From a current NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll, regarding likely voters:

(Source)

It looks to me that more mobilization is needed. Groups you would think have the highest stakes in this year’s election have low numbers.

Related to potential Kavanaugh effects, from the same poll:

Women are smarter than men, people with college degrees are smarter than those without, younger is smarter than older. Oddly, Independents dislike Kavanaugh to a greater degree than one would expect given the previously graph. (I’m suspicious of the category “Independent,” however.)

Regarding who should control congress, this:

The Republican Party is the party of whites, men, and to some degree older folks, while the Democratic Party is the party of people of color, women, younger folks, and the better educated.

Most critical may be the fact that 50% of likely voters prefer Democrats nation wide, while only 41% of likely voters prefer Republicans.

This will not, however, translate into more Republican members of congress. Local tradition, local campaigning, election rigging, and gerrymandering, determine who wins a given Congressional seat. Sadly. As I’ve suggested before, it is highly unlikely that a Democratic leaning American electorate will actually elect a Democratic majority Congress, in either house.

Expect Mud

This happened. I was sitting on the couch watching a football game (go Vikings!) and a political ad for our local Democratic candidate for Congress, Dean Phillips, came on. It was a positive, informative, up beat ad. Nice. Then, a political ad for the Republican incumbent, the Trump Lapdog Erik Paulsen, came up. It was negative, disgusting, and full of lies.

So the person watching the game with me, asked about why that ad was so horrible and why do the Democrats have such different ads. I said, “The Democrats used to use negative ads too, both parties did. ”

“Why?”

“Because experts told all the campaigns that they worked, and they did seem to work, so everybody did them. But this year, Democrats, at least here, decided to do no negative ads. So you see Republican negative ads, no Democratic negative ads.”

“I think,” he said, “If you have negative ads, some people learn to hate the other candidate so you win, but more people hate the whole idea and just stay home and don’t vote, and that matters more.”‘

“Hmm,” I replied. “Pretty smart for an eight year old, since that is exactly how we lost this race two years ago!”

Here’s the thing. Right now, Republicans are going to double down on negative ads, and they are going to work. Or, just ads that lie. For example, Representative Sarah Anderson, of the Minnesota house, is famous for a) reducing funding for education and b) opposing heath care reform. Her opponent, Ginny Klevorn, is famous for a) being very pro education and also, knowing a lot about how the school systems in her district are run, and b) wanting to link the health care plans state legislators have to the average cost and availability of health plans for all the citizens of the state, so they know exactly what everyone is experiencing (currently, Sarah Anderson and her Republican buddies in the MN Legislature have really great heath care plans!)

The people who live in this district have made it clear that they want more attention paid to, and more money spent on, education, and they want health care reform. So, naturally, anti-education and anti-health care reform Republican Sarah Anderson has put out lies in all her lit and other ads, painting herself as the savior of the education system and the savior of health care. Erik Paulsen is putting out negative, lie-filled, hate ads against Dean Phillips, in the US Congressional race here. The Republican dweeb running for Governor, Jeff Johnson, has been putting out hateful, dishonest ads, in his effort to catch up with Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Time Walz. And so on.

That’s all expected. What concerns me right now is the fact, just reported by the New York Times, that while Democrats have been out raising Republicans in recent weeks, Republicans have way more money to spend on elections, starting now.

Republicans entered the final month of the campaign with more money in the bank than the Democrats, providing them with vital ammunition as they wage a furious effort to hold on to control of Congress.

The most recent round of campaign finance disclosures, filed Saturday, showed that Republican national party committees, candidates in key House and Senate races and their top unlimited-money outside groups, or “super PACs,” had $337 million on hand as of Sept. 30. Their Democratic counterparts had $285 million in the bank on the same date.

What I don’t know is if this is simply more false balance reporting by the New York Times, or good analysis. Democratic superpacs have raised piles of money, a few million more than Republicans, and the superpacs represent more than half of the total campaign budget. But, it could be that Republicans are going to play their usual trick, swamping media markets where they are about to lose with lies, negative campaigning, and fear, and so in the end pull out and win. I would like to hope, but I dare not think, the post 2016 American electorate is not quite so easily manipulated.

Here’s the data from that report:

Send money to a Democrat!

What it's like to call my congressman. @IndivisibleMN03 @jonlovett @IndivisibleTeam pic.twitter.com/uyWXtcUhD7

— MabDog (@MabDog) April 17, 2018

Hat Tip: MabDog

Adam reminds us of the essential nature of the Democratic Leader. He embodies the spirit of Lettered Democrats and Progressives Past (JFK, RFK, FDR, and even TR and possibly LBJ on a very good day). The Jennings campaign did not prevail at today’s Congressional District convention, but they made an excellent showing, and many left the hall thinking, “Adam’s got to run for something important, soon.” My recommendation for a future run: Start calling yourself AJ. It flows.

Congratulations to Endorsed Congressional Candidate Dean Phillips for also running a fantastic campaign in Minnesota’s Third Congressional District. A somewhat more fantastic campaign, apparently, winning the 60% super majority needed to gain the DFL Endorsement on the first ballot!

Dean and his team (The Dean Team at Dean Phillips for Congress) embrace the very Minnesotan strategy of inviting all the neighbors in for a conversation — a conversation about representing this district while governing this country — and this is a strategy that will surely prevail against he who shall not be named (in this post). Dean has exhibited unending energy, outstanding strategy, and the ability to bring diverse Third District Democrats together. His win in November will be historic and will come at a critical time.

Congratulations also to Clara Severson, Mia Berman and Zach Rodvold!

Those of you who were at the CD convention and wondered why Rebecca Otto was not there: she was on her way up from another convention in this Great Friday the 13th Blizzard and their car ran into a ditch. She is OK, no one was injured, but Shawn tells me she was very disappointed to have not made it to the convention!

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.

But in the western suburbs of Minnesota, in part of Congressional District 3 represented by Republican Erik Paulsen, it has a different meaning. The Light Brigade is a group of activists affiliated with Indivisible MN03. As shown here, they dress up somehow as giant letters and make words or phrases across overpasses over major highways, in order to get people thinking about certain political issues.

Recent events in Minnesota politics made me think about the Light Brigade as a metaphor for something very good, and possibly (but I Hope not) for something very bad as well.

I don’t know how many activists it takes to make a light-bulb into a sentence, because I have yet to join any of the Light Brigade’s actions (though I hope to eventually). But I imagine it takes at least one person per letter, and a few others to make the letters and organize the whole thing. “THIS IS TAX WARFARE” has 16 letters in it. So lets assume that some 22 people including organizers and sign makers were involved in that action.

One of the big issue on people’s minds in this area, and across the country, is health insurance. In fact, it was the Republican Party, under Trump, attempting to dismantle Obamacare that made Indivisible emerge as a group, and that caused all those angry town meetings. It isn’t just that the Republicans have a different view of health insurance. We are not stupid. We know that Trump fomented a racist theme of hatred of America’s first black president, and that Republicans are exploiting this to take and hold power, and part of that means dismantling a health insurance system that is almost identical to one proposed years ago by Republicans as an alternative to the one proposed then by Hillary Clinton. People are rightfully mad at the Republicans (though Indivisible is in theory “no partisan”) and at Trump, and Ryan and the rest of them.

So, let’s look at health insurance for a moment. There are two major views on what to do about it, at least around these parts. Everybody wants universal coverage, and ultimately, people might be OK with single payer, but there are two distinct opinions. One is to go for single payer health care immediately. The other is to not do so, to take several years to get to that point. One of the arguments for the latter is that across the country, and especially in Minnesota (we have lots of health care, health insurance, and insurance interests here) there are thousands and thousands of people who work in the health insurance industry who would lose their jobs. Many are in insurance, others work for hospitals or care providers handling that end of the vast plethora of paperwork that accompanies our current Byzantine system. Many want to see a slower change so those people and companies can transition out of the business. People who want to see an immediate transition understand that these folks will lose their jobs, and are willing to have the transition somehow address that problem with help of some kind.

I believe that the people who are currently very active in politics in this area, including the community that repeatedly sends our version of the Light Brigade into battle (but with more success and less bloodshed than the original one!), fall perhaps evenly across these two beliefs. I think the single-payer-now may be a majority, but if so, not by much. I also have seen some pretty serious vitriol over this issue. The two positions are not that far apart: universal coverage very soon, single payer either very soon or eventually but not too long. These two positions are almost identical to the positions held by Senator Sanders (now) and Secretary Clinton (incrementally) during the rather heated primary battle last year, and that important but not extreme difference cleaved many a good relationship back in the day, and may do so again.

So, now we get to the point of the matter. Look at that bridge with “THIS IS TAX WARFARE” emblazoned across it in carefully arranged arrays of LEDs. Now, ask all the people, the 16 holding the lights, to think for a moment if they are on the universal-single-payer-now bandwagon, or the universal-not-single-payer-now bandwagon. Now, everybody, all at once, who is in the former camp, move to the left side of the bridge, all those who are in the latter camp, move to the right side of the bridge.

Suddenly you get this:

In the words of Benjamin Franklin, “We must, indeed, all spell correctly, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Take any group of 20-24 citizens and they can do something important. There are groups in our area now writing post cards to potential voters hoping to increase voting turnout. There are people meeting to discuss issues, getting fired up, then going off to write letters to local papers. There is a group that organizes a presence at local parades and farmers markets. And, there is the Indivisible Light Brigade.

Now, imagine that each of these groups divided over the two different health care issues, and refused to work with each other. Not only do they do that, but they divert some of their activist energy into hating on the other group in the usual venues of social media.

Now, further imagine that we look at other issues. Are you pro nuke, or anti nuke? Do you think we should or should not build that composting facility up in Anoka? Should we borrow money to fix up the old bridge over the highway, and how do you sand on bond issues? Charter schools? Raising the minimum wage?

The truth is, that for many of these issues, most of the activists I have in mind mostly agree. But for each of these issues, there is a person here or a person here that doesn’t. Should those individuals be identified and driven into the swamp? One problem with that strategy is that when we look across all the issues, we can find that there is a subset of people who buck the trend on each, but they are not all the same people. We’re gonna need a larger swamp.

Let me put this another way. Think of issues from the perspective of oneself. Identify your own position on each of the issues. Now, create an archetype, a perfect theoretical entity that is exactly you. Now, expect all other individuals to fit that model, and if they don’t….

There probably are issues that really do divide people. The Republican party relies on abortion (against) and free access to firearms by anyone (for) to divide people. Democrats tend to pitch a bigger tent and include all sorts, but of late, Democrats have become very granular in their intensity. You don’t like my version of health care? Then you are untrustworthy and not worthy of my favor. I heard about your position on nuclear power. Satan, I name thee!!!! That sort of thing.

The latest is Al Franken. A lot of Minnesota Democrats are, I think rightfully, unhappy to lose Franken in the Senate, and I have to say, there is a good argument for at least, having seen the recent process through to the ethics committee conclusion. That’s what I think, anyway. But if you think something different, that’s fine with me. Franken’s alleged transgressions, even if all true, are not Harvey Weinbergian, and he is a man who underwent a major transition in life, going from being show people to being politician, and people can change. There is a wide range of reasonable opinions only one or two of which a given individual is going to agree on.

I decided weeks ago to not hold anyone’s opinion on this matter against them. I do not want to see my own community broken into tiny slices over issue after issue. If that is how we are going to behave, we might as well give up now, because that is no way to run a resistance.

Viva la resistance. Down with the tyranny of granular hatred. All you people up on the bridge, get over it and get back in line, we need you!

By the way, I don’t think the original charge of the Light Brigade is a very good metaphor for anything happening in my local activist community. Yet. Be vigilant!

To the Editor:

I was disappointed but unsurprised that Congressman Erik Paulsen supports the Trump tax plan. The elimination of a state tax deduction will disproportionately hurt Minnesotans. The huge giveaway to corporations that send jobs overseas hurts all Americans. The multi-billion dollar tax break for billionaires while everyone else continues to pay the same is a cynical payback to those who fund our broken election system.

The rest of the Minnesotan Republican delegation also loves the plan. We need no further proof that Republican is the party of the 1 percent, a special club which, by definition, 99 percent of us are not allowed in!

Greg Laden
Plymouth

But I digress.

You need to do this before any upcoming elections. Find out who on the ballot has a record of opposing guns vs. who has a record of supporting guns, and vote against the gun supporters and for the gun opposers.

I made a list of current members of the Minnesota US Congressional delegation, and put it at the top of the post, with relevant information. I also looked some details up from HERE and HERE.

In a recent rating of recent and current members of the Minnesota House delegation, the NRA gave Rick Nolan, Keith Ellison, and Betty McCollum the grade of “F” and none of these three lawmakers have taken money from them.

Collin Peterson took $2,500 bucks from the NRA, Michele Bachmann took $3,500, Erik Paulson took 2,250, John Kline $2,500, and Tim Walz took $2,000. They all got a rating of “A” from the NRA.

Notice that party lines are being crossed here.

During the recent congressional session, Congresspersons Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison supported zero bills that support guns, but have supported 14 gun control bills.

Richard Nolan has supported one gun control bill.

Al Franken has supported two gun control bills.

Amy Klobuchar has supported two gun control bills.

Those are the clear good guys in Congress from Minnesota. But you might ask why the great variation in number of bills?

Congressman Erik Paulsen has supported one gun rights bill and has not supported any gun control bills. Collin Peterson has supported three gun rights bills and zero gun control bills. Tom Emmer has supported zero gun control bills and five gun rights bills. John Kline has supported a whopping nine gun rights bills and zero gun control bills.

Plymouth is in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, and is represented by Congressman Erik Paulsen. Paulsen took over, years ago, from a “reasonable Republican” that even Democrats in CD03 remember fondly. But Paulsen has quietly and without fanfare served as a Tea Party Republican since being elected. During the time that he and Michele Bachmann served in the same Congress, in physically adjoining districts, Paulsen and Bachmann voted the same way on almost every bill, and the few differences were trivial, such as, one was absent, or a division on a water district resource bill, or something really minor.

Other than being a lock-step Republican, Paulsen is famous for something else: Doing or saying absolutely nothing to anyone at any time, and keeping entirely to himself. Back when he was first elected, he had a town hall meeting or two, the last of which was done electronically, as far as anyone remembers, so no one would be in the room with him. That was close to seven years ago. It is like Paulsen is pathologically unable to be in a room with constituents.

Meanwhile, the voters of the third district are a mixture of Democratic union supporters and recent immigrants who are politically active and vote, wealthy Republicans who quietly write checks and vote, and workers in the technology, medical device, or Big Ag industries whose livelihoods depend on good science policy in Congress but who are not politically active and don’t vote. This is the education district. Some of the top school districts in the state are in this congressional district. But the voters prefer to send education-killing Republicans to the State House and an anti-Education member to Congress, then compensate for their bad policies by voting yes, sometimes, on school district bonding bills. It makes very little sense that Erik Paulsen gets elected every two years.

Part of this has to do with the inability of Democrats to get their acts together. One year, two medium-strong candidates slogged it out in the primary and caucus process, but caused so much hate that a lot of Democratic voters stayed home. Several year later, in 2016, that vitriol probably kept some of the Democrats that might have elected one of those candidates, back for another try, from being elected. One year we had a good candidate who was very honest, and thus, another candidate who was less than honest in his positions was selected to run against Paulsen, and he stopped running several weeks before the election for personal reasons. One year a really good candidate emerged, but a different candidate, very well connected in the Democratic Party on the national level, shoved him aside, ran, and lost. That sort of thing.

So, the other day, I was communicating with some environmental activists about an event we’ve got coming up. Somebody said, “hey, let’s bring some flyers for our event to that thing going on Thursday down at the church.” So I looked into the thing.

It turns out that an Indivisible group had organized a Town Hall for Congressman Erik Paulsen. He never has his own, so they kindly organized one for him. He was invited, but just in case, they got a big cardboard cutout to put up in front of the room.

The event was not that well publicized. I know a lot of activists in the area who did not know about it. I learned about it at the last minute from a random mention, as noted. And, I did go.

So, I got in the car to drive the five minutes down to the church. Partway there, traffic stopped. About 25 minutes later, I got to the church, crawling along in this huge traffic jam, that was going out in all directions from the church. Five minutes after that I got a parking spot a few blocks away, and walked down to the church. So, maybe a thousand cars were in this giant traffic jam, and hundreds of people were standing around outside the church. Inside, were the 600 or so maximum occupancy, and and the cardboard cutout.

One or two thousand, maybe a little more, citizens showed up to let Erik Paulsen know that they did not appreciate his having ignored the voters for so long, and demanding to know what he will do, as a member of the House, and as a Republican, about his fellow Republican, Donald Trump.

I hear the news reporters were there, but there were no TV trucks identified as being affiliated with a station. I saw one guy from MinnPost. I see zero coverage of this event on most of the news this morning, and where there is coverage, it is minor (the Strib did something small).

If people are wondering what they can do about Trump, one thing you can do right now is to contact WCCO, KARE, FOX-9, Eyewitness 5, and the Star Tribune and ask them why they did not cover the protest with a couple thousand people at it held in Plymouth.

Climate change did play a measurable, observable role in some of the elections last year. I don’t think we can say that it was the deciding issue in any campaign, but there is almost never a single deciding issue. Rather, there is a short list of issues that matter in many campaigns, and quite possibly, for the first time ever climate change was on that short list for some contests. It is YOUR job (and mine) to make sure that climate change is on the short list for all campaigns ever from now on. We have to start by getting involved in the electoral process. In the 17 or so US states with a caucus system, this means becoming a delegate. Being a delegate means candidates go out of their way to find you, talk to you, find out what is important to you. Why the heck would you NOT want to do that? Eventually, you will be a member of what is effectively a small Electoral College who will decide who runs from your district. Your vote may end up being one of only dozens that determine candidates for your party at various levels.

For me, I’ll be working to retire the Republican representative from my district, Minnesota CD3. Erik Paulsen is probably more pro-environment than he votes, but he is a cookie-cutter Tea Bag Republican and votes the party line along with Michele Bachmann (I can see her district from my living room) and the rest of the over-the-top conservatives who run the Republican party, and thus, the House, at the moment. He needs to go.

I’ll be working to recruit a woman of color who has a background as a scientists (chemistry degree, worked in green technology early in her career) and for whom climate change and green energy are top issues, along with the usual social justice and economic issues. This is why I’l be supporting Sharon Sund if she runs. (If you want to help me help her to decide to run, even if you don’t live in Minnesota or, for that matter, the US, pleas go SIGN THIS PETITION!)

I’ll also be working with Shawn Otto and others to advance the Science Debate Project. I don’t know what we’d be doing this particular election cycle but we need to have the candidates for president in two years debate science in the public forum. In the mean time, everybody should be debating science in the public forum. And no, I don’t mean science vs. science denialism. I mean demonstrating an understanding of the science on one hand and making claims about policy that is actually based on the science on the other.

Sitting around and complaining about how science does not enter politics and when it does, it does so as a lifeless Tea-Drinking Zombie, is uninteresting and unproductive. It isn’t that hard for individuals to do something, and if enough pro-science individuals get involved, change can happen.

Go make change happen. Please.

Photo Credit: practicalowl via Compfight cc

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