Wellstone Memorial

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 10:20 PM

Well, danged, rich, well said... I'm not too much into Dems but I islike Repubs (ingeneral, Doug...) a lot more. They seem to have the market captured in hypocracy.

Bobert

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: DougR
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 11:47 PM

Rich: Oh well. Thanks for clarifying the situation. They only booed Trent Lock while they were filing into their seats. That's a relief. That explains everything! I, for one, appreciate your clearing that up. Still tacky though, in my opinion.

DougR

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 05:28 AM

damn reassuring tho know Dems are no better than Repubs.

...but mommy, he hit me first.
...but mommy, everyone is doing it.

Aspiring to the height of Limbaugh decency. What more could a person ask of their party?

*BG*

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 10:31 AM

The backlash against the Republican outrage campaign deepened here in Minnesota on Friday, when two things were revealed, and one rumor was running rampant.

First, as to "scripting" one only need read CNN right wing media whore Robert Novak's column in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He has an entire Democratic conspiracy theory he puts forward, which defies not only the facts of the situation, but rational sense as well. He decided to interject race as an issue into the Minnesota US senate race, by dragging Alan Paige's name through the mud of his muckracking. For those of you who are not aware of who Alan Paige is, he is a former Notre Dame & Minnesota Viking football hero, who is one of the Minnesota Supreme Court justices.

Alan Paige was so furious about it, he did something Supreme Court justices rarely do, which is make a public comment about it. Here is what he had to say about the CNN/GOP commentator's column:

"Because of this week's extraordinary circumstances and the column's insidious use of race, Mr. Novak's comments require a response. Beyond the use of race, the column is, in its references to me, factually inaccurate," Page said.

The Novak column said, "According to Minnesota sources, he (Page) was eager to seek the Senate seat. But the DFL apparently did not want to risk running the African-American Page in an overwhelmingly Caucasian state, and Page was quickly discouraged."

Page said that, contrary to the column's claims, he "did not seek to be nominated to the Senate seat" and that beyond his friends and "a number of supportive citizens," he was not asked to be a candidate. Nor, he said, was he discouraged.

He also said the Novak column inaccurately said he "led the state Democratic ticket in recent elections." Page noted that judicial elections in Minnesota are nonpartisan and conducted separately from the political parties.

"I find it offensive and unacceptable that forces beyond my control have used me as a vehicle to interject race into Minnesota's political debate,'' Page said.


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Also, the Coleman campaign asked the Republican National Committee to pull the negative attack ad against Mondale it planned on running beginning yesterday. It seems that, despite the fact that NO media outlets locally or nationally are reporting it, the mood on the ground is that the Republicans are perceived by voters as looking every bit as bad, if not worse, than the Democrats in the wake of Senator Wellstone's death. There may be a consensus forming now that the intensity and volume of the shrill outrage campaign is directly related to how desparately the White House still wants to win here. Cheney was here on Friday, Laura Bush is here today, and the pres select will be here for a rally tomorrow, which will be given complete, uninterrupted coverage on the local TV news as "equal time" for the Wellstone memorial.

Anyone still wondering who is gaining the most from the Wellstone death? Despite the Minneapolis Star Tribune poll showing Mondale 8 points ahead of Coleman, it is the only one showing Mondale ahead. Every other poll has them locked in a dead heat.

Finally, the rumor mill is now suggesting that the outrage campaign worked perfectly for Republicans. The Republican outrage campaign, if it translates into actual votes on Tuesday, will benefit Coleman. Why? Because the pre-Wellstone death political climate gave the advantage to Wellstone in a dead heat, because of Wellstone's grassroots support--they tend to come out and vote more than Republicans. So on the ground, the media outrage campaign may well end up being the best effort the Republicans have been able to make in the entire two year long campaign by Coleman. Wellstone's death may well end up putting Coleman in office now, because of the depths of depravity the Republicans were willing to stoop when they began the moral outrage attack in the media.

It is now believed by many involved in independent grassroots politics in Minnesota, that if there was any conspiracy involved in the Wellstone death, it was the media strategy between local and national Republican party hacks, and the national right wing Republican talk shows, to come out of the Wellstone memorial on Tuesday night with guns blazing, long before Rick Kahn made his overwrought speech. In other words, many people on the progressive non-Dem party side, as well as the state DFL, believe that there would have been a Republican led media attack campaign against the Wellstones and Mondale no matter what happened at the Wellstone memorial, because that is just how bad a particular group of depraved Republicans want to win it, by any means necesary.

And as history has demonstrated, despite people's claims that they don't like negative attack campaigns, everyone also knows it gets cadidates elected, especially in tight races. So it seems that the Republican media strategy to attack the Wellstones and Mondale so vociferously before the crowd even got out of the arena on Tuesday night, may have worked brilliantly to the Republican's advantage.

The Republican media outrage campaign is now being viewed as one negative attack campaign that didn't even require tv ads, because the media uproar was created without spending a dime on advertising, and was the only way the Republicans could get away with going negative after Wellstone's death. The Republican led negative attacks have proven very effective with those people who hated Wellstone, most of whom likely wouldn't have come out to vote on Tuesday if Wellstone hadn't died, or if Rick Kahn hadn't spoken at the memorial.

The manufactured controversy may very well end up mobilizing all kinds of Wellstone and Democrat hating Republicans and Republican leaning independents to go to the polls and vote for Coleman out of spite, and to "demonstrate their disgust" with the Wellstone and Mondale campaign. And considering that the Wellstone and Democrat hating governor is leading the charge, there is some suggestion that there may have been some collusion between the governor & the Republicans in their media campaign. The governor is now the only political figure with a bully pulpit who can continue to attack Wellstone and the Democrats with impunity, because he isn't running, and no one believes any of his Independence Party candidates have a chance of winning on Tuesday.

Republican dirty tricks at it's most sophisticated, I'd say.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 11:31 AM

paranoia at its most obvious (oh one who goes by no name).

I'll betcha the folk CD of your choice that Democrats win MN in a landslide -- oh wait....that would mean you'd have to become un-anonymous.

Are we ever going to get past the notion that pointing out what the other candidate has said/voted for is "attacking"? "vicious"?

On a lighter note, did anyone notice that J. Bartlett stated in the TV debate that he was not for "bipartisanship" as demagogued currently in Washington. That he believed that folks voted for representation of what they believed in and that compromise was not always admirable.

Hopefully at some point life will imitate art.

Of course, we would, at some point have to get used to the notion that those who disagreed with us politically were our enemies.

I think it's been a long time since, in this country, any but the most extreme have held to the notions that the opposing views accuse them of.

Most liberals I know understand that a free(er) market is the only means by which a society/community/country will generate enough production to have the means to support the weakest in the community.

Most conservatives I know, though they want government limited (in the original sense put forth by A constitution, are not anarchists by any stretch and will gladly agree to the notion that the government can be pretty good at doing some things.

The leaders of both address the extremes and the fears -- and we willingly go along because we have no regular assurances from the other side that they understand the realities of the pragmatic middle.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 01:08 PM

Spoken like a true partisan radical Republican centrist, John Hardly.

That radical center which stands for nothing, tolerates anything, and condemns and demonizes everyone who disagrees with their limited world view as "the most right of all".

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: John Hardly
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 04:22 PM

naw....not at all. I'm no centrist. I'm no Republican. I can't really think of anyone I've recently "Demonized" ....oh, except for folks who develop their political world view by defining the opposition for them. I don't care for that much.

I'm a military isolationist -- I know, no such label -- I believe in a strong enough military for our defense. I don't believe in international interference. (I don't believe Einstein was "Einsteinian" when he opined that you couldn't simultaneously prepare for war and....well you know how the bumper sticker goes. He was a mathemetician ferchrisakes). Neither party offers me this option but that doesn't make me a centrist, and certainly not partisan.

I believe in a National sales tax instead of an income tax. Neither party offers me that option. That doesn't make me a centrist and certainly not partisan.

I'm pro-life but I want Congress and a President to vote it up or down -- not have choice hanging by the thread of a questionable Supreme Court decision. I think that if a bill was proposed, debated, and voted on, the pro-life movement would have their legs cut entirely out from underneath them (legally and politically). There is no way Congress would vote for an abortion ban. As it stands the pro-life side holds the high ground arguement. Neither party offers me this option but that doesn't make me a centrist, and certainly not partisan.

I don't think that Social Security should be included in the regular budget. I think money collected for SS should be used for SS alone. I'm tired of this issue being used for political gain every two years at election time -- and SS doesn't have to be hanging so precariously. Neither party offers me this option but that doesn't make me a centrist and certainly not partisan.

The majority of those I know (hell, the majority of Americans) don't see these issues (and others) my way. I love them, play music with them, play basketball with them, argue with them over a few drinks, and they think I'm as looney as I may think a few of them -- and there's not a "demon" in the bunch. Of course, most of them I know by name, or by a forum name, and that sort of helps to raise the level of civility in our disagreements.

I don't stand for nothing, though lots of what I'd like to see happen are pipe dreams -- so I stand for personal integrity, the golden rule, caring for those around me and praying that others choose to live the same way -- I do the things within my control -- not many of them political.

I tolerate LOTS! I believe many behaviors are objectively evil but I live peaceably with those I disagree with and leave moral judgements between folks and their creator -- unless they cross legal lines -- then, sometimes as a good citizen it is my duty to speak up.

I'm not sure my world view is any more limited than most folks is....I mean, even yours would appear to be limited to what mine is not *grin*.

....but thanks for caring.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 04:38 PM

I seem to recall you describing yourself as Republican leaning Libertarian, John Hardly. And your political positions seem pretty slippery to me, depending upon the spin you'd like to put on the subject being discussed at any given moment.

As to your supposed tolerance regarding other people's points of view, it seems you aren't very tolerant of what I've been posting in these Wellstone threads. Considering that I've condemned both Democrats and Republicans behavior in the wake of Wellstone's death here, I find it odd that you so very stridently oppositional about anything I've said.

And especially considering how far northern Indiana is from Minnesota.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:17 AM

Final poll results in Minnesota came out this morning. It looks like Coleman will win.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:45 AM

Daniel Shore opined on NPR, yesterday, that Mondale would win hands-down. I would hope all of the people who cared about Wellstone would galvanise and come out en force to make sure that happens.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: DougR
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 04:00 PM

No way to tell until the votes are counted, kat. Daniel Shore probably had a large dose of "hope sos" in his calculation. Your guess is as good as his at this point.

DougR

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 10:08 PM

Yeah, I agree DougR. It is all conjecture until the votes are counted. They are still statistically in a dead heat, and polls have, at times, been very wrong. This race is just to out there for anyone to call it before the Secretary of State sings (ahem!), which may well be the next morning, as it appears all the supplemental ballots for the senate race will be counted by hand, rather than (or in addition to?) being counted electronically, as the regular ballots will be counted.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 10:21 AM

I've never seen politics as polarized between the Democrats and Republicans as this election in Minnesota. I just came home from dropping kids off at school, and at the freeway ramp intersection during rush hour, we had a Mondale supporter on one corner, competing for honks and waves with a Coleman supporter on the opposite corner.

If anyone is in any doubt as to how the media is contributing to this "battle of the parties" political mentality, here is this interesting tidbit. Minnesota Public Radio and the local NBC affiliate are sponsoring the only debate including Mondale this morning, and they have locked out the third party candidates from participating, claiming most people don't want the "interference" in the debate between Coleman and Mondale. We are used to seeing this, of course. It is done frequently in the debates to third party candidates, but hasn't been done much in Minnesota this year for either the governor or US senate race, because we have a third party governor and the Greens have major party status (ie over 5% of the vote).

And the decision to exclude the third party candidates from debating Mondale at all is strictly the media's call. No one else's. So in whose interest is the media acting, hmmmm?

Thankfully, the Independent Party candidate is trying to get an injunction to stop the debate. I know he'll never get it, but at least it draws attention to this debacle where the real loser is the democratic electoral process and the voters.

I won't be voting for either of the major parties this year, or probably any time in the near future. As I've said before, I'm a political animal in the grassroots sense, but I've never been a party animal. I've never been as disgusted with electoral politics as I am this year. The party politicians and mass media creating "battles" for their ratings are so depraved and despicable, I am seriously considering a move to Canada.

Subject: RE: Wellstone Memorial
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 10:41 AM

Well, GUEST, if it weren't so cold up there, I'd probably consider it my ownself. Gotta agree with you that this election is more if a *dog and pony show* than anything that even slightly resembles democracy in action. The big boys own the players, they own the stage, they *direct* the agendas and the voters do there part in electing or selecting someone from my "None-of-the-Above" column of corporate owned puppets. And then the voters feel like they have been *heard*. Hahahaha. Just a big joke.

The US won't have democracy until the voters have had enough of participating in this corporate circle jerk. This can only happen with *real* campainge reform, publicly funded elections, uniform balloting, universal voting machines, inclusion of third, forth anf fifth party canidates in public debates, election day becoming a national holiday, etc, etc.

Bobert