In the hyper-partisan times we're living in, it seems that there are two types of politicians: Those that govern for short-term political gain, and those that plan for our country's future.
Just last week, it was clear which candidate in the 3rd District congressional race was assuming each role. Erik Paulsen voted against a deficit-cutting bill that is going to save an estimated 300,000 jobs across the country, including 2,800 teachers in Minnesota alone. It will also fund the state's Medicaid payrolls (a source of funding that Tim Pawlenty used to balance his budget before he criticized it after the bill passed).
It is all paid for by closing tax loopholes for foreign corporations. So, in summary, the deficit cut by $1.4 billion over the next 10 years, Minnesota will get $430 million in funding, 2,800 teachers' jobs will be saved just in time for our kids to be heading back to school this year, and Congress eliminated special tax loopholes for foreign corporations. Paulsen voted against all of it.
Later in the week, Jim attended a forum on early childhood issues that was attended by he and the Independent candidate. Rep. Paulsen was invited, but refused to attend. It's easier to run away from your record if you refuse to ever answer any questions or criticism your constituents have about it.
Before the forum, Jim released his "Promise to Our Kids" that addressed several important areas that affect our country's future. The promise is as follows:
Today, a bill came to the floor of the House of Representatives that would have granted compensation money to the workers that ran in to the World Trade Center to save people's lives after the towers fell down. They are public servants in the truest sense of the word, and because of their courage, they now have health problems.
As college students across the country are getting ready to head to school this Fall, the most important question for many of them in this difficult economic time is how to pay for it without plunging themselves into crippling debt for the years ahead.
The issue here is Pell Grants. Pell Grants are college grants that the federal government provides to students whose parents make less than $60,000 each year. In 2008 and 2009, over 96,000 Minnesotans received Pell Grants to help get them through college, and 62.5% of national applicants did not receive the grants due to a lack of funding.
DFLer Jim Meffert's campaign released an internal poll yesterday confirming what so many of us in CD3 have been hoping to hear: Erik Paulsen is seen as part of the problem in Washington.
Standard caveats apply - it's an internal poll, so the highlights are bound to be bad for Paulsen and potentially good for Meffert. And the toplines (Paulsen leading Meffert 44-22) aren't good by any means. But any survey from a reputable shop like Lake Research which shows an incumbent with numbers like these has to be seen as a warning sign.
Paulsen reelect Re-elect Erik Paulsen: 33%
Consider someone else: 31%
(Don't know): 24%
Vote to replace Paulsen: 12%
The two really important numbers in that second note are the Re-elect Paulsen and Vote to Replace numbers -- 33-12. Those should correspond pretty closely with the base numbers for the two big-party candidates right now -- which means that, if the survey is accurate, there's a pretty huge number of voters in CD3 who are willing to consider someone not named Paulsen. Especially when we consider that only 33% both know enough about Paulsen's performance to have an opinion and like that performance, there's an opportunity here.
What Meffert needs right now, in a bad way, is money and exposure. We'll be doing our part in that respect in the next week or so (more news as events warrant), but you might consider sending a few bucks his way. We could make a significant impact in this race with a relatively small investment, despite not having a boogeyman named Bachmann as an opponent.
The bottom line here is that Paulsen is seen as part of the problem, not part of the solution among those who even know who he is. It's a start.
Last week, we posted here about some of the benefits of the Wall Street Reform bill. As we discussed in the post, while the bill isn't perfect, it goes a long way toward helping to fix some of the biggest problems that led to the current crisis.
Erik Paulsen has consistently stood with Wall Street, against the unemployed, against his constituents, and against real reform of the industry that has had a a stranglehold over our economy again and again. This time was obviously no different. Every time real reform has been proposed, Paulsen has stood in the way and not offered any real solutions. Is there any question why corporate PACs give him so much money?
As Jim said last week,
"As far as I can tell, Erik Paulsen's only accomplishment in two years in Congress has been raising money. He's going to need all of it to explain to the families of the Third District why he's done nothing but vote against their interests since he arrived in Washington, because we are not about to let him off the hook."
This is not the time for Congress to be spitting in the face of ordinary people and businesses and standing behind big credit card companies.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on the Wall Street Reform bill on Thursday, and barring any last second surprises, it should be on President Obama's desk by early next week. While the bill may not be perfect, there are several things it does to move us in the right direction and help fix the huge problems in our country's financial sector. Here are a few major examples:
(I was going to post on this topic myself, but Jim Meffert's increasingly effective campaign against Paulsen's failure to stick up for us in Congress has handled it for me. - promoted by Joe Bodell)
Unemployment Benefits Extended - Whether family, friend or colleague, we all know someone affected by the continuing rise in unemployment. That's why Congressman Paulsen voted for the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009, to provide the unemployment with 14 weeks of additional benefits.
On May 28th of this year, Paulsen decided Unemployment Benefits weren't important to him anymore and voted against them. On July 1st, he voted against extending them again. Of course, Paulsen won't be sending out another taxpayer mailing bragging about this vote.
Yesterday, Jim Meffert took a tour of the future of our country's economy. After the unemployment numbers that came out today, it's clearer now more than ever that we must act immediately to begin adding new green jobs that the people of Minnesota and the rest our country so desperately need.
Jim visited the Minneapolis Electrical Training facility yesterday morning to learn about advancements that are creating Minnesota jobs through green energy technology. The facility is operated by the IBEW, and they train their workers in several new "green" technologies, including Wind Energy, Programmable Controllers, Instrumentation, and high-efficiency lighting technologies. The facility was built as a joint venture of the Minneapolis Chapter of NECA and Local Union 292 IBEW at no expense to the taxpayers. While located in St. Michael, just outside of the 3rd District, many residents of the District are trained here and it's a great example of the type of facility that should exist all across the country to help create a new green sector of our workforce.
Here are some picture of Jim Nichols, the Training Director, showing Jim around some of the new technology and devices that the workers receive training in:
I read an interesting piece at Daily Kos today about how candidates from a random sampling of Senate and House races nationwide are doing in terms of social media. The author was trying to answer, objectively, how Democrats were doing against Republicans. Her reasoning was she doesn't think that the meme that Republicans are kicking our butts on social media is all that true.
This essay marks the beginning of an occasional series examining just that. Today, I'm focusing on some races for open Senate seats, two Republican, two Democratic. I'm also focusing on Twitter and Facebook. There are many more races to cover and many more forms of online media to look at -- how many times have their YouTube videos been viewed? Are they engaging with the blogosphere? What are their online ad buys like? Online fundraising, texting...there's a wealth of media to check out. But Twitter and Facebook are public metrics that are readily comparable.
We'll expect candidates to have more Facebook fans than followers on Twitter, because there are many more people on Facebook. But advertising on Facebook can rack up large numbers of fans relatively quickly, so a case where a candidate's Facebook-to-Twitter ratio seems out of the ordinary may suggest that the campaign has been advertising heavily on Facebook. (Which may be a good idea, mind you.) Also worth noting, some Republican candidates (including Peter Schiff in today's group) have created splash pages on Facebook -- when you search for them and initially go to the page, instead of seeing a normal Facebook wall there's...a splash page -- big graphic, sign-up, etc. I haven't yet found any Democrats who are doing that.
With this in mind, how do the competitive races in MN stack up? I'll examine the MN-GOV, MN-02, MN-03 and MN-06 races.
I received a note from one of my SD42 MN Progressive Project subcaucus members last night, asking me how I ended up voting at the CD3 convention. I quickly realized I hadn't yet written about my thinking heading into the convention and how I ended up voting, despite having talked to numerous people in person about it.
When Dr. Hackett conceded her race for endorsement, she said, and I quote:
"By the way, Jim - I'll have your back."
Both Dr. Hackett and Meffert had agreed to abide; when Dr. Hackett lost she lost with class.
On the other hand, this one - from an e-mail just in:
Shelley Madore back in the race against John Kline
Dear Tommy,
I wanted you to be among the first to know that I have decided to place my name on the August 10 primary ballot seeking the DFL endorsement in the Second Congressional District to run against John Kline.
Both Dan Powers and Shelley Madore had agreed to abide by the endorsement, as cited here and here.
That was then; this is now - and Shelley Madore getting back in the race is great news - for John Kline.
Looks like Shelley Madore is pulling a Maureen Reed, or Priscilla Lord Faris. Rather than doing what's best to beat John Kline - in Ferris' case, ol' Smokescreen - Madore seems to be chasing a vanity campaign. Considering how poorly Madore's endorsement campaign was run, I doubt she'll accomplish anything other than a spoiler role as evidenced by the two to one 2nd ballot endorsement vote: the DFL Activists are solidly behind Powers.
The posts on Madore's Facebook Page are none too complimentary, either.
A call to Dave Griggs - Madore's Campaign Manager - for comment was not returned; Caroline Sampson - Campaign Financier Spokesman - cited "fundraising" as a major reason for Madore's flip-flopping reneging - more on that, later.
At least Maureen Reed was clear on not abiding; Madore can't even say that.
Once again, here's the "money quote" from that editorial:
The idea that a representative would use as much as one third of his office budget, money meant to be spent in ways that benefit constituents, on thinly veiled re-election entreaties, is unconscionable. It's an inappropriate use of the funds, and it presents an unfair advantage for incumbents.
Such spending should be eliminated. If politicians want to send glossy, self-promoting pamphlets about themselves, they can pay for them themselves.
Well, according to a report today from Tom Scheck of Minnesota Public Radio, Paulsen's re-election committee has more than $1 million in the bank. So, certainly - Paulsen can afford to pay for his "thinly veiled re-election entreaties" himself, through his campaign war chest.
But, what did one dedicated reader claim to get in the ol' mailbox, just the other day?
ANOTHER taxpayer-paid mailer - on Health Care Reform!!!
With the DFL State Convention in Duluth only a week away, I'd like to remind our gentle readers about"Democratic Visions" and some of the guest we've had on; many of which will be in Duluth. The program airs in Hopkins, Minnetonka, Edina, Richfield and Eden Prairie on Sundays at 9:00 pm and Wednesdays at 5:30 pm on Channel 15; I'm the Assistant to the Ass't Caddy Master, and Chief Range Ball Picker Executive Producer.
For a preview of the next Democratic Visions - due to premier this Sunday - featuring Senator John Marty (again!), link here.
So as people consider who to support for Governor, especially the 45% (+/-) of Uncommitted Delegates, take a look at ALL of the candidates above. The quick link to Democratic Visions is here.
In January of 2008, when he announced for Congress, Erik Paulsen said, and I quote:
"Quite frankly, today, Congress as an institution, is broken and if elected I intend to help fix it."
Well, after one year - quite frankly - Erik Paulsen is playing the same games (and worse) that were played before he got there. And "frankly" is the operative word. In Congress, elected representatives have the "franking privilege" - they get to send out mailers, to the people, PAID FOR by the people.
And after a little over one year of being in congress, Erik Paulsen is making nationwide news for abusing that privilege.
Paulsen isn't "fixing" the system; he's "putting the fix in" to make sure he STAYS in the system.
Here is part of an Editorial naming Erik Paulsen by name; it's an editorial that appeared last Friday in the Hendersonville, North Carolina Times-News:
The idea that a representative would use as much as one third of his office budget, money meant to be spent in ways that benefit constituents, on thinly veiled re-election entreaties, is unconscionable. It's an inappropriate use of the funds, and it presents an unfair advantage for incumbents.
Such spending should be eliminated. If politicians want to send glossy, self-promoting pamphlets about themselves, they can pay for them themselves.
