When Emo Senator, Southern Minnesota's most watched telenovela, left Senator Mike Parry, our hero was besieged by a tag-team of letter writers who savaged his street cred as a true conservative.
In today's episode, Mike Parry gets over by hobnobbing on the set of a new Coen Brothers movie and touring the Airstream trailer dressing room used by the production company. The Owatonna People's Press reports in Coen Brothers crew films in Steele County:
The crew even managed to get state Sen. Mike Parry, R-Waseca, to the set to bend his ear about tax incentives for the film industry. Parry — a candidate for Congress who was in Owatonna Saturday for the Steele County Republican Convention — acknowledged the positive effect that the film industry can have on the economy.
"It's good to see the impact it has on the local community," Parry said. "It makes us (legislators in St. Paul) feel a little bit better when we do an investment like this, using taxpayer dollars to see its return on investment back into the local community."
Parry was invited to the set by Anne Healy, the location manager for the film and a member of the Minnesota Movie Association, an organization that is pushing for the state to start offering more incentives to the film industry.
It's interesting to see the Emo Senator adopt the language of "investment" to describe government spending of taxpayer dollars. What will Team Quist, Paragons of True Conservativism, say to that?
Some conservatives might be wary of SF2455, a bipartisan Senate bill promoting the state's film industry, but the Screenwriter is not.
Perhaps more interesting in the video, however, is the presence of the young woman wearing the Mike Parry for Congress tee-shirt who appears to be videotaping Senator Parry's tour. Is this an official state senate informational tour? A congressional campaign event? With Emo Senator, is there a difference?
Anne Healy, who invited Mike Parry to the set, appears to have thought she was inviting a state senator.
Update: The news reporter at the Owatonna People's Press seems to have gotten the name wrong for the organization that Anne Healy is involved in. It's the Motion Picture Association of Minnesota, and according to its Facebook page, Anne Healy Shapiro serves on the MPAM board of directors, acting as the group's treasurer.
On the group's Facebook page, the group is advocating that people contact senators urging passage of the bill. (It's also deleting comments about Parry's visit, so apparently it's not into addressing questions, just pretending they never existed. Apparently, they've never heard of screenshots at the Motion Picture Association of Minnesota (here's one)).
There's no contact information on the group's Facebook page, so posting messages on the wall is the only way of making contact.
But Bluestem isn't inclined to believe that the Motion Picture Association of Minnesota is responsible for Mike Parry's ethical gaffe. But pretending the situation doesn't exist doesn't help their cause.
In 2000, Common Cause Minnesota took DFL State Senator Steve Novak to task for taking advantage of a loophole in state ethical practices law by congressional campaign contributions from lobbyists and corporate executives who had business before the committee he chaired. Is Parry mixing state senate business with his congressional campaign? Did the Minnesota Movie Association realise this would be an event on Parry's congressional campaign calendar?
Update #2: More on Anne Healy approaching Mike Parry about the film industry, this time in May 2011: Location scout hopes to bring movie magic back to Minn:
Healy has written pleas to state legislators to give a rebate a chance, promising it would only bring in revenue, not cost the state money. And at a time when the budget is needing a major balance, she noted, what’s not to love about a little extra cash flow from movie sets that would also help put small Minnesota towns on the map?
“Senator Mike Parry is on a committee that gets to decide where the Legacy Funding is supposed to go. The arts want most of it, but what we’re trying to say is during this recession, why don’t you give the film industry some and see what happens? Let’s see if we can attract money to the state from the film industry because it will happen immediately,” Healy said.
This makes me more curious about Healy's game plan, since she's been courting Parry for a while.
Image: Screenshot of Emo Senator on the mobile dressing room, with the campaign worker/volunteer video taping, from the OPP video (above); screenshot of now deleted comment at the Motion Picture Association of Minnesota site (below)
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