Howie Klein raises a great point. Why hasn't Erik Paulsen and John Kline joined Michele Bachmann's Teabag Caucus in the House?
Minnesota and Wisconsin share more than a long border and some Lake Superior shoreline. Each state has 8 congressmen and each state currently has 3 Republicans in Congress. But not even far right Minnesota colleagues John Kline or Erik Paulsen have joined Bachmann's Caucus. And none of the Wisconsin Republicans have either. Neither Paulsen nor Kline is willing to comment on why they won't join the Tea Party Caucus.
Maybe they view the insanity emanating from from the teabaggers as detrimental to their reelection efforts? Maybe they don't use my patented Effenheimer Fundraising SystemTM?
The essence of the story is that Dan Powers (DFL-endorsed) was a contractor and collected unemployment while Shelley Madore's contract wasn't renewed. Eric Roper and the editors of the Strib think something is fishy. They consider this more newsworthy than Bachmann stating "I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another" if Republicans regain the House and "we don't have to fund any of these programs and that's exactly what we need to do - defund all of this nonsense and then unwind it."
What is also interesting about the Strib's political coverage is that they very rarely (verging on never) cover Kline. The latest news (1 week old) is that Kline opposed funding child nutritional programs with the following hypocritical excuse:
"The debt crisis is the greatest national security threat we face," ranking Republican John Kline of Minnesota said. "The cost of this legislation cannot be ignored."
If the Strib did cover this story about Kline's vote, what do you think the chances are the someone like Roper would note that Kline supported the Bush agenda of tax cuts and borrowing to pay for two wars?
Rep. John Kline (R-MN) red-lined my hypocrisy meter today. The House Education and Labor committee passed a child nutrition bill. The bipartisan bill would spend an additional $8 billion over a decade on food programs for infants and children. They were unable to figure out a way to pay for the bill.
"The debt crisis is the greatest national security threat we face," ranking Republican John Kline of Minnesota said. "The cost of this legislation cannot be ignored."
The national debt mountain which Kline helped build is now our "greatest national security threat?" That's interesting to say the least. Kline has apparently forgotten how he and the Bush Administration spent like drunken Marines on leave.
Now after he's sobered up (although not repented for his errant ways), he wants us to believe he cares about the debt and that it "cannot be ignored" like he used to ignore it.
Rep. John Kline (R-MN) held a job fair today in Inver Grove Heights. Even though he sits on the House Education and Labor Committee (Labor = jobs?), he won't do or is incapable of doing anything to create jobs in his district. Instead he holds a job fair to make it look like he cares.
In today's tough economic times, many use any resources available to find jobs including job fairs. My Congressman, John Kline (R) sponsored one such fair at Inver Grove Community College this week. It had good attendance (lots of out-of-work folks) but as the guys in suits said on their way out, all the positions were lower paying entry jobs so they dressed up for nothing.
(Truth Surfer)
Rep. John Kline (R-MN) was promoted in 2009 to the ranking minority on the Education and Labor Committee largely because he was the highest ranking Republican without a major scandal. He has no expertise in education or employment/labor relations ... let alone mine safety -- he spent his working career in the Marines before running for Congress. His job as been to oppose anything the Democrats try to do. Kline is very good at toeing the party line and repeating the talking points he's been given.
To nobody's surprise, Kline is opposing the reforms that the Democrats are proposing to prevent further mine disasters. And what he said is a bunch of bunk:
Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) on Tuesday said newly proposed mine safety reforms - floated earlier in the day by some key Democrats - aren't focused enough on the problems they're intended to fix.
Instead, said Kline, the senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, the Democrats have overreached, proposing "a much more expansive approach" than that needed to protect the nation's miners.
"Republicans," Kline said in an e-mail, "believe we need targeted steps to improve mine safety and prevent tragedies like the one that occurred at the Upper Big Branch mine in April of this year. That means improving the mine safety laws on the books and demanding stronger enforcement by the federal agency charged with protecting miners."
(The Hill)
The Republican have not proposed any "targeted steps" and it was under their watch that the MSHA was gutted and enforcement ignored. Funny that they'd be calling for enforcement now. Isn't that kinda like shutting the barn door after the cows already got out, Rep. Kline?
"This is the first solid meal I've had in four days," said Dan Powers as we sat down to lunch. He must have seen the look on my face. "I just had two wisdom teeth pulled and I've been eating only soft food."
Like Dan's quip about his meal, his race needs some explaining, too.
Dan is the DFL-endorsed candidate who wants to take out John Kline in the MN-02 race. You wouldn't know it from our state's TV, radio and newspapers. Their political coverage has disappeared with their ad revenue.
He handily won endorsement over one-term legislator Shelley Madore by out-working her. Madore said she'd abide in the run up to the convention, at the convention and in her concession speech. She changed her mind afterwards forcing Dan to run to the primary.
Dan is campaigning completely under the radar. He's appeared at hundreds of DFL events in the district. He'll have held 60 townhall style events by the primary on August 10th. He'll have marched in every parade he can make, at least 25 but possibly more. For example, they're going to pack 6 into this July 4th weekend. His phone banks and the DFL Coordinated Campaign's phone banks will have called thousands upon thousands of voters. The CC's door knock will have knocked on thousands of doors.
MN-06 DFL candidate Maureen Reed announced that she was "suspending her campaign" and would try to get her name off the August 10th primary ballot. Thank you for unifying behind the DFL-endorsed candidate Tarryl Clark. Just to be clear, y'all know why she's dropping out ... right?
The money.
Fundraising is tough out their if you're not Tarryl Clark or Margaret Anderson Kelliher. The word I'm hearing from multiple sources is that both of these candidates are hauling in some seriously large piles of cash.
If fundraising is so tough, how is Shelley Madore staying in the MN-02 primary race against Dan Powers? Madore is running against the DFL-endorsed Powers and Madore has had stretches of this year without a Finance Director. Lacking the endorsement hurts fundraising and so does not having a fundraising person.
Furthermore, she showed in the run up to the endorsing convention that she wasn't a hard worker and got waxed at the convention. Whereas, Powers works hard and smart. What would've changed since then?
Why won't Madore do what's best for the DFL Party and withdraw so Powers can focus on taking on John Kline?
Rep. John Kline (R-MN) tops the list of Minnesota politicians receiving campaign contributions from the oil industry. Kline has been a loyal trooper for the oil industry. Back in '08, he was a vocal proponent of the "Drill Baby Drill.
Coleman is at the top of the Minnesota list, accepting $347,000. Rod Grams accepted $191,000 and Rudy Boschwitz got $177,623.
Rounding out the six-figure leader board is former congressman Mark Kennedy, who accepted $166,000, and current congressman John Kline at $129,905.
(WCCO's Reality Check)
Kline has pushed debunked cap and trade lies that any cap and trade bill would increase people's energy costs. He has consistently voted against higher fuel efficiency standards and renewal energy. Conservation Minnesota gave Kline a zero rating. Back in August 2008 recess, he went back to DC to help out the oil industry with a publicity stunt to call for more domestic oil drilling.
I read an interesting piece at Daily Kos today about how candidates from a random sampling of Senate and House races nationwide are doing in terms of social media. The author was trying to answer, objectively, how Democrats were doing against Republicans. Her reasoning was she doesn't think that the meme that Republicans are kicking our butts on social media is all that true.
This essay marks the beginning of an occasional series examining just that. Today, I'm focusing on some races for open Senate seats, two Republican, two Democratic. I'm also focusing on Twitter and Facebook. There are many more races to cover and many more forms of online media to look at -- how many times have their YouTube videos been viewed? Are they engaging with the blogosphere? What are their online ad buys like? Online fundraising, texting...there's a wealth of media to check out. But Twitter and Facebook are public metrics that are readily comparable.
We'll expect candidates to have more Facebook fans than followers on Twitter, because there are many more people on Facebook. But advertising on Facebook can rack up large numbers of fans relatively quickly, so a case where a candidate's Facebook-to-Twitter ratio seems out of the ordinary may suggest that the campaign has been advertising heavily on Facebook. (Which may be a good idea, mind you.) Also worth noting, some Republican candidates (including Peter Schiff in today's group) have created splash pages on Facebook -- when you search for them and initially go to the page, instead of seeing a normal Facebook wall there's...a splash page -- big graphic, sign-up, etc. I haven't yet found any Democrats who are doing that.
With this in mind, how do the competitive races in MN stack up? I'll examine the MN-GOV, MN-02, MN-03 and MN-06 races.
Rep. Johnny could only sing one note, and the note that he sang was Earmarks
Poor Johnny one-note
sang out with "gusto"
And just overlorded the place
Poor Johnny one-note
yelled willy nilly
Until he was blue in the face
For holding one note was his ace
- Lorenz Hart, from Babes In Arms
I, and many other bloggers, have talked about Rep. One Note Johnny Kline's obsession-bordering-on-fetish with earmarks. In fact, I had written a diary several weeks about Kline's Visual Masterpiece of a website Stop The Pork. (FYI - I was being facetious about the Visual Masterpiece part, so please don't visit it and question my eyesight.) I had commented in the diary that he had yet to author a single piece of legislation that even mentioned earmarks. I was surprised and delighted to find an April 22nd Press Release touting H.Res.1289. Surprised because I thought his modus operandi was to issue talking points disguised as terse Press Releases, and delighted because clearly he and his contingent had been reading my diaries.
(Hello Congresspeople! FYI, if you're ever bored and looking for legislation to write to throw on the suspension list, it would be kind of cool to name a Aircraft Carrier after me, or maybe a Post Office.)
Congressman John Kline joined colleagues today to introduce a year-long ban on earmarks. The legislation, authored by Congressman Bob Goodlatte (Va.), will implement an earmark moratorium and direct savings toward reducing the federal deficit. It also will establish a bipartisan, bicameral committee to review and reform the earmarking process.
In an effort to clean up a wasteful Washington spending system abused by Democrats and Republicans, Congressman Kline took a stand four years ago by refusing to request earmarks. Instead, he has pushed for a system that establishes spending priorities based on a project's merit rather than a Member's seniority, party affiliation, or the committees on which they serve. Earlier this year, One Note Johnny's Republican colleagues joined him by imposing a conference-wide, one-year ban on earmarks.
"Washington needs to earn back the trust of the American people, and a bipartisan ban on earmarks is a step in the right direction," said Kline. "I encourage my colleagues in the majority party to join House Republicans in showing our constituents we are serious about reducing wasteful pork-barrel spending and restoring order to America's fractured fiscal house."
This one is pretty straightforward, and I didn't break it down chunk by chunk like I usually do. It doesn't lend itself well to a point-by-point discussion. Curiously, he feels earmarks should be doled out based on their merit, yet by refusing to accept earmarks he is denying funding to projects that do have merit. Kline's "stand" of refusing to request earmarks only started 4 years ago, which was when he was suddenly pushed into the minority party in the House. Interesting, then, that he would say in his Press Release that projects should be based on their merit, and not (among other things) party affiliation. When his party affiliation was his strength, he took earmarks, but when it was a weakness, he suddenly developed principles.
29 miners died in West Virginia and their deaths were entirely preventable. The Upper Big Branch Mine had 19 times the regulation violations of other mines. As WV and the town of Comfort try to come to grips with this horrible and preventable tragedy, Rep. John Kline (R-MN) tries to score political points from their pain.
Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the top Republican on the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, today said federal and state investigations of the tragic explosion that killed 29 miners in the Upper Big Branch mine must carefully scrutinize the actions of the federal mine safety agency, particularly amid troubling indications that the agency failed to increase oversight of the mine despite repeat violations.
"It has been almost four years since Congress acted in a bipartisan way to strengthen mine safety laws and impose tough new penalties on mines that violate basic safety requirements," said Kline. "In the aftermath of the worst mining disaster in nearly four decades, we must ask: Why didn't federal officials enforce the law to the fullest extent?"
(republicans.edlabor.house.gov, h/t TPM)
During the Bush Administration, Republicans gutted the mine safety regulations. At the same time they filled the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) with cronies and political hacks.
Now John Kline is attempting to feign shock that the mine regulations weren't enforced. Is Kline that ignorant or that shameless?
Looks like Rep. Kline issued another scintillating Press Release back on April 5th. Oddly, I didn't notice since they tend to a) fly under the radar like a spy plane, and b) say nothing new. At least, not in a stupider, scream-ier or racist-er way like his colleagues do that gets her them undue attention.
Today's report offers some welcome news for our economy, but the numbers remain far short of what American workers and job creators need and deserve. More than a year after majority leadership enacted their budget-busting government stimulus plan, the national unemployment rate remains nearly two percentage points higher than the White House predicted, and 15 million Americans are still looking for work.
For more than a year Washington has either ignored or punished the job creating sector of our economy, and families around the country are paying the price. Entrepreneurial job creation comes in spite of government expansion - not because of it. Just imagine how many more Americans could be back to work today if not for the economic uncertainty sowed by majority leadership's big government agenda.
Speaker Pelosi and President Obama need to shelve their job-killing agenda, including plans to impose a national energy tax and strip American workers of their right to a secret ballot. Republicans have a fiscally responsible plan for economic recovery built on tax incentives for small businesses and tax relief for working families. Let's begin to do the work we were sent here by the American people to do.
But what does this huge block of context-less words mean? Its just so many letters in a row.
Dan Powers won the MN-02 DFL endorsement last Saturday over former legislator Shelley Madore only to face a daunting campaign against an entrenched Republican, John Kline. Steve Sarvi, Coleen Rowley and Teresa Daly have tried and failed against Kline. Let's be realistic, what will make Dan different?
All three prior candidates had trouble raising much money and gaining any traction. Rowley became famous as an FBI agent who uncovered leads that might have stopped the 9/11 attacks. She was also Time magazine's 2002 Person of the Year. Sarvi is retired soldier and city administrator. They both had compeling stories, but were ignored.
Furthermore, Tarryl Clark running against Michele Bachmann and the MN-GOV race consumes all the oxygen in our state politics.
Dan said something interesting in his nomination speech to delegates on Saturday:
"There are three legs to a successful campaign. First, you've got to have a strong candidate. Second, you have got to have a strong staff. My staff is made up of people from the Mark Ritchie and Al Franken campaigns. They know how to win. And third, you have to have a plan. We have a plan to reach out to the voters in the second district and send Kline packing."
With his words from Saturday and my reflections upon past races, we talked over the phone and exchanged some emails. He's been really busy since the endorsement.
Occasional Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has taken the next and vital step in his 2012 presidential campaign: quiet outreach on Capitol Hill. Why has he taken this dramatic step? Because he is continually polling in the low single digits. And what high profile Republican has he got to lead this crucial next step in his campaign?
Rep. John Kline (R-MN).
When it comes to greasing the wheels and opening doors on Capitol Hill, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) has tapped Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.) to lead his outreach to members ahead of his prospective 2012 White House campaign.
"I have been, frankly, encouraging him to run for president," said Kline, who counts Pawlenty as a constituent and is the governor's first Congressional endorsement, should he run. "Like everyone else, he has not announced that he's doing that."
(CQ Politics)
Really? That's the best he could do? I guess Pawlenty lives in Kline's district if that's worth anything.
Kline isn't exactly a mover and a shaker on Capitol Hill. Kline was a three term back-bencher until at the start of his fourth term he was promoted to ranking minority on the House's Health, Education and Labor Committee for the sole reason that he was scandal-free.
The only positive thing about Kline from Pawlenty's perspective is that Kline is just as conservative as Michele Bachmman which I'm guessing Pawlenty hopes will play well with Republicans in the House.
The article goes on to say that Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-MN) is also introducing Pawlenty to fellow newbies.
And, according to the article, Bachmann isn't helping because she is "not in any camp at all" which taken out of context is pretty funny because ... well ... do I have to spell everything out for ya?
Today is the 2nd district (MN-02) DFL convention. Dan Powers and Shelley Madore are vying to be the candidate to take on 4-term Republican John Kline. Powers is a small businessman intent on unseating Kline and Madore is a 1-term state legislator.
Powers has agreed to abide by the nomination, but it isn't as cut-and-dried with Madore. Delegates I have talked to have heard different stories, though Steve Quist got a statement from her that she would abide.
The doors have just opened at Chanhassen High School and I'll be here all day with all the gory details, insights, photos and interviews. The candidate speeches will (providing everything is on schedule) start around 11:30AM or so. The first vote should be around 1:00PM.
Wifi is working and I'll be able update this post, but you can also follow me on twitter:
"This is the first solid meal I've had in four days," said 
Today is the 2nd district (MN-02) DFL convention. Dan Powers and Shelley Madore are vying to be the candidate to take on 4-term Republican John Kline. Powers is a small businessman intent on unseating Kline and Madore is a 1-term state legislator.
