On tobacco money, unsecured websites and small railroads with Big Plans
Catching up on the week:
Money for nothing and your nicotine for free
According to study released by the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund and Common Cause, two of Minnesota's congressional delegation have made top 10 lists for receiving tobacco contributions in the 2005-06 election cycle. They are Sen. Norm Coleman, #10 on the list among senators, and Rep. Mark Kennedy, now running for the Senate, #8 among members of the House.
Of the two, the Kennedy placement is more striking, as this puts him among the top 2% of tobacco contribution recipients in the lower chamber. Among his cohorts in this prestigious group, all but one are from southern states — Kentucky, Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas and Florida. The other is Ohio's John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, so at least he has somewhat of an excuse to be on the take of Big Tobacco.
One has to ask why would Kennedy, a junior member of the House from Minnesota, be such a target for tobacco money, especially when there isn't one leaf of the plant (at least that I know of) grown in the state? If anyone has any ideas, please post a comment below.
The Mark Kennedy unreleased ad brouhaha
It appears the Mark Kennedy for Senate campaign has milked to its fullest extent an inquisitive blogger's discovery of an unreleased ad on its media consultant's unsecured website — in other words, to the point of becoming sour curds and whey.
Yes, this is the same Mark Kennedy who ranks high on the tobacco money list, and yes, this is the same Mark Kennedy who has fallen behind in his Senate race by double-digit figures. In order to distract the troops and the media (who all-too-happily play along), the campaign attack dogs go after a quiet, earnest, friendly blogger who happens to be of the Opposite Political Persuasion (OPP) whose "crime" it was to do a bit of perfectly legal investigative exploring. (Okay, so it didn't help that the Klobuchar campaign probably overreacted, but no doubt it wanted to be more safe than sorry.)
Had the tables been turned — in other words, had the Kennedy attack dogs done the same thing by discovering an unreleased Klobuchar ad on that campaign's media consultant's website — the dogs would have been suitably saluted among the right-wing blogosphere with a well-deserved reward of bones and kibbles.
This reporter predicts that the whole controversy will die a comfortable death with some in the FBI having a good laugh over the whole thing and others complaining about having to spend good working time investigating stupid political accusations instead of pursuing more important matters. Meanwhile, the two young people most hurt by the controversy, the Klobuchar campaign's communications director and the earnest blogger who happened upon the ad, have learned a not-so-welcome lesson in Political Realities 101.
No doubt those hardened political operatives in the Kennedy campaign and Scott Howell and Company, the media consultant, see this whole thing as what it unfortunately is: Just one more way to spin their own error (the unsecured website) so as to distract voters and the media from the real issues of the day.
Judging from Kennedy's poor poll numbers, Rep. Gil Gutknecht, who was spurned by the national GOP powers-that-be in is early bid for the same Senate race, probably feels relieved for the rebuff. For if he were in Kennedy's place he'd be the one playing catch up.
Yet he may have his own problems because of a little railroad that wants to but can't unless it gets a record-setting government-guaranteed loan.
The DM&E gets blasted from both sides
President Kevin Schieffer of the Class II DM&E railroad can't be having a good weekend. First, David Strom of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota blasts away at its proposed earmarked $2.3 billion loan, then the Star-Tribune levels its sites on the same issue in its Sunday editorial. For the politically uninitiated, the Taxpayers League is one of the semi-official mouthpieces of Minnesota conservatives, and the Star-Tribune editorial page, those same folks allege, is the champion of Minnesota liberalism.
That's both sides taking aim at the same target.
What does this say about Mr. Gutknecht's election challenge? Nothing good, since Mr. Gutknecht has come under fire from his home constituency of Rochester for not being aggressive enough in representing the Mayo Clinic's steadfast opposition to running more trains adjacent to its campus.
Meanwhile, school teacher/veteran Tim Walz, Gutknecht's opponent, the darling of the 1st Congressional District DFL grassroots and increasingly the national netroots, has taken his dance card with the Mayo on this issue, thus making inroads into Gutknecht's base.
Last night, this reporter was at a gathering in Waseca of Minnesota Independence Party folk, including the IP statewide team and former congressman and gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny, and the talk among those attending was that Walz was the favorite among IP-leaning voters.
So Gutknecht, a solid Bush supporter, is seeing low approval ratings for the man in the White House, even lower approval ratings for Congress, a Republican senatorial candidate on the same ticket who's double-digits behind in his race, and very irritated (over the DM&E) hometown voters....
Will incumbency, name recognition and a strong money advantage be enough to fend off this year's re-election challenge?
Stay tuned.
— LP
Money for nothing and your nicotine for free
According to study released by the Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund and Common Cause, two of Minnesota's congressional delegation have made top 10 lists for receiving tobacco contributions in the 2005-06 election cycle. They are Sen. Norm Coleman, #10 on the list among senators, and Rep. Mark Kennedy, now running for the Senate, #8 among members of the House.
Of the two, the Kennedy placement is more striking, as this puts him among the top 2% of tobacco contribution recipients in the lower chamber. Among his cohorts in this prestigious group, all but one are from southern states — Kentucky, Virginia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Texas and Florida. The other is Ohio's John Boehner, the House Majority Leader, so at least he has somewhat of an excuse to be on the take of Big Tobacco.
One has to ask why would Kennedy, a junior member of the House from Minnesota, be such a target for tobacco money, especially when there isn't one leaf of the plant (at least that I know of) grown in the state? If anyone has any ideas, please post a comment below.
The Mark Kennedy unreleased ad brouhaha
It appears the Mark Kennedy for Senate campaign has milked to its fullest extent an inquisitive blogger's discovery of an unreleased ad on its media consultant's unsecured website — in other words, to the point of becoming sour curds and whey.
Yes, this is the same Mark Kennedy who ranks high on the tobacco money list, and yes, this is the same Mark Kennedy who has fallen behind in his Senate race by double-digit figures. In order to distract the troops and the media (who all-too-happily play along), the campaign attack dogs go after a quiet, earnest, friendly blogger who happens to be of the Opposite Political Persuasion (OPP) whose "crime" it was to do a bit of perfectly legal investigative exploring. (Okay, so it didn't help that the Klobuchar campaign probably overreacted, but no doubt it wanted to be more safe than sorry.)
Had the tables been turned — in other words, had the Kennedy attack dogs done the same thing by discovering an unreleased Klobuchar ad on that campaign's media consultant's website — the dogs would have been suitably saluted among the right-wing blogosphere with a well-deserved reward of bones and kibbles.
This reporter predicts that the whole controversy will die a comfortable death with some in the FBI having a good laugh over the whole thing and others complaining about having to spend good working time investigating stupid political accusations instead of pursuing more important matters. Meanwhile, the two young people most hurt by the controversy, the Klobuchar campaign's communications director and the earnest blogger who happened upon the ad, have learned a not-so-welcome lesson in Political Realities 101.
No doubt those hardened political operatives in the Kennedy campaign and Scott Howell and Company, the media consultant, see this whole thing as what it unfortunately is: Just one more way to spin their own error (the unsecured website) so as to distract voters and the media from the real issues of the day.
Judging from Kennedy's poor poll numbers, Rep. Gil Gutknecht, who was spurned by the national GOP powers-that-be in is early bid for the same Senate race, probably feels relieved for the rebuff. For if he were in Kennedy's place he'd be the one playing catch up.
Yet he may have his own problems because of a little railroad that wants to but can't unless it gets a record-setting government-guaranteed loan.
The DM&E gets blasted from both sides
President Kevin Schieffer of the Class II DM&E railroad can't be having a good weekend. First, David Strom of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota blasts away at its proposed earmarked $2.3 billion loan, then the Star-Tribune levels its sites on the same issue in its Sunday editorial. For the politically uninitiated, the Taxpayers League is one of the semi-official mouthpieces of Minnesota conservatives, and the Star-Tribune editorial page, those same folks allege, is the champion of Minnesota liberalism.
That's both sides taking aim at the same target.
What does this say about Mr. Gutknecht's election challenge? Nothing good, since Mr. Gutknecht has come under fire from his home constituency of Rochester for not being aggressive enough in representing the Mayo Clinic's steadfast opposition to running more trains adjacent to its campus.
Meanwhile, school teacher/veteran Tim Walz, Gutknecht's opponent, the darling of the 1st Congressional District DFL grassroots and increasingly the national netroots, has taken his dance card with the Mayo on this issue, thus making inroads into Gutknecht's base.
Last night, this reporter was at a gathering in Waseca of Minnesota Independence Party folk, including the IP statewide team and former congressman and gubernatorial candidate Tim Penny, and the talk among those attending was that Walz was the favorite among IP-leaning voters.
So Gutknecht, a solid Bush supporter, is seeing low approval ratings for the man in the White House, even lower approval ratings for Congress, a Republican senatorial candidate on the same ticket who's double-digits behind in his race, and very irritated (over the DM&E) hometown voters....
Will incumbency, name recognition and a strong money advantage be enough to fend off this year's re-election challenge?
Stay tuned.
— LP
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1 Comments:
Those taking tobacco money are tobacco w hores, pure and simple. They are as accessories to the high crimes of murder and genocide committed by the tobacco pushers, whose tobacco drug is ILLEGAL! It is NOT legal to poison people, no matter how slowly you do it!
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