It's On! Teabagger Candidate Wins Gov. Nomination in MN

[MineralMan]

This midterm election is taking an interesting turn, I think, and the results are going to be a bit influence across the country for some time to come. Here in Minnesota, a conservative Republican candidate for Governor, and one with clear ties to the tea party movement, has won the Republican endorsement for the race.

Tom Emmer, proud of his glowing endorsement by Sarah Palin, is the GOP candidate for Governor. He has publicly said that he supports the Arizona Immigrant Discrimination Bill. His slogan - shouted out after accepting the nomination - is "Take back Minnesota!" I expect Michele Bachmann to join the crowd with an endorsement and campaign cooperation. The man is a teabagger, ladies and gentlemen.

This is Minnesota, folks, not Mississippi. Even though we've had a Republican Governor for the past two terms, we've also sent Al Franken to the Senate and Keith Ellison to Congress, along with many other Democrats. What should we expect from this election?

The answer is that we should expect Emmer to win unless we turn out the Democratic vote. At this point, we have three Democrats who will be running in the upcoming primary in August, and they're all duking it out with each other. We're dividing our own party up along invisible and meaningless lines, while the Emmer people are focused hard on putting him and only him into the Governor's office.

If we take our footballs and go home if our preferred candidate amongst the three Democrats doesn't win the primary, we will have a teabagger as Governor. Complacency won't do. Thinking that it's impossible for a teabagger moron to become Governor is stupid. We did elect Jesse Ventura, after all.

Unless Democrats respond to this teabagger challenge and work very hard to elect someone other than Emmer, we will lose this election and cut the party's nose off just to spite ourselves.

Further, this situation has national implications. If the teabaggers can prevail in Minnesota, no election will be safe for some time. We must, even nationally, join forces instead of bickering about details. We have a clear choice: We can let the teabaggers win or we can put an end to their nonsense.

I know what my choice is. How about your choice?

[gateley]

1. We can't let that happen. Please, Minnesotans, work for the "D", whomever s/he may be. nt

[StopTheNeoCons]

5. How 'bout all DUers work for the Democratic candidate....nt

[gateley]

8. Who says we're not? nt

[dflprincess]

21. The DFL endorsed candidate is Margaret Anderson Kelliher

but, the DFL being what it is, she is facing a primary. Former Senator Mark Dayton and former state rep Matt Entenza are both taking the DFL race to the primary in August. Both Dayton & Entenza have enough money to self finance (Entenza's money comes mainly from his wife's former position as a wheel at United Health Group - a position she left supposedly after they figured out that it wasn't helping his political ambitions).

The other Republican challenger agreed to abide by the party's endorsement decision and so the DFLers will waste 3 months running against each other rather than the Republican. Not only do the Republicans not have a primary contest in any major race, Minnesota has open primaries which mean the true believers among the teabaggers will be free to vote in the DFL primary for what ever candiate they perceive would be the easiest to beat.

Then we have the Independence party which has been the spoiler in the last 3 governor's races. Odds are what sane Republicans remain might be more apt to vote for the Independence candidate which could benefit the DFL - but we don't know how many DFL votes he might siphon off as well.

The last three govenor contest have been won by pluralities. Ventura only got about 35% of the vote when he won and Pawlenty never did better than 45%.

[Raschel]

25. Dayton will never win. He needs to hang it up. Entenza, just not likeable.

Everyone needs to rally behind Kelliher.

[dflprincess]

27. My personal opinion of Entenza is that he's as big a weasel as Normie Coleman

but within a day or so of the DFL convention ending he started running an awfully slick TV ad - and he's running it a lot.

[Raschel]

30. He does come across as weasely. Not likeable at all.

[saltpoint]

2. What sort of support does this Emmer guy have up and down the

state?

It seems as if the rank and file DFL voter would far outnumber the Bagger demographic in Minnesota.

[Bjorn Against]

6. He is not well known...

Those who do know him know that he is about as far to the right as you can get, but the vast majority of Minnesotans know very little about him as his name has not been around very long. There is no way he will be able to get a majority of the vote in Minnesota, the problem is that the Independence Party here often helps the Republicans win with a plurality (they are the so called "centrist" party).

[dodger501]

12. We are not a Clown State but we do have our share of clowns

No, Emmer will not get a plurality but the Independence Party absolutely can be a deal-breaker, they helped Pawlenty get in the last 2 times. Without a plurality.
And we had pretty strong candidates in Roger Moe and Mike Hatch.
I don't know about Kelliher, she is not exactly a ball of fire on the stump.
Turnout will be the key.

[dflprincess]

22. Moe ran a terrible campaign

He got the endorsement because too many people thought it was his "turn" and given the campaign he ran he apparently thought the rest of the state would think it was his turn as well. We would have been way better off endorsing Judy Dutcher that year.

[The Damned]

29. Every state has its clowns

Stand in line behind Alaska, Arizona, Texas, South Carolina, etc.

[saltpoint]

19. Hi, Bjorn Against. Thank you for the info and insight. I haven't been

following this race and now it looks as if maybe I should be.

'Appreciate it.

[rsmith6621]

3. Minnesota Is A Clown State

.....Jesse Ventura...Michelle Bachmann....Sarah Palin thinks she is from there......

[Bjorn Against]

7. Do you realize that we have the longest streak of Democratic Presidential wins of any state?

I don't think you know Minnesota too well if you think we are represented by Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Less than ten percent of Minnesotans voted for Bachmann and McCain/Palin lost Minnesota badly despite having their convention here.

[Freddie Stubbs]

16. Ever hear of a guy named Paul Wellstone? Or Walter Mondale?

:shrug:

[spanone]

4. good - anything that connects the teabagger & the rethuglican'ts

[AnArmyVeteran]

9. I like your post, but I also like Jesse Ventura...

Jesse Ventura at least wasn't gutless like a lot of politicians. A sad, but true fact: There are too many gutless democrats who seem terrified to even speak. Some of them have balls, but most are cowards.

Even with huge majorities in the house and senate, democrats have acted like they are in the minority. It's unbelievable how timid and cowardly they act. They let the most radical, ignorant and insane people take control of the political dialogue, without even a whimper. Sometimes I wonder what side most of the democrats are on. If they had conviction, principles and guts the tea party movement would have been disgraced long ago. But they allow lie after lie to be told without them rebutting them.

I also wondered during the 2000 presidential campaign if Gore even cared if he won. During debates with the imbecile Bush he agreed with Bush countless times. I could have debated Bush and exposed him for the incompetent fraud that he is. Hell, I bet I could have made him a laughingstock if I debated him. Many of my friends, all democrats and very liberal, wondered if the fix was in. It seemed like it didn't matter who won that election. Gore didn't seem to really care. And if Ralph Nader hadn't been excluded from the debates by the CPD, which included a democrat, Gore would have won easily. Nader had the balls to go after Bush and he would certainly have made him look like the laughingstock he is. But the powers that be in the democratic party felt threatened by having Nader even appear near any of the debates, once throwing him out. That's how terrified they were of the truth. It takes an enormous amount of ineptness and cowardice to let a person like Bush win an election. And the democrats are doing virtually the same thing this time even though they could bury the republicans in the Fall if they just used all of the political ammunition at their disposal.

It's happening all over again in a way. Democrats seem to lack courage, will, conviction and GUTS.

[dodger501]

13. Jesse was no coward but

He was largely ineffective.
Everyone (Dems, Repubs, Media Jackals, regular folks) was the enemy. He had no organizational structure in the lege to get stuff done.
Except cut taxes and fees for the stuff he cared about - snowmobile & ATV licenses, etc.

[dflprincess]

23. Jesse also agitated for the surplus the state had being returned to the taxpayers

and DFL legislators went along with that (to their shame). The argument being that the surplus "belonged to all of us". I often wonder why the deficit the state has now doesn't also belong to all of us - but from the programs getting cut that apparently only belongs to the poor.

[rbixby]

10. I don't think it'll be that much of a challenge to defeat him

No matter who wins the Democratic primary, we've got strong candidates, and I think that as long as people actually get out and vote we can bring back the governorship from T-paw. I just hope that republicans continue down the path to destruction that they're on and make this one especially easy.

[Kalyke]

11. Interesting piece, but we could do without the geographical bigotry.

I realize many people here think the South is completely populated by bigots and Republicans, but the truth is that their margin is only slightly greater than that of lefter-thinking people.

Minnesota isn't like Mississippi for numerous things: it's a lot colder, it's closer to one border of this country than the other and it doesn't have nearly as many people of color than Mississippi - but Mississippi has four congressional districts consisting of one Republican and four Democrats while Minnesota has eight congressional districts consisting of three Republicans and five Democrats - not a whole hell of a lot of difference on the "people" level, there.

[MineralMan]

14. Just a note to add:

What I'm suggesting is that we, as Democrats, do not simply say, "Oh, Emmer can never win," and not show up to vote for the winner of the Democratic primary. It has happened before, and it can happen again. We must not let it happen this year. I can guarantee that the conservative Republicans will be out in almost 100% force. And, by that, I do not mean just the teabaggers. Every conservative GOOPer will get out and vote.

We cannot let another Republican be the Governor of Minnesota. We simply cannot, and especially not this troglodyte.

Sorry about the Mississippi reference. No regional bigotry was intended. However, both of your Senators and your Governor are Republicans. That was the reference I was making. House members are local representatives, not statewide representatives. Both of Minnesota's Senators are Democrats. Our Governor, on the other hand is a GOOPer.

[scarletwoman]

15. Listening to this idiot shouting about how "We're gonna take back our state!"

Um, we've had a Republican governor for the last 8 years -- just what does he figure he's taking it back from?

Good grief, what a bozo!

Well, next week is the Independence Party convention, can't wait to see who they nominate.

I really dread this governor's race. I'm not particularly thrilled with the DFL nominee, I'm absolutely incensed that there are DFL primary challengers, and I dread the slime machine that the GOP and their teabagger cohort will be gearing up. And on top of it all, there'll be some idiot asshole Independence Party candidate to split the damn vote AGAIN. :banghead:

[Hansel]

18. It's not their state to take back. Minnesota is traditionally a liberal state.

And still is. Typically we split that vote nearly evenly between two more progressive candidates and some Republican who has to pretend to be moderate and play Minnesota nice on his ads.

I don't think a raging right wing loony will win in the state. All we can hope for is for this clown to sound as nuts in his campaign ads as he has in the primary and we should be safe.

Minnesota needs an instant runoff law like no other state. We keep getting saddled with pretend Republican moderates because of having a fairly strong Independent party that splits the ticket.

[dflprincess]

24. On WCCO's 10 o'clock news last night I was surprised to hear Amelia Santenielo

ask that very question "Who do they want to take it back from?" - and Pat Kessler replied "Good question. The Republicans have controlled the governor's seat for the last 8 years."

It was the most honest exchange I've heard on the local news in a long time. Of course, Amelia doesn't look like a Scandanavian so maybe teabagger bigotry is getting to her.

[Raschel]

26. Hah! I wish I would have seen that!

[Joanne98]

17. A bruising primary doesn't always mean losing in November.

Sometimes it takes a brutal primary to toughen up the candidate who will win.

[Initech]

20. God forbid the Tealiban actually gets a hold of our government...

:scared: :nuke:

[bridgit]

28. Land of A Thousand BagHeads - they should be made to wear purple fingers...

[greencharlie]

31. what's the difference

between a conservative Repuglican and a Republican closely tied to the Tea Party group?