Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer just put a sign up on a billboard for drivers heading south on Hwy. 494 north of Hwy. 55. It's not exactly a major intersection, but a lot of people drive past it every day. There's only one problem ... can you see it?
Team Emmer can't count! There are eight people on the billboard but Tom only cares about seven of them. Ha ha ha ha ha!
So is Tom and Team Emmer ignoring his wife? Or which kid?
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.
Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer wants Minnesotans to believe that he has the business experience necessary to run this state. He frames his philosophy in terms of high taxes and regulatory burdens are hurting businesses. Then there's this little vignette from his campaign website:
I think our next Governor should have firsthand knowledge of what it is like to get up every day in this state to get your teeth kicked in trying to make a living.
But what experience does he actually have? He's been a trial attorney and a legislator (BTW, don't Republicans hate trial attorneys?).
What if I was to tell you that his violent metaphor of "getting your teeth kicked in" came from personal experience? It appears that Emmer isn't about to tell anyone that his Dad's business, Emmer Bros. Lumber, failed. They declared bankrupty and were bought by another company:
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.
(I'm going to do occasional posts, kind of in the style of 'Timmy's Happy Trails,' as repositories of relevant material from Minnesota sources, on the subject of the GOP gubernatorial candidate. I suppose that there will be gratuitous editorializing, too, because that's what makes blogging fun.)
- Timberjaypoints out that MN GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer "has resorted to more than exaggeration on the campaign trail."
But there's a difference between massaging the facts, and bludgeoning them. And, unfortunately, we've seen too much of the latter already from Tom Emmer, the Republican nominee for governor. It's all adding up to a credibility gap for the Tea Party-inspired candidate.
- mnpACT! discusses Angry Tom's fondness for "gluteus maximus originated" facts. (Joe Bodell recently posted here on the same topic. When it comes to slamming Emmer's lies, there's ample source material 'sustenance' to figuratively gorge every progressive blogger in the state.)
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.
Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer keeps talking about "re-inventing" government. He has a hard time getting very specific though it certainly sounds like he'd eliminate a lot if allowed. I've also argued that he's incoherent on economic policy and job creation. Furthermore, he's also been vague on how he'd solve our budget deficit other than more cuts and lotsa "re-invention."
So ponder this:
Fire departments around the nation are cutting jobs, closing firehouses and increasingly resorting to "rolling brownouts" in which they shut different fire companies on different days as the economic downturn forces many cities and towns to make deep cuts that are slowing their responses to fires and other emergencies.
Philadelphia began rolling brownouts this month, joining cities from Baltimore to Sacramento that now shut some units every day. San Jose, Calif., laid off 49 firefighters last month. And Lawrence, Mass., north of Boston, has laid off firefighters and shut down half of its six firehouses, forcing the city to rely on help from neighboring departments each time a fire goes to a second alarm.
(NY Times)
We libruls know that Emmer will just continue the same failed Pawlenty policies of slashing Local Government Aid. Our cities have already amputated limbs as a result of Pawlenty's LGA cuts. At what point will our cities join this national trend if Emmer is elected? I submit to you that it would be as soon as he would announce his 2011 budget.
Do you need any more reason to get out and work for Mark Dayton?
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.
I think I know why Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer doesn't have much of a grasp of policy issues. It has become clear that he has a real problem keeping things straight. We've seen numerous instances since his late April endorsement.
Yes, that's right. That is former DFL MN-GOV candidate and former Speaker of the House Margaret Anderson Kelliher busting Emmer for listening to music during a hearing for the Commission on Planning & Fiscal Policy Cash Flow Issues. Instead of paying attention, Emmer is rocking out.
I submit to you that this wasn't the only time that Emmer wasn't paying attention.
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 have noted on several occasions that Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer is weak on policy issues. On other occasions I have alleged that he is incoherent on economic/jobs issues. Then yesterday I saw the following tweet from Rep. Erin Murphy (DFL-St Paul):
She linked to WCCO's Esme Murphy Sunday morning interview of Emmer. At 1:30 into the video, Murphy asks Emmer about Pawlenty's hint that he'll reject the $263 million in federal money to help MN pay for Medicaid.
Emmer never answers the question. Instead he talks about the projected shortfall, about 11 states given the opportunity to opt into this early Medicaid program of which 7 did, about how the money hasn't arrived and how the program doesn't reward for high quality, low-cost services, but for volume.
At this point, Murphy appears confused. I was, too. We were confused because Emmer is talking about a completely different thing. Emmer was answering this question: should Pawlenty have rejected the $100 million for early Medicaid?
Emmer should be aware of what FMAP is and how it is different than early Medicaid. A lobbyist I know said that she saw Emmer at the committee hearings that dealt with FMAP in the last legislative session.
(Yet another great example of Tom Emmer not knowing or caring enough about an issue to have more than a standard ideological answer to a debate question.
Tom Emmer: unprepared to lead. - promoted by Joe Bodell)
And probably the farmer's votes too, and Horner didn't understand the issue either.
Changing the subject to one of his trademark rants against regulation, in todays guv debate Emmer told the tale of woe of a farmmer who got a ticket for being overweight on one axle of his tractor trailer rig. Now the ticket was reputely for all of $300, assuming that Emmer didn't pull this tale out of his posterior like he has previously. I mean, a candidate who believes resteraunt servers are making $100,000 a year doesn't have the greatest grasp of economics or even basic math.
Emmer begins by claiming the grain trailer was only 3/4 or so full. As any farmer or trucker will tell you, that proves nothing- Grain trailers are usually built big enough to haul a full load of the lighter products like sunflower seeds with a bit of freeboard so the load ain't spilling out the sides. So you can be overweight with 3/4ers of a load, heck, you can be overweight with even half a load of the heavier grains, especially if they're wet.
Emmer whines on about how the tractor trailer rig was legal on overall weight, but illegally overloaded on one axle. One would think that a lawyer representing a district with more than a few farms would be studied up on truck weight limits. Suffice to say, I hope Emmer's farmer doesn't hire Emmer to defend him in court over the ticket- a defense by Emmer given his lack of knowledge of the law might well result in Minnesota's first felony overweight truck conviction...
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.
Republican MN-GOV candidate Tom Emmer wants Minnesotans to believe that he has the business experience necessary to run this state. He frames his philosophy in terms of high taxes and regulatory burdens are hurting businesses. Then there's this little vignette from 
