Karin Housley’s optimism is infectious. Reading through this article, it’s obvious that she sees her campaign as the right elixir at the right time. It’s equally obvious that she thinks that Tina Smith is Sen. Schumer’s shill. She’s right about that, BTW. Sen. Smith has opposed everything that President Trump is for. New York already has 2 senators. They don’t need another one.
In an interview with the Brainerd Dispatch Editorial Board, Sen. Housley said “I had been in the Minnesota Senate for the last six years and seen the failures of the Dayton-Smith administration and I thought, ‘There’s no way that woman represents everyone in Minnesota or what we really stand for in Minnesota.’ I decided to jump into the race and fight for Minnesotans.”
Sen. Housley is right. Sen. Smith doesn’t represent Minnesota’s priorities. Contrary to Smith’s beliefs, there’s much more to Minnesota than the Twin Cities. In her brief time in the US Senate, Tina Smith has traveled often outside the Twin Cities. Unfortunately, she’s brought her Twin Cities beliefs with her. Rather than listening to Minnesotans’ worries, Smith has tried selling the Twin Cities’ priorities. That’s disrespectful.
By comparison, Sen. Housley has met with (and listened to) lots of groups from Owatonna to Bemidji to Walker. As she says in this interview, she and her husband have had a cabin in the Walker area for several decades:
That means they understand rural Minnesota. That isn’t all. They know that Washington’s policies have made life difficult for rural residents. Then there’s this:
By replacing Smith, Housley said she hopes to help break the deadlock in the nation’s upper house—750 bills left on the debate floor, undebated and not voted upon because of rigid partisan lines. Sen. John McCain’s absence leaves the Senate in a state of limbo, a razor-thin 50-49 Republican majority.
In doing so, Housley said, she’ll look to restore a kind of representation that actually represents the interests of everyday Minnesotans—not blind dogmatism, not run-of-the-mill Capitol Hill and not an out-of-touch Democrat who favors big government and the big problems that brings.
Smith is a not-so-bright radical. Don’t forget, she’s a Berniecrat:
People can’t seriously think that Tina Smith isn’t a Twin Cities-centric socialist. Further, let’s ask this simple question: Are you better off today than the day before President Obama left office? Honest people would emphatically say they’re better off today. Business investment is improving quickly. Consumer confidence is sky-high. Unemployment for blacks and Hispanics are at all-time lows. Unemployment for women is at a 65-year low. The energy sector, which President Obama tried to intentionally kill, has turned around so dramatically that we’ve gone from importing oil to being a net exporter of energy. We’re so strong with energy that President Trump struck a deal with the EU to export Liquefied Natural Gas to them.
Tina Smith is a closet environmentalist who hates fossil fuels. She’s also (quietly) anti-mining. She has to pretend that she’s pro-mining because she needs lots of Iron Range votes but she isn’t a big fan of mining. By comparison, Karin Housley is enthusiastically pro-mining. This is the type of straight talk that Minnesotans insist on:
Since 2003, Housley has been a small business owner and is also a real estate agent by trade—though, she admitted, she almost closed up shop in 2010 because of restrictive policies by the state at that time. “It got to a point where you’re working so hard and everything you’ve earned is going to the government, but the government is spending your hard-earned money not on things you want it spent on,” Housley said. “That’s the reason I ran. We’re just starting to reverse that. People are keeping more money in their pockets, and so are our business owners, so we just have to continue that trend.”
Tina better buckle up for a tough campaign. Thanks to her mistake-riddled campaign, she’s earned a tough campaign.
