Should the dollar remain the United States' form of currency?*
Should Congress cut its own pay until the budget is balanced?**
Are you angry at the federal government's policies?***
Are judges in our country too liberal, too conservative, or about right?****
What do these questions have in common? They've all been asked recently during polls by major "reputable" pollsters, and they are each useless, vacuous questions with no value whatsoever to a civil, fact-based political discourse.
Where's the responsibility statement for pollsters in today's day and age?
Here at MPP, we've been following Hal Kimball's bid to replace retiring moderate GOP State Senator Steve Dille, who served for 24 years with distinction. As Joe Bodell noted back in December:
I've said it before and I've said it again -- the DFLers cannot afford to be complacent about the State Senate, where several senior members of the caucus are getting close to retirement age. We need to keep up the pressure and elect great people like Hal to seats just like this one -- and don't be fooled about whether he actually has a shot. He does, and it's a good one. (emphasis added)
Especially with the GOP's decision to endorse Scott Newman for this open seat. Newman's running hard to the far right under the "Personal Responsibility - Individual Freedom - Less Government" banner. For instance, Newman's a guy that wants to get rid of "business subsidies" - as noted by Bluestem Prairie:
If it takes an 8-point oversample in Tom Emmer's favor to get him up to a tie, I feel pretty great about Mark Dayton's chances in a real electorate in which younger, cell-phone-only voters show up.
But aside from the weird methodology, check out the published crosstabs:
There's a lot of room for movement there, but there is virtually no way Emmer picks up significant enough ground among independent voters to make a dent in the overall results. Keep in mind that this is a mid-term election, and the non-partisan vote is generally going to be a lot lower than it is in presidential years, so given a normal partisan breakdown, or even a slightly GOP-leaning one, Emmer has a LOT of ground to make up.
2. The gender gap: MPR's writeup indicates that there's no significant gender gap -- that women are currently favoring Mark Dayton by a similar margin to men favoring Tom Emmer. However, what they fail to mention directly is that the sample includes 52% women (about normal for Minnesota) which is yet another built-in advantage for Dayton. Again, given a more reasonable partisan sample, this will go straight through to the final results of this election.
3. Age gap? MPR doesn't appear to have published the support breakdowns by age, only the sample sizes -- which look weird in and of themselves, since it's a decent bet the senior vote will be bigger than this poll indicates. If it is, it's another good bet that those voters will go with Dayton in big numbers, especially outside the city -- as we found in the DFL primary, these voters are more likely than not to go with the name they know and trust, and that is Mark Dayton.
Again, if it takes a huge GOP over-sample to get Tom Emmer up to a bare tie, I think Mark Dayton is in pretty darned good shape right now.
At a press conference today, Luke Hellier of Minnesota Democrats Exposed was allowed to ask a "gotcha" question of DFL gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton, and tripped him up a little bit. Bravo, Luke. Glad to see you can read so well from a script that came from...who knows where.
There are some bigger issues here:
1. The real screw-up here is on the part of the organizers, whether that be the Dayton campaign staff, the DFL, or whoever was running the show, in allowing a publicly known Republican blogger, activist, and operative in the room, let alone into a position where he could open his mouth.
2. Pat Kessler asking a follow-on question to something asked by a publicly known Republican operative in such a setting is absolutely preposterous, and truly bends the standards of journalistic decency. Kessler is a good reporter, but this was just absolutely stupid.
3. The money quote from Dayton in the exchange is unlikely to get much play from the likes of MDE:
I just think it's way out of bounds to in terms of what people care about in this election.
People are hurting, and Dayton actually has proposals on the table for helping Minnesota get back on the right track economically (which Emmer does not, beyond "MORE OF WHAT PAWLENTY GAVE US"). So obviously this is how the GOP and Team Emmer think they're going to win: by talking about decade-old records from Dayton's divorce.
It's a pretty good example of the Chewbacca Defense, really: throw as much disjointed, irrelevant information at the wall and hope the jury is so confused that they don't notice you're an idiot, and thus acquit elect your guy who still thinks the waitstaff at your local restaurant are overpaid.
Pitiful. Disgusting and totally in character, but pitiful.
Alliance for a Better Minnesota is currently running an ad highlighting Tom Emmer's habit of missing votes in the legislature. It just so happens that I am currently in the process of compiling all of the legislative votes of all of the current legislators for the formulation of a state level DW-Nominate style scoring system, meaning I just so happen to have a database of all of the roll call votes for the 2010 session and can evaluate these claims.
Anytime you hear "so and so has done a thing X number of times," it's helpful to know what X is relative to Y and Z. In this case Alliance for a Better Minnesota claims that Tom Emmer missed 142 votes of 621 taken, so at the very least it would be nice to know what the average number of votes missed is.
My database includes a total of 650 votes for the 2010 regular session and special session combined (there were two votes that took place in a one day special session) and Tom Emmer missed 147 of those votes. I'm not sure which votes I'm including that Alliance for a Better Minnesota isn't, the link they provide for their source is the same source I used to compile my database.
So while Alliance for a Better Minnesota claims Tom Emmer missed one out of every five votes (it's actually more, over 22% if you figure 142/621) according to my database Tom Emmer "only" missed over 18% of votes. The word only in that sentence is in quotes because Tom Emmer only missed more votes than any other legislator and it's not even close.
PoliGraph has the goods on Tom Emmer's latest step-in-it-fest -- this time talking about how the evil public employees (most of them AFSCME members, go figure) are paid so much better than their counterparts in the private sector:
"On average, a person who works in the private sector in a job similar to that of somebody who's working in the [public] sector is making on average 30 to 40 less," the Republican gubernatorial candidate said on Aug. 26, 2010.
When it comes to national averages, he's correct. But a closer look at these numbers tells a different story.
...
[H]is statement is misleading for several reasons. First, he implies that, job for job, public sector workers make 30 to 40 percent more than private sector employees. That's not necessarily true. For instance, the average state government computer programmer makes $29.70 an hour while the average computer programmer working at a private firm makes an average of $36.40 an hour. And a lawyer working for government makes, on average, 26 percent less than a lawyer working at a private firm, according to the Federal Salary Council.
In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stresses that it's dangerous to compare public sector average pay to private sector average pay because the government work force is more skilled than the private sector work force, so average hourly pay is naturally lower.
In my life outside the rough-and-tumble, dark-knight-esque world of political blogging, I am a software developer -- I would love to work in the public sector, but it would likely be a step down in terms of potential salary.
Given Tom Emmer's track record of questionable claims on worker salaries, is it more likely that
A.) He actually knows what he's talking about, or
B.) He's cherry-picking questionable figures to reinforce what he already thinks he knows -- that people who see fit to work in the public sector, on behalf of their fellow citizens, are actually Satan incarnate?
Tom Emmer for Governor: insulting, berating, and degrading his way to something resembling victory in November.
MN Forward, the front group for Target, Best Buy, Red Wing Shoes and other corporations MN Futures MN's Future, Jeff Larson's front group, has released it's first ad. This one Some corporate front group attacks the DFL MN-GOV candidate Mark Dayton. Obviously, I'm confused about who's behind this. No surprise here, really. It was only a matter of time.
The Dayton Campaign had the following response:
"This is just lies, lies and more lies from people who won't identify themselves. Mark has made it absolutely clear that his plan to close Minnesota's budget hole and to invest in education will raise taxes only on the richest Minnesotans. This attack is especially ironic since it's Mark's plan that will prevent property tax increases. And Mark promised in 2003 to vote against any email tax in the U.S. Senate and has never suggested it in this campaign. Mark is determined to put an end to the middle class carrying the tax burden in Minnesota--it's time everyone paid their fair share."
(Email from Dayton's Communication Director Katherine Tinucci)
-- UPDATE --
D'Oh! Sorry for the screw up folks. I confused MN Forward and MN's Future. And then I confused MN's Future with MN Future. See the comments for the embarrassing (for me) details.
It's a pretty safe bet that I'm going to vote for Mark Dayton in this year's gubernatorial race.
That being said, I'm not above offering constructive criticism to the DFL nominee.
In yesterday's debate, Dayton said "I want to make taxes more progressive. My opponents want to make them more regressive."
This is a clear statement, and it fits with the platform Dayton has espoused since the very beginning of his campaign. The guy has run numerous times, and obviously knows how to stay on-message.
The one minor problem I have with that statement is that it requires listeners to understand the value statement behind "progressive" and "regressive" tax policies. Don't get me wrong, I agree wholeheartedly, but do the words (which matter, thank you very much Frank Luntz) hit listeners in the ventricle?
"I want to make taxes more fair to the middle class. My opponents want to make them less fair." That, in my mind, would be a better use of terms that have visceral meaning to most listeners -- we all learned "fair" and "unfair" in elementary school, and understand the words without having to think about them.
It's a minor critique really -- I've been impressed at how disciplined the Dayton campaign's message machine has been, and their candidate has done a great job in debates and in public appearances of talking about his platform in a clear, forceful way. But if the last few election cycles have taught us nothing, it's that getting to voters' hearts works better than having to expend the effort necessary to get in their heads, and K.I.S.S. is, as always, a rule worth following.
I watched TBagger Wannabe Tom Emmer's 1st ad, and thought: "Hey! I've seen THAT one, before!" So, let's look!
OK, that was then; this is now - so, let's look at Emmer's 1st ad:
The theme GOPers are tryin' to push in both? "aw, shucks - MakeoverMark/TBaggerTom is really a nice guy."
And GOPers really have to push that message; it's their only hope. Because when it comes to policy, GOPers (as pointed out by Joe Bodell) want to give you four more years just like the last eight - only worse.
I'll give Tom Emmer this much: he's in a tough spot.
Having to prove both that he's capable of leading the state of Minnesota in the next decade and that he's somehow different from the failed policies of Tim Pawlenty is quite a tall order. However, it doesn't seem like he's interested or capable of either part.
In an interview with Esme Murphy on Sunday, the following exchange took place:
Murphy: Controversy this week with Governor Tim Pawlenty saying that he's not sure if he's going to accept some $263 million of federal stimulus money aimed at Medicare and Medicaid funds for the elderly and poor. If you were governor right now, would you accept that money?
Emmer: No. And when you characterize it that way, I think it sounds a little bit more serious.
Yes, Mr. Emmer, the problem is how the anchor is characterizing it, and not with the fact that you'd refuse a big chunk of money from the feds that would help close the gaping hole in the state's budget. Sure. Awesome. Once again, this is Emmer following along and doubling down on what Tim Pawlenty has wreaked upon the state's fiscal situation.
The list goes on: Emmer voting against an early Medicaid expansion that would have helped poor Minnesotans. Emmer opposing a bill that would have leveraged a billion dollars in federal subsidies (at last count, about a sixth of the state budget shortfall).
Again and again, Emmer has supported Pawlenty as the current lame duck attempts to raise his miniscule appeal to the fiscal dead-enders in the GOP presidential sweepstakes. The question is whether Emmer has any ideas of his own, or if he's really so drunk on the anti-everything Kool-Aid that he doesn't see the damage eight years of Tim Pawlenty has done to our state.
As a stopgap solution on the road toward making such donations illegal once more, this isn't a bad turn of events:
A few Target Corp. and Best Buy Co. institutional shareholders weighed in Thursday on the flap over the companies' political donations in Minnesota, urging the boards of both retailers to increase their oversight of campaign contributions.
...
"A good corporate political contribution policy should prevent the kind of debacle Target and Best Buy walked into," said Trillium vice president Shelley Alpern. "We expect companies to evaluate candidates based upon the range of their positions -- not simply one area -- and assess whether they are in alignment with their core values. But these companies' policies are clearly lacking that."
The shareholders said the donations don't mesh with corporate values that include workplace protections for gay employees and risk harming the companies' brands. Walden senior vice president Tim Smith said such giving can have "a major negative impact on company reputations and business."
A good corporate political contribution policy would be "don't do it. Ever." But forcing companies to think about their image before they engage in these types of hypocritical games is a decent thing, and if the Supreme Court won't uphold laws that do it, it falls to institutional investors to keep honest the companies in which they invest. For now.
Perhaps the Republican gubernatorial candidate decided that two debates was enough, and he's tired of being beaten to a rhetorical pulp on the issues that matter to Minnesota. In any case, the Detroit Lakes Tribune is concerned about the decision, and thinks Emmer should reconsider:
When it comes to rural issues, Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer hasn't exactly been reassuring in his campaign so far.
He plans to skip a candidate forum sponsored by the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities on Thursday in Winona.
DFLer Mark Dayton and Independent Tom Horner will be there. Emmer should too.
Especially since he aims to solve the state's $6 billion budget gap through spending cuts - so far, without giving specifics.
It doesn't take a math professor to figure it out: If Emmer wins, cities can kiss goodbye to what's left of their Local Government Aid from the state, and counties can do the same thing with what's left of their state aid.
The programs - designed to keep property taxes under control in outstate Minnesota - have already suffered disproportionate cuts in recent years, particularly through Gov. Tim Pawlenty's unallotment process.
It's a safe bet that they will be the first cuts that will be made by someone looking to slice his way out of a $6 billion hole.
Taken by themselves, newspapers in rural Minnesota don't have huge readership. But their readership is loyal as all get-out, and there are lots of these papers around the state. If Emmer decides to throw in the towel in addressing the issues that matter most to Greater Minnesota, and he's not planning to compete too hard for the few Republican votes remaining in the big cities, it's difficult to see how he plans to win the gubernatorial race.
The body has been lying in the streets for a week and the decomposing has begun, undaunted I am going to rip apart the stinking carcass of the DFL primary and try to determine exactly what happened and why. Sorry for the imagery, that's where the title took me.
87 Counties
I posted this last week, but I still think it's the most illustrative reason of exactly why Mark Dayton won the DFL primary.
Courtesy of the UpTake, we have a great way to start the week: with Tom Emmer apparently getting himself confused about his own record on important issues.
In last week's debate with DFL candidate Mark Dayton, the candidates discussed the constitutional amendment which dedicated a portion of the state sales tax to arts and outoors programs:
On Saturday while debating before outdoor enthusiasts at Game Fair, Emmer said he was no longer in favor of repealing the legacy amendment.
DFL candidate for Governor Mark Dayton welcomed Emmer's change, but called it a "deathbed conversion" and remarked that deathbed conversions seldom last if the patient recovers.
Emmer said he was against the legacy amendment because "I didn't agree on putting the tax in...into our constitution." However, in 2008 Emmer sponsored a bill that did put a sales tax into the Minnesota constitution. HF3035 was never passed, but it called for a constitutional amendment that would require the sales tax on items used for fishing to be dedicated to game and fish programs.
You get that? Emmer said Saturday that he didn't support enshrining the sales tax in the Minnesota constitution, but as recently as two years ago he sponsored a bill that did just that.
This is the same candidate who said recently that he supported a new Minnesota G.I. bill -- one much like the one which he opposed in the legislature and which was signed into law over his "no" vote.
There's a rather startling pattern emerging with Emmer's campaign: one of a candidate who is both way too focused on instilling fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the electorate, and simply unprepared to discuss his own record honestly and clearly.
Not Governor material, at any rate. Bravo to Sen. Dayton for calling a spade a spade and nailing Emmer for his "deathbed conversion" on the issue.
In this week's inaugural general election debate, Tom Emmer dodged the question of whether he supported a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
His excuse was, Well, it's not an issue for a Minnesota governor. We'll get into that in a moment, but for right now, I want you to consider how candidate Emmer, who has been against gay rights for his entire legislative career, couldn't own up to his record on the tee vee. Neither of the Almanac hosts were willing to follow up and say, Wait a minute, Tom, of course you support such an amendment; you authored one of the damn bills!
So let's go over the past month or so in the Life of Tom Emmer for Governor:
Emmer came out in support of penalizing tipped workers in favor of their employers, as though those employers might take those "savings" and employ more workers than they needed instead of simply increasing profits. Emmer later tried to back off of Waitergate, to mixed results
Emmer then tried to change the subject by coming out in support of a Minnesota G.I. bill -- and then took another PR hit when he was told that such a bill had already been signed into law -- over Emmer's objection and "no" vote. Oops.
Now Emmer is trying to avoid talking about his longstanding opposition to equal marriage rights for same-sex couples by saying "it's not an issue for a Minnesota Governor." But Mr. Emmer is not the Governor of Minnesota, and this is the worst sort of political dodge - one rooted in fact (such an amendment, if passed, would go to a referendum rather than being signed by the Governor) but in fact simply does. not. answer. the. question.
In reality, Tom Emmer has always opposed equality for same-sex couples along with the most extreme elements of his base, and has gone out of his way to lend support to extremist anti-gay organizations.
The right answer to the question was "Yes, I would support such an amendment. In fact, I authored one." But that answer wouldn't convince anyone that Emmer wants or is equipped to be a Governor for all of Minnesota. Because he doesn't and isn't.
In last week's debate with DFL candidate Mark Dayton, the candidates discussed the constitutional amendment which dedicated a portion of the state sales tax to arts and outoors programs:
