The stink war launched by the Republican Party of Minnesota against Independence Party candidate Tom Horner has all the making of a good cult monster movie from the 1950s. Picture a toxic mud-slinging pachyderm (mutated to lean to the extreme right) with a patient gila monster gnawing at his hindquarters.
Call it "The GOP V. The Giant Gila Monster." As any herpetologist worth her weight in snake spit will tell you, the gila monster is unable to inject venom into its victim, but must lock on and gnaw in order to disable dinner. Such may be the fate of Horner's former comrades--and hence the pachyderm panic.
Despite Horner's years as a respected Republican strategist, the Republican Party of Minnesota is trying to define the public relations executive as a Democrat. Minnesota Democrats Exposed is working overtime, with nine recent posts and rising, and the RPM has filed a nuisance complaint with the campaign finance board over a recently released poll. Horner simply bites down harder in his response to the charges.
Update 5:30 p.m: The campaign finance board rejected the Republican Party's nuisance complaint, Polinaut reports in Campaign board won't pursue GOP complaint vs Horner. MNObserver has more about the MNGOP brain trust at the Cucking Stool. [end update]
Unfortunately for Mr. Hellier at MDE, he'll have to abandon exposing real Democrats for a while if he is to catch up with the 60 hits now in the Nexis all-news file for the search terms, "Tom Horner" and Republican strategist" (see screen shot on this page)
That's not an exhaustive list by any means. Other articles show up online, like this January 21, 2010 article by Republican commentator Sarah Janecek, Horner joins race for governor. The lede:
Late this afternoon, longtime GOP pundit and strategist and successful PR pro Tom Horner filed papers to run for governor as an independent. Horner views the move as somewhat exploratory, because he wants to make sure he can raise the money to run a credible campaign.
Perhaps, after years spent observing the state's political scene, Janecek was simply mistaken.
Perhaps veteran political reporters Rachel Stassen-Berger and Bill Salisbury were equally confused in 2008 when they wrote in Why Palin's at the podium, Pawlenty's on the bench:
. . .While Pawlenty is a solid conservative, Palin "energizes the conservative base in a way he doesn't," said public relations executive Tom Horner, a veteran Republican strategist. He said she's much more outspoken on hot-button social issues. [emphasis added]
Horner also suspects McCain wanted to reinforce his maverick, reformer image. While Pawlenty has pushed through some reforms in Minnesota, "Palin took on the Alaska Republican establishment and won," he said. "That's an easier story to tell."
Both Palin and Pawlenty are relative unknowns on the national stage, although many in the national political class got to know the Minnesota governor in the past several months as he was mentioned as a potential pick. The Alaska governor was less frequently mentioned as a prospect.
"If you're going to pick an unknown, you go with a surprising choice" that will be catapulted into widespread recognition, Horner said, and picking a woman was a surprise. . . . [text retrieved via Nexis, 6/9/2010]
Readers should get the drift.
And so, while the Republican Party spends the de-facto five month Republican Primary (ending in November) telling Minnesotans why Tom Horner is a DFLer--given the miracle of the innertubes, databases, and old episodes of TPT's Almanac preserved online, the public will have plenty of time to learn that Tom Horner was, in fact, a Republican, and never DFLer.
The DFL made the point in a YouTube:
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