Mary Franson looking to badger up Gopher State

Drunk on the attention gained from her "funny" Youtube analogy between feeding people on food support and feeding wild animals in parks, Representative Mary Franson has learned that playing the victim card means never having to say you're sorry.

Sure, she tweeted a couple of non-apology apologies, but she's back to Mary 1.0 with a charming op-ed piece in the Star Tribune that combines her name with all the stylistic grace notes and talking points of a John Hugh Gilmore blog post.

In It's a shame politicians avoid risks, Franson continues her intoxicating march to the right. Bluestem suspects that her campaign committee is raking in cash from sympathic Starve-The-Poor warriors in the Tea Party from whence she came.

Playing the victim card may never have been so lucrative on the state level, but under Minnesota's campaign finance laws, we'll have to wait to see how much money she's making from fundraising tweets sent while she's at work at the legislature.

So what does Mary Franson want? She's tired of her own caucus's leadership and seeks a New Wisconsin:

Big ideas are not welcomed in either party; the respective caucuses fight each other over a very narrow band of ideas. It recalls nothing so much as the futility of World War I trench warfare -- high costs for little gain.

I can't help but look east, to Wisconsin, where I see a Republican Party of courage and conviction.

One doesn't have to agree with any or all of what Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow Republicans have advanced in order to admire their sheer lack of wimpishness that is never belied in private by cowardice dressed up as political sobriety.

Nowhere in America are differences within the same political party greater than those between the Wisconsin and Minnesota Republican Parties.

What has the intemperate courage of Walker's Wisconsin wrought for the Badger State? The bravado of Republican State Senator Pam Galloway? Huffington Post reports in Senator Pam Galloway Resigns Seat On Wisconsin Legislature, GOP Loses Senate Control:

A Wisconsin state senator facing a June primary election abruptly resigned Friday, plunging the Senate into a tie and shaking up the state's political landscape.

Sen. Pam Galloway (R-Wausau) announced she would be resigning effective Saturday from the seat she has held since her November 2010 election. In a statement on her website and Facebook page, Galloway said that she was resigning in order to deal with family issues.

"Today I am announcing my retirement from the Wisconsin State Senate. After a great deal of thought and consideration, I've decided to put the needs of my family first," Galloway said. "My family has experienced multiple, sudden and serious health issues, which require my full attention. Unfortunately, this situation is not compatible with fulfilling my obligations as state senator or running for re-election at this time."

Galloway, the chairwoman of the Senate Public Health, Human Services and Revenue Committee, was facing a competitive recall election vs. Rep. Donna Seidel (D). When Seidel's candidacy was announced last month, Democrats were quick to trumpet her candidacy, noting that her district gave her a boost in the Senate race.

Galloway's fortitude has caused the Republican Party of Wisconsin to lose control of the state senate. Granted, one might construct a viable argument that the majority party in the Minnesota Senate lost control no later than September 2011, but unlike their colleagues in Wisconsin, Dave Senjem and his caucus have kept their seats. (Whether the Senate loses its shirt in Michael Brodkorb's tell-all strip-tease lawsuit remains unsettled).

And the rest of the legislature? Bluestem suspects that Franson can't see Madison from her front lawn in Alex, nor even Hudson from the top of the state capitol dome in St. Paul. Were she able, the writer of this piece might have seen headline like these in Wisconsin newpapers. The Chippewa Valley News reports in Wisconsin Legislature adjourns tumultuous session:

Wisconsin lawmakers finished one of the ugliest legislative sessions in state history Friday after Assembly Democrats punished Republicans with a 30-plus-hour filibuster.

Thursday was the last scheduled day for passing bills before legislators hit the campaign trail. The state Senate finished its work Thursday afternoon in less than an hour.

The Assembly, however, convened Thursday morning with a calendar jammed with bills. Debate dragged on through late Thursday night, when minority Democrats broke for strategy meetings. . . .

In August, Democrats removed two GOP state senators in recall elections and have launched recall drives against Walker and five other Republicans, including Fitzgerald, taking the animosity between the parties to new heights.

By the time this week arrived, Republicans had passed all of their big-ticket legislation. They had dozens of smaller bills left, which gave Democrats one more chance to gum up the works.

And gum they did, reveling in Republicans’ exhaustion.

. . .Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, called the session an “epic failure.“

“Scott Walker and his Republican legislative allies,” Mason said, “have succeeded only at dividing Wisconsin as never before.“

The fight is far from over. Things figure to get nastier as Walker and his fellow Republicans battle to survive the recalls. The elections aren’t expected to take place until May and June, promising long weeks of bitter campaign ads and venomous rhetoric.

Analysis by AP reporters in the Green Bay Press Gazette, Winners, losers in Legislature's latest session notes that Walker and the Republicans are both winners and losers, but the lede sums the situation up quite tidily:

While winners and losers clearly emerged during the legislative session that began in January 2011 and ended last week, the fate of others remains unknown.
Ongoing court battles might derail some of the Republicans' biggest accomplishments. Recall elections could hand Democrats majority control of the state Senate after a previous round last summer saw them gain two seats, one fewer than what they need to take over.

And, largest of all, Gov. Scott Walker will likely face a recall vote in May or June that in many ways will be a referendum on the past year-plus that saw him and Republicans exert their power and pass a wave of historic changes that unleashed a political tumult never-before-seen in Wisconsin.

And then there's the brew that made Scott Walker famous: his promise get government out of the way of employers who would create 250,000 private-sector jobs by 2015. How's that going for Wisconsin? The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel notes that so far, Walker's stiff-upper-lip resolve has created a total of 6,000 jobs. The chart borrowed here shows the graphic truth.

Polifact reported on March 8 in its Walk-O-Meter:

. . .Wisconsin had more private-sector jobs just before Walker took office and it hasn"t added as many as what the government previously reported.

The bottom line?

Despite the estimated increase of 15,700 private-sector jobs in January 2012, the state has seen a net increase of only 6,000 private-sector jobs under Walker, who set a goal of 250,000 new such jobs in his first four-year term.

This isn't the case in Minnesota. DLOnline reported in Unemployment rate drops to 5.6 percent:

The Minnesota unemployment rate fell 0.1 percent in January to a seasonally adjusted 5.6 percent, according to figures released today by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The state remained well below the U.S. unemployment rate of 8.3 percent.

Employers added 15,500 jobs in January, bringing year-over-year job gains in the state to 29,000. . . .

“Robust job growth in January points to an economy that is gaining momentum,” said DEED Commissioner Mark Phillips. “The private sector has been particularly strong, adding 27,200 jobs in the past two months alone.”

The Tea Party and the politics of mean have been great for Mary Franson, but there's little going on in Wisconsin that suggests badgering-up Minnesota would be great for the rest of us.

The Strib column also takes back Franson's regrets about the video:

Recently, I have been the subject of numerous local and national media stories concerning my attempts to reform Minnesota's bloated and dependency-enabling welfare system.

One video I made had my critics claiming I compared food-stamp recipients to animals. No fair viewing of that video could support such nonsense.

See for yourself; Franson's discussion of welfare "reform" begins around 1:50 into it (one entertaining part of the Youtube is her cheerleading at the opening of the clip for the MNGOP legislature's illusionary surplus; that was then...)