Bluestem Prairie

Congressional air wars: Walz, Clark, and Bachmann (Is Demmer missing the action?)

Tim Walz released his first television ad today, one illustrating his work with area veterans--and one that underscores the need for leaders who persist when policy needs to be changed.

Here's the ad, followed by the backstory:

For years, Vietnam veterans tried to get Parkinson's disease categorized as a presumptive illness related to Agent Orange. Along with others, Walz joined their struggle when stricken vets appealed to him, and last fall, the VA changed policy.

Unfortunately, the change in classification has not been enough. As the Post-Bulletin noted last month in For these vets, the fight continues at home:

Nearly a year later, these veterans are still waiting for military benefits. The funding has gotten bogged down in bureaucratic red tape and political wrangling.

But there is good news. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shiseki said on Tuesday he will defend the decision to add Parkinson's disease, along with B-cell leukemia and ischemic heart disease, to the list of presumptive illnesses. Veterans are hoping to start getting their checks beginning Nov. 1. An estimated 5,000 Vietnam veterans are expected to receive the benefits.

Parkinson's Action Network Deputy CEO John Schall credits the United State Military Veterans with Parkinson's group with performing a "small miracle."

"They are really heroes in this process. For average citizens to take that on and do that hard work and make that process work in a relatively short period of time is really a phenomenal story," Schall said.

One of those vets--the center of the PB's story--is Mike Trok. In Walz's new ad,"Right Thing," Trok notes the congressman's role in working with the vets to get things changed.

The ad is positive, hitting on one of Walz's committee appointments--he's on the House Vets committee and in a position to follow through on concerns veterans bring him.

No ads yet from Demmer, but his campaign has asked Walz to quit focusing on vets, as Bluestem noted in Demmer campaign to Walz office: quit listening to vets and find out how disagreeable Randy is.

While pundits try to spin this race as somehow competitive, the air war might be indicative of the campaign. Demmer isn't on the radar, and Walz has gone positive on his record.

A far cry from the ads in the Minnesota congressional race that actually is competitive: the Bachmann and Clark fight. Bachmann has gone negative with ads that are receiving bad grades from truth-tests from local journalists--and which distort not only Clark's record, but Bachmann's own positions.

Dump Bachmann notes in Big Taxin' Michele Bachmann:

. . . look who supported raising the state sales tax by .375 percent to support the outdoors and the arts in 2008: Michele Bachmann. That’s right — the same constitutional amendment that Bachmann has been tearing into Tarryl Clark for supporting — you know, the one that raised taxes on your State Fair corn dogs and fried bacon — was supported by none other than Ms. Teabagger herself.

According to Star-Tribune outdoor writer Dennis Anderson’s Oct. 23, 2008 column:

Coleman, Bachmann and Franken spoke in August at Game Fair in Anoka of their support of the Clean Water amendment. Coleman and Bachmann also displayed blaze orange "Sportsmen vote yes" placards in their Game Fair booths (Franken also might have, but I was unable to confirm it).

Classic. While Bachmann's ads don't mention her own record in congress, they do feature a paid actor dubbed "Jim the Election Guy" speaking for the campaign about taxable items at the State Fair. (CNN reports that the real Michael Bachmann  got a mixed response at the fair)

The Clark campaign has responded brilliantly, assembling a chorus of real Sixth District voters really named Jim. Today's press release states:

Today, real Jims from across the 6th District take to the airwaves to talk about why they - and actual voters from St. Cloud to Stillwater - support Tarryl Clark. The new ad comes after three weeks of false and misleading attack ads from Congresswoman Michele Bachmann featuring a paid actor calling himself "Jim the Election Guy."

Clark's ad features 6th District residents Jim Huber, Jim Hesley and Jim Marks, all of Woodbury, Jim Rebrovich of Big Lake and Jim Samuelson of Forest Lake.

You can view the Real Jims ad here:

Slow news day: Demmer rhymes with Emmer

Submitted without comment:

In blow to Demmer campaign's wishes, Walz still listening to vets as Shinseki visits Mankato

It's looking to be a rough week for the Demmer campaign. First, John Boehner campaigned for the Hayfield Republican--in Wayzata, recently described as the Hamptons of Minnesota.  Looks like an event in the District couldn't happen--and only a private fundraiser took place in the tony suburb.

Bluestem looked at the Boehner fundraiser in Chronicles of Demmer: John Boehner's secret mission to Wayzata,

Second, news of Demmer's bizarre claim that there's no money in the Social Security fund is gaining traction.

Third, Walz's congressional office failed to heed Demmer's campaign manager's desires for how it should manage constiuents' needs and policy making. As Bluestem posted in Demmer campaign to Walz office: quit listening to vets and find out how disagreeable Randy is, Demmer's campaign manager felt that Walz's official schedule should be dictated by issues where Demmer felt he could score public points, and veterans' affairs weren't among them.

The Mankato Free Press reports in VA head visits with local veterans:

There was a meeting with local veterans that Walz said allowed for frank discussion of how Shinseki’s agency was performing in providing services. There was also a stop at the Mankato Community-Based Outpatient Clinic on Madison Avenue.

The clinic, which opened in 2008, currently focuses on mental health care but is in the process of being expanded to provide primary health care services that would allow area vets to avoid many trips to the VA hospital in Minneapolis.

Veterans of World War II, Vietnam and the Iraq war were all on hand to talk about the importance of providing health care locally and the difficulty of making the trip to Minneapolis — both for aging veterans who increasingly find a drive to the Twin Cities daunting and for recent vets busy with young families and full college course loads.

“It would just be a huge benefit,” said Steve Robbins, an Iraq war vet.

. . . Walz praised Shinseki’s efforts to improve access to care for veterans living outside large metropolitan areas. And he said Mankato offered Shinseki a case study in how to help homeless veterans.

Shinseki agreed, calling the Radichel Town Homes “a wonderful example of what can be done when we bring a community together to help veterans.”

Read the article for more about the new home for the formerly homeless vet. What a terrific story.

 Photo: Walz and veterans at town hall in Rochester back in August.

Social security : Hayfield Republican Randy Demmer has it a couple of ways

Monday, in Rochester Seniors Celebrate 75th Social Security Anniversary, Randy Demmer told KAAL-TV:

"The truth is there's no money there now. There is no social security fund. It's been used up. The government has not taken care of that and the fund is gone," said Randy Demmer, candidate for US Congress.

It's amazing how much difference a day makes. Apparently, the program is back, and Randy Demmer plans to fight for it.

Today he told the Rochester Post Bulletin:

"I don't support the privatization that would weaken any of the promises and take away any of the benefits that people such as my parents have paid into and deserve," he said.

According to AARP, which favors modest reforms of the system:

Social Security is in no immediate danger of "going broke." With the retirement of the boomers on the horizon, the Social Security Administration began building a cushion to help see this generation through its retirement years. Thanks to that planning, the Social Security Trust Funds hold more than $2.4 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds, which earn interest every year.  Without any changes, Social Security will be able to pay 100 percent of benefits until 2037 . . .

I'll try to keep up with what Demmer thinks about Social Security as Election Day draws closer.

Chronicles of Demmer: John Boehner's secret mission to Wayzata

Back around August 16, Randy Demmer's campaign manager (the one who thinks Tim Walz shouldn't listen to vets anymore) promised great things in the MPR blog post Boehner to campaign for Demmer:

Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner will be in Minnesota on August 30th to campaign for Randy Demmer, a Republican running for Congress in Minnesota's 1st District. Demmer's campaign manager Jason Flohrs said Boehner will hold at least a fundraiser and a possible public event for Demmer.

"We always thought that we had a good chance of winning this seat back," Flohrs said. "To have some national recognition of that is just great."

The fundraiser materialized in a swank restaurant in Wayzata, as this Post Bulletin article reports (an earlier version appears to have been  pulled) but southern Minnesotans didn't get  the slightest glimpse of Boehner's orange cheeks, as far as I've been able to discover.

Or the press, for that matter. There's very little coverage of the fundraiser--a distinct difference from Boehner's high profile (and in-district campaigning) for Gutknecht and Davis in 2006 and 2008.

Boehner was interviewed by several conservative radio hosts broadcasting from the Minnesota State Fair, but the House Minority leader appears to have phoned it in.

Perhaps the Washington press corps and pundits -- and Demmer's Beltway lobbyist campaign chair will act as if this were a high-profile visit to Southern Minnesota. It wasn't.

Walz, on the other hand, held an event in Rochester with seniors. KAAL-TV reported:

The month of August marks 75 years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed social security into law.

Some Rochester seniors celebrated that anniversary on Monday.

"Social security has provided financial security for millions of American families," said Sara Severs, the Communications Director for Tim Walz for US Congress.

Some of these seniors say that financial security has been much needed.

"Social Security was created a couple months after I was born and I thank the United States for doing that and its very beneficial to my wife and I at the present time," said Joe Mayer, a Rochester Senior.

I'll have another post up shortly in which Demmer tells two different media venues very different takes on Social Security.

Salt of the earth; or, from DC to Mankato, he's the one they call old whathisname

Sometimes, the quickest way to discern meaning  when analyzing a piece of writing is to identify the audience.

While reading the NRCC MEMO: MINNESOTA PRIMARY RESULTS, which was to "interested parties" from NRCC political and NRCC and Communications, I chuckled when I read:

. . . Randy Demmer’s background as a salt-of-the-earth southern Minnesotan make this the most likely Minnesota Congressional seat to flip parties this November.

"Salt-of-the-earth" isn't exactly how I've heard the Hayfield Republican described. For whom did the NRCC pen that description of Demmer?

He's not likely to be mistaken for an extra in the famous movie of the same name nor the character in a Green Day song.

Maybe it's the suits he wears, or owning three NAPA franchises. Or his youth spent as the scion of the local implement dealership that undercuts the notion of Demmer as a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy.

Or perhaps it's Demmer's support of a People's Bailout--for Randy Demmer. He's received some pretty pennies from taxpayers, as the DFL has pointed out:

• Demmer's message of fiscal responsibility rings false, as he has chosen to take legislative per-diems while attending partisan candidate training in Washington, D.C. [A Monday Math Lesson: A word problem from Randy Demmer's per diem. Bluestem Prairie. 10/15/07.]
• Randy Demmer has taken $74,707 in farm subsidies since 1995. [EWG. Farm Subsidy Database.]
• Randy Demmer has received $468,911 in small business subsidies through his company RKD Properties. [1999 Minnesota Business Assistance Form and 2001 Minnesota Business Assistance Form.]

Or maybe it's his opposition to the DISCLOSE ACT. Demmer believes corporations should be able to keep their privacy intact (even though individuals have to disclose large political contributions).

Probably not. As an editorial in the Mankato Free Press points out:

Regular citizens who donate $200 to candidates have to make the disclosure. Why exempt multi-billion dollar corporations?

Disclosure of corporate donations should be mandatory at federal and state levels. There should be no exemptions for the NRA or anyone else. That’s just the right thing to do, and Congress should do it sooner than later.

Allowing secrecy is not only unfair to donors who must disclose their identity, but undermines public confidence in a system that already has millions of voters saying it’s not worth their time.

Corporations already have tremendous power to influence democracy through lobbying and access to elected leaders. They will have even more power if they’re allowed to spend unlimited sums under the cloak of secrecy.

Ah, alas. So who was the audience the NRCC addressed in its memo?

Since Demmer's origins aren't humble by southern Minnesota standards--and he doesn't side with the humble--I can only conclude that the "salt-of-the-earth" description is fluff for the NRCC's real audience for the memo. Not the voters in southern Minnesota, who know whether salt has its savor; no, this memo was written for DC elites.

And what might this mean in their argot? I'm told it translates as "We got nothing."

The NRCC's exercise in cynicism deserves a musical classic in that genre:

The Courage to Stand, A Likely Story: Or, judging Pawlenty's book by its cover

The Rochester Post Bulletin names the place where Tim Pawlenty boldly grimaced for the cover of his forthcoming political memoir in A familiar local setting for Pawlenty's book cover:

A look at Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's new book cover helped end what had been an ongoing source of curiosity here in the Post-Bulletin newsroom. A few months ago, Post-Bulletin reporter John Weiss had spotted the governor posing for professional photos at Frontenac State Park near Red Wing. But Pawlenty's spokesman would never say what those photos were for.

Now we know.Frontenac State Park serves as the background for the cover to Pawlenty's new book —  Courage to Stand: An American Story. It features the governor standing on the bluff with Lake Pepin in the background and a tough, determined look on his face.

"Tough look" is one way to read the expression on his face. Other local wags suggested that it might have been a burrito that produced that look.

And there's always a critic in the crowd. A friend from high school suggested a different background, and the divine Tild did the rest.

White line fever: great moments in the Bachmann district bus tour

A kind friend brought this tweet from the Bachmann campaign to my attention:

BachmannforMN6

  

Driving through CD6 on our way to St. Cloud. http://yfrog.com/naikljj #bbt10

Let's take a look at that photo, which clearly conveys the excitement of Bachmann reconnecting with her district:

   

The back of a sign and a median. Is that what the Sixth looks like to the congresswoman and her campaign?

Someone retweeted the Bachmannfail, according to the feed, but it seems to have been deleted. Of course, I have screenshots of both the tweet from the campaign's account and the lovely photo

Prairie Rambles: visiting 1862 U.S.-Dakota War sites

On Sunday, Twin Cities Daily Planet reporter Sheila Regan was my guest for a tour of places associated with the 1862 U.S. Dakota War. Regan had not traveled before to the upper Minnesota River Valley where many of the significant actions of the conflict took place, as her coverage of indigenous people's issues for the Twin Cities Daily Planet, The Circle and other publications focused on the Twin Cities.

Though the day was sweltering and part of our travels took us down dust-choked gravel road, the beauty of the wide valley impressed Sheila after driving miles through Meeker County's rolling hills and Renville County's flat farmland.

Not that either county was just drive-through. Leaving Hutchinson, we stopped at the marker near where Thaóyate Dúta (Little Crow) was murdered in 1863. The commemorative plaque on the side of Meeker County 18 used the name "Little Crow," while a red wooden stake stake near it honored the Dakota leader with his name in his own language.

The contrast underscores the tensions surrounding the story Regan is researching for the TCDP, described in Spot.us:

2012 marks the 150th Anniversary of the U.S.- Dakota war of 1862. The war ended with the largest one-day execution in American history, where 38 Dakota warriors were hanged on December 26, 1862 in Mankato, Minnesota. Some 1,700 Dakota women, children, and elders were forcibly marched to a concentration camp at Fort Snelling. 

Many American Indian advocates hope to bring attention to what happened, although there is disagreement about the best way to honor this dark history.

Some American Indians focus on the need for better American Indian representation both in cultural institutions such as the Minnesota Historical Society and in school curricula. Others call for the razing of Fort Snelling, which to them symbolizes the genocide of the Dakota people. 

I propose to write a story about the ramifications of the Dakota war for Minnesota today, and on the events and actions that will lead up to and mark the 2012 anniversary.

Spot.us is a tool for funding projects by freelance journalists like Regan who take on more extensive projects. Please consider visiting the Spot.us page set up for Sheila's project, and contributing what you can to help her with the expenses for the story.

The trip wasn't all business, though. As we tooled eastward on Renville County 15, I ordered Sheila to stop and back up, for there was a stand of ripe wild thicket plums beside the road.

While we grabbed a bag to put them in, we may have eaten more warm, ripe plums on the spot, the slight wild sour bite in each fruit surprising the palate inside the more familiar domestic plum sweetness.

When we reached the Lower Agency, the supervisor for the historical site noted that elders in the nearby community had observed that wild plum were now less abundant, given the use of farm chemicals.

I'll be dreaming about that sweet and biting memory of warm fruit on a northern slope for awhile, I think.

Photos: Roadside marker, photo by Sally Jo Sorensen (above); Wild Plums, photo by Sheila Regan (below).

Note: Bluestem Prairie is a Contributing Blog for the Daily Planet; we exchange articles at no cost to either venue under this agreement.

The circle of wonderful first steps: Tom Emmer, WCCO's Reality Check, and SB1070

For those following the multi-faceted bigotry of MNGOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer-- and the faux chagrin of the corporations for funding MNForward's ad for him--this week opens with more Slytherin slipperiness on immigration.

Tom Emmer appeared on Esme Murphy's Sunday morning show on WCCO, and about 7:50 into the clip, flinches when she asks about immigration. He then offered a non-statement statement about SB1070 and immigration issues.

On last night's news, WCCO-TV's Pat Kessler performs a signature "Reality Check" on Emmer's Sunday version of his statement to MPR back in April. In Reality Check: Emmer On Arizona's Immigration Law
Kessler notes:

Tom Emmer, the Republican Candidate for Governor, said he supports Arizona's tough new immigration crackdown. However, on Sunday, he toned down previous comments about how "wonderful" it is.

"What I said was ... I was asked one question: 'what do you think about the Arizona law?' I said 'it's a good start when you talk about Arizona,'" said Emmer on WCCO Sunday Morning.

But, IN FACT, that's not what he said.

On Minnesota Public Radio, Emmer described Arizona's law as "wonderful," said it does not target minorities and that it's appropriate for police to ask for papers.

"I think what Arizona did is a wonderful first step," said Emmer. "I'm very disappointed at the federal government." . . .

This isn't the first time Emmer has re-written his own statement about SB1070.

On June 10, Bluestem noted a similar softening--not only on SB1070, but on earlier responses to a questionnaire from a local anti-immigrant group, Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform. The Minnesota Independent picked up on my story in Emmer walks back comment on ‘wonderful’ Arizona immigration bill:

In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio’s Kerri Miller on Thursday, GOP gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer seemed to ease off his support for Arizona’s controversial immigration law, SB1070. In April, he praised the law as “a wonderful first step.” As Blue Stem Prairie reports, the candidate seems to moderating his stance on immigration.

“The only answer I gave was it’s a good start,” said Emmer. “A lot of people take that to be the final word.”

Miller asked Emmer, “So we need a law like Arizona’s [in Minnesota]?”

“I didn’t say that. We need to look at immigration — how we get people legally, as legal citizens in the state of Minnesota, and assimilate them into Minnesota, so that they can be productive citizens of this state and they can enjoy the freedoms that we are all supposed to have.”

Emmer also talked about an E-Verify system to ensure those employed by the state of Minnesota are U.S. citizens and said Minnesota needs to outlaw “sanctuary cities.” But he also mentioned a “pathway to citizenship,” an idea that breaks with conservative anti-immigration groups, including Minnesotans in Support of Immigration Reform (Minn-SIR), a group that gave Emmer an “A” rating for opposing “paths to citizenship.”

My post includes the MINN-SIR questionnaire that Emmer did so well on.

The Independent noted another twisty turn on Emmer's part near the end of July in Emmer continues support for Arizona immigration bill:

Emmer’s position on SB 1070 has been a point of contention during his campaign. After the law passed in April, Emmer said, “I think what Arizona has done is a wonderful first step,” but he later attempted to moderate that stance.

With all this spinning, perhaps Representative Emmer could consider a midlife career change, from law to a place in Minnesota's wind industry.