This weekend, Republicans in House Districts 12A and 17A endorsed Jeff Backer and Tim Miller, two Tea Party Republicans, over candidates recruited by the minority House caucus campaign to regain the chamber.
Both men aim to place-bait the race, framing incumbents Jay McNamar (DFL-Elbow Lake) and Andrew Falk (DFL-Murdock) as metro-centric dudes who voted for marriage equality. Both Backer and Miller have sought unsuccessfully to be elected to the state legislature in the past.
"Istanbul" Jeff Backer
One look at Backer's Facebook page reveals that he appears to be very popular, with 8,881 "Likes." Before the page administrator made "the most popular city" feature of the Likes private information, Bluestem Prairie noticed that Backer appealed to a distinctly international audience for a district located on Minnesota's border with North and South Dakota.
We chronicled this international flair in Not The 12A Bump: Did "Bangkok Jeff" Backer's campaign buy his Facebook fan explosion? and Update: Bangkok Jeff Backer still feeling that Thai bump in west central Minnesota GOP house bid, then Sailing to Byzantium: "Bangkok" Jeff Backer's paid fan base now 18-24 year olds in Istanbul, Turkey.
Moreover, his concerns were decidedly international for a rural district, as we noted in MN House District 12A Update: "Istanbul" Jeff Backer worried about Iranian warships in Atlantic. We allowed that it was possible those warcraft could steam into the Arctic and come down the Red River of the North to invade Traverse County, Minnesota, but concluded that it's probably not a huge concern for district voters picking a candidate for the state house.
The global focus is given a particular edge by Backer's place-baiting of McNamar's record. From a Backer press release posted today:
At the convention, Backer cited his Jay McNamar’s voting record in pointing out key differences between the two candidates. “After just over one year in office, it is clear Jay McNamar is a lockstep supporter of the agenda of the metro Democrats. On virtually every issue – from tax increases on our farmers and small town business owners, to supporting the failed MNsure/Obamacare health care debacle to voting for gay marriage despite the fact that 64 percent of his constituents support traditional marriage – “Metro” Jay has turned his back on rural Minnesota,” Backer stated.
Also posted on Backer's Facebook page today? Two posts about President Obama's response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. While Bluestem is appalled by Putin's action, as residents one district east in West Central Minnesota, we believe that the annexation of Crimea is probably closer to the hearts (or at least the history) of Backer's Turkish fanbase.
Metro or global? McNamar won the seat in a three-way race and so this will be one to watch out for. Backer lost a bid for the Minnesota Senate in 2010, losing to veteran incumbent Keith Langseth in a 52.52 percent to 47.39 percent split.
Two-time Tim Miller
Tim Miller lost to incumbent representative Andrew Falk in 2012 in a 53.9 percent to 46.1 percent split and has carried on a letter-to-the-editor war against the young farmer since the lost. The West Central Tribune reports in Republicans endorse Miller for District 17A:
. . .Miller was endorsed on the first ballot with just over 60 percent of the vote of the 70 delegates at the convention Saturday at the Swift County Law Enforcement Center in Benson. Miller defeated retired teacher and high school coach Gary Nelson of Clara City.
Miller works for Habitat for Humanity of West Central Minnesota and also owns the consulting business Development Partners. . . .
Unlike Istanbul Jeff, Miller has only 62 Facebook fans collected since 2012, and his obsession seems to be policy reports by the Cato Institute, a libertarian-right Washington-basd think tank,rather than global conflicts.
On Miller's web page, the candidate draws information about "transportation policy's dirty secret" and education policy from Cato, although we think the negative tone is all his. While the Star Tribune may report that Transit use hits historic levels in metro, nationally:
. . . locally, total metro area ridership sneaked past 94 million in 2013, according to data compiled late last week — a jump of 6 million since 2007.
High gas prices, a recovering economy, a multitude of new facilities and faster, more frequent service explain a good deal of the jump so far. And transit advocates say they expect two growing demographic segments to provide continued thrust for years to come. . . .
Locally, in a year that saw the state’s first Bus Rapid Transit line launched out of Dakota County, the suburban transit service, the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority (MVTA), set a new high of more than 2.7 million rides. From the opposite direction, the Maple Grovetransit service’s 836,443 was also a record.
The big player in the area, Metro Transit, didn’t quite hit a record, but it provided 5 million more rides than it had four years earlier. . . .
...but Miller believes that it's " expensive, underutilized mass transit…most of it “light rail” in the MSP metro."
We're curious what Miller thinks about state senator Torrey Westrom's support for personal rapid transit, that we posted about early last year in Deform agenda: Senator Torrey Westrom touts ridiculous personal rapid transit boondoogle.
Perhaps the Beltway think tank knows best, although there is one policy area where Miller parts company with the smartypants at Cato: same-sex marriage, which the think tank supports, On that issue, Miller is as against cute boys marrying as Backer is.
Screenshot: Jeff Backer's Ukraine concerns, via his campaign Facebook page.
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