OPP posts video of Swedin's full speech: tells story of making 17-year old girl cry in Starbucks

As Bluestem noted in Full tilt Mike Parry: Swedin blames Owatonna People's Press for repeating DFL rodent "joke"(and City Pages and the Minnesota Progressive Project report as well) Vern Swedin has complained that the Owatonna People's Press has sensationalized his remarks to a recent Republican pre-election rally.

Bluestem first posted about the story in At GOP rally, SD24 candidate Swedin calls DFLers "rats," Nov. "Rodent Removal Month"

Swedin complained in the comment section of the OPP story:

I’m not sure which is worse? Party politics or reporting used to sensationalize the division.

The joke was for the event attendees, I have equally as many Republican jokes that I share because humor is fun, apparently not for all… and let’s face it, political parties are the simply easy to joke about.

What our reporter failed to describe…

I started my speech with the failure of politics, “Whether Republican, Democrat, or Independent, a core problem with politics is that Politicians are measured by and large by what they spend rather than what they save.” . . .

Now the OPP has posted a YouTube of Vern Swedin's remarks so we'll all see and heard just what a fun loving guy he is. He's sensitive obout his first name being an old guy's moniker, gets his political advice from former congressman Gil Gutknecht, and kvetches about young women at the Owatonna Starbucks for their fancy coffee drinking ways.

Then tells a long anecdote about making one of them--a 17-year-old high school student-- cry and attacking her parents for being Democrats. This, he tells the audience, was his first stump speech.

This from a man who has posted on his campaign website:

This is Vern Swedin, your "first things first" candidate for the open District 24 Senate seat in Southern Minnesota. As your next State Senator, I want to help put truth back into politics, hold leaders accountable to hear and represent their people and to work across partisan lines to accomplish meaningful initiatives for our state.

. . .And the truth is that I will not engage in attacking my opponents or their party. I am committed to cooperation, understanding and working together across party lines to focus on human need, not political gain.

Here are Swedin's full remarks so everybody will know about his total awesome speech, followed by the video clip:

. . .it's all been said tonight already, so I can be really quick, because we have a debate starting in about six minutes, so I don't want to keep you.

A lot of the time--Vern. You know, it's not a very common name and a lot of the time I go into meetings or running for state senate and they say 'Oh, we thought you'd be older.' [Crowd laughs] [garbled] Yeah--like 40.

Thank you all very, very, very much for what you do. I know that a lot of you have been out helping all of us. I'm brand new at this, so I've gotten a lot of opportunity to speak with Senator Hann and Mike Parry and Dick Day and Gil Gutknecht, Kathy- er, Connie Ruth, and it was like 'How do you all do this? How do you take all this new information and turn that into something valuable?'

And Gil Gutknecht summed it up really well for me one day at a lunch. I go, 'Gil, five minutes what's the problem with politics? What is it I don't know?'

'Vern, the problem with politics is that politicians are measured by what they spend and not what they save.'

Yes. Eureka! I'm a business guy. I do the math. The math has to work, and when we hear all this conversation about policy first and then parties talking about their policy and what policy has to stand, somebody has to stand in the middle and say, 'Wa-wa-wait, did we do the math on this?' The math has to work and I'm committed to that.

So when I first started to run, we had made a decision in January, and I was kind of excited about it, so I'm at the Starbucks here in town and these girls were ordering frappe latte foo-foos and 'Do you guys sell coffee too?' I don't know what they ordered but I'm just here for a cup of coffee.

And one of them looked at me and she had said something and I said, 'excuse me, did you say...'

'Are you Skye's dad?'--my daughter--'I am!'

'Are you running for senate? We'd just heard that.' And I said 'I am, I just made the decision.'

And she said, 'Are you a Republican or a Democrat?'

And I said, 'I am a Republican.'

'Oh.'

I was shunned by a foo-foo latte frap drinker, but I knew very little about what that meant. So I said, 'Who's buying the drinks, are you all on your own, are you all going dutch on this?'

'Oh no, she's has all the money.' So this girl had all the money. She's like, 'I have a cash card, my parents give me an allowance, and I'm buying all the coffees and the frou-frou frappe lattes.'

And so I said,'How much money goes on to you card every week?'

And she said, 'So i work parttime and I get an allowance, about $88 a week.'

I was like, "Wow, how old are you?'

She's 'I'm seventeen and I'll be a voter this fall.'

So I say, 'Let's imagine' and I grabbed her card, 'Let's imagine that your $88 dollars a week, and I reckon that you work pretty hard for that $88,' and she was proud, she works hard for her money, and I said, 'What if your mom and dad took...your debit card and put $15,000 of debt on your card for you every month. How would that make you feel?'

'What?'

'$15,000, when you start equating a $1.5 trillion deficit and you start doing the math in homes in America and you start thinking about a 100 million households, 1.5 thousand, 15,000, that adds up, we'll put it on your card. You're going to pay for this, instead of Mom and Dad. How do you think that would work out for you?'

[Swedin starts to fake tears and sobbing] 'My mom and dad would never do that to me!'

I said, 'But they're Democrats.'

So that was me first stump speech and I did it at a Starbucks. What you will find is that I have tons of energy. I wake up at 6:15 in 4th gear...right honey, or earlier, and I only work half days, about 8:00 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week, because you have to take a break. and you have to recharge.

Marie Sheared [sp?] sen me this this morning. I have to share this. I'm so sorry, but I have to. Before I do that, Pam Caesar [sp?], where's Pam? Maureen and team, you guys have been so absolutely amazing. The number one thing they do for me--and they do so much--but our team is the greatest encouragers that I've ever had the pleasure to work with, thank you so very, very much. Yes.

And my wife Darcy, if you'll stand up for a second. She's in fulltime politics now. I don't let her read the paper. Or the blogs. 'Let's lie about Vern, he's old, he won't care.' I'm not old.

There's something that, it said:
I often wondered why it is that Conservatives are called the "right" and Liberals are called the "left."
By chance I stumbled upon a Bible verse that said, "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."

And a Spelling Lesson for you all:

The last four letters in American is "I Can." Yes!
The last four letters in Republican is "I Can."
The last four letters in Democrats are "Rats."
And remember, November is to be set aside as rodent removal month. Thank you for being here.