have a chair who says, “They are the answer” but we can hire or buy what we need to win. But we have to have the money to do that.

We can argue about what we should say and even what we think the voters want to hear, but if we don’t commit to winning elections we are simply arguing about where commas should go in our Party unit Constitutions. We are arguing with people whom we agree with 95% of the time, but focus all our time, effort, and money on the 5% we disagree on. Give or take….

We are controlled by people who complain about $15 convention fees. 

Less than 1%

Its sad to say money is our biggest problem, but its the truth.  And, its our fault. We chase away “the money”. We have people, like Davis and Emmer, or Legislators, or activists who shake their finger at people who can write really big checks. They tell them to take a hike, we don’t need em. We push amendments that make them uncomfortable, make it hard for them to open the Corporate PAC checkbook up, but we don’t care because we have principles and by gosh if that means we lose, so be it. Do we have to build them stadiums? No, but maybe they wouldn’t run to the Democrats if they we could take the majorities, Governor, Attorney General, Auditor, and secretary of State….

We have blinders on. We skip stones into the pond, and love the pretty ripples, but can’t see the waves crashing on the shore across the lake. The party spends tons of time and money holding conventions, catering to its Delegates, but those Delegates don’t help fund the party. Those convention fees barely cover convention costs, but those conventions determine the direction of the party. And many times, that is away from what the big money is willing to invest in.

We need to find somewhere between a million and 1.5 million Minnesotans to come vote for whoever our Governor and US Senate candidates are. Why is the state party focussed almost entirely on what the 4000 State Convention Delegates want? Its less than 1%. Its less than half of 1%. I get grassroots, but ….

Its not always issues. Its not just the Amendment, stadiums, or specific things. Sometimes its just the person or candidate. Maybe its the Chair, maybe its the Congressional Candidate, maybe its the Speaker, majority leader, or even the Communications Director. Sometimes what we as hyphenated Republicans decide at our conventions is not only a minority opinion in Minnesota, but is unfavorable to large donors. And yes, we do need them.

Put up or shut up

It takes millions of dollars to run a statewide organization, air TV ads (good ones too), mine the data, and turn out over a million voters. Are the hyphenated Republicans who are planning to seize control of State Central, BPOUs, and CDs, also willing to put their money where their mouths are? Are they willing to say “good riddance” to the large donors but still want all the fancy toys they paid for. Again, no offense, but low convention fees don’t exactly translate to filling the treasury.

The people who have lots of money, didn’t get it by simply throwing it around to who ever asks or demands. To them, a donation to a candidate or party, is an investment. If the return is a middle finger from us hyphenated Republicans, they won’t give again.

This sounds like I am saying that we have to cave to big money, forget our principles, and we are all RINOs now. Its not. I think we can find a balance. A measured set of expectations on all sides. The Democrats and all their minions, front groups, and special interests all know that if they just win a bunch of elections and gain all the power, they can hash out the details of what actually becomes law later. They design the plan to win first, carry it out, and deal with how much of their agenda they can actually pass.

Mission Incomplete

But we hyphenated Republicans want the agenda pledged to up front by Republican candidates and party leaders, before we  will even consider backing them or helping the party. We want our promises in writing. Platform, TPL pledges, scorecards, etc. We demand the whole truth and nothing but. But look at our record. We’ve lost 3 straight major elections. Our party hasn’t got 2 pots to even bang together.

But we with hold money and time because it didn’t work out like we expected. Like magic, when we leave that convention, an army of interns and robots swoops in and presto-bammo we win. Far too often, we think once the conventions are done, our work is done and mission completed. We voted for the people we were told to, the candidate we liked, or the party officer candidate who said what we wanted to hear.

Its almost like we aim a car at the parking ramp spot, tie off the steering wheel, set a brick on the gas pedal, and expect the car to run out of gas before it rams into the other cars or right off the ramp itself.

We expect perfection from the party and candidates, but we give it nothing but marching orders to work with. We expect them to cater to us and us alone, and even if they aren’t our Representative or Senator. We hyphenated Republicans are Delegates, we will put our finger in their chest and tell them how it is,  so by gosh they had better do as we say or else….

Which is fine. Everyone has a right to be a pain in the butt, and the party and candidates have the right to say, they have more important things to deal like their real mission, winning elections.

But let me be brief

If we are going to chase away the big money, we hyphenated Republicans will have to all pitch in to make up for it. We can push the Pillsbury-esque donors and their 6 figure donations out of the party, but guess what, that doesn’t mean we just can go with out the 6 figures of revenue  and still have a  effective and functional party. That means no ads, no field staff, no database upgrades, no support for the candidate YOU wanted.

What it means is that if you get on your soap box or radio show demanding perfection, and chasing away anyone who would prefer good enough to win, you have to make up for the losses you cause.

Our problem is far more than just messaging or who we chose to lead us or represent us. Our biggest obstacle to winning is ourselves and our expectations we have. Until we come to that realization, we will not be ready to govern even if we can win.

If we can’t accept any Republican that we can’t agree with 100% of the time, we will never win back control. And with out control, we can’t affect the lives of Minnesotans. We’re simply spectators to the destruction of the Democratic Progressive agenda.

Or something.

Please compare this.

[Strib] Felons who have served their time would find it much harder to regain the right to possess a firearm under the first of what is expected to be several gun bills proposed at the Legislature.

Sen. Barb Goodwin, DFL-Columbia Heights, wants those convicted of violent crimes to have to go before the state Board of Pardons before they are granted the legal right to own firearms.

And this.

[PiPress] According to the secretary of state’s office, one can be eligible to vote if any felony conviction record has been discharged, expired or completed — such as at the end of probation.

Someone let me know when we get to that line where we can say that Democrats are officially trying to discriminate and restrict people’s rights, freedoms, and liberties….

Because they spent the entire 2012 election screaming that was what Republicans did…

MPR takes a look at the US Senate endorsement battle in the MNGOP.

Ron Paul could play big role in Republican pick for Senate race

The story points out how even Dan Severson is starting to back away from the Ron Paul talking points as we get closer to the convention. One of the big keys to the chirrade of the Ron Paul / Kurt Bills campaign is that “the liberty movement” invented conservatism and limited government, and that if you don’t support Bills then you are a big government enemy of liberty. The condescending nature and notion that every elected Republican is a big government tax and spender who needs to go, is quite off putting.

Its the polarization that the Ron Paul movement brings (and Kurt Bills refuses to put an end to) with them that causes many to cringe and be suspect. Whether its the dishonest words and actions of the Ron Paul leaders in Minnesota, or the anti-war rhetoric from the Bills campaign, there is a general unease for the broader Republican party base. And you need us to win.

When running against an opponent that won by 20 points in 2006, its important not to get bogged down on purity and who can win favor with of just over 1000 Republican Delegates. And that’s really a huge key to this. While the Paul campaign has been successful at keeping their supporters in the mix as the pool of Republicans gets winnowed down in the convention process, they have done so in many cases by pushing out people who have run successful election operations in BPOUs, CDs, & Statewide.

The biggest problem with the Kurt Bills campaign is going to be having to explain to purged activists and volunteers exactly why they should lift a finger to help him when they are thrown under the bus just so he could win the endorsement. We had to get rid of you so I could win, but hey, come help me now.

The notion of not being able to convince the people who have seen candidates come and go in the past, those who came, tried, and succeeded or failed in past elections, that you have what it takes and are worthy of endorsement, so you bring your own people who will support you for rhetoric, not ability, to replace the veterans, well, doesn’t bide well for taking on the media darling Democrat senator Amy Klobuchar. Its going to take an army to defeat her.

It reminds me of 2010, where some thought just getting Emmer endorsed was enough and that everything would just fall into place afterwards. God bless him, but it was his campaign that cost him. Yes, he was outspent 5 to 1, but he made mistakes too. Some small, some large, but they all added up to sink him.

Well, Bills is following the same strategy, win the endorsement and everything and everyone will just fall into line. Many of his top strategists just happen to have been part of the Emmer campaign. The ‘you’re either with us or against us’ behavior so far has been very eerily familiar.

A big general election problem is that Kurt Bills’ ties to Ron Paul scare the begeebers out of many donors, volunteers, and voters. He’s attached at the hip with the Ron Paul campaign run by Marrianne Stebbins who is threatening to organize primary challenges to Republicans. Will some Bills supporters end up making local party volunteers defend their endorsed candidates against a Ron Paul primary candidate? And if so, how will that not drive some of us away from Bills?

Its a divisive movement at work in the MNGOP. There may be a path to victory in the endorsement, but I’m not seeing how in the world that translates into a campaign that can move the results over 20 points in November. This is a campaign that has operated so far on the directive that if you don’t agree with Ron Paul’s policies, than you aren’t worth talking to. Divide and conquer. Scorched earth.

And now that the Republican Presidential race is down to just Romney and Paul, more and more voters will see Paul as the sour grapes guy and start to get very VERY annoyed by his supporters who can’t understand that its over and its time to unite.

The Kurt Bills campaign will be saddled with Ron Paul supporters more concerned about Tampa than voters in Minnesota who they have never met but that they need to get to support Kurt Bills.

Severson & BIlls are nice guys, but Mark Kennedy was a really nice guy who was a CPA and he got his butt kicked by Klobuchar. The media refused to do any journalism in that race, and are already preparing for her victory speech in November. We need a candidate who can raise money to buy his own press, hasn’t gotten beaten badly in a recent statewide election in a VERY Republican year, and who isn’t surrounded by people who prefer to argue with people more than they do door knocking and making phone call.

2 Candidates are focussing on slim segments of voters claiming that’s their path to victory. Like 3% of the public will move that 20 point margin…..

Do you want to beat Klobuchar or not? There’s only one candidate who is capable. Its Pete Hegseth.

Judging by the lack of coverage, I’m guessing Redistricting is flying under the radar of most people. I bet you didn’t know that next Tuesday (Feb 21, 2012) is the day that the new maps MUST be presented. As in, the actual Legislative & Congressional maps for the next 10 years.

As he has through out his short reign as Governor, Mark Dayton sat on the sidelines and threw rotten tomatoes at plans brought forth by Republicans but didn’t bother to say what he’d do instead. He vetoed their Redistricting bills that would have avoided the last minute judicial decry while not offering a plan of his own. He can easily throw the baby out with the bath water, but never bothers to submit his own plan. Did he hate every single one of the 201 State House & Senate Districts as well as the 8 Congressional Districts the Republicans drew up? Or just some? If so, which? What did he like, could he live with, what had to change? What lines needed to shift, and where, in order to gain his signature and avoid a last minute judicial decision?

Wait, he doesn’t have any. He’s the Governor of no and stop asking me question. No solutions of his own. Sure, he’ll pander to his cronies at speaking events and fundraisers, but he never bothers to get down to the task of being a participating member of state government. He thinks he’s an emperor, not executive tasked with carrying out the work of the Legislature. He thinks it is the Legislature’s job to please him, and doesn’t understand there is a give and take to divided Government. Instead he takes the Republican ideas and throws them in the trash bin, throws around insults, and storms off.

There are 7 days left until 5.3 million plus Minnesotans learn who their new representatives in government will (or could) be. The liberal point of view appears to be that you should be ostracized and or segregated by race, religion, and economic scenario not geographic boundary. Like somehow you choose to live in a certain school district, city, or county for the services and policies they offer, but when it comes to state and federal government you demand a completely different approach right out of the 1950s.

Sheesh, wouldn’t it have been nice to know what Dayton actually thought would be a good redistricting map? Or to have had competing visions for what the next 10 years of elections and government would look like so there could have been real public input? A Republican plan vs a Dayton plan out in the public for months to get pros and cons and input from any and all affected. Who knows, maybe the public could have been the mediators and said what parts of each they liked. Imagine if you could have had the Republican plans put next to Dayton & DFL plans and had months of public comments and input.

Instead we have the Republican plan instinctively thrown aside by Dayton with input fit for a criminal and attacked by his minions, while he offers no solution of his own. Instead he punts and let’s it go down to the wire where judges will release their orders on the last day when you can’t make any changes.

The fact is when we were shopping for a new home in 2009, our check list of requirements was: good hockey system and good politics. Andover met those. Newsflash, you don’t get solid red or blue districts with out a ton of people feeling that same way. Sure some is by coincidence, but to pretend that by trying to turn red districts purple in order to marginalize conservative voters isn’t gerrymandering, is as dishonest as the people who run the League of Women Voters or possibly even Mark Ritchie. But let’s not get side tracked.

This is life under a Governor Dayton. All rhetoric, all knee-jerk, all his way, or no way at all. As in, if the Republicans didn’t pass his redistribute the wealth budget, then he’d shut state government down to punish everyone and have people blame Republicans, only to realize that he was actually affecting lives so he accepted the Republican’s last offer, but blames them for the shutdown……

I guess Dayton is going to give us a belated Redistricting gift but we can’t open it up until the deadline. No peeking. No changes. Just shut up and live with it for the next ten years.

Kinda sucks, but then again, I voted for the other guy.

Who wouldn’t want to have $4 billion in free money? Come on, someone hands you $4 billion while saying they don’t have any recourse if you waste or embezzle it.

Well, when its taxpayer money, someone should have oversight and responsibility.

The Feds are looking in to the HMO blackbox now. 

Aye carrumba.

Is now an okay time to say I told you so? Or should I sit back and allow 2 people to claim ALL the credit? At least I can say I never changed my tune, not everyone can do that.

Oh well, onward and …….

Anyways, that link is to a story that digs into the Republican Party problems created by the Sutton/Brodkorb/Carey regime.

Update: And to clarify: I’m not claiming I was the only one, nor that I knew of these details. Its just that there were a lot of us asking to see the books and to know what was really going on long before some people have taken to the glitz. Some of us have been raging against the machine for years and have been destroyed for doing so.  This shouldn’t be about grandstanding or credit for me or anyone, if it is for anyone, then you’re no better than the people who created the mess.

Its not about me, you, or them, this should be about what’s best for the party as a whole. That’s all I ever wanted. A better party. A party that isn’t run by an individual or by some weird alliance or cronyism. Dare I say where best practices rule the day, not who has won favor or who owes who.

Its astonishing to hear that Democrats in the Legislature as well as the Dayton administration, actually took state resources to produce items such as Redistricting plans/maps, but didn’t actually produce them. Instead they have, at every turn, tried to derail the Republicans.

Its a sad state of affairs when an entire political party turns its entire focus into simply obstructing any progress. What’s worse is that when they plan a painful state government shutdown simply to win the next election.

When you have one side in negotiations entirely focused on the next election, its hard to actually reach compromise. And its fairly safe to say, one side isn’t compromising when they are making decisions and “offers” they know won’t work, just because they want the shutdown to continue to hurt the party in power.

You keep seeing the tear jerking examples of people who are affected in the media. State employees are ramping up their protests, hey, the union hasn’t gotten the lockout notice from Dayton and I’m confident that Dayton is a marionette of them.

Folks, the DFL and their minions aren’t interested in discovering that most Minnesotans don’t notice the Dayton lockout. This isn’t a Government shutdown due to irreconcilable differences, this is Mark Dayton and Democrats blowing up the entire process for political pain and gain.

Mark Dayton ordered the Capital shuttered. The grass is going uncut, the parking lots are barricaded, and the list of unexplainable services or products of Government just sitting there with red tape on them is endless. All because Mark Dayton wanted you to actually notice.

Well, I may be making my own trip to the Capital Saturday to show how life can go on while Mark Dayton tries to burn down Minnesota, if needed. It has something to do with me, a citizen, trying to take care of the property of the taxpayers since the CEO of the state has ordered it to lay in waste.

Irresponsible doesn’t even begin to explain Dayton’s lockout.

Shame on you Mark Dayton and Democrats.

Stay tuned for details.

But what is the counter point media? Seriously, are they this lazy, or this biased?

Former (& two time?) 49 state loser Democrat Walter Mondale (note: his son works for Dayton) is teaming up with former Republican Governor (keyword “FORMER” Republican) are holdin a press conference to bitch and moan that tax and spend liberal utopian policies aren’t rubber stamped by the Legislature. There is no better posterchildren for how Government got out of hand that Jimmy Carter’s Vice President and Arne I’ve never supported a Republican candidate or policy in my life Carlson.

Maybe some former Republican (actual conservatives) like Mark Kennedy, Phil Krinkie, Gutnecht, Grams, Coleman, etc etc, ought to come battle these liberal nanystate henchmen in the art of counterpoint press conferences so the lazy media in Minnesota is FORCED to give people both sides.

Because once you explain that Republicans did actually pass a budget that was vetoed by Dayton, they quickly switch from a pox on both their houses, to blaming Dayton for being unreasonable and a mean old SOB.

If anyone sees any morsel of critical reporting on Democrat’s radical plan, please share it. I haven’t seen a single reporter earn they pay on the shutdown yet. Except of course for the Sorosphere. Sad thing is the MSM is indistinguishable)

Update:

What is it about nanystate liberals and running straight to unelected bodies who have ultimate control? What’s worse than unelected, than formerly elected hasbeens who probably helped create the mess today’s Legislators were sent to St. Paul to fix. I hope even the lazy MN press corps laughed these hasbeens off the podium.

If you encourage the politically expired, it only means they keep pretending to be relevant.

The most important part about pulling off a Communist coup is class warfare. If you can make the people hate and envy the rich, you can bully them into surrendering their hard earned income. Selling it as for the greater good….

Ironically Mark Dayton decided to shutdown Minnesota for the sole purpose of taxing the rich to redistribute their income to others on the 90 anniversary of Communism in China.

The hate, envy, and class warfare being employed by Dayton and his minions are disgusting. Their shameless attacks and lies are conduct unbecoming. They had no intention of compromising, they just wanted to make Minnesota a More Marxist Minnesota.