For your inspection: MN Forward fundraising pitch letter circulated to MN Chamber of Commerce

The Star Tribune  (via the MN Independent) reports that MN  Forward is soliciting additional contributions from Minnesota businesses.

This message from David Olson, President of MN Forward, and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce was sent out by MN Forward [ update: Time stamp on original email header is July 27, 2010 10:52:24 AM EDT]. Draw your own conclusions.

In less than four months, Minnesota voters will elect a new governor and legislature. Those who win in November will: Solve the state’s nearly $6 billion projected deficit – through tax increases on employers and individuals or through spending reform and restraint. Support – or stifle – reforms in education, taxes and spending, energy, environment, labor, and transportation. Make appointments to key positions that will impact Minnesota’s business climate and your company’s bottom line. Redraw legislative and Congressional district boundaries – shaping Minnesota elections and policies for the next decade. MN Forward is a growing coalition of private-sector employers across the state united in an effort to elect a governor and state legislature that understands the importance of creating private-sector jobs and economic opportunity in our state. It’s made possible by a U.S. Supreme Court decision, a subsequent decision by the U.S. District Court in St. Paul, and bipartisan legislation signed by Governor Pawlenty in May that clarified corporations and unions have a right to freedom of speech to make independent expenditures during campaigns. This election will have dramatic implications. In recent years, billions of dollars in tax increases on employers and individuals passed the legislature, but were vetoed by the governor. This year, one gubernatorial candidate has a “tax the rich” plan that would raise $4 billion in taxes from households earning $150,000 or more, and $5 billion in tax increases overall. That could require a top income tax rate of almost 14 percent, nearly double the current top rate and 3 percentage points higher than the current highest rates in the nation. Groups interested in raising taxes to fund additional government spending are already blanketing the airwaves with their message that “corporations” aren’t paying “their fair share.” They’re spending $500,000 on their first ad. (You can view it here http://abetter.mn/CutsVideo.) Some reports say this group and others allied with it plan to spend $10 million or more by election day. The bottom line: This year there is an important and unprecedented opportunity to help elect candidates who support our agenda to create jobs and grow Minnesota’s economy. Others are organized and moving aggressively. It is important to take action now. The business community has a strong track record in recent elections. We have supported candidates, regardless of political party, who are committed to making our state a better place to do business and create jobs. MN Forward is committed to a similar approach to the 2010 elections. In that tradition, MN Forward will conduct a high quality, effective campaign that delivers results in a manner that you and your company will be proud to support. MN Forward is working with business leaders and top marketing and research talent to develop a multi-faceted, statewide campaign based on a positive, forward-looking agenda focused on the economy and competitiveness. MN Forward recently conducted a poll that shows voters are already focused on economic issues like jobs, the state budget, and reining in government spending. But the pro jobs message won’t spread by itself. It needs your support to engage voters and ensure the economy and job growth are at the forefront of the debate. We encourage you to make a contribution to MN Forward. You will be joining a growing list of small, medium and large businesses and business trade associations from across the state. Your corporate contribution to MN Forward will be disclosed to the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board, just as if you made a personal contribution to a Political Action Committee (PAC). Disclosure laws require MN Forward to report the name of your company and the amount of the contribution. Contributions to MN Forward are not deductible as a business expense. MN Forward is an independent expenditure political committee and will not make contributions to candidates or coordinate efforts with candidates or candidate committees. Please fill out this form and mail or simply go to www.MNForward.com to make a contribution. Prepared and paid for by MN Forward, 80 S. 8th Street, Minneapolis, MN 55402. MN Forward is an independent expenditure campaign and is not approved by any candidate nor is any candidate responsible for it. Unsubscribe: if you no longer want to receive messages from us, simply reply to this email with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line. Unsubscribing from this email will not unsubscribe you from future Minnesota Chamber emails.

Comments

[Ford Peterson]

The DFL is trying to demonize this group. It comes clear as to why.

http://www.minnesotademocratsexposed.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/MN-Forward-Press-Release_061610.pdf

From the press release:

"MN Forward is a new organization established to ensure that private-sector job creation and economic growth are at the top of the agenda during the 2010 campaign. The organization is working with a broad coalition of Minnesota job creators to elect candidate FROM BOTH PARTIES (emphasis mine) who support policies that enhance job growth in Minnesota."

All a DFL candidate needs to do to get on the MN Forward gravy train is to be a candidate who actually has ideas on how to create jobs. MAK wants to borrow billions and hand it to the Unions endorsing her campaign. Entenza wants us all to be in the propeller making business. And Dayton simply remains clueless as to where money comes from.

[Phoenix Woman]

Sounds like a pitch for the Republican Party of Minnesota to me.

[Phoenix Woman]

Can anyone find any functional differences between the MN Forward platform and that of the Republican Party of Minnesota, whose candidates MN Forward so happily supports? http://phoenixwoman.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/if-it-walks-like-a-republican-talks-like-a-republican-acts-like-a-republican/

For that matter, shall we stop with the pretense that the racist haven known as the Tea Party is anything beside the GOP's base? Tea Party candidates must pledge to back the Republican platform in order to get funding: http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/02/08/the-tea-party-just-another-rnc-adjunct/

[Dagny]

Is this supposed to show some deep conspiracy? Why is it that groups can support liberal causes and make gifts consistently to DFL candidates and no one says "draw your own conclusions," but a group has the gall to say, "We like business and profits," and make gifts to Republican candidates, and we're invited to speculate on the evil conspiracy that must be at the back of their fund raising letter?

It's called politics. Get over it.

[Phoenix Woman]

Ms. Taggart, this is for you:

"... the U.S. is seemingly the only place where right-wing elites can openly share their distaste for the working poor. Where do they find their philosophical justification for this kind of attitude?

It turns out, you can trace much of this thinking back to Ayn Rand, a popular cult-philosopher who exerts a huge influence over much of the right-wing and libertarian crowd, but whose influence is only starting to spread out of the U.S.

One reason most countries don't find the time to embrace Ayn Rand's thinking is that she is a textbook sociopath. In her notebooks Ayn Rand worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer, and used this killer as an early model for the type of 'ideal man' she promoted in her more famous books. These ideas were later picked up on and put into play by major right-wing figures of the past half decade, including the key architects of America's most recent economic catastrophe -- former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and SEC Commissioner Chris Cox -- along with other notable right-wing Republicans such as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Rush Limbaugh and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.

[...]

"The best way to get to the bottom of Ayn Rand's beliefs is to take a look at how she developed the superhero of her novel, Atlas Shrugged, John Galt. Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of a 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation -- Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street -- on him.

What did Rand admire so much [http://www.slate.com/id/2233966] about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: 'Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,' she wrote, gushing that Hickman had 'no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel "other people."'

This echoes almost word for word Rand's later description of her character Howard Roark, the hero of her novel The Fountainhead: 'He was born without the ability to consider others.' (The Fountainhead is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' favorite book -- he even requires his clerks to read it.)"

===========

There follows a gruesome description of Hickman's sadistic taunting of the girl and her father -- including his delivery of her dead body to her father (Hickman pretended the girl was still alive, so he could get the ransom money and have the sick thrill of killing another human being -- his version of having your cake and eating it, too).

This was the hero, the Howard Roark schoolgirl crush, and role model of the person who is the intellectual guru of the far right, folks.

This is why they feel justified in screwing over everyone -- because they don't care about anyone but themselves. Not only that, they try to paint caring and compassion and community as evil, and up as down, in order to justify their sociopathy.

http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/ayn_rand,_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders,_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer