I just spent part of my afternoon campaigning with Michele Bachmann here in St. Cloud. Included in that campaigning was Michele addressing a room full of her biggest supporters at her new campaign office.

Earlier this afternoon, Michele stopped at C & L Distributing. Just like at other campaign stops, Tarryl’s unenthusiastic trolls were there to greet the Bachmann bus with signs and protests. (I guess Tarryl’s trolls didn’t get the memo from Dayton High Command that tracking was supposed to stop immediately.)

SIDENOTE: When Sen. Dayton criticized the MNGOP trackers for being too close for him to campaign, those trackers stayed at least 15 feet away and it was on public property. Tarryl’s trolls protested on private property. When Michele entered the building, she could’ve easily shaken the protesters’ hands. Unlike Sen. Dayton, Michele took it in stride, politely smiling as she walked past the protesters.

One sign in particular caught my attention. It was a ‘Thank You’ card from the insurance companies, supposedly because Michele does whatever they tell her to do.

Andy caught this picture of the rather unenthusiastic hodgepoge collection of protesters:

We’ve seen the articles about how low Democratic enthusiasm is. Tarryl’s trackers were the embodiment of that enthusiasm gap. They showed up, they held their signs, they went home. Rah. I was a little disappointed, though, when they didn’t attend the grand opening of Michele’s new campaign office in Waite Park.

During the tour of the C & L facilities, Obamacare was brought up as being a major drag on hiring. We were told, by the HR director, I think, that the extra paperwork alone makes it a huge burden and a huge cost driver.

When the C & L event was over, I was invited to join the Team Bachmann bus, an invitation I quickly accepted. The conversation on the bus was electric. As we approached Michele’s office, one of Michele’s staff announced that an estimated crowd of 50 people were awaiting us. That estimate was off by alot. There were easily more than 100 people eagerly awaiting at Michele’s campaign office.

For a more complete description of the day’s event, Andy’s post is today’s must reading.

Once at her campaign office, Michele emphasized the need to outwork the DFL and to work for each other. Michele said that it was important to get local candidates like King Banaian and Tom Ellenbecker elected so they could restore fiscal sanity to St. Paul’s landscape. She said that it’s imperative to elect Tom Emmer because he’s got a plan for making government more responsive to Minnesotans. Finally, she said, it’s imperative to elect Dan Severson as our next Secretary of State.

When Michele introduced King, King said that, not only are we Taxed Enough Already (TEA) but that St. Paul has Spent Enough Already (SEA), an observation that was greeted with enthusiastic applause. After the grand opening was over, I spoke with King. I said that, perhaps, last year’s TEA Parties would lead to this year’s SEA Change. Based on the things I’m hearing from around the state, that’s a definite possibility.

According to Mark Sommerhauser’s article, Tarryl spokester Carrie Lucking responded, saying “Sooner or later, voters are going to want to hear from Bachmann about what she’s done in four years in Congress.” Put Michele in the majority and give Michele a gavel and you’ll see some serious reforms happening.

I’d also suggest that getting people to fight against the twin albatrosses of Obamacare and the failed stimulus is precisely what Sixth District voters want her to do. I said today that we don’t need wimpy spending freezes like President Obama proposed this winter; we need spending cuts. We don’t need a scalpel like then-Sen. Obama said in the debates; we need a meat cleaver.

One thing that Michele said that re-inforced King’s claim that Democrats have Spent Enough Already is that the federal budget baseline has increased exponentially. The Pelosi Congress has raised spending by over $4,000,000,000,000 in 4 short years. (That includes the budgets and stimulus spending.) The national debt will increase an additional $10,000,000,000 over the next decade if Pelosi’s spending spree isn’t reversed.

I wrote a long time ago that Tarryl was facing a stiff uphill fight against Michele. After watching the professionalism and the work ethic of her campaign team, I’m more confident of my prediction than the day I made that prediction.

Andy will be back on the Bachmann campaign bus again this morning for Day 2 of the Bachmann bus tour. Here’s Andy’s advice on staying connected to Day 2’s events:

You can follow my tweets as well as others who we crossed paths with by searching the hashtag #bbt10

I wish I would’ve been able to join Team Bachmann on the tour (I was invited) but it didn’t work out this time. Rest assured that I’ll be following Andy’s tweets and Andy’s posts throughout the day.

The only question I have is whether the same unenthusiastic Tarryl trolls follow Team Bachmann around.

Technorati: Bus Tour, Campaigning, Michele Bachmann, Distributorship, TEA Parties, Campaign Staff, King Banaian, Tom Ellenbecker, Dan Severson, MNGOP, Tarryl Clark, Tarryl’s Trackers, Enthusiasm Gap, DFL, Election 2010

This week, the DFL and their well-funded progressive allies have tried painting the picture that conservatives, Tom Emmer especially, lack compassion. They point to Tom Emmer’s statements on tip credits, suggesting that Tom Emmer wants to cut wages for people earning a living in the hospitality industry.

Thanks to King’s research, we finally have a study to work from:

Do higher tipped minimum wages boost server pay?
Published in Applied Economics Letters 12 (2005), pp. 391–393; doi 10.1080/13504850500092459
Abstract: Do tipped servers in states with higher tipped minimum wages earn more, ceteris paribus, than servers elsewhere? Using 1999 data on waitpersons and bartenders, little evidence is found of a premium to servers in states with more generous minimum wages.

In other words, there’s little proof that Tom Emmer’s call for tip credits is his calling for wage cuts. It isn’t surprising that the DFL’s special interest allies aren’t interested in knowing the truth.

The DFL wants Minnesotans to focus solely on this issue, hoping that tehy can paint Tom, at least through their eyes, as yet another heartless conservative. I question them on that. I think their portrayal as an inaccurate mischaracterization.

What the DFL doesn’t like getting out is that they’ve added crippling amounts of regulations on everything from health care mandates to the business permitting process and licensing fees.

That’s before talking about the DFL’s penchant for attempting to pick economic winners and losers. This year, as with the past 2 election cycles, DFL candidates are running on the promise of tilting the tax code towards companies towards green jobs.

Is it compassionate to tilt the economic playing field in one direction, leaving the other industries to fend for themselves under an overly burdensome taxation and regulatory burden? Is it compassionate to attempt to keep raising taxes on small businesses?

The DFL legislature’s first goal is to figure out new ways to fund a Twentieth Century government. The state Senate has had a DFL majority since 1972. The running joke with legislators is that the Senate is where good reforms go to die, usually at the hands of Linda Berglin.

Is it compassionate to fight for crippling taxes that send companies scurrying to other states and their employees trodding to the unemployment line? It isn’t in my estimation.

Having sat through more than a few of Tom Emmer’s stump speeches, I know that Tom wants to change government’s mission. It isn’t a stretch to argue that one of government’s jobs is to protect each agency’s budget.

The good news for Minnesota’s taxpayers is that Tom will have help if we elect King Banaian and other conservatives. At King’s announcement, he got a commitment from Kurt Zellers that his bill to change Minnesota budgeting to zero-based budgeting. Follow this link to learn more about how zero-based budgeting works and how it has the potential to save Minnesota’s taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

I’d argue that fiscal conservatives like Tom Emmer and King Banaian are the truly compassionate politicians because (a) they protect the taxpayers’ wallets, (b) they stabilize labor costs at prices that lead to job growth and (c) their policies help Minnesota’s families stay employed in good paying jobs by companies that won’t leave.

Finally, I’d argue that more people would prefer government agencies whose first priority is serving their constituents rather than worrying about whether their budget will get a nice increase.

Technorati: Tom Emmer, King Banaian, Conservatism, Economy, Job Growth, Taxes, Regulations, Permitting, Prosperity, Republicans, Special Interests, Government, DFL, Election 2010

Eric Roper’s post says that the DCCC has upgraded the Michele Bachmann-Tarryl Clark the Red-to-Blue status, meaning that they’ll spend money on the race:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced this morning that they have added Bachmann’s DFL challenger Tarryl Clark to a “Red to Blue” list of candidates that they are supporting this fall.

Clark was previously featured on a DCCC list of 26 races “to watch” in 2010.

Making the “Red to Blue” list means the DCCC will be lending Clark’s campaign a hand with fundraising, communications and building grassroots support. It will also likely add to the national interest in the race as it heats up this summer.

The last 2 years, adding a race to the DCCC’s Red-to-Blue list brought fear and trembling to Republicans. This designation doesn’t bring fear or trembling. It brings a ‘yeah, whatever’ reaction.

With incumbents like Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin in trouble and with Democrats trailing badly on the generic ballot, the DCCC will have lots of fires to put out. Keeping the majority will be an uphill struggle.

The Bachmann-Clark race might be one of the more competitive races on the DCCC’s radar. That doesn’t mean it’s a highly competitive race.

Republican candidates now hold a 10-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, June 13. That ties the GOP’s largest ever lead, first reached in April, since it first edged ahead of the Democrats a year ago.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. A week ago, Republicans led 44% to 36%.

While solid majorities of Democrats and Republicans support the candidates of their own party, the plurality (47%) of voters not affiliated with either major party prefer the Republican candidate, while 19% like the Democrat. These findings have remained fairly consistent for months now.

The Democrats are still spinning. Last week, they started a new campaign to sell their health care anew even though almost 60 percent of Americans want it repealed. Their stimulus plan failed.

During an interview with WCCO’s Esme Murphy, Tarryl didn’t distance herself from the failed Recovery Act. Instead, she accused Michele of voting “for higher taxes for 95 percent of Americans when she voted against the Recovery Act.”

When I told King about Tarryl’s quote, he made this important point:

“What Bachmann did was refuse to go along with the charade of bribing voters with their own future money.”

King is exactly right. I’ve said repeatedly that the stimulus was a payoff to the Democrats’ allies in the public service unions. Obviously, the stimulus didn’t jumpstart the economy. In addition to paying off the unions with our money, the stimulus will force higher taxes on John Q. Taxpayer to pay for that bribe.

If Tarryl continues making statements that are that easily debunked, she’ll talk herself off the DCCC’s list. My solution? Get her a bigger megaphone.

Technorati: DCCC, Red-To-Blue, Tarryl Clark, Stimulus, Tax Increases, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, Pork, Democrats, Generic Ballot, Polling, Michele Bachmann, King Banaian, Economy, Republicans, Election 2010

Friday afternoon’s TEA Party at St. Cloud’s Eastman Park was a great success, thanks to a roster filled with great speakers.

The event started off with Michele Bachmann stirring up the crowd of about 200-225 people with a great speech about how important it is to stop the Obama administration’s radical agenda. During her speech, Michele spoke about how the national debt had risen to $13,000,000,000,000 this week. She spoke about how the Obamacare bill is having a dampening effect on job creation. Michele then said that that morning’s jobs report was disappointing, with 411,000 of the 431,000 jobs being created attributed to hiring temp workers for the Census.

After Michele’s speech, King reprised his speech last fall about William Graham Sumner’s Forgotten Man. It was fitting then. It’s more fitting today than it was last September, especially considering how President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats ignored the will of the American people for over a year before passing Obamacare.

CPAC blogger of the Year Ed Morrissey delivered an outstanding speech, talking about how disappointing the jobs report was, then talking about how conservative principles like limited government were the only cure for the economy.

RF’s Andy Aplikowski’s speech connected with the audience, too. Andy’s speech was a combination of conservative principles and a call to arms to get lots of fiscal conservatives elected this cycle.

The event was something of a coming out party for Luke Yurczyk. Luke is running for the Stearns County Commission this year. What struck me the most about Luke’s speech was his arguing that LGA cuts didn’t automatically mean higher local property taxes. Luke argued, rightly, that city councils and county commissioners have the option of spending less.

Luke also highlighted the importance of city councils and county commissioners setting smart priorities and spending only on needs when times are tough. This played very well with the audience.

The showstopper of the event was Sanu Patel-Zellinger. First, a little background on Sanu is in order. Sanu moved to the United States in 1990 from India. She arrived here with a suitcase full of clothes and a little money. Twenty years later, she is employed by Best Buy International. In short, she’s experienced the American Dream.

This year, she decided to run for elected office against House Tax Committee Chairlady Ann Lenczewski. If you read the text of Sanu’s speech, I’m certain that you’ll want to contribute to her campaign. Here’s the text of Sanu’s speech:

“I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here today…not just the chance to speak with you but also for the past two decades I have enjoyed living in America.

My name is Sanu. I came to the US in 1991 from India. I got a job at Seagate Technology so I could pay my way through college, which I did, by working during the day and taking night classes.

In 1998, I became a United States citizen. I was as proud as could be to be a United States citizen. In this American Republic I found individual freedom, real freedom and opportunity. Thank you.

Over the years I have met many hardworking and generous Americans. America’s strength and creativity come from the opportunities available to each individual, the freedom to pursue their dreams, and a Constitution that keeps a check and balance on government so we can preserve this. Thank you.

However, there are many things being offered to us today which are not opportunities.

Socialized medicine? No thank you!

Bailouts? No thank you!

Nationalization of private industry? No thank you!

Irresponsible spending with no accountability? No thank you!

This past year I decided to run for State Representative because I feel that we are not being properly represented in government. I am seeing the American Dream being destroyed by out-of-control spending, government debt and never-ending taxation. And I am seeing that many hard working Americans and their children are being punished with taxes to pay for it all.

I am willing to help the vulnerable in society. But I am no longer willing to be punished for being a responsible citizen.

I want to see an end to the misuse of taxpayer funds. I want to see a limited government that lives within a sensible budget just as we all do.

America was started with a great vision, the rights of the individual that cannot be destroyed by any majority.

A country where its people are free.

A country where hard work and personal responsibility are rewarded.

A country that others round the world would like to live in.

A country whose citizens dare to strive for the American Dream. What we have here is precious.

It is time we all stand up for this country of ours and it’s great vision for all generations. It is up to us to preserve this free nation.

It takes only a generation to lose it all. Let us not lose it in our watch. President Obama definitely appears to be campaigning for us conservatives). We need to set the stage so that the American Dream remains in the grasp of all who are willing to work for it.

We have plenty to be proud of here. Let us band together to preserve this land of the free!

This year we have a golden opportunity. Let us seize it!

Let us leave behind a state and country our children and grandchildren will be proud to inherit.

Thank you for coming today. That tells me you care about our country. And I am proud to call you a fellow citizen. I am proud to be an American. I am proud to be one of you.

Thank you.”

If you’re inspired by Sanu’s speech, then I strongly recommend you visit her campaign website to find out more about her. It’s my hope that the voters in HD-40B will elect Sanu this November.

Finally, this post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t include the thoughts of the crowd that the legislators and candidates were impressive, whether they were talking about U.S. Congresswoman Bachmann, state legislators like Steve Gottwalt and Mary Kiffmeyer, state legislative candidates like King Banaian, Tom Ellenbecker and Sanu Patel-Zellinger or local candidates like Jeff Johnson or Luke Yurczyk. Jeff is running for St. Cloud City Council. Luke is running to be a Stearns County Commissioner.

Technorati: TEA Party, Michele Bachmann, Ed Morrissey, Luke Yurczyk, Andy Aplikowski, Sanu Patel-Zellinger, Liberty, Constitution, Bailouts, Jeff Johnson, Tom Ellenbecker, Conservatism, Elections

Shar Knutson’s LTE in this morning’s St. Cloud Times is the special interest groups’ latest attempt to define Tom Emmer before he can define himself. Here’s a noteworthy distortion:

Republican Tom Emmer, through his legislative record, has already committed to continuing to rest on our laurels and hoping to coast and cut our way to recovery. At every turn he has opposed job creation, opposed investing in students and opposed making health care affordable.

That’s a totally dishonest characterization of Tom’s proposed agenda. It’s intentionally dishonest because the special interests don’t want real change but they know they can’t appear to be for the status quo.

First, the notion that Tom Emmer will attempt to cut our way to recovery is absurd. During the post-session flyaround in St. Cloud, WJON reporter Jim Maurice asked Tom if the reforms he was proposing would save enough money to balance the budget. Tom’s immediate response was to call Steve Gottwalt to the podium to explain how much money Minnesota taxpayers would save if his Healthy Minnesota Plan reform replaced the current version of MinnesotaCare.

When Steve said that the savings from the pilot program for 60,000 Minnesotans would save $110,000,000 over the next 2 years and that there are approximately 800,000 people on MinnesotaCare, the other reporters’ body language told the story. It’s worth noting that Steve’s reform disproves Knutson’s statement that Tom is opposed to “making health care affordable.”

Another distortion in that paragraph is the assertion that Tom “has opposed job creation.” That’s utter nonsense. It’s accurate to say that Tom opposed the pork projects included in recent bonding bills. That isn’t the same as saying Tom’s opposed to creating jobs.

It’s accurate to say that Tom will focus on creating a vibrant, entrepreneur-oriented economy of the 21st Century. Businesses have left Minnesota because they didn’t want to deal with the DFL’s insatiable appetite for tax increases. Four years ago, I wrote about Mike Hatch’s acceptance speech in which he made this statement:

Hatch gave his task an initial shot in a rambling acceptance speech that punched some of the right buttons. He cast Pawlenty as too stingy with education, responsible for large class sizes and rising college tuition. He tagged him for an inadequate response to soaring health care costs and the emerging biosciences industry. He promised more state investment in those things. Significantly, he said, “we can do this without raising taxes.”

I said then that Hatch was right, that we could do that if we set the right priorities. I also said that nobody should believe him because the DFL was genetically predisposed to raising taxes. As long as the DFL is predisposed to increasing spending, businesses will have to worry about tax increases.

According to these statistics from the IRS, $2,660,709,000 in income left the state in 2007-2008 while $2,281,952,000 entered the state. That’s a loss of $378,757,000 in income.

This statement isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on:

Finally, greater reliance on fees and shifts to local property taxes has meant the middle class now pay a higher share of their income in taxes than the rich do.

If we want to make Minnesota great again, we need a governor who is committed to investing in our state again. The time has come for middle-class Minnesotans to ask the candidates running for governor how they will get us working again.

Let’s start with the fact that most entrepreneurs want government to do a few basic things, like funding education, transportation and public safety, then getting government out of the way. All too often, the DFL has been hostile to capitalists, aka small businesses. All too often, the DFL has punished the job creators, expecting them to be ‘good corporate citizens’ that pay great wages while limiting profits.

Meanwhile, North and South Dakota told businesses that they wanted them to be profitable, that they had highly skilled workers. In short, North and South Dakota told businesses that they wouldn’t be hostile towards capitalists who wanted to make money while creating jobs.

As a result of North Dakota’s business friendly attitude, their unemployment rate stayed below 5 percent. They’re even recruiting employees from Ohio to fill the needs of a growing economy.

The lesson that the unions haven’t learned from North Dakota is that property tax revenues jump when entrepreneurs are starting businesses and building buildings that house the new businesses.

Tom Emmer gets that. Tom is about setting the right priorities, limiting and reforming government while making Minnesota appealing to businesses.

It’s worth noting that one way we’ll get government spending under control is by switching to zero-based budgeting. If King’s elected, that will be the first bill he submits. King’s logic is that government should have to justify each penny it spends each budget cycle. King is fond of saying that we shouldn’t be haggling over “the last dollars.” King says that we should be about forcing government to justify that what they spent last biennium will be needed again this biennium.

Based on my observations, the current budgeting system is built on the premise of helping stabilize funding to the DFL’s political allies more than it’s built on the premise of making Minnesota a prosperous state once again.

If Minnesota doesn’t become more hospitable towards capitalists, Minnesota’s economy won’t return to being a job-creating wealth creator. It’s time we told the AFL-CIO that we can’t create jobs while hating the job creators. It’s time we told the AFL-CIO that we can’t return to prosperity if we attack the creators of prosperity.

What we really need most is a governor and legislature who will roll out the welcome mat to small businesses so they can start creating wealth again. There’s only one choice if we want Minnesota to return to being a prosperous state. That choice means electing Tom Emmer as governor and giving him a pro-growth, pro-reform legislature to enact the laws needed to help Minnesota prosper.

Technorati: Tom Emmer, Reforms, Health Care, Limited Government, Tax Cuts, Steve Gottwalt, King Banaian, Capitalism, Conservatism, AFL-CIO, Unions, Tax Increases, Special Interests, DFL, Election 2010

The first thing I thought after reading Dane Smith’s op-ed was that Dane Smith is a bit old to need a nanny. Smith’s op-ed attempts to rationalize the need for a nanny state form of government.

Here’s one of the weakest intellectual arguments I’ve ever heard:

Almost everything the public sector does has a nannying dimension to it. The principle behind our mostly good and effective governments is that while individual freedoms must be protected, the group is important, too.

It’s impossible to simultaneously protect individual liberties while increasing the scope of government. This isn’t a matter where it hasn’t succeeded because the right people haven’t been in charge. It’s because it’s impossible for anyone to increase individual liberties while increasing the size of government.

This paragraph is equally insulting:

A good nanny helps not only with the endless chores of care and feeding but with providing discipline and early childhood education and perhaps even with giving children the healthy feeling that a larger village cares for them.

That doesn’t have anything to do with the nanny state Smith is talking about. When people hire a nanny, the nanny deals with the children in a one-on-one reltationship. The nanny is charged with the responsibility of feeding the children, changing diapers, etc. In other words, the nanny’s employers expect a level of personal responsibility of raising children.

That isn’t what a nanny state form of government does. Nanny state government tells parents, employers, etc., what they must do. The government’s ‘Nanny’ only visits the home if there’s a report of impropriety. Nanny government isn’t there to share the familial responsibilities. It’s only there to tell people what to do.

Implied by the things the government’s ‘Nanny’ imposes is the belief that Nanny knows best, especially with regards to health care. That’s where Smith’s argument fails most miserably. Massachusetts is the quintessential picture of nanny state interventionism in health care. It’s also the failure of nanny state health care.

Meanwhile, government demands that Minnesota public employees be good shoppers for health care services. Minnesota tells their unions that their pay for an appendectomy or an angioplasty remains the same whether the individual goes to the Mayo Clinic or to a different or less expensive hospital. Because they have ’skin in the game’, people have become wise shoppers. As a result, health insurance premiums for state employees has been flat the last 5 years.

Hoosier state residents have an incentive to use health savings account, another plan that requires people exercise good judgment. Their health care costs and health insurance premiums have stayed relatively flat.

Finally, this statement must be challenged:

A little more public investment in high-quality nannying is exactly what highly stressed, hardworking, low- and middle-income families need.

It’s a myth that that’s what the nanny state does. Talk with Dave Kleis about what the nanny statists do annually that affect St. Cloud. He’ll tell you that the nanny statists impose unfunded mandates on city governments that don’t shrink the burden placed on his administration.

Rather, what happens altogether too often is that ‘Nanny’ imposes more burdens on his administration from 75 miles away. Far from being the one-on-one relationship that nannies provide, the government’s nanny offers only one-size-fits-all remedies from miles away.

That’s why the nanny state is nothing of the sort. Rather, it’s an oppressor who tells individuals what they must do and what they can’t do. King explained in his 9/12 TEA Party speech what happens when ‘Nanny’ seeks to impose its will on We The People:

The economist William Graham Sumner wrote a century ago about the way in which we are forgotten by those who would help others in the name of humanitarianism but not with their own money.

A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. The radical vice of all these schemes is that C is not allowed a voice in the matter, and his position, character, and interests, as well as the ultimate effects on society through C’s interests, are entirely overlooked. I call C the Forgotten Man.

That’s the quintessential illustration of nanny states. Nanny states aren’t caregivers like a true nanny is. They’re just the people who tell us what we must do and what we have to pay for in the name of the greater good.

It’s time Dane Smith admitted that the nanny state isn’t the assistant that helps people but that it’s the stern taskmaster that tells us what to do…from a distance of 75 miles.

Technorati: Dane Smith, Nanny State, Oppressors, Unfunded Mandates, Regulations, Health Care, Massachusetts, Progressives, Liberties, Accountability, Dave Kleis, Tim Pawlenty, King Banaian, William Graham Sumner, Forgotten Man, Conservatism

Now that the filing date for the Minnesota state legislatures has passed, it’s time to size things up in central Minnesota. Until Tuesday, not only weren’t Republicans sure if popular incumbents like Steve Gottwalt, Mary Kiffmeyer and Michelle Fischbach would have challengers. It’s that we weren’t certain that the DFL would have a challenger for the open seat left by Dan Severson’s decision to run for the Secretary of State job instead.

Republicans have a strong group of candidates for central Minnesota. King Banaian is running for the open seat in HD-15B created by Larry Haws’s surprise retirement. He’ll face either former school board member Carol Lewis or former Franken organizer Zachary Dorholt, the winner to be determined by an August primary.

Local businessman Tom Ellenbecker will face off against House assistant Majority Leader Larry Hosch. This is my bellwether race. If Ellenbecker defeats Rep. Hosch, then there’s a strong chance that Kurt Zellers will be the next Speaker in the House of Representatives.

The HD-16A matchup is a rematch of the 2008 election, pitting current DFL incumbent Gail Kulick Jackson against Sondra Erickson. Jackson defeated Erickson by 99 votes in 2008. Now Jackson has to defend her record. This will likely be another tight race. If the tide is big enough, Rep. Kulick-Jackson will have an uphilll fight getting re-elected.

In the end, the DFL talked Rob Jacobs to run against Sartell Mayor Tim O’Driscoll for the HD-14A seat currently held by Rep. Dan Severson. The fact that Jacobs filed on the last filing day suggests that he isn’t motivated this year. At any rate, he’s trailing badly in fundraising, organization strength and name recognition.

Further north, DFL incumbent Al Doty faces an uphill fight against Mike LeMieur in a rematch from 2008. LeMieur is currently the Little Falls City Council President. Doty won by only 76 votes in 2008 in a strong DFL year. The same headwinds that carried Doty to victory have since been replaced by a strong tailwind at LeMieur’s back.

Further west, Mary Ellen Ottremba’s surprise retirement makes it difficult for the DFL to hold that seat. Mary Franson is the GOP-endorsed candidate. With this being a conservative district, I rate this seat as leans Republican.

Republicans had an outstanding year recruiting House and Senate candidates. Matt Dean and Amy Koch should be applauded for the job they did and the candidates they recruited. In my opinion, the House is definitely in play for the GOP. While it’s a steeper climb for Republicans in the Senate, there’s no question but that the veto-proof DFL Senate is history.

It’s impossible to know how it all shakes out this far out but the DFL must be worried.

Technorati: Candidates, Tim O’Driscoll, Tom Ellenbecker, Steve Gottwalt, King Banaian, Sondra Erickson, Mary Kiffmeyer, Mike LeMieur, Mary Franson, MNGOP, Al Doty, Mary Ellen Otremba, Rob Jacobs, Larry Hosch, Gail Kulick-Jackson, DFL, Amy Koch, Matt Dean, Election 2010

Apparently, Sen. Pogemiller used a canned line during his visit to St. Cloud. After reading this quote in the Makato Free Press, I realized that:

Pogemiller, who landed at the Mankato Airport less than an hour after the Republicans took off, said he doesn’t understand why Republicans are waiting until next year to push for reforms.

“I think we have to talk about facts and fantasy,” Pogemiller said. “…This state has been governed by a Republican governor for eight years.”

Pogemiller also said government reform alone won’t fix the looming budget shortfall for 2011 and 2012, projected to be $5 billion or more. “You could eliminate all of state government, all of the agencies and all of the state employees, and that would be less than $1 billion (in savings),” he said.

Technically, Sen. Pogemiller is correct. If you eliminated the salaries of every employee from every government agency, you’d fall short of what’s needed to balance the budget.

That’s a nice spin, though, because it isn’t about eliminating the government employees. It’s about the programs they administer.

For instance, as far as I can tell, Steve Gottwalt’s plan to reform MinnesotaCare doesn’t involve cutting state employees. It does, however, have the ability to save more than $1,000,000,000 during the next biennium by shifting from the current health insurance policy to an health reimbursement account or HRA.

Mary Kiffmeyer talked about getting an amendment passed through the house during this year’s session that would’ve changed the state’s budgeting process from the current baseline budgeting to zero based budgeting. Rep. Kiffmeyer explained that zero-based budgeting forces each agency to justify every penny of budgeting. It also introduces cost benefit analyses into the budgeting equation.

As King aptly puts it, it forces the government to justify every penny spent rather than just haggling over the last few pennies of the increase. Add to that Tom Emmer’s pledge to vigorously search out agency overlap and their budgets and you have the potential for alot of savings.

That’s before factoring in the savings the state will realize from the pension reform that will get signed into law this year.

Once businesspeople start seeing that a GOP majority in the House and Senate are enacting reforms that reduce the cost of government, coupled with a government that’s more better at customer service, business costs will shrink, giving businesses the capital incentive to invest in their companies’ expansion.

As Rep. Gottwalt likes to put it, that will give the goose that lays the economic golden eggs to keep laying more golden eggs.

Think about the difference in mindsets. The DFL has displayed an attitude of ‘it can’t be done’ whereas the GOP has adopted an attitude of ‘watch what’s possible when we put our mind to it.’

Minnesotans are starving for leadership that says that they’re returning to doing things that make sense, starving for leadership that says ‘we’re laying out a positive vision for Minnesotans.’ I’m betting that Minnesotans are more likely to respond to the GOP’s positive message than they’ll respond to the DFL’s message of ‘No we shouldn’t.’

This November, the DFL will learn the hard way that reality-based positivity sells.

Technorati: Reforms, Larry Pogemiller, Medicaid, DFL, Tom Emmer, Steve Gottwalt, Healthy Minnesota Plan, HRAs, Mary Kiffmeyer, King Banaian, Budgeting, Pension Reform, Spending, MNGOP, Election 2010

It was a busy day at the St. Cloud airport Tuesday afternoon, with the DFL and the GOP stopping in during their post-session flyarounds.

When I pulled into the airport parking lot at 1:20 pm, Sen. Pogemiller was standing outside talking on his cell phone. That seemed rather odd compared with past flyarounds. In the flyarounds in previous years, I assumed that the DFL and GOP planes would be late.

When I walked into the lobby where the press conferences would be held, the people that I didn’t see spoke louder than the people who were there. Tarryl Clark wasn’t there. Neither was Larry Haws. Also missing from this trip was Speaker Kelliher. The only local candidate attending was Bruce Hentges, the DFL endorsed candidate for Tarryl’s Senate seat.

It isn’t that that’s surprising considering the fact that the DFL doesn’t have endorsed candidates for a number of House and Senate seats. As of tonight, Steve Gottwalt, Mary Kiffmeyer, Michelle Fischbach and Tim O’Driscoll don’t have opponents.

Like I told Times reporter Mark Sommerhauser, I can understand the DFL not having candidates running against popular incumbents like Michelle Fischbach, Mary Kiffmeyer and Steve Gottwalt. It’s stunning that they don’t have a candidate running against Tim O’Driscoll for the open seat in HD-14A, where Dan Severson left to run for Secretary of State against Mark Ritchie.

When asked if Gov. Pawlenty had won the budget battle, Sen. Pogemiller said that yes, “Gov. Pawlenty did win if you’re talking about national talking points” before adding that he’d “argue that Minnesota lost” as a result of the outcome. When pressed about why they didn’t push harder for their agenda, Sen. Pogemiller said that “There’s no amount of political philosophy that’s worth shutting government down over.”

For her part, Sen. Berglin said that this year represented a lost opportunity caused by Minnesota not agreeing to opt in on Obamacare. Sen. Berglin said that Minnesota would’ve gotten $7.45 back for MA for each dollar it paid into the federal government.

Sen. Berglin said that not doing the early opt-in would cause other states to get the money Minnesota could be getting.

Clearly, the DFL leaders were dispirited as a result of not getting their priorities passed into law.

When the GOP entourage arrived, there was a detectable difference in attitude. Led by GOP endorsed gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, the entourage of Emmer, House Minority Leader Kurt Zellers, Senate Minority Leader Dave Senjem, Rep. Matt Dean and Sen. Amy Koch greeted the people gathered in the Aviation building at the St. Cloud Airport.

After giving a brief presentation on his reform agenda, Rep. Emmer invited questions from the audience. WJON-AM’s Jim Maurice and the St. Cloud Times’ Mark Sommerhauser also covered the event. Rep. Emmer said that health care would be a major issue in the campaign, saying that, if elected, he wouldn’t opt into the Medicaid expansion.

Opting into the Medicaid expansion is enticing initially, he said, but that there’s no guarantee that the money Sen. Berglin talks about would be there after 2014. What would be there would be maintenance of service agreements that Minnesota would have to sign if they opted in.

Rep. Emmer then called St. Cloud Rep. Steve Gottwalt to the microphone to explain his Healthy Minnesota Plan, HF3036 this past session. Rep. Gottwalt said that it wasn’t accepted as the reform to MinnesotaCare but that it was adopted as a pilot program.

Under the pilot program, 60,000 single Minnesotans without dependent children will be covered. Rep. Gottwalt said that the fiscal note calculated the savings at $110,000,000 for the next biennium. If enacted into law for all 800,000 people on MinnesotaCare, the savings might exceed $1,000,000,000 for the upcoming biennium.

Rep. Zellers spoke about how government operations should change to be more customer friendly. He spoke about streamlining the permitting process for construction permits would save contractors time and the government money.

Rep. Emmer said that the key isn’t in cutting money from the budget because, sooner or later, that agency or that department will want the cuts restored. He said that the key is first determining what state government should be doing, then eliminating duplicative agencies, then streamlining processes so that the bureaucracies so that they’re more responsive to the public.

When asked if he thought if there were enough reform opportunities to balance the budget, Rep. Emmer pointed out the budget saving that could be realized just by implementing Rep. Gottwalt’s Healthy Minnesota Plan.

Sen. Senjem drove the point home by saying that making government more efficient and responsive to Minnesota’s needs would help Minnesota become a business friendly state that’s able to compete with anyone.

The thing that stood out to everyone who attended both events was that the DFL event was poorly attended and all but lifeless whereas the GOP portion was upbeat, filled with ideas and laying out an appealing agenda that Republicans will campaign on.

Also attending the event were GOP endorsed candidates John Pederson and Dave Brown, representing SD-15 and SD-16 respectively, along with King Banaian and Tim O’Driscoll, representing HD-15B and HD-14A respectively.

The GOP group was outgoing and upbeat. Also impressive was how they cheerfully answered all questions posed to them in a straightforward, facts first manner.

There was a detectable difference in energy levels, with there being significantly more energy, and more people attending, at the GOP event.

That Tarryl Clark, Larry Haws, House Majority Leader Sertich and Speaker Kelliher weren’t there spoke louder than anything in Sen. Pogemiller’s or Sen. Berglin’s presentation.

It truly was a case of the visuals telling the real story.

Technorati: Tom Emmer, Dave Senjem, Kurt Zellers, Matt Dean, Amy Koch, Steve Gottwalt, Mary Kiffmeyer, Michelle Fischbach, Health Care, Reforms, MNGOP, Larry Pogemiller, Linda Berglin, Tarryl Clark, Larry Haws, Speaker Kelliher, Medicaid, DFL, Election 2010

Make no mistake about it: the DFL is scrambling in Central Minnesota. This was only highlighted by Rep. Larry Haws’s surprise retirement announcement Sunday night.

The DFL currently doesn’t have a candidate in House Districts 14A, 15A and in SD-14. They were without a candidate in HD-15B less than 24 hours because Carol Lewis announced that she was running for Rep. Haws’s open seat.

According to Mark Sommerhauser’s article, Lewis is a former school board member:

One DFLer wasted no time stepping forward: Former St. Cloud school board member Carol Lewis said Monday she hopes to replace Haws in House District 15B, which covers north, east and downtown St. Cloud.

Ms. Lewis, whom I’ve never met, is starting from a compromised position. Because of the late start, her fundraising is a mess. She’s also put herself in the difficult position of defending raising taxes at a time when tax increases are extremely unpopular:

Lewis ran for the District 15B seat in 2005, but dropped out after losing the DFL endorsement battle to Haws.

If elected this time, Lewis says she’d focus on “fiscal responsibility.” That could come through combining state agencies to cut costs, and also may require expanding the state sales tax to cover clothing, Lewis said.

Raising taxes of any sort won’t be popular this election cycle. Ms. Lewis will get a cold reception from voters once it’s known that she wants to raise taxes when families are struggling.

Larry Hosch will have a real fight in HD-14B. He’s being challenged by small businessman and longtime GOP activist Tom Ellenbecker. Mr. Ellenbecker is helped by the fact that Rep. Hosch didn’t follow through on reforming the Green Acres tax laws like he promised.

Politicians break campaign promises all the time and get away with it. This is one of those promises that people expected to be kept. Because the DFL legislature didn’t fix the mess they created in 2008, farmers’ property taxes will be significantly higher, putting many farms in distress.

Rep. Hosch won’t get those farmers’ support when he visits their farms this summer. Hosch will find it difficult to win without substantial support from his district’s farmers.

Adding to Rep. Hosch’s difficulties are his frequent votes for tax increases the past 2 years as part of the House DFL leadership. That won’t play well in 14B because it’s one of the most conservative districts in the state. It isn’t currently represented by a conservative because, prior to this election, Rep. Hosch was able to portray himself as a centrist/moderate.

That won’t be possible this cycle because of all the tax increases he voted for this session.

Republicans are willing to work hard this cycle. Add to that that they’re on the right side of the issues in most polling and the DFL’s disarray and you’ve potentially got the recipe for a strong year in 2010.

Technorati: Larry Haws, Larry Hosch, Tarryl Clark, Bruce Hentges, Carol Lewis, Tax Increases, Sales Tax, Green Acres, DFL, King Banaian, Steve Gottwalt, John Pederson, Tom Ellenbecker, Tim O’Driscoll, Dan Severson, Michelle Fischbach, MNGOP, Election 2010