The Big E Posts

One concert. Eleven performances. One goal.
Rep. Keith Ellison (DFL-MN) doesn't have to work as hard as he does to get reelected. He's in one of the bluest districts in the country. But he understands that statewide campaigns win or lose on turnout in his district. So he sets idealistic goals and works hard.
His team has pulled together an awesome concert of local talent to get the word out to Vote NO on the voter r...

Sen. David Hann (R-Eden Prairie) faces Laurie McKendry to retain his State Senate seat. Hann is the kind of Republican who wants to reduce spending and shrink government. So it is amazing that Hann is claiming on his newest piece of literature that he's increased spending.
Someone tell the Tea Party!

Photo from Rochester Post BulletinWill Quist unleash the lion on his paperwork problems?
All congressional candidates are required to file a financial disclosure so any conflicts of interest are public knowledge. The threshold is low, $5,000 raised or spent. Minnesota First Dis...

Ground game matters more
The lastest poll indicates that voters are evenly split between DFL candidate Rick Nolan and Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN/NH). About ten percent of those polled are still undecided. This means that these last three and a half weeks are crucial.
Cravaac...

Who says there is no comedy in politics? Sen. Amy Klobuchar's opponent Kurt Bills is providing some of the best this election season. His latest comedy is he joins in with other reality-denying Republicans who claim the latest unemployment numbers were faked somehow.
Mister Bills started off by release what will undoubtedly be the worst cam...

The Minneapolis Star Tribune is Minnesota's paper of record. Its doing a disservice to Minnesota by not adequately covering Minnesota highest profile political figure, Rep. Michele Bachmann. They contributed to her winning election to Congress in 2006 by failing to print what she said and report what she did. They've continued this behavior to this day.

Dear Abby emailed me yesterday. She said I should vote NO on the so-called "marriage" amendment. Excellent advice!
I enjoy the privilege of providing advice to Americans every day. It is always my sincerest hope that the advice I give will be helpful.
Minnesota holds a dear place in my heart. I was born in Minneapolis.
In 1944, my grandparents created the Jay & Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota. They believed de...

Photo from Rochester Post BulletinAllen Quist is quite funny. Not intentionally, of course. In his debate with Rep. Tim Walz last night, he's probably going to try and claim victory. Walz used his bizarro catchphrase "unleash the lion of free enterprise" once. And in Quist's dessi...

MN-01 Debate starts at 7:00PM
The is the second debate between the DFLer, Rep. Tim Walz, and his Republican challenger Allen Quist. Minnesota's First District stretches across the state from Wisconsin to South Dakot along the bottom several tiers of counties. Walz beat Gil Gutknecht in 2006 and has comfortably won reelection ever since.
Quist is one of the elder statesman of the radical evangelicals who have created a nearly hidden third party in America and dominates the agenda of the MNGOP. He's also been a mentor to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).
Quist is probably going to b...

This morning the DFL candidate Rick Nolan debated Rep. Chip Cravaack (R). This was the first Eighth Congressional District debate. Jeff Rosenberg wrote up his take here. I'd like to debunk a claim Cravaack made. Cravaack claimed that he'd played a key role in s...

First off, a panel of federal judges dealt a blow to Ohio GOP vote suppression efforts. They ruled early voting couldn't be limited. It was unanimous. They differed on what aspect of the constitution this vote restriction violated.

Secondly, an Ohio tea party group is in trouble for suing to kick a wide swath of Democratic-leaning voters off the voter rolls.

Please please please please please please ...
Apparently, Tom Emmer didn't embarrass himself enough in the 2010 Minnesota Governor's race. He's positioning himself for another humiliation at the hand's of the press.
This is all according to the disgraced Michael Brodkorb. Brodkorb is the former Deputy Chair of the Minnesota Republican Party, former MNGOP Senate Caucus Communications Director who was fired when everyone found out he was having an extramarital affair with his ...

Back in August, the Koch Brothers promised that the company they own, Georgia Pacific, would close a plant in Duluth, MN. 141 people lost their jobs. Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN/NH) was either in Washington, DC or New Hampshire and didn...

You never know when you're going to be at the right place at the right time with the right message and knowledge ... and this is one of those rare occasions. A couple of years ago, Joe Bodell and I did a social media training at The Courage To Change Conference. I think it was on a Saturday in January.
Among the 15 people sitting in the room was Marsha Aizumi. Back then she didn't have a website and a book publishe...

The unintentional master of unintentional comedy strikes again!
When Republican candidate Allen Quist clutched his pearls the other day and demanded an apology from his DFL opponent, Rep. Tim Walz, I rolled my eyes. In a MN-01 debate, Walz accused him of not supporting veterans because Quist said everything was on the table in regards to budget cuts. So obviously he had to revert to playing the victim and clutch at his pearls. But in the last paragraph of the story in the

While I was initially shocked that my coop, The Wedge, hired a law firm known for being anti-union when their warehouse employees began organizing, I can now report a happy ending for all. The Wedge dumped the law firm and hired another and now they have contract.

There is a reason Republicans have been pushing for vote restrictions nationwide. Its the same reason Republican are doing everything to suppress the vote in states they control. When fewer people vote, Republicans win.
In Minnesota, Republicans have known for a long time that they can't win a statewide vote. Tim Pawlenty won the Governor's seat twice with 44.37% in 2002 and

Mike Osskopp has a long history of rude and mean-spirited behavior. As Chief of Staff for Rep. John Kline he calls the police on any Democrats who come to Kline's office. He's infamous for standing outside a Democratic event and yelling about the attendees "jap" cars.

Generally, Kline is pretty rude to anybody who doesn't agree with him and Osskopp fits right in as his top staffer.
So when the Kurt Bills campaign veered from weirdness to weirdly and counterproductively mean-spirited I noted that Osskopp was now working for Bills.
They got chauvinistic wh...

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) caused quite a ruckus when she attended service at a Chicago synagogue at the invitation of its Rabbi. No, it wasn't anything she did in the synagogue ... it was the congregation's reaction -- they weren't happy that she attended and were even more angry that their Rabbi had invited her.
After Rep. Michele Bachmann...

Republican efforts to suppress and restrict voting for Americans is not going particularly well. In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott can't seem to find any non-citizen voters. A Pennsylvania judge put a hold to a key part of Republicans restriction efforts. And in Minnesota, yet another paper explained to its readers how expensive the vote restriction constitutional amendment will be.