The Winona Daily News should know better than to parrot falsehoods about Allen Quist. For the record, way back in 1994 my husband did not say women are inferior to men; nor does he believe that. I have not met a man with greater regard for women than Allen Quist. His respect for women is far beyond what I found among liberal men while I traveled that side of the political landscape in my youth.
What my husband actually observed is that men are generally the heads of households (fact), and there is likely an inherent genetic reason for that. In other words, marriage and family aren’t simply cultural creations. But contrary to current cultural dogma, this does not translate to inferiority of women. Good grief! Equality isn’t sameness.
Surely I’ll be fiercely pounced upon for uttering that thought. Misrepresenting basic family structure as women’s inferiority was politically useful in 1994 as it is today. . . .
Read the rest at the WDN. It's curious how anyone would think that being inheritently subservient somehow doesn't mean being inferior, but perhaps being cherished makes it all different.
Earlier this week, First Congressional District Republican candidate Mike Parry made a big issue of primary opponent Allen Quist’s political misstatements, including a 1994 quote where Quist said men had a “genetic predisposition” to lead the family. According to New Ulm Journal reporter Josh Moniz, “When Quist was questioned about it at a July 12, 2012, town hall in Rochester, he responded that people were making things up.”
If so, I can say only, “Mr. Quist, stop lying about my record.”
I was the Twin Cities Reader reporter who got the original quote, at a Country Kitchen outside Quist’s home town of St. Peter. [Read the entire interview as a PDF 2.6MB]..
Read the rest at MinnPost, where the original 1994 interview audio is also posted.
Allen Quist endorsed Aaron Miller in 2013. Miller later gained the Republican Party's endorsement at the MNCD1 GOP convention in Albert Lea earlier this year; after promising to abide by the endorsement, Hagedorn jumped back in the race this month.
Image: Allen Quist, by Ken Avidor.
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. . . Bill Walsh, the current director of public affairs at the Minnesota Senate Republican Caucus, said [Biers left the caucus on Tuesday. He said he cannot comment on personnel issues, so he could not provide the reason for Bier's departure.
Biers and the Miller campaign did not return several phone calls seeking clarification on whether the change impacts Bier's position with the campaign.
Byron resident Aaron Miller, who is the endorsed Republican candidate challenging Democrat incumbent Rep. Tim Walz of Mankato, has spent $21,330 total over the last nine months of the campaign on Capital Communications, the campaign consulting firm registered to Bier's address.
The spending represents 66 percent of $32,007 total that Miller raised from individual donors this campaign. Alternatively, it represents 75 percent of Miller's total fundraising from individual donors when the $3,500 donation from Miller himself is taken out.
Given the Miller's campaign's investment in Biers, any further developments with him may have an impact on the campaign.
According to a January 9, 2013 report in Politics in Minnesota, Biers was appointed communications director for the Senate Republican caucus when the Republicans regrouped afer losing the chamber in the November 2012 elections. Prior to serving as communications director, Biers " was the committee administrator for the Senate Health and Human Services Committee under Sen. David Hann," who became the minority leader for the disminished caucus, PIM noted.
In PIM's April 23, 2014 Capitol Note, Mike Mullen reported in Comings and Goings:
Senate Republican staffer Brad Biers, an aide to Senate Minority Leader David Hann, has left the caucus, according to a staff email tweeted by the Star Tribune’s Rachel Stassen-Berger.
Should the Miller campaign be spotted again (see news reports on his website) please let us know if the political veteran is hanging around or if his relationship to the Miller campaign is evolving.
Biers served as a consultant for 2008 Walz challenger Brian Davis for much of the Mayo doctor's unsuccessful bid. Biers left the Davis campaign in August 2008 to work for the Taxpayers' League "No Constitutional Tax Increase” campaign. The heritage amendment won with 55.99 percent of the vote. Walz won the First that year with 62.50 pecent to Davis's 32.93 percent. Biers also worked on Allen Quist's 2010 unsuccessful bid for party endorsement in CD1.
Last night after third-place delegate vote getter Mike Benson withdrew from the race after the second ballot and threw his support to Miller, Quist's endorsement proved to be a harbinger. Miller won by acclamation after the third ballot, when Benson's suggestion caused Miller to jump to a significant lead, and Jim Hagedorn withdrew. Miller and Jim Hagedorn had tied on the first ballot. Read about it at the Mankato Free Press in Miller wins upset victory in Republican endorsement.
Later, [Miller] shared a story about his daughter becoming very upset because she had to learn about evolution at school. He said his daughter told the teacher that she did not believe in evolution. He said the teacher expressed agreement with his daughter, but told her that they were forced to teach the lesson by the government.
"There's a war on our values by the government," Miller said. "We should decide what is taught in our schools, not Washington, D.C."
When asked for further detail, Miller declined to provide the name of the teacher in his story.
He also called for more religious freedoms. He repeated his story about his daughter returning home from school because evolution was being taught in her class. He said the teacher admitted to not believing in the scientific theory to his daughter but told her that the government forced him to teach the lesson.
"We should decide what is taught in our schools, not Washington D.C.," Miller said.
Miller has declined to provide any more information to verify his story.
This is curious stuff, since the standards for curriculum in Minnesota are set by the Minnesota Department of Education. The K-12 science standards are introduced here, and a FAQ notes how the development of the standards are required by state statue (page 3).
While "Evolution in Living Systems" is a substrand under "Life Sciences" in the standards, in the primary grades, the content of the coursework has to do with life cycles of individual animals and plants, as well as the resemblance of offspring to parents. Reference to the fossil record and extinction begins at grade seven, with discussion of Darwin and theories of evolution slated for grade 9.
Bluestem thinks the standards are a bummer, since we grooved on learning about evolution from our independent reading about dinosaurs when we were in primary school. But we digress.
It's curious that Miller has chosen to select creationism as the banner for his crusade for religious freedom, when all the cool conservatives have rallied around Hobby Lobby's objecting to funding birth control in health insurance plans (pay no attention to the company's retirement fund investments in the drug companies that manufacture the pills) or the new-fund religious right to discriminate in public accommodations if one doesn't like cute boys marrying each other.
Miller is facing criticism from some Republicans over a Rochester Post-Bulletin article in which he called for fixing the Affordable Care Act and called it unrealistic to seek repeal of the law. His later press releases have called for repealing the law.
He said he has always supported repeal and was simply taking about current political realities during the interview.
He has also only raised $24,000 in individual contributions raised over the last two reporting quarters. He has self-funded with a $40,000 loan on each of the last two quarters. However, he repaid the first loan last quarter, meaning the self-funding was not cumulative.
He said the other candidates have equally lagged behind previous 1st District Republican candidates. He said his total is because he is a political newcomer. He said he expects fundraising to pick up when an endorsed candidate is selected.
Reports from the FEC's first quarter are due April 15, so we'll see then how well Miller drew money in the last three months.
Image: Allen Quist rides off into the sunset, but keeps that dino power for Miller. Cartoon by Ken Avidor. Used with permission.
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Once upon a time, say 1970, Julie (Morse) Quist founded the Amazon Bookstore Cooperative, described in its Wikipedia entry:
Amazon Bookstore Cooperative was a feminist bookstore located in Minneapolis, Minnesota that operated from 1970 to 2012. It was the first lesbian/feminist bookstore in the U.S.[1]
In 1970 when Amazon was founded by Rosina Richter Christy and Julie Morse Quist, it was far from a full-fledged bookstore. The books were kept in the front room of the women's collective they lived in and books were only available from 3 to 6 PM or by special arrangement.[2][3][4] This arrangement lasted for about two years before the book store moved to Minneapolis' Lesbian Resource Center and then migrated through a series of different storefront addresses.
Now she's come out against the Girl Scouts of America. Take that, cookie lovers!
As Tony Lee of Breitbart News reported Saturday, the Girl Scouts recently promoted late-term abortion advocate and Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis as one of their “incredible women of the year.”
According to the report, the official Girl Scouts Twitter account referred to Davis, who filibustered a bill that banned abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy, as “incredible,” and linked to a Huffington Post list containing the names of Gloria Steinem and Davis.
The Girl Scouts’ ties to the institutional left and the abortion industry have become increasingly apparent, with Breitbart News’ Austin Ruse delivering the most recent exposéof the organization’s prominent blogger Josh Ackley, who moonlighted as lead singer of a “homo-punk” band called The Dead Betties. The band belongs to a movement called “homocore” that slams disapproval of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lifestyles. . . .
While the National Republican Congressional Committee has TIFF businessman Stewart Millionaire on its radar, the beltway band isn't so hot for the clowns seeking GOP endorsement in the First.
The National Republican Congressional Committee has intimated that U.S. Rep. Tim Walz is one of their top targets in the 2014 election cycle, but party leaders aren’t yet sure they have a candidate capable of mounting a serious challenge. When the NRCC released its list of promising House hopefuls Thursday, none of Walz’s potential opponents made the cut. Businessman Jim Hagedorn, state Rep. Mike Benson and Army veteran Aaron Miller are all seeking to oust Walz, who represents southern Minnesota.
The Miller campaign said the endorsement was a big gain in the race.
“I am excited to hear that Allen Quist has endorsed my campaign for Congress. We need a united front from all Republicans across this district to send a common sense conservative to Washington D.C.,” said Miller in a statement.
While Miller may be excited, Bluestem isn't surprised given Quist's penchant for keeping grudges.
In the 2010 endorsement battle that both Quist and current Miller rival Jim Hagedorn lost to Hayfield Republican Randy Demmer, Hagedorn ripped long time Quist political ally Michele Bachmann as a political liability. We had posted then:
Mr. Quist’s allegiance to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is understandable, and I would expect nothing less as Mrs. Quist serves as the congresswoman’s district director. Congresswoman Bachmann has impeccable conservative credentials and serves the 6th District with distinction. But tying one’s candidacy to another campaign is politically risky and offers the media a free pass to issue stories about Bachmann-Quist, rather than Tim Walz and his liberal voting record. . . .
Despite being a solid conservative, Quist campaigns are known for making provocative statements that often generate sympathy for opponents and undermine our conservative cause. Even during this relatively short campaign, counter-productive attacks made by Mr. Quist concerning Tim Walz and the Democratic Party provided Walz with a national media platform as well as a national fundraising base.
Way to make friends and influence people, Mr. Hagedorn.
Allen Quist is attributing his Tuesday election loss in Minnesota's 1st Congressional District to a surprise DFL voter turnout fueled by Minnesota's constitutional amendments and a lack of support from national Republican organizations.
Quist, a former state lawmaker and a farmer, lost 142,162 votes, or 42 percent, to the 193,209 votes, or 57 percent, of his DFL incumbent opponent U.S Rep. Tim Walz. . . .
Cartoon: Ken Avidor's take on Allen Quist, 2010.
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While southern Minnesota's geography is largely rural, voters there cluster in Rochester (Minnesota's third largest city), thriving mini-metro college towns as Winona and Mankato, and blue-collar regional enclaves like Austin, New Ulm and Faribault.
Nathan Gonzalez, deputy editor of the Rothenberg Political Report,
said he sees the race as one in which Republicans are still looking for a
candidate.
“Republicans are determined to play offense in Minnesota’s 1st
District,” Gonzalez said in an email. “They are still searching for a
candidate, but they don’t want Walz to get a free ride. Walz has proven
to be a tough incumbent to defeat, so it’s up to Republicans to prove
that 2014 will be any different.”
Shaw explores the geographic calculus that the Republicans need to solve to beat Walz, although electoral history demonstrates that geography isn't destiny for the Mankato DFLer.
Walz beat six-term Rochester Republican Gil Gutknecht by 5.62 percent spread in an upset in 2006, Rochester doctor Brian Davis by a nearly 30 percent landslide in 2008 and Hayfield legislator Randy Demmer by 5 percent in the Republican wave year of 2010. Hayfield is about a half-hour drive from Rochester, a stone's throw in the sprawling Fighting First.
Shaw points out, "In 2012, Walz defeated his Republican opponent, Allen Quist, by a commanding 15 percentage points." Nicollet County made the Republican a relative home boy for a Mankato incumbent.
Those who subscribe should read all of Shaw's solid reporting. One thing that remains constant for CD1 Republicans is the rhetoric that Walz acts "like us" in the district while voting with his caucus in DC:
“The fact is that when he comes home, he talks like us. When he goes to
Washington he votes like [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi,”
Stevenson said. “Republicans don’t feel that he matches the district
very well at all. His support for Obamacare is really what’s motivating
folks here.”
Earlier this year, Mankato Free Press veteran political reporter Mark Fischenich pointed out how shopworn and unsaleable that line of goods has been for district Republicans:
[Aaron] Miller also made the same pledge that Brian Davis, Randy Demmer and
Allen Quist made early in their campaigns to unseat Walz, who defeated
six-term incumbent Congressman Gil Gutknecht: to persuade southern
Minnesotans that Walz is conning them rather than revealing his true
beliefs and values.
“He wants you to believe he’s ‘the moderate from Mankato,’” Miller said.
When news reached Bluestem earlier this summer that Jim Hagedorn would jump into the clown car seeking the Republican endorsement for Congress in Minnesota's Fighting First, our first thought was that we had thought he'd moved back to Washington DC in 2010 after losing an earlier endorsement battle.
Hagedorn finished fourth in 2010 behind endorsed candidate Randy Demmer, Allen Quist and Jim Engstrand.
The Blue Earth native and sometimes resident is back to try again to become the Republican candidate to run against U.S. Congressman Tim Walz a year from now in the November 2014 election. . . .
"Sometimes" apparently means that he moves back to the district to try to run for Congress:
In 2009 Hagedorn moved back to Blue Earth to run against Walz, but lost the Republican nomination to Randy Demmer of Rochester. Hagedorn left Blue Earth then in 2010.
"I had both personal and business issues that I had to take care of which meant I had to leave," he says. "But, I have always returned to visit this town over the years."
Now he is back and has once more taken up residence in the city of the Green Giant.
When his father was elected to Congress, the young Jim Hagedorn went with him to the nation’s capitol. He graduated from George Mason University in Virginia, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in government and politics.
After that, he spent 25 years working in Washington. He was a legislative assistant to former Congressman Arlen Stangeland.
From 1991 to 1998, Hagedorn was the Director for Legislativeand Public Affairs for the Financial Management Service, the U.S. Department of the Treasury agency responsible for the management of more than $2 trillion in federal funds.
He also served as the Congressional Affairs Officer for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the department of the Treasury that manufactures U.S. paper currency.
“After my father was elected to represent Southern Minnesota in Congress, I enjoyed a successful career on Capitol Hill,” Hagedorn says in his official press release announcing his candidacy. “Over the years I learned a lot about how government works, but learned even more about how it doesn’t work.”
And just as he is in this cycle, Hagedorn was back in Southern Minnesota in 2009 to serve the people he loves so much that he's found it impossible to take up long-term residence among them:
“I left Capitol Hill and returned to help the people I love the most, because this country is worth defending, our way of life is worth saving and the people of Southern Minnesota are worth fighting for,” Hagedorn states in his news release.
Bluestem thinks that we are witnessing the evolution of a new species of contender: the cicada candidate.
Unlike Allen Quist or Randy Demmer, both of whom stuck it out in their hometowns, Hagedorn burrowed into the Beltway, and now emerges every five years to perch high in the box elder branches to drone on about his undying passion for Southern Minnesota.
Never mind that reporters and camera crews hovered nearby, snapping photos and recording video, or that over 150 people showed up to tell their Congressman in one-on-one conversations that they want him to vote against a resolution in favor of American military action in Syria.
. . .But though everyone that came to the Co-op Friday was given a chance
to speak to the Congressman, there were complaints that the forum was
too small considering the enormity of the decision Congress will soon be
faced with it.
"I'm glad he did it," Quist said. "But I call it
'Congress in a Closet.' People want to talk to him about this. I think
he should have done something bigger." . . .
When dozens of people in southern Minnesota had a chance to tell U.S.
Rep. Tim Walz whether Congress should support military action against
Syria for allegedly using chemical weapons on its own people, they
universally said no.
This lede is repeated in story after story.
Here's the KARE 11 clip:
No Quist monopoly on sour: Hagedorn uses offical event to campaign
Wannabe Walz opponent Jim Hagedorn, seeking the Republican endorsment, put in anappearance at the event to campaign against Obama's Middle Eastern policy. Or something.
Joe Spear at the Mankato Free Press captured the moment on video, as a bug-eyed Hagedorn berates Walz, who remains a calm, if captive, audience:
Jim Hagedorn, who is running for Walz's seat, challenges him on Syria/Middle East policy http://t.co/DC0b4hJHmj
As we mentioned in a post yesterday, Jim "Mr. Conservative" Hagedorn is formally announcing his second congressional bid in a few minutes (he came in fourth in 2010 behind Randy Demmer, Allen Quist, Jim Engstrand, the Faribault County Register reported May 1, 2010 in Hagedorn’s political career over before it begins) but enough about that.
In other First District news, former state Sen. Mike Parry of Waseca
said he has ruled out running for any political office in 2014. Parry
had been mulling a possible run for the First District seat and
Secretary of State. He ran for the congressional seat in 2012, losing to
Republican Allen Quist in a primary.
Parry said he had a chance to sit down with Benson and decided to
endorse him. He said expects to campaign heavily for the Rochester
Republican and host fundraisers.
"He is the right candidate for the right time. He understands what
the First Congressional District needs. He understands the problems that
we are facing, and he knows the issues. He is committed to win this
race. I believe he will and that's why I am endorsing him 100 percent,"
Parry said.
We look forward to the special emo touch in the race.
One of the brilliant career moves made by Republican operative Michael Brodkorb before he lost his job as communications director at the Minnesota Senate Republican Caucus was to sign up as the campaign manager/advisor for Mike Parry's First District congressional campaign.
That worked out well for both of them. Ask Congressman Walz.
Now Brodkorb's successor, Brad Biers, who is still listed as Communication Director on the MNSRC staff roster has signed on as advisor to Aaron Miller, who announced against Walz today (despite much tweeting about Brodkorb's blogging protegee at MDE, Luke Hellier, becoming "press secretary"; Hellier, who started Monday, is on the roster as a "researcher).
The word about Biers was reported in The Morning Take (and a conservative source confirmed this to Bluestem):
CD1: Today Republican Aaron Miller will announce his candidacy for Congress. Miller’s website went up yesterday. Brad Biers is advising his campaign, Biers ran Brian Davis’ CD1 campaign in 2008.
Walz's campaign declined to comment specifically on Miller as a candidate. The campaign's finance director, Trevor Vauble, issued the following statement: "With multiple candidates now running in the primary, the Republicans will have a process to select their nominee. Tim Walz is working hard for southern Minnesotans and focusing on creating jobs, investing in education and advocating for our nation's veterans."
In a statement, Minnesota DFL Chairman Ken Martin said he will be eager to see how Miller and Benson plan "to appease the Tea Party elements" in their quest for the Republican endorsement.
"Southern Minnesotans know that more extremism in Congress is not what we need right now, and they know we already have a champion for veterans, farmers and middle-class families in Congress, Tim Walz," Martin said.
Despite a spate of scolding letters-to-the-editor published by the Mankato Free Press, former state senator Al DeKruif, who served one full short-term (2011-2012), is dropping plans to compete for the Republican endorsement to run against four-term DFL congressman Tim Walz.
The gap will be filled by political newcomer Aaron Miller of Byron.
Former Sen. Al DeKruif, of Madison Lake, has announced his
withdrawal from the Republican race to challenge U.S. Rep. Tim Walz for
Minnesota's 1st Congressional District.
DeKruif said he believes
Republicans have a very strong chance of winning the 1st District in
2014, but he is too busy with work on his resort to run. He wants to
step out of the way to give other Republicans the best chance of having
an effective campaign. He will offer support for the candidate that
becomes Walz's opponent.
However, he is still reserving the
ability to get back into the race if the field ends up being too weak.
Such a decision would depend on how the race develops. He would also be
open to running in a future election.
Miller is slated to launch his campaign at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at
Soldiers Field Veterans Memorial. The Republican will then travel to
Mankato for a 2 p.m. press conference. He will continue his tour of the
district on Wednesday with stops in Owatonna, Albert Lea, Austin and
Winona.
A political newcomer, Miller is a command sergeant major in the Army
reserves who has done several tours of duty overseas and been awarded
the Bronze Star. According to his LinkedIn profile, he is a senior hospital account manager at rEVO Biologics.
Miller will join Rochester area state representative Mike Benson in the pursuit of the Republican endorsement.
While Miller is making the press rounds on Tuesday, Congressman Walz will be at Farmfest. At 10:30 a.m. he'll join Seventh District Congressman Collin Peterson, the ranking Democratic member of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, Roger Johnson, President, National Farmers Union, Dale Moore, Public Policy Director, American Farm Bureau, and
Bob Worth, Vice President, American Soybean Association in a panel on "Reaching an Endpoint on a New Farm Bill."
Peterson and Walz are sharing a booth, as are the First and Seventh CD Republicans. The state DFL has a separate booth.
With the Tea Party reving up again, it's possible that politicians at the production ag show may see the sort of antics that marked the 2009 forums. However, while Farmfest audiences and forum organizer Kent Thiesse enjoy a lively exchange, they also respect civility.
While Benson and Miller seem like paragons of stability, there's still hope for some excitement in this race. Moniz reports:
Former Sen. Mike Parry, who unsuccessfully ran in the 2012 Republican
primary for the 1st District, and Jim Hagedorn, who unsuccessfully ran
in the 2010 Republican endorsement convention, are still weighing their
options. Parry is also considering a run for Minnesota's Secretary of
State or for governor.
With those margins, Quist has certainly earned the right to say when he's embarrassed, and he's circulating a letter to local newspapers in which he shares his feelings. The New Ulm Journal was first to post Walz embarrasses us on the Farm Bill:
We should all be embarrassed by the behavior of Tim Walz regarding the farm bill.
Walz
used the label "extremist" to describe anyone who wants to trim back
the excessive price tag of $1 trillion over ten years. Name calling
instead of giving information is unbecoming a Congressman. . . .
Congressmen like Walz are the
reason government spending is out of control. They are the reason
Congress has an all time low approval rate.
Name calling,
falsehoods, unwillingness to be part of good government procedure and
out of control spending - that is what we have in Tim Walz.
Quist whined about Walz name calling during the congressional race as well. Read the entire letter at the Journal. A local Republican from North Mankato writes to agree with Quist.
I read the recent letter to the editor by Allen Quist. I found his
attack on Tim Walz the epitome of what is wrong in Washington.
Mr.
Quist seemed to forget that just a few weeks ago Congressman Walz voted
for the bipartisan Farm Bill, passed out of the Republican controlled
committee. This would reduce spending and give much needed reform.
This was a bill that included cuts to the SNAP program that Mr. Quist
has so desperately desired and then forgets to even mention it.
This
country was built on compromise. (This means give and take, not just
one way!!) And rather than have common sense reforms, Allen Quist would
rather take an extreme - yes, extreme - position on one of the most
bi-partisan bills to come before Congress and create more gridlock in
Washington.
I think Mr. Quist isn't interested in what is right
for southern Minnesotans, he'd rather shut down Congress than have a
bipartisan, common-sense bills pass.
Tim Walz iz one of the only people working for us.
I went on youtube video and watched his talk before Congress and was so proud of him and so proud he was our representative.
Nelson's earlier letters to the Journal suggest that she's a Democrat. Others have used the word "embarrassment" discussing current Farm Bill politics, like MSNBC's UP in What you get for embarrassing the Speaker of the House:
Boehner and the GOP leadership pushed
the Farm bill even farther to the right, using a party-line vote on to
pass a bill that doesn't include food stamps. It's the first time in 40
years that the program has been stripped out of a farm bill. Steve
Kornacki’s panelists discuss.
Walz doesn't seem central to the discourse of chagrin, however outraged his defeated opponent may become. Here's the YouTube of Walz that so upset Mr. Quist:
Cartoon: Quist continues to rise from a political grave and Ken Avidor's drawing suggests the means.Via City Page/Avidor Brodkorb Files.
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In Rochester doctor Scott Wright mulls challenging Walz, ace New Ulm Journal reporter Josh Moniz writes:
Rochester cardiologist Scott Wright, a long-time Republican activist, is
strongly considering a run to challenge U.S. Rep. Tim Walz for
Minnesota's 1st Congressional District in 2014. . . .
. . . Most recently, he hosted U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann's fundraiser last
year for 1st District candidate Allen Quist in his house. He said he
offered to also host a fundraiser for former Sen. Mike Parry, who was
running against Quist in the primary at that time, but was turned down. [Bluestem's note: Wright contributed $250 to Quist before the primary, but nothing to Parry.]
Wright
said that despite his frequent work with partisan politics, he is much
more moderate on policy issues than people would expect. He said his
background with medicine has made him more interested in the impact and
facts of legislation than scoring partisan points.
. . .[Michele Bachmann] was raising money in Rochester, hours away, with Allen Quist, the Republican challenging Democratic Rep. Tim Walz. The fundraiser was held at the home of Dr. Scott Wright — a Republican whom, coincidentally, Graves has been consulting on health care policy.
One wonders if that's too moderate and nonpartisan for First District Republicans, especially with district leadership in the hands of Quistian activists, many of whom are also fond of Bachmann, despite the fact that, as the Mankato Free Press reported Bachmann fundraiser for Quist not as lucrative as first reported.
. . .At Mayo, he
met U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad of Minnesota's Third Congressional District,
who was first a patient and then a friend. (Ramstad, not Wright, talked
to me about the patient relationship.) Ramstad urged him to run for the
Minnesota Legislature as a Republican. "He told me, `We have lawyers and
teachers; we need someone who understands the technicalities of health
care - a physician voice to look out for the best interests of
patients,'-" Wright explains.
For his part, Ramstad says, "When Scott Wright is elected, he'll become Minnesota's leading authority on health care reform."
Ramstad's
encouragement struck a chord with Wright, whose interest in politics
had started early. "My parents tell me that when I was 4, I would stop
people in the grocery store and ask, `Are you voting for Humphrey or
Nixon?'-" he says. "I had one parent voting for each."
As
a legislator, Wright would aim to ensure health care for everyone. But
he doesn't think a single-payer, government-run model is the answer.
He's seen that in Appalachia, where about three-quarters of people are
covered by Medicare or Medicaid, he says. "Too often, they're treated
more like commodities than patients." . . .
In 2009, Minnesota Public Radio reported in State GOP group out to stop health care takeover that Wright was a member of a MNGOP group that included such leading conservative lights as Glenn Gruenhagen (doesn't believe alcoholism is a disease); one short-term wonder Kvetchen Gretchen "Ethics Complaint" Hoffman and ALEC member Sondra Erickson. Hoffman was elected after the group was formed; Erickson was on hiatus from office after being defeated in 2008. She returned to the Minnesota House in 2010.
However, there's a final wrinkle in the story: the DFL's response at the time from then assistant chair Donna Cassutt:
" . . . It’s disappointing that rather than coming together with leaders in
Minnesota and around the country to work to actually help families
struggling with high premiums, inadequate coverage, or no insurance at
all in these tough economic times, that the Republican Party of
Minnesota instead chose to form a group to block reform and rehash the
disastrous Romney-care policies that have hurt so many people in
Massachusetts. Sadly, sometimes it’s true — you can’t teach an old dog
new tricks.”
This is curious stuff, since parts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or the "ACA, that passed in March 2010 ended up looking a lot like "Romney-care," including the dreaded mandate.
The current field of potential Republican candidates has risen to six
with Wright's comments. So far, only Rep. Mike Benson of Rochester has
officially declared his campaign. The other potential candidates are
Aaron Miller of Byron, former 1st District endorsement candidate Jim
Hagedorn, former Sen. Al DeKruif and former Sen. Mike Parry, who ran in
the 1st District Republican primary last year.
We've taken a screenshot, which also includes a link to bare-bones Mike Benson for Congress website.
The ghost leads to an error message on the Post Bulletin site, but the existence of the website suggests that the two term Rochester-area Republican is exploring a bid.
This strikes Bluestem as odd, since the Minnesota House is up for re-election in 2014, and the swing Rochester area is fairly volatile in terms of the electorate. Benson has also proposed cigarette tax increases in the past; now that the tax was raised in the last session, the Republican caucuses are citing it as an example of DFL tax mania.
Apparently, it's another pass at a "Rochester Run" strategy, since the med city is the largest population center in the district. Walz defeated Rochester six-term representative Gil Gutknecht in 2006, trounced Rochester doctor Brian Davis in 2008, beat Hayfield Republican Randy Demmer in a close race in the 2010 Republican banner year, and handily defeated perennial candidate Allen Quist in 2012.
Benson's record is singularly undistinguished in the Minnesota house, favoring such things as the voter id and marriage amendments. He works as a professor at Crossroads College, a tiny former bible college in Rochester; there's a bio on his website but little else, not even a disclaimer with the campaign's committee name.
Last year's Farm Bill stalled in the House when Tea Party Republicans decided not feeding the poor was a winning meal ticket in the 2012 elections. That worked well for folks like Allen Quist, sent him back to his rural Nicollet County farm instead of the big hotdish contest in the Beltway.
. . .Some House Republicans, often from the rural Midwest, began proposing
putting food stamps—which make up more than 70 percent of the
Agriculture Department budget—into a separate bill. This would be a way
to reduce food-stamp spending or get the program turned over to the
states. These members seem to have forgotten that Congress created food
stamps as part of the farm bill in the 1960s, when the declining rural
population translated into fewer rural representatives in the House and
fewer votes for the farm bill, and that the number of rural
representatives continues to decline. . . .
. . . The participation in food stamps appears to remain higher than
anticipated, however, because wage rates are so low. Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack has suggested that the way to resolve the problem
is to help food-stamp beneficiaries improve their skills and get better
jobs.
Meanwhile, House Republicans press for cuts and most
Democrats resist. House Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin
Peterson, D-Minn., said he has told his panel’s chairman, Rep. Frank
Lucas, R-Okla., that he wants to be part of any decision-making on
food-stamp cuts. Peterson also defended food stamps with a statement
that is sure to raise hackles in farm circles: “There is less fraud in
food stamps than in any government program. There is five times as much
fraud in crop insurance than in food stamps.”
Even an old Blue Dog can stay on point when the scent's strong even.
Leaders of congressional ag committees from both parties
seem optimistic that there will be a farm bill this year, but tough negotiating
remains, especially if committees have to trim spending even more than they did
when putting together bills in 2012. . . .
The House ag committee's ranking Democrat, Collin Peterson of Minnesota,
seems to be a strong supporter as well. But he is hearing complaints
from some of his farmer constituents about insurance not being limited
for very large farms. . . .
Just as a year ago, negotiating changes to the commodity
title of the farm bill and the spending level for the nutrition title remain
difficult.
Peterson said that more money
could be saved from SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, if the
federal government and not states, determined the income level for eligibility
for what used to be called food stamps.
The federal threshold for food stamp eligibility is 130% of
the poverty level, Peterson said, but in red states, it's actually higher--200%
in North Dakota, 165% in Texas and 185% in Arizona, versus 130% in Peterson's
state of Minnesota.
"The states that you would think would use this (the
lower, federal level) are not," he said.
Peterson said he's urging his committee colleagues "we
should be looking at policy here, instead of a number."
A good point, dawg.
Photo: Minnesota Seventh District Congressman Collin Peterson.
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Oh snap! The hep title of the program--borrowing as it does from pop culutre--will so help the Republican Party rebrand itself as not the scary party of stuffy old men.
Sadly, the notion that "The Hunger Games" is analogy for Agenda 21 isn't original to the spry gentlemen leading the discussion on Tuesday night. No sirree, Bob; cultural scholar Alex Jones first posited last year that the movie was something to make us get used to human sacrifice and the other goals of Agenda 21.
Here's the video:
Can't wait until Earth Day? On Monday, April 8, the SW Metro Tea Party will screen "Runaway Slave," a movie about black conservatives. Memphis reviewer John Beifuss noted in 'Runaway Slave' - A Review: Black Like Tea:
What Memphians will find is a movie that wastes only three minutes
before linking Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Glenn Beck, via footage of
Beck's 2010 "Restoring Honor" celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.
Okay then.
Photo: Rollie Neve.
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Quist received 1801 votes, or 36.08 percent, while Independence Party candidate Tim Gieseke collected 511 votes for 10.24 percent of the vote.
The Republican's 2013 percentage of the vote in the state house district dipped slightly from the 37.05 percentage he received of the 2012 congressional election votes cast in the same house district. This suggests that the conservative Republican base that produces an Allen Quist in Nicollet County is fairly stable, with Gieseke capturing small-i independent voters.
Whatever the explanation, creationist Quist was defeated on Charles Darwin's birthday (as well as that of the Original Republican, Abraham Lincoln, although the Grand Old Party has--dare we say--evolved from the days of the Great Emancipator).
In today's other special election, Republican small business woman Tama Thies won with 55.08 percent of the vote with 15 of 16 precincts reporting when we posted at 10:30 p.m. Just as the 19A seat stayed in DFL hands, this traditionally Republican district in St. Cloud stayed Republican.
The results in both districts leave the party counts in the Minnesota House exactly as they were on the morning of November 7, 2012.
. . .Quist didn't talk much -- if at all -- about abortion, gay marriage or
other social issues during the campaign, but [North Mankato voter Jared] Glaser checked some of
Quist's former words and actions online. He saw videos that referenced
Quist's attempts in the 1980s to reduce the amount of anonymous gay sex
in Minnesota and his doubts about the theory of evolution, including
statements that dinosaurs and humans co-existed on earth.
"He just sounds like a lunatic," Glaser said. . . .
Cartoon: Allen Quist can still fly to the state capitol for gun hearings and such. Cartoon by Ken Avidor.
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On the eve of the special election in Minnesota House District 19A, the Allen Quist campaign is claiming the all-important Gustavus Adolphus vote.
Not the friendly ELCA-affiliated private college nestled on the west bank of the Minnesota River valley in St. Peter. Not that.
Instead, literature being distributed on campus depicts a dashing young Swedish king at the Battle of Breitenfeld (near present day Leipzig), an encounter widely viewed as the prelude to the Swedish phase of the Thirty Years War.
And as sure as Bluestem is that Adolphus isn't eligible to vote in Minnesota, even if he holds a valid GAC student ID (he's been dead since 1632 and there's that citizenship thingie), we're sure Thirty Years War is about as long as Mr. Quist has been campaigning, though without the original Gustie's success.
Right century though for Quist's beliefs, even though the stead might better be a dinosaur.
We remind voters in HD 19A to get out and vote on Tuesday, February 12, 2013, since he'd have to get permission to bring that horse to the capitol
Photo: Quist's college outreach literature, beyond camp.
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With the Legislature proposing several new gun control bills, Quist
has stepped forward to present himself as a strong opponent of the
bills, even traveling to one of the hearings as a show of support. He
said research by John Lott shows that control measures have no impact on
violence. Lott's research since publication has been discredited by
several scientific journals and it has even been accused of fabricating
its facts. He said attention needs to instead be focused on other areas,
such as the correlation between school shooters and violent video
games.
"We really need to see if we can do something about violent video games," said Quist, "They are a serious concern."
People don't kill people, video games do.
Quist certainly hasn't lost his touch since the days when he proposed instituting abstinence-based sex ed as a plan to lower crime. In the December 22, 1993, Star Tribune article, "Quist twist on crime mixes liberal tenets with conservative," Dane Smith reported:
The biggest causes behind the rising crime
rate, Quist emphasized, is "promiscuity" and a resulting explosion in
single-family parents over the past 10 years. One of his key proposals
is an "abstinence-based" sex education program in the schools. . . .(Nexis All-News, accessed 2/10/2013)
Bluestem's readers of coarse sensibilities can write their own jokes about the effects of video-game withdrawal in joyless young boys. We simply couldn't comment.
. . .Past studies have failed to demonstrate a link between violent games
and real violence, said Christopher Ferguson, an associate professor of
psychology and communications at Texas A&M International University
in Laredo, Texas. Policy makers should focus on more important issues
including gun control and mental health, he said in an interview.
“We can’t find any evidence to support
this idea that exposure to video-game violence contributes in any way
to support the idea that these types of games or movies or TV shows are a
contributing factor,” Ferguson said. “It doesn’t need to be studied
again.”
Other news venues filed more nuanced accounts. On January 17, Suzy Khimm of the Washington Post WonkBlog wrote in POW! CRACK! What we know about video games and violence that Ferguson pointed out that "“video games have become more popular and more violent, while youth violence has declined.”
There's more:
But though there’s been a wide range of academic research on the
subject, there’s little to no conclusive evidence that playing video
games results in real-life violence, much less criminal acts. In 2011,
the Supreme Court struck down a California law restricting the sale and rental of violent video games to minors in a 7-2 ruling. The majority cited the state of existing research in its opinion:
Psychological studies purporting to show a connection
between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children
do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively. Any
demonstrated effects are both small and indistinguishable from effects
produced by other media…California also cannot show that the Act’s
restrictions meet the alleged substantial need of parents who wish to
restrict their children’s access to violent videos.
. . .In one 2012 article
for the Journal of Psychiatric Research, Ferguson and his co-authors
examined 165 participants over three years and found that playing
violent video games was not linked to youth aggression or dating
violence. Instead, they found that “depression, antisocial personality
traits, exposure to family violence and peer influences were the best
predictors of aggression-related outcomes.”
That said, there is evidence that violent video games may have a
tendency to make children who are already aggressive more hostile and
more aggressive — at least in the context of playing a video game,
Ferguson explains. “Openly aggressive children tend to intensify their
preference for games with a brutal and bloody plot over time,”
researchers wrote in a 2011 article for Media Psychology that examined 324 German grade-schoolers over one year. Ferguson points to another 2011 study
from the American Psychological Association that found that video games
were linked to aggression but not for the reasons you might expect. “It
appears that competition, not violence, may be the video game
characteristic that has the greatest influence on aggressive behavior,”
the researchers conclude. .. .
And there's this, also from January from MSN Video game makers urge Biden not to blame games for real violence:
The letters from the International Game Developers Association and the Entertainment Consumers Associationpointed
out that numerous studies have already been done showing that there
is no causal link between game violence and real violence.
"In
2011, video game sales increased to over $27 billion dollars and
violent crimes nationwide decreased 3.8 percent from 2010," Mercurio
wrote, pointing to the FBI's own statistics. "Since
2002, violent crime has decreased 15.5 percent. This is all during the
time when games like 'Call of Duty' and 'Halo' have dominated sales."
But
the letter from Greenberg, of the International Game
Developers Association, supported the idea of additional studies
about video games.
"Unlike some industry groups, the IGDA
does not seek to impede more scientific study about our members’
products. We welcome more evidence-based research into the effects of
our work," he wrote, but added: "We ask that any new government
research look at the totality of imaginary violence. Instead of simply
trying to find negative effects, we ask that any new research explore
the benefits of violent video games, too."
So perhaps we could violate the Constitution when it comes to video games. Bluestem suspects that our gamer friends would no more part with their "Call of Duty" games than Representative Cornish would surrender his coyote rifle.
Read the rest of Moniz's article at the New Ulm Journal.
The Minnesota House District 19A special election is Tuesday, February 12; the district in
Photo: Found on the Facebook page of Minnesota State University -- Mankato political science professor Joe Kunkel, these two literature pieces appear to be time travelers from the campaigns of Quist and DFL candidate Clark Johnson from the 1980s (they ran for different seats under earlier districting and never faced off against each other before). Bluestem is unable to verify the historical veracity of the facial hair on either gentleman. The lit pieces--and the beards--are for real and featured in Mankato Free Press political reporter Mark Fischenich's Campaign Notebook: Special election hits the home stretch. Much wonderfulness in the article. Go read it.
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All of the statements, opinions, and views expressed on this site by Sally Jo Sorensen are solely her own, save when she attributes them to other sources.
The opinions, statements, and views of contributing writers are their own.
Sorensen, editor and proprietor of Bluestem Prairie, serves clients in the business and nonprofit sectors. While progressive in outlook, she does not caucus with any political party.
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