In Complaint filed against GOP about MacDonald, PoliticsMN has posted lawyer and LeftMn blogger Steve Timmer's complaint filed with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board.
While he is no supporter of endorsed Republican Supreme Court candidate Michelle MacDonald, Timmer's complaint is a response to an attempt to coerce MacDonald into dropping out from the race. Read the embedded document, where Timmer outlines his case, at PoliticsMN.
The document includes one claim MacDonald made on Ron Rosenbaum's Holding Court Podcast on August 26, 2014:
As the media began reporting about Ms. MacDonald, her party endorsement became more unsettling to the party’s executive committee and to the party’s chair, Keith Downey. That expressed itself in a number of ways by the party distancing itself from its endorsed candidate; for example, Ms. MacDonald’s photo did not appear with those of other endorsed candidates on the party’s website. She was excluded from a post-convention fly around, and she was denied access to the party’s major donor list.
We listened to the podcast, coming away with a reaction similar to that Timmer expresses: we wouldn't vote for her in any configuration of the universe, but the Republican Party should treat her fairly.
However, we didn't recall reading that endorsed supreme court judicial candidates on the plane with the endorsed candidates for constitutional officers in 2006 and 2010 (there were no endorsements in 2012, a year with no constitutional officer candidates on the ballot). It's not surprising for 2006, since Justice Barry Anderson declined his party's endorsement.
In 2010, the Republican Party of Minnesota endorsed two candidates for Supreme Court: Greg Wersal and Tim Tinglestad (page 3 of the pdf). According to Rachel Stassen Berger reporting in the 2010 Strib Hot Dish Politics blog post, Republicans to take the unity show on the road
Following their state convention, Republican plan to fly around the state to let Minnesota's voters get to know them
"Republicans are unified and energized for November," party chairman Tony Sutton said.
Here are the details of their tour of Minnesota's outstate airports and the state capitol:
Who: Republican Party of Minnesota Gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, Lieutenant Governor candidate Annette Meeks, Attorney General candidate Chris Barden, State Auditor candidate Pat Anderson, Secretary of State candidate Dan Severson
What: Endorsed Republican Party of Minnesota candidates will kick off statewide unity tour with stops in St. Paul, Rochester, Mankato, Alexandria, Moorhead and Duluth on Monday, May 3.
Where & When:
St. Paul
9:00 A.M.
South Capitol Steps
Neither Supreme Court candidate was on the 2010 fly-around, so the absence of the 2014 does not in itself speak to a plan to exclude her specifically.
Nor had the damaging material about her DWI yet appeared in the media. Abby Simons broke the story on June 12, 2014, and MacDonald beat blogger Michael Brodkorb started posting about her candidacy the next day.
As the old cliche goes, just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
Timmer's complaint and Brodkorb's posts about the MNGOP's offer that MacDonald couldn't refuse suggest that the Republican Party was out to get MacDonald, but the passenger manifest from the plane in 2010 makes us suspect that her absence on the 2014 fly-around wasn't part of the later plot to erase her from the ticket.
Photo: Michelle MacDonald ( to the photo right of Mike MacFadden at the podium) during the June 2, 2014 press conference before the fly around began. Via the RPM's Facebook page.
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