MN GOP Gubernatorial Candidates Demand Target and Best Buy Shutdown Their Online Retailing

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Minneapolis, Minn. — Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidates today demanded that home state retailers Target and Best Buy pull out of online marketing because of serious technical meltdowns associated with their respective commercial websites.

The Republican candidates’ criticism of the local private retailers was consistent with harsh criticism they have leveled at the government-run website MnSure.com, Minnesota’s new online venue for comparing and purchasing private insurance policies offered in association with the federal Affordable Care Act. A Minnesota Department of Commerce analysis finds that MnSure offers the lowest prices in the nation and has proven to be a popular destination for Minnesotans, but MnSure website visitors have also been subjected to frustrating delays and bugs.

The three Republican candidates ordinarily stress that private companies are superior to government-run initiatives. But today the candidates pointed out that Minnesota-based Best Buy and Target also experienced MnSure-like launch problems, and therefore also should terminate their online retailing operations.

In September 2011, Target Corporation was publicly humiliated when its website crashed during a crucial launch of a much anticipated Missoni-designed clothing line, infuriating its customers. At the time, a New York Times article noted:

The Target.com site was wiped out for most of the day; the company said that demand for items was higher than it was on a typical day after Thanksgiving, and that is usually the biggest shopping day of the year.

A few months later in 2011, sheepish Best Buy officials had to notify customers that it would not be able to fill their orders in time for Christmas, because the electronics retail giant had underestimated the initial demand for its products. USA Today reported:

The largest U.S. specialty electronics retailer said late Wednesday that overwhelming demand for some products from Bestbuy.com has led to a problem redeeming online orders made in November and December.

The Minneapolis company declined Thursday to specify how many orders are affected or which products are out of stock.

“I would do anything I could to end them,” said Minnesota Senator Dave Thompson, said of Best Buy and Target.

“I don’t believe it can be fixed,” added Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Johnson about the retail giants’ glitches.

“It just isn’t going to work,” agreed former Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Zellers.

Note: This post is satirical, and not true. Though the quotes above are the exact words the candidates used about MnSure in August 2013, the candidates have not, to the best of our knowledge, made the same demands of Best Buy and Target.

This post was featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs, and republished on MinnPost.

Paulsen and Kline Finally Support A Jobs Bill

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Joe Loveland

In the past, I’ve been critical of Minnesota Republican Congressmen John Kline and Erik Paulsen for not doing enough to address America’s chronic unemployment problem. But I have to hand it to them, because yesterday they passed legislation ending the government shutdown that will immediately put 800,000 Americans back to work, and stabilize the economic position of many others. That’s fantastic news.

Unfortunately, Paulsen and Kline haven’t always been so strong supporting job creation for Americans. They both refused to support President Obama’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that, according to the independent, non-partisan organization FactCheck.org, created a whole lot of jobs:

“…the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report in August that said the stimulus bill has “[l]owered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points” and “[i]ncreased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.”

Simply put, more people would be unemployed if not for the stimulus bill. The exact number of jobs created and saved is difficult to estimate, but nonpartisan economists say there’s no doubt that the number is positive.”

Paulsen and Kline have also refused to support pending legislation proposed by President Obama, the American Jobs Act, that, according to private sector experts, would stimulate millions of more jobs:

Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi: “The fiscal boost from the jobs package next year would be larger than in the first year of the 2009 economic stimulus, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. Zandi, who was briefed on the plan before the president’s speech, forecast passage of the entire jobs package would add 2 percentage points to economic growth next year and bring down the unemployment rate by 1 percentage point compared with current policy, under which a temporary payroll tax cut and an extended unemployment benefits both expire Dec. 31.”

This morning Economic Forecasting FirmMacroeconomic Advisers issued a report: “We estimate that the American Jobs Act (AJA), if enacted, would give a significant boost to GDP and employment over the near-term. The various tax cuts aimed at raising workers’ after-tax income and encouraging hiring and investing, combined with the spending increases aimed at maintaining state & local employment and funding infrastructure modernization, would: Boost the level of GDP by 1.3% by the end of 2012, and by 0.2% by the end of 2013. Raise nonfarm establishment employment by 1.3 million by the end of 2012 and 0.8 million by the end of 2013, relative to the baseline.”

…Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons said, “The President’s proposed combination of personal and business tax relief, targeted spending to support infrastructure, and aid to states offers several direct and innovative ways of creating jobs and bolstering our economy. The President’s focus on assisting small business is spot on, since small business is the engine of job creation.”

Finally, Paulsen and Kline have refused to support legislation to end the “sequester” of billions of dollars federal funds. CBO economists say lifting these spending cuts would immediately add millions more jobs for the American people.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Thursday estimated that keeping the spending cuts from sequestration in place through fiscal 2014 would cost up to 1.6 million jobs.

Canceling the cuts, on the other hand, would yield between 300,000 to 1.6 million new jobs, with the most likely outcome being the addition of 900,000, the CBO said.

“Those changes would increase the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.7 percent and increase the level of employment by 0.9 million in the third quarter of calendar year 2014 (the end of fiscal year 2014) relative to the levels projected under current law,” the report states.

Again, these are the job creation bills that Kline and Paulsen have historically refused to support.

But I do want to give credit where credit is due. The bipartisan legislation Paulsen and Kline supported yesterday will immediately put 800,000 more Americans back to work, and end a government shutdown that will have cost taxpayers, according to Standard and Poors, about $24 billion. That’s $24 billion that isn’t circulating in the economy creating jobs.

Forget that Kline and Paulsen originally did nothing to speak out against their fellow House Republicans who were giddy in forcing these 800,000 Americans out of work. At long last, Paulsen and Kline have supported a jobs bill. Here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a trend.

– Loveland

Note: This post also was featured in Minnpost’s Blog Cabin.

The Minnesota Legislator Salary Shutdown Act of 2014

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Sometimes good policy and good politics intersect. Fixing the problem of ideological extremists shutting down governments with a steady stream of ransom demands is one of those instances. Any legislator who could figure out a way to reduce the frequency of hugely unpopular shutdowns would further the cause of a more stable democracy, as well as harvest political benefits with three-fourths of voters.

I recently promoted the idea of challenging candidates to pledge to not shutdown government, to effectively increase the political price for shutdowns. But another way to address the problem it is to increase the personal price for shutdowns.

I therefore propose the Minnesota Legislator Pay Shutdown Act of 2014:

Whereas, reaching consensus and keeping government services operating is the job of the Minnesota legislators;

Whereas, government shutdowns are a clear indication that Minnesota legislators are not doing their jobs;

Therefore, be it resolved that any Minnesota state legislator who supports legislation that results in a government shutdown shall be ineligible to draw their state government salary for a period of one year.

Nobody would ever accuse me of being a legislative draftsman, so this language is obviously illustrative only. Legislative staffers would need to substitute murky legalese so that virtually no one ultimately could understand it. But you get the general idea.

Is that fair or just demagogic blogger bluster? Well, people from surgeons to salespeople have “pay-for-performance” pay models. So why not legislators?

– Loveland

Note: This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

When Government Ceases To Be An Abstraction

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Joe Loveland

“Oh wait, don’t shutdown the monuments for millions of visitors. That’s mean-spirited political theater. Oh wait, don’t shutdown veterans benefits. That’s un-American. Oh wait, don’t stop protecting us against infectious diseases, food-borne illnesses and environmental catastrophes. That endangers public health. Oh wait, don’t delay passport and visa applications, bankruptcy court cases, small business loans and mortgage applications. That hurts our economy. Oh wait, don’t furlough workers in my home state who buy stuff from my home state businesses. That hurts Main Street. We only shut down a nameless, faceless abstract stereotype called ‘big government,’ not that stuff.”

This is the noise coming from the congressional Republicans who were reportedly “giddy” when they first shutdown the government, and now are blaming President Obama when confronted with the effects of an overwhelmingly unpopular shutdown.

Anatomy of the GOP Miscalculation

How did Republicans make such a massive miscalculation? In large part, they misread public opinion polls that consistently say the American people want “less government spending.” This emboldened them.

But what they apparently didn’t read were the public opinion polls that broke government down to its component services. That research makes it clear that a majority of Americans absolutely do not want to cut government services.

According to one Pew Resarch poll, only 32% of Americans want to cut unemployment benefits, 24% want to cut aid to the poor, 22% want to cut environmental protection, 20% want to cut government research, 17% want to cut roads and infrastructure, 14% want to cut combatting crime, and 10% want to cut education. The truth is, the fans of cutting government are a fringe minority of Americans.

It’s not just veterans and memorials that Americans want to protect. A majority of Americans oppose cuts in any of the 19 major areas Pew asked about, and they most certainly don’t want to shut down those services altogether.

Obamacare: Abstract v. Specifics

The same is true of the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.” As an abstraction, Obamacare faces some opposition, though less than most believe. Only one in five (20%) Americans want to repeal it in its entirety, while a majority of Americans either want to keep it or strengthen it.

While there are concerns about Obamacare as an abstraction, a Reuters poll shows that the component parts of it are overwhelmingly popular.

Allowing 6.6 million young adults to be covered on their parents’ policies until age 26? 61 percent of American support it.

Requiring companies with more than 50 workers to provide health insurance for employees? 72 percent of Americans support it.

Banning insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing health problems? 82 percent of Americans support it, including 78% of Republicans.

If you think a government shutdown is unpopular, just try to shutdown Obamacare in 2014 or 2015. As soon as Americans understand that repealing Obamacare would re-empower insurance corporations to deny coverage to their sick family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers, you would have 82 percent of Americans, and 78% of Republicans, up in arms.

Government in the abstract is quite unpopular, while government in the specific is quite popular. If any good could come of this fiasco, it would be the Republicans learning this fundamental lesson about the American people they represent.

– Loveland

Note: This post was also re-published in Minnpost.

Which MN Candidates Will Sign The Pull-The-Plug Pledge?

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Joe Loveland

As a general matter, I despise campaign pledges. Candidates are continually badgered by interest groups to pledge in writing that they will always do X, or never do Y.

The Problem With Pledges

The problem with most pledges is the “always” or “never” parts of them. The world changes, and policy positions therefore sometimes need to change with them.

Pledging to not increase taxes today may make sense at one point in history, but a few years later the circumstances may have changed dramatically.

Pledging to support a policy or project now may make sense, but not after surprising new information surfaces.

Pledging to tax millionaires may make sense at a time when they’re not paying their fair share, but not a few years later when circumstances may have changed.

So sometimes making policy shifts isn’t a sign of weakness or dishonesty, as pledge enforcers often claim. Sometimes, shifting is a sign of courage, vision and integrity.

That’s why I don’t like most campaign pledges.

Pull-the-Plug Pledge

But I came across a pledge the other day that fits our times, and has an infinite shelf life. South Dakota congressional candidate Rick Weiland challenged all congressional candidates to sign this simple pledge:

“I hereby pledge that, if elected to represent you, I will never vote to shut down your government, or to place your government in default, in order to force it to act, or to prevent it from acting, on unrelated issues.”

As a voter, I want to know where every Minnesota congressional candidate stands on this Pull-The-Plug Pledge.

If there are candidates out there who think it is acceptable from them to pull the plug on the American people’s government and economy, that is their right. But it’s also the right of the overwhelming 72% percent of Americans who oppose the Republicans’ current plug-pulling scheme to be forewarned of a congressional candidate’s position on that issue, so that they can vote with their eyes wide open.

Yes, Americans and their policymakers must always be able to make their government a different size and shape as future circumstances dictate. This pledge doesn’t prevent them from having such flexibility. It simply says it’s not acceptable to completely pull the plug on the American economy and government.

So, Tim Walz, Mike Benson, John Kline, Mike Obermuller, Paula Overby, Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison, Erik Paulsen, Tom Emmer, Rhonda Sivarajah, Phil Krinkie, John Pederson, Judy Adams, Collin Pederson, Rick Nolan, Stewart Mills III, Monti Moreno, Chris Dahlberg, Mike McFadden, Julianne Ortman, Jim Abeler, and Al Franken, will you sign the Pull-The-Plug Pledge?

– Loveland

Note: This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota‘s Best of the Blogs.

Rep. Ellison’s Ultimatum: Single Payer or Government Shutdown

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Saint Paul, Minn. –U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) announced today that he is leading a progressive effort to shut down the federal government until a single payer health insurance system replaces the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed in 2010, further complicating the federal budget impasse.

“The private insurance exchanges used in the ACA were never what progressives wanted, so ‘we the people’ have decided to make a principled stand against them,” said Ellison, Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The Caucus has long advocated for a single payer system in which the government would fund and operate a single insurance pool for all Americans, similar to how Medicare has long been structured for older Americans.

Rep. Ellison’s rhetoric was eerily similar to that of his fellow House Republicans, who have pushed for replacing the Affordable Care Act with the status quo system. Under the current system, 48 million Americans are uninsured and health costs are among the highest in the industrialized world.

Rep. Ellison said his caucus is pushing legislation authored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) to essentially build on and expand the federal Medicare program. Under the bill, all Americans would be guaranteed access to health care regardless of an ability to pay or pre-existing health conditions.

Just as Tea Party-backed House conservatives advocated in 2009 for preserving the status quo private health insurance system, House progressives pushed for a single payer approach in 2009. But neither side was able to muster sufficient votes to enact their preferred policy.

Still Ellison points to an Associated Press poll finding that 65% of Americans agree that “the United States should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers.” Ellison also noted an NPR poll shows that 93 percent of Americans believe that the number of uninsured under the status quo system that the Republicans are fighting to preserve is a “serious problem.”

“When House Republicans finally agree to open up the government again, we’re going to shut it down if they don’t support our single payer approach,” Ellison said. “House Republicans shut down the government to maintain a status quo insurance system that almost all Americans believe is a serious problem, so progressives can damn sure shut it down over something that two-thirds of Americans support.”

Rep. Ellison said he has offered to compromise with Republicans by offering to delay the implementation of the single payer system by a year. Ellison has also offered to allow private insurers to sell Medigap-like supplemental health insurance plans. However, Ellison says Republicans are refusing to even discuss compromise.

In a related development, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) announced that he would move to re-shut down the federal government if House Republican lawmakers didn’t pass his legislation to require background checks on people buying guns at gun shows or online. A Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 86% of Americans support such background checks. Despite this overwhelming public support, Manchin’s bill was rejected by House Republicans in April 2013. Manchin also demanded a new credenza for his office.

NOTE: If it is not obvious to you, THIS IS SATIRE. IT IS NOT A TRUE STORY. Representatives Ellison, Conyers, and Manchin are much too responsible to shutdown the government when they don’t get their way in the democratic process.

This post was featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and in MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

– Loveland

Learning To Lose With MnSure

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Joe Loveland

In case you haven’t heard, Republicans hate health insurance exchanges like MnSure. While the conservative Heritage Foundation developed the approach, conservative leaders like Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and Orrin Hatch endorsed it, and conservative standard bearer Mitt Romney pioneered it, contemporary conservatives have come to despise it since it was adopted by President Obama.

Conservatives now prefer to allow insurance companies to compete across state lines governed by federal regulations, instead of the current system of state-by-state regulation of insurance products. But there isn’t sufficient political support to enact the conservatives’ preferred interstate competition approach.

I feel my conservative friends’ pain, because my preferred approach also doesn’t have enough political support to become law, and I also don’t love insurance exchanges like MnSure. I’d much rather have a single payer system — the system that delivers the best care and value in other industrialized nations — than this competitive private sector exchange model. However, since there wasn’t sufficient political support for my first choice, my fallback preference was to authorize a “public option”—a Medicare-for-All — competing against private options to test which model is more efficient and effective.

But alas, after a long, fair and considered congressional debate, I lost on both my first and second choices. Now I and all Americans have to accept the private competitive exchange model that prevailed in the democratic arena.

Memo to my Republican friends: That’s how losing works in a democracy. You have to accept the outcome of the democratic process, and move on like an adult.

While insurance exchanges like MnSure were far from my preferred option, there are things I like about them. For the first time, they require products to be directly comparable, so that a lightly informed consumer like me can actually do apples-to-apples shopping, or silver plan-to-silver plan shopping.

That represents a significant improvement that will reshape the marketplace in a somewhat more consumer-friendly way. With private and non-profit insurers required to create directly comparable products, insurers now know that many consumers are going to buy the more affordable apple over the comparatively expensive apple. That puts consumer demand pressure on insurers to offer the most affordable apple possible, just as airlines have constant demand pressure to offer the most affordable ticket to New York City via online marketplaces like Kayak, Orbitz and Travelocity.

Whether we’re talking about Kayak or MnSure, the widespread availability and use of the Internet makes this kind of comparison shopping possible. Social media and advertising guru Simon Mainwaring is among those those who have written about how the Internet changes modern marketplaces:

“More than ever before, consumers have the ability to unify their voices and coalesce their buying power to influence corporate behaviors.”

So far, this type of “coalesced buying power” is showing promise. In Minnesota’s competitive exchange, we are seeing among the lowest premium prices in the nation. That’s a tribute to Minnesota’s non-profit health insurance companies, the state health care model that Republican Governor Arne Carlson significantly shaped and the exchange model that Republicans developed, supported and pioneered.

In life and in policy making, sometimes we don’t get our first choice, or even our second choice. Liberals like me certainly didn’t get our first or second choice in the 2010 federal health reform debate. But that doesn’t mean that some good can’t come from the third choice, if we’re adult enough to give it a chance, instead of working overtime to sabotage it.

So my conservative friends, on the launch day for MnSure, join me in belting out those healing Stephen Stills lyrics: “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey, love the one you’re with.”

– Loveland

Note: This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

Time for Obamacare Supporters To Let Their Light Shine

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Obamacare is easy to misunderstand. It’s complex, confusing and heavily demagogued, and those things all plant seeds of doubt in a lightly informed citizenry. Given the barrage of lies flying around, it astounds me that a majority either still want to keep it or make it stronger.

But as Senator Ted Cruz and many others can tell you, it is very easy to whip about a third of the population into a fervor over Obamacare. Listening to Cruz, Boehner and the boys discuss Obamacare, you’d think the End Times are nigh.

One of their favorite tactics is the ritualistic burning of the Obamacare Card. Though there is no such thing as an Obamacare Card, a conservative group called Freedomworks printed up a batch of faux cards so they could burn them in the public square.

The minority intent on repealing Obamacare has created a good visual with the card burnings. Now, the majority of Americans who either want to maintain or strengthen Obamacare need to create a memorable counter visual.

I nominate burning insurance rejection documents. For decades, insurance companies have been denying health coverage for seriously ill Americans, because seriously ill people are expensive and unprofitable to cover. I’m not blaming insurance companies for doing this, because we have built a system that effectively requires them to deny coverage to those with expensive medical needs. After all, any insurance company that started covering the most sick, expensive patients would be run out of business, because they wouldn’t be able to compete against competitors who reject the most sick, expensive patients. Unless all insurance companies are mandated to cover these folks, none will.

Everyone agrees that these denials have tragic consequences for an enormous group of ailing Americans. According to research by the Commonweath Fund:

An estimated 9 million were turned down or charged a higher price because of a health problem, or had a preexisting condition excluded from their coverage.

The tragedies that stem from such denials are widespread. Non-treatment. Under-treatment. Inefficient and ineffective treatment. Bankruptcies driven by mountains of unpayable medical bills. Cost-shifting to the rest of us.

No more. Starting with the insurance policies going on sale October 1, 2013, Obamacare makes it illegal for any insurance company to ever again deny coverage based on a preexisting condition. As a result, 9 million of some of the sickest Americans finally will be eligible for coverage, and if you get sick or hurt in the future, so will you.

This Obamacare-mandated change is revolutionary for those who have been rejected in the past, and for any of us who could be denied in the future, which is all of us. It is a vastly under-appreciated aspect of Obamacare.

So to celebrate this momentous occasion, let’s burn some insurance company rejection documents. Since there are 9 million lives impacted, let’s burn 9 million denial documents. Just as fake Obamacare Cards needed to be produced for theatrical effect, symbolic rejection documents would have to be recreated. (Most people don’t save their rejection letters to put into their baby books.)

Imagine what that blaze would represent. Coverage denial for victims of all types of cancer, diabetes, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, quadriplegia, Parkinson’s disease, AIDS/HIV and countless other ailments? Up in smoke. Coverage denial for patients in desperate need of doctor-recommended medications? Burn, baby, burn.

Think about it. Never again will any of your desperately ill family members, friends, co-workers and neighbors receive a coverage rejection letter again. The banning of pre-existing condition denials is now a reality, thanks to Obamacare. Let’s tell that story. Let’s create that visual. Let’s have that celebration. Supporters of Obamacare should quit cowering in the shadows of the Obamacare Card burnings, and let that light shine brightly.

– Loveland

Note: This post was featured as a “best of the best” in MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Mistaken Dayton

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Teddy Roosevelt said “the only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”

A couple years back, Governor Mark Dayton was trying to do something. He was attempting to do something that scores of other elected leaders had failed to do, after about a decade of trying. To great fanfare, he helped strike a bipartisan Vikings stadium financing deal that was passed into law. But in the process, the Governor and Legislature made a big honkin’ mistake in relying on electronic pulltabs to finance the stadium.

I don’t admire the Governor’s mistake. But mistakes happen to human beings, and I do admire two things that mistaken Dayton has done in the wake of the error.

Mistake Admitted

The first thing I admire about the Governor is that he admitted the mistake. He said the four humble words you rarely hear coming out of elected officials’ mouths — “We made a mistake.” In the Star Tribune, Governor Dayton didn’t sugar coat, blame, or make excuses:

“We made a mistake, and corrected it.”

It should be noted that the Governor didn’t say this right away. He was initially hoping that time might heal the e-pulltab wounds, and it was probably reasonable to give the new product a bit of time to develop a following. But he did admit the mistake quickly enough to keep the stadium project on track, and that’s something that modern politicians almost never do any more.

Admitting mistakes is a core competency voters need to demand from elected officials. Mistakes are inevitable for any leader, and admitting them is the sign of a courageous, constructive and honest leader, not a weak one. After all, mistakes usually don’t get fixed until they’re identified and owned. If we don’t have leaders who are willing to do that, we’ll be stuck with a government focused on cover-ups, mop-ups and work-arounds.

Correct Lesson Learned

The second thing I admire about the Governor’s admission is that he learned the correct lesson from the mistake. Errors present teachable moments where leaders can learn the wrong or right lessons. Wise leaders learn the right lessons.

As I wrote a while back, the right lesson here is NOT that private sector fiscal input is always evil or incompetent, or that anything that the Vikings owners’ endorse must be rejected on its face. These are the conclusions that a lot of stadium critics have been pushing, and they are rash and wrong.

Fiscal analysts would be foolish to reject private sector vendors’ input as part of their analysis. Just because they were spectacularly wrong in this case doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be used. History shows that private sector input is one important element, among many others, of good policymaking.

Governor Dayton learned the correct primary lesson from his misstep:

“To take an untried source of revenue for the sole source of funding for a major project is ill-advised. That’s my number one take-away from this.”

When it comes to new revenue sources derived from the sales of a product that is completely new to the marketplace, all public and private analysts are guessing. They aren’t guessing because they are incompetent, lazy or corrupt. They are guessing because there is no historical consumer demand data to inform sound fiscal analysis. That is why a virgin revenue source should never have been used by the Governor and Legislature, not because the Wilfs and pulltab vendors are necessarily scoundrels intent on scamming taxpayers.

Admit the mistake promptly, and learn the right lesson. In a system run by mistake-prone human beings, that’s the best we can expect of any leader.

– Loveland

Note: This post was featured in Minnpost and in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

Accomodating Coach Kill

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Joe Loveland

University of Minnesota Golden Gophers Head Football Coach Jerry Kill has epilepsy, and apparently is particularly prone to having seizures in hot and stressful situations. It’s obviously not his fault. But epilepsy does make it difficult to do some jobs, such as those involving live performances on hot stressful stages. For instance, it would be difficult for someone prone to regular stress-induced seizures to be a stage actor at the Guthrie Theater.

Division I FBS college football is a big time performance with tens of thousands of screaming fans in the stadium, and millions more on TV. Fans and commercial sponsors want an uninterrupted stream of football action. So unfortunately, Jerry Kill has one of those careers that doesn’t fit all that well with this disease. When Coach Kill has a seizure, it disrupts the performance that is the source of his large paycheck. If you have a lot of seizures disrupting a lot of performances, that starts to become a legitimate issue. The seizures also raise concerns for the elite athletes the University desperately needs to attract in order to rebuild the Gophers’ program.

Still, I hope the University doesn’t replace Jerry Kill because of this issue. Time will tell, but Kill looks to be an effective coach for a program that desperately needs both an effective coach and coaching continuity. But to make it work for Kill, the University may have to make an accommodation, and Kill may have to accept an adjusted role that isn’t precisely what he prefers.

Head Coach, But Not Head Sidlines Coach

Coach Kill and Gophers Athletic Director Norwood Teague should agree to a new coaching model that looks something like this:

First, give Kill the title Head Coach, and give one of his top assistants the title of Head Sidelines Coach. Then have Head Coach Kill work in a climate controlled stadium suite during games, managing the big picture of the game, while the Head Sidelines Coach manages, with some consultation with the Head Coach, hectic stress-inducing tasks like communications with the referee, calling timeouts, challenging penalties, clock management, and real time feedback to players.

The University has every right to ask Coach Kill to do everything he can to manage his disease, and accepting a revised role like this would be one important thing he can do to manage his disease.

There would be several advantages to this kind of approach:

STABILIZES GAME MANAGEMENT. First, the power-sharing arrangement would give players, potential recruits, and fans confidence that the Gophers’ game management is secure and stable. I wish Coach Kill weren’t in this position, but game management is a legitimate concern when you have a lead game manager who has regular heat- and stress-induced seizures. With this kind of revised role for Kill, fewer games would be disrupted. For recruits who think to themselves “Coach Kill seems like a great guy and coach, but all of those mid-game seizures are destabilizing for this program,” this power-sharing model shows them that they can get both Jerry Kill and stable game management at the University of Minnesota. It addresses both the real and perceived problem the Gophers program currently faces.

KEEPS KILL WITH THE GOPHERS. Importantly, this plan would keep Coach Kill adding tremendous value at the University. Kill is a talented and likeable football coach who seems to be making slow, steady progress rebuilding this troubled football program. Arguably, 90% of his contributions to the University of Minnesota football program happen outside of the glare of the game day spotlight – in practices, game planning meetings, personnel management, recruiting visits, film study, and public appearances. So, it makes sense to scale back the most stressful 10% of his duties in order to keep him available to deliver 90% of the value he currently brings. If Coach Kill is regularly having seizures during games, there probably will come a time when the Gophers will reluctantly have to go with a different head coach. That would hurt both the University and Kill, so both sides should make a proactive move to prevent it.

BETTER MANAGES KILL’S HEALTH. Most importantly, this kind of role would be better for Kill’s health. Being in a climate controlled setting with fewer stressful game time duties would reduce the number of seizure triggers, and therefore, one would hope, the number of seizures Kill suffers. That’s good for both the Gophers program and Kill.

It’s too simplistic for Kill supporters to say “epilepsy is a disease, therefore it’s discriminatory to judge him based on the implications of his disease.” It’s equally simplistic to say “there’s no role for epileptics in big time college football.” There’s a role for a talented epileptic coach like Jerry Kill, but it may not be the exact role played by other Head Coaches. There’s a happy medium here, and I hope Teague and Kill can find it.

– Loveland

Wilf’s Minnesota Partners Should Seek Advice From Their New Jersey Partners

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Minnesotans are about to become business partners with Zygi Wilf, to the tune of half a billion dollars. To get the partnership structured correctly, part of our due diligence process should be to ask past Mr. Wilf’s past business partners what they would do if they were us.

For instance, we should consult with Josef Halpern and his sister Ada Reichman, who the court says were defrauded by their business partner Zygi Wilf. What advice would Halpern and Reichman give Minnesotans on the eve of our business partnership with the Wilfs?

My guess is that Halpern and Reichman wouldn’t be at all focused on ability-to-pay, which seems to be the primary, if not sole, concern of the Minnesota Sports Facitilies Authority (MSFA) and the reporters covering this issue. Minnesotans seem to be learning the wrong lesson from the New Jersey case. After all, ability-to-pay falsification wasn’t the flavor of fraud the Wilfs served up to Halpern. Having money wasn’t the Wilf’s problem in the New Jersey case; sharing it was.

As Judge Deanne Wilson said, Mr. Wilf’s own testimony showed that he had “reneged” on the agreement with Reichmann and Halpern because he decided that they got “too good a deal.” The judge also said “I do not believe I have seen one single financial statement that is true and accurate.”

So, what if the Wilf’s decide Minnesotans got “too good a deal?” Will Minnesotans get the Halpern-Reichman treatment?

Given the Halpern-Reichman experience, I doubt very much that their advice to us would be “make sure they have enough money.” It would more likely be “protect yourself.”

You can bet that Halpern and Reichman wish they had written a stronger accountability provisions into their contract, and regular audits reinforced with stiff fines for falsification. You can bet that they wish they had made the Wilfs regularly disclose everything about the operation of the partnership, so that the financial funny business could have been discovered sooner rather than later.

Actually, what Halpern and Reichman probably would advise Minnesotans is to avoid partnering with the Wilf’s at all costs. But since that doesn’t seem to be in the political winds at this stage, the MSFA should do what the Wilf-defrauded partners would surely do if they had it to do over again: Don’t trust, verify.

– Loveland

Zygi’s Blind Spot

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Joe Loveland

When you’re a wealthy, secretive, pin stripe wearing New Jersey family who is found guilty of a multi-million dollar racketeering charge, you are fighting a certain stereotype. Francis Ford Coppola-inspired biases are inevitable. Many Minnesotans are too polite to say it out loud, but they’re thinking it.

The Wilf’s have chosen to become very public figures, so they need to be aware of how the news of the last few weeks is effecting their public image. But instead of mitigating the reputation damage, they are aggravating it.

This week in court, the Wilfs argued that they cannot disclose information about their wealth. The refusal to disclose is bad enough. Secrecy fosters suspicion, and plays into the stereotype. But the rationale they provided for not disclosing is even worse.

“Unfortunately, in the world in which we all live, it is not uncommon to read articles in the press describing plots by malicious individuals targeting well known high net worth individual[s] and their families for physical attack and extortion.”

Did Mario Puzo write that statement for him? “Attackers?” “Extorters?” When scenarios like that are described by a rich guy convicted of racketeering and fraud in New Jersey, many are going to hear Speak Softly Love in the background. Maybe they shouldn’t, but they will.

Mr. Wilf’s growing reputation problems run the risk of creating business problems. Those personal seat licenses start to feel like “an offer you can’t refuse.” The $575 million partnership Minnesota taxpayers are about to enter into with the Wilf’s starts to feel more shady and risky.

To be clear, I obviously don’t wish an attack or extortion plot on Mr. Wilf. But let’s be real. It’s hardly a secret that Mr. Wilf is a very wealthy man. After all, he flaunts a $19 million apartment on Park Avenue, and it is regularly reported that he owns huge real estate developments and Adrian Peterson.

Therefore, any would-be extortionist or attacker already knows that Mr. Wilf is in possession of a boat load of money. If the court puts a number in place of “boat load” it will not further endanger Mr. Wilf.

So, disclose already. Act like someone who has nothing to hide. Stand up and proudly say “This is what I have, and this is how I earned it.” Don Corleone would never say that. If you don’t want Minnesotans to fall prey to the stereotype and subsequently become wary of entering into a $575 million partnership with you, stop feeding the stereotype and let the sunshine in.

– Loveland

Note: This post was featured in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost.

Beyond Ability to Pay, Stadium Authority Needs To Assure Monitoring, Disclosure and Accountability

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Joe Loveland

After weeks of delay, Minnesota Vikings owner Zygmunt “Zygi” Wilf is finally sharing more financial information to prove he has sufficient financing to pay his share of the new Vikings stadium. Or, more precisely, Mr. Wilf is proving that he has enough money available, minus whatever he has to pay in a pending fraud and racketeering judgment against him, plus a boat load of financial help from the National Football League, a forthcoming corporate naming rights deal, and Vikings fans’ personal seat license fees.

That’s progress. Proving ability to pay is a necessary condition of moving forward with the stadium. But while it’s necessary, it’s far from sufficient. Minnesota taxpayers also need assurances that the pledges Wilf makes in the stadium agreement are kept.

Not “One Single Financial Statement That Is True”

If you think that’s too paranoid, populist or punitive, remember what New Jersey Judge Superior Court Judge Deanne Wilson said just a few days ago about Wilf’s behavior in another business partnership (from MPR):

“The bad faith and evil motive were demonstrated in the testimony of Zygi Wilf himself,” Superior Court Judge Deanne Wilson said, adding the Wilfs hadn’t fulfilled the “barest minimum” of their pledges as partners in the deal. “I do not believe I have seen one single financial statement that is true and accurate.”

Officially, she ruled that Zygi Wilf, his brother Mark and cousin Leonard committed fraud, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty and violated New Jersey’s civil racketeering law.”

“I do not believe I have seen one single financial statement that is true and accurate.” Gulp. Judge Wilson’s statement should be disconcerting to anyone thinking about entering into a business partnership with the Wilfs, including the Minnesota taxpayers about to sign onto a half billion dollar partnership with them.

Ability To Pay Not The Only Safeguard Needed

The Stadium Authority’s oversight must go beyond ability to pay. It must also look into the veracity of other claims the Vikings owners have made so far, and, just as importantly, set up a tight system for monitoring whether the Wilfs are being honest throughout the life of the contract.

Financial oversight is certainly not my field, but maybe “keeping them honest” means regular audits, with large penalties for financial statement shenanigans. Maybe it means requiring holding large amounts of the Wilf’s money in escrow until major partnership obligations are fulfilled. It surely means plenty of public disclosure of all of any accountability-related reports.

Rush to the Ribbon Cutting

Negotiating such accountability measures may take time, and consequently delay the project. Though the delay has been caused by the Wilf’s own stonewalling, it would be unfortunate if the Vikings had to play some extra games in the University of Minnesota stadium, and if the delay drove up the cost of the project. But a delay would not be as unfortunate as the taxpayers getting stiffed because the stadium authority was in too big of a rush to hold a ribbon cutting ceremony.

The Wilfs and the NFL won’t like the idea of being subject to penalties for bad partnership behavior. They will send spokesman Lester Bagley out to express outrage and hurt feelings. This from the folks who are freshly convicted of fraud and racketeering. This from the folks who regularly penalize their employees for the high crime of having fun with end zone dances.

Minnesota taxpayers should no longer care about Zygi and Lester’s hurt feelings or delayed ribbon cuttings. In the wake of Judge Wilson’s startling findings about the Wilf’s past partnership chicanery, “Wilf has the cash” is no longer a good enough assurance for Minnesota taxpayers. Taxpayers need the Stadium Authority to take their time, and assure taxpayers that “Wilf has the cash, and he’s being regularly monitored and held publicly accountable.”

Loveland

Note: This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota‘s Best of the Blogs and MinnPost’s Blog Cabin.

Bachmann Accuser Says He Prays Daily for Bachmann

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Peter Waldron, the evangelical Christian minister and former adviser to Minnesota U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann in her 2012 presidential bid, has accused the Bachmann campaign of a series of illegal and unethical acts. Waldron’s charges have been made in discussions with federal investigators and in Waldron’s recently released digital book, Bachmannistan: Behind the Lines.

In a response published in the Star Tribune this morning, the Bachmann campaign gave the evangelical minister some old fashioned fire and brimstone:

“This former staffer with an ax to grind has been peddling these same reckless falsehoods, half-truths, and innuendos for well over a year in his attempt to maliciously smear Congresswoman Bachmann’s name,” finance chairman James Pollack said in a statement released by the campaign. “Doing this to someone of her immense character is despicable. Whether his motivation is an attempt to selfishly get 15 minutes of fame or reap an economic benefit on this e-book, it is unconscionable.”

Despite the Bachmann campaign’s blistering attack, Waldron apparently is a turn the other cheek kind of guy. He told Wry Wing Politics in an email this morning that he prays every day for Bachmann and her husband Marcus.

“Of course, I pray for Michele and Marcus daily. They are my brother and sister in Christ, their health, family, and future are the areas about which I pray. God is abounding towards them at all times to love, care, and provide for them.”

On Pollock, Waldron says:

“With regard to Mr. Pollack’s effort to discredit me or our book is to simply say that I forgive him. There is one, Jesus Christ, who has forgiven me of my sins. I must forgive Jim Pollack with the same love that our Lord showed me.”

As for the the Bachmann team’s accusations that Waldron was motivated by financial gain, Waldron pointed out to Wry Wing Politics that a portion of the proceeds from the book will be donated to a church.

“I am a lifelong tither. The work of the local church is critical to the Lord’s work in the community and nation.”

The Merriam Webster Dictionary says the definition of the verb tithe is “to pay or give a tenth part of especially for the support of the church.” That leaves 90% of the proceeds for other uses. Still, at a relatively modest list price of $2.99 on Kindle, it’s unlikely that Waldron will achieve Stephen King-like financial status anytime soon.

Despite the firestorm Waldron encountered during his last foray into politics, the minister told Wry Wing Politics that he remains interested in working on more presidential and congressional campaigns:

“Yes, I will work for another presidential candidate, the Bachmann for President campaign was an anomaly in the context of my previous experience on campaigns for the House, Senate, and OPUS.”

Bachmannistan is available to Kindle users on amazon.com.

Zygigate Headlines I Hope To Read

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf has announced that he refuses to negotiate with stadium officials until they finish looking into his finances. In the Star Tribune coverage of this development, Team Wilf strikes a rather bratty tone:

The Minnesota Vikings said Friday there is “no point” in negotiating the user and development agreements for a new stadium while the state agency responsible for it is conducting an investigation of the team’s owners.

“Until the authority has the confidence in our organization there’s no point in moving forward with negotiations,” said Lester Bagley, the Vikings’ vice president of public affairs and stadium development.

In an interview with Politics in Minnesota’s Weekly Report, Chair of Metropolitan Sports Facility Authority (MFSA) Michelle Kelm-Helgen sounded baffled by the Vikings ownership’s snit:

In news accounts, they said we were not good partners at this point. Here’s what I would like to say: They’ve been very clear that they will not talk about these agreements anymore until the due diligence is done. I try to interpret what they mean by that, and I’m not sure I fully understand it. Does the fact that we’re doing this due diligence make us bad partners? We need to reassure the people of Minnesota before the agreement is signed and the bonds are sold that there are no further problems or liabilities out there. If that makes us bad partners, I don’t understand that.

Again, all of this comes a few days after Wilf was found guilty of reneging on a multi-million dollar business partnership deal. Wilf justified these illegal actions by saying he felt another Wilf family member gave the partner too good of a deal, so Zygi took it upon himself to unilaterally right the perceived wrong in a manner that apparently was outside of, let’s just say, generally accepted accounting practices. The judge in the case said Wilf had an “evil” motive.

At the very moment this judgement came down, Minnesota taxpayers were about to go into a $975 million business partnership with the Wilfs, with taxpayers paying around half of the cost. And Team Wilf acts as if the Governor and his appointees have no right to ask questions on taxpayers’ behalf?

Just from a pure entertainment standpoint, the headline of news coverage of this latest melodrama could become interesting:

Perp Pride: Convicted Vikings Owner Claims Victimhood?

Lone Wilf Howls From Negotiation Sidelines

Limber Wilf: Owner Who Defrauded Partner Calls State A Bad Partner

Zygi A Victim, Or Wilf In Sheep’s Clothing?

Dayton: No More Wilf Guarding The Chicken Coop

– Loveland

Note: This post also appeared in Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

The Bachmann Wannabes: Conservative in the Abstract, But Slippery with Specifics

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Joe Loveland

All four candidates running to succeed U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District are running on their intent to reverse budget deficits allegedly piled up during the Obama era. As Minnesota Public Radio’s (MPR) Brett Neely reports:

“So far, there’s little in the way of policy differences that separates the four candidates. They’re all sticking with the national GOP’s message about what ails Washington.

GOP candidate Rhonda Sivarajah: “The debt.”

GOP candidate Phil Krinkie: “Out of control spending.”

GOP candidate Tom Emmer: “Bureaucrats.”

GOP candidate John Pederson: “The deficit.”

The same can be said of the Republicans challenging Senator Al Franken, Governor Mark Dayton, and every other DFL incumbent. This should come as no surprise. “The national GOP message” is based on public opinion research, and polls show that an overwhelming number of Americans are concerned about the deficit. For instance, about 90 percent of Americans surveyed in a Bloomberg poll believed that the deficit is getting worse (62 percent) or not improving (28 percent), with only 6 percent saying that the deficit is decreasing.

In other words, the Republican message is selling with Americans. This bodes well for them in the 2014 mid-term elections.

The Myth of “Skyrocketing Deficits”

It’s worth noting that 90 percent of Americans are wrong about the state of the deficit. In an article titled “The Best Kept Secret In American Politics-Federal Budget Deficits Are Actually Shrinking!,” Forbes magazine notes:

Over the first four years of the Obama presidency, the deficit shrunk by a total of $300 billion dollars. The improvement in the deficit as measured against GDP is the direct result of the deficit falling to $845 billion for fiscal year 2013—a $300 billion improvement over the previous year. And the positive trend is projected to continue though the next fiscal year where the the annual budgetary deficit will fall again to $430 billion.

More recently, the deficit outlook has further stabilized. As CNN Money reported in May 2013:

By 2015, the deficit will fall to its lowest point of the next decade – 2.1% of GDP. And it will remain below 3% until 2019, at which point it will start to increase again. Deficits below 3% are considered sustainable because it means budget shortfalls are not growing faster than the economy.

Still, perception is reality in politics, so conservatives can be expected to milk this inaccurate “the deficit is skyrocketing” myth for all it is worth.

Courting “Progressative” Voters With Generalities

At the same time, don’t look for conservative candidates to provide a detailed list of spending cuts they would make to reduce the deficit and debt more rapidly. Again, they read polls, so they know that Americans overwhelmingly oppose cutting the largest and fastest growing government programs. For instance, a Washington Post poll finds that 77% oppose “reducing Medicare benefits,” 82% oppose “reducing Social Security benefits,” and 51% oppose “reducing military spending.” Other polls show that opposition to cutting Medicare and Social Security is even more vehement among Americans over 50 years old, who are disproportionately likely to vote, particularly in non-presidential election years such as 2014.

Beyond those enormous spending programs, a Pew poll also finds that a plurality of Americans believes that the funding levels for all 19 major government spending categories they tested should be either increased or maintained. Though conservatives have spent decades calling for cuts in “government spending,” Americans are steadfastly rejecting specific cuts in all parts of the federal budget.

Therefore, the dilemma for contemporary politicians is this: Americans support the abstract notion of “cutting government spending,” which sometimes make us appear to be a conservative nation. At the same time, Americans oppose cutting any of the component parts of “government spending,” which makes us look like a remarkably progressive nation. Fiscally speaking, Americans are “progressatives,” conservative with our generalized rhetoric, but progressive with our program-by-program choices.

If the past is predictive of the future, most political reporters won’t press conservative candidates for a specific list of spending cuts to support their bluster. Instead, reporters will allow conservative candidates to rail in a generalized way about “cutting spending,” and in a false way about “skyrocketing deficits.” And as long as that rhetorical free ride is allowed to continue, the polls show that conservatives’ “cut government spending” mantra is a winning message.

-Loveland

Note: This post also was chosen for re-publication in Minnpost and as one of Politics in Minnesota’s Best of the Blogs.

Picture A New Kind of Minnesota Policy Wonk

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Minnesota is blessed with talented, thought-provoking policy researchers and analysts. Some of my favorites are at Minnesota 2020, Minnesota Growth and Justice, Minnesota Citizens for Tax Justice, Minnesota Management and Budget, Minnesota Revenue and Minnesota State Demographic Center, among many others.

But too few Minnesotans know about their best work. It breaks my wonky little heart that so much of their analysis gets consumed by dust mites instead of citizens and policymakers.

So, I have advice for them: Tithe to a graphic designer.

I’m not kidding. Policy analysts who want to remain relevant in a fast changing world need to set aside something like 10% of their research and communications budget to pay a talented graphic designer to crystallize their research findings in a series of visually rich snapshots, sometimes called infographics.

Why would a serious research organization invest in such “fluff?” So more people become informed by their research and analysis.

Researchers and analysts like text, numbers and girth. Graphs and tables also are used, but they are usually constructed in a way that is more complex than most viewers will tolerate. Often, a policy analyst will also drop in a few stock photos that characterize the general subject matter, such as a photo of a train in a report about transit.

But that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m talking about pieces where bold graphics, illustrations, symbols and headlines quickly tell the gist of the most important findings at-a-glance. Examples can be viewed here and here.

Wonks often assume that their responsibility for communicating ends with the final footnote in their official report. But research shows that text-based communications alone aren’t an adequate convey the information to busy audiences. For a number of reasons, visuals are necessary:

VISUALS ARE MORE COMPELLING. People follow directions 323% better when illustrations accompany text. Moreover, significantly more people are persuaded by presentations accompanied by visuals than by presentations lacking visuals.

VISUALS ARE MORE BITE-SIZED. Human brains can process and absorb the meaning of a symbol in 250 milliseconds. That kind of speed matters to busy people seeking short-cuts to manage massive amounts of information coming at them.

VISUALS ARE MORE MEMORABLE. Our brains remember only about 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they read, but they remember 80% of what they see and do. As they say in the advertising world, visuals are more “sticky.”

How do I know about this research? From a 60-second visit to a Googleable infographic about infographics, of course. That’s the way we do it in the latter half of 2013.

The other critically important reason to invest heavily in graphic design is:

VISUALS ARE SHAREABLE. In a world that is increasingly shaped by social media-based information-sharing, infographics are constantly shared. At the same time, lengthy reports rarely get shared, and usually get ignored when they are shared. If an organization wants to be a bigger part of the billions of conversations happening in social media, they need to be producing quickly digestible visual summaries of their research findings.

So Minnesota wonks, visualize this: Reduce your spending on paper, binding, ink, snail mail, gatherings, collateral materials and media relations. Use the savings to invest in something that will make your work a lot more relevant — a long-term partnership between your analysts and an infographics artist.

– Loveland

Note: This post was also featured in Politics in Minnesota’s “Best of the Blogs.”

Minnesota Majority: Too Fig To Fail

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Joe Loveland

There was an interesting item this week in Politics in Minnesota about the potential demise of a conservative interest group called Minnesota Majority. In the most desperate fundraising appeal I’ve seen since the waning days of Tony Sutton at the Minnesota GOP, the power brokers at Minnesota Majority declared that if their conservative benefactors don’t deliver another $20,000 to their doorstep this week, they would be forced to cease operations.

Founded in 2007 by a fellow named Jeff Davis, Minnesota Majority was the lead organization behind the 2012 drive to build additional barriers to voting in Minnesota, a proposition that was wisely rejected by 54% of Minnesota voters.

Since Minnesota Majority proved to be in the minority, it apparently has fallen upon hard times. Current Majority leader Dan McGrath spins it this way in a recent fundraising appeal:

“The 2012 election results seem to have brought about a dangerous malaise causing many people, including some past major donors, to disengage,” the appeal states. “As a result, we’ve been struggling to raise enough money to keep the lights on all year and we’re rapidly reaching a critical point, where we will have do decide if it’s viable to continue operating at all.”

If Minnesota Majority actually goes under, I’d love to go to their “Going Out of Business Sale.” I bet you could get some sweet deals on glamour shots of the Koch brothers, the billionaire masterminds of the voter suppression drive. I’d also love to see how much they can get for that framed May 2011 Star Tribune poll showing 80% support for Minnesota Majority’s voter ID proposal. (To me, the smashed glass only adds a sense of history to the artifact.)

I still am not convinced that Jeff “Not Jefferson” Davis and his merrymakers at Minnesota Majority are truly done with their voter suppression shenanigans. After all, it seems to have served a very important purpose for a lot of conservative donors intent on preventing voting among those least likely to have a photo ID — the old, the young, the poor, and the minorities. Many of those Minnesota Majority donors would rather not be too public about these sordid anti-democratic efforts.

In short, the voting suppressor enthusiasts need something to cover up that which is embarrassing to show in public, a sort of 501(c)(3) fig leaf. Even if Minnesota Majority goes away in its current form, it will return in a laundered form, so that there will be someone to do the things some conservative donors would rather not do too publicly. The struggling voting suppressors at Minnesota Majority are, in the final analysis, too fig to fail.

– Loveland

Note: This post was also featured as a Best of the Blogs by Politics in Minnesota and in MinnPost.

Snobbyapolis

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Joe Loveland

News flash: Minneapolis is a snobby city. This from Travel and Leisure:

In the annual America’s Favorite Cities survey, we asked readers to rank 35 major metropolitan areas for features such as trendy food trucks or good-looking locals.

To determine which city has the biggest nose in the air, we factored in some traditional staples of snobbery: a reputation for aloof and smarty-pants residents, along with high-end shopping and highbrow cultural offerings like classical music and theater.

But we also considered 21st-century definitions of elitism: tech-savviness, artisanal coffeehouses, and a conspicuous eco-consciousness (say, the kind of city where you get a dirty look for throwing your coffee cup in the wrong bin).

Minneapolis ranked 4^th, trailing San Francisco, New York City and Boston, but edging out Seattle, Santa Fe and Chicago. The Travelers’ and Leisurers’ take on us:

Perhaps readers felt intimidated by these bookish, indie-music-loving, craft-beer-drinking hipsters, who also ranked highly for being exceptionally tidy. If these Minnesotans feel self-satisfied, is it any wonder? They also scored well for being fit and outdoorsy; you can join them at the Chain of Lakes, where, depending on the season, folks are hiking, paddling, or even ice-surfing.

Snobby? Really? Isn’t having interesting stuff in your community a desirable thing?

Of course it is. Having the option of experiencing something new and different that isn’t available just anywhere is a huge advantage of living in a great city like Minneapolis.

But T and L got it right. Minneapolis is a snobby city, because having new and different things is not enough for many Minneapolitans. They feel obliged to look down from their lofts and rooftop cafes judging people who don’t worship at the altar of all that is new and different.

For instance, God help you if you express dislike for Surly Furious beer inside the Minneapolis city limits. It’s perfectly reasonable that some people would enjoy the bitter taste of the hop-heavy local brew, and some would not. Preferences are preferences. But to hipster Minneapolitans, a distaste for the hops in IPAs is a clear sign that one is not sufficiently evolved.

The same thing applies to food and wine. If my God-given tastebuds just can’t distinguish between a ten buck meal and a fifty buck meal, does that really mean that I’m a closed-minded rube? Maybe it just means that I’d rather hold onto the extra forty bucks to buy four extra ten buck meals. Saffron and truffle oil? Can’t taste it dude. Hints of oak barrel? Even if I could taste it, why would I necessarily desire it?

I also plead guilty to wearing khakis and not possessing a single pair of skinny jeans. Why? One, BECAUSE I’M NOT SKINNY. (Neither, by the way, are many of you.) Two, because I still have khakis in my closet from the 90s that have more miles on them.

And then there are bicyclists. Minneapolis is thick with them these days, and I’m all for them. I support more bike lanes, bike racks, and people out of cars, if that’s what works well for them. But just because I prefer not to arrive at meetings drenched in sweat and expect bicyclists to obey traffic laws doesn’t make me a Neanderthal bike hater who doesn’t understand the profound awesomeness of Amsterdam.

The fact that many Minneapolitan hipsters equate rejection of a trend with inferiority is what makes them snobby. Trends are fine. Enforcement of trends is snobby.

It’s difficult for me to understand when snobbery happens in a city populated with folks who are largely transplants from small towns, suburbs and rural areas. Even most of the free spirits in Uptown and downtown lofts did not grow up in Soho or Greenwich Village. They are only a few short years removed from enjoying Folgers, Mogen David, Buckhorn and IHOP.

If those folks find that Peets, Pétrus, Surly, and Café Lurcat brings them more joy, enjoy already. But really, there is no need to evangelize and snigger. We hayseeds are perfectly comfortable, in all our glorious frumpyness.

– Loveland

Note: This post also appeared in The Same Rowdy Crowd blog.

Mullet Brotherhood Starts Draft Shelby Drive

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Joe Loveland

Bloomington, Minn., July 31, 2013 — A national hair style advocacy group called the Mullet Brotherhood announced today that it was organizing a drive to draft legendary WCCO-TV anchorman Don Shelby to run for Congress against Minnesota 3rd Congressional District Representative Erik Paulsen.

After retiring from the anchor desk, Shelby became a cause celebre in the mullet-American advocacy community when he let his hair down, the hind half of it. News reports that Shelby may run for Congress have caused a buzz among mullet activists anxious to see one of their own representing them in Washington.

“Former Governor Pawlenty had a chance become the first mulleted President, but unfortunately he dumped us for a Super PAC-approved cut,” said Floyd “Flow Joe” Joyner, President of the Mullet Brotherhood. “We’ve long admired Mr. Shelby’s silver cascade, and would dearly love to see that bad boy in the Capitol Building.”

Joyner admitted that the road will be long for Shelby. Protesters outside the news conference mocked Shelby and the group with various forms of hate speech, such as hockey hair, ten ninety, helmet hair, coupe Longueuil, haircut o’ death, neckwarmer, shorty longback, the 10-90, the Kentucky waterfall, the bi-level, the faded glory, the Ben Franklin, the Missouri Compromise, the Louisiana Purchase, the Camaro crash helmut, the business cut (business in front, party in the back), the LPGA, the soccer flip, the convertible, the Tennessee top hat, the Canadian passport, the New Jersey neckwarmer, the Chattanooga choo choo, and the neck blanket and the Wisconsin waterfall.

“If that ‘Wisconsin waterfall’ label sticks, that could be the end for Shelby,” said Dr. Harold Cloister, political science professor at St. Thomas University. “I’d look for Shelby’s handlers to spin it as more of a Minnesota Mudflap.”

With the exception of a few short-lived fads, hind heavy hair has been slow to be accepted in contemporary mainstream society. Though fossil records indicate that homo sapiens with primitive mullets have walked the Earth for at least 130,000 years, it was 2001 before the word “mullet” even appeared in dictionaries. Mullet activists see a Shelby candidacy as a historic opportunity to normalize the oppressed mulleted minority.

“We did have Governor Ventura in the State Capitol a few years back, but to be honest there is a rather ugly debate within our community about whether a skullet should be considered to be in the mullet family,” said Joyner. “Naturally, we value all forms of unbridled neck hair, but many feel that crown-based flow is a necessary element of the art form. But dandy Don’s ape drape, dude, we all get goose bumps about that mofo.”

Joyner announced the launch of a Draft Shelby website www.DonsDo4u.com. Along with a draft petition, the site also is selling “Don’s Do 4U” trucker’s hats, with a faux silver mullet flowing from the back.

Mr. Shelby refused to comment for this story. However, in previous news reports he has indicated that he has not yet ruled out becoming “a terrible congressman.”

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