RNC

‘Ordinary voter’ in New York Times recount story has strong GOP ties

A man presented as an “ordinary voter” in a New York Times article today about the impending recount in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race has strong ties to the Republican Party and conservative causes that the article does not reveal. Noah Rouen says he told writer Christina Capecchi about his background.

Free at last!

The Free Paul Demko Movement can now disband. The St. Paul City Attorney’s office has dropped a misdemeanor citation for unlawful assembly that I received while covering protests during the Republican National Convention.
A letter from City Attorney John Choi laying out the decision to dismiss the charge arrived in my mailbox today. It cites as [...]

Did KSTP tip Paulsen on results of Survey USA’s new re-do poll?

A new Survey USA poll shows for the first time a spread between the two leading candidates in Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District that’s greater than the margin of error. It’s a sudden swing that Survey USA suggests might be due to a TV ad that darkens Democrat Ashwin Madia’s skin. But if so, the effect would seem to arise more from recent news reports about the ad than from the ad itself, which came out a full week before the first of Survey USA’s latest pair of back-to-back polls. Another way Republican Erik Paulsen’s ahead: KSTP gave Paulsen’s campaign an early preview of the poll results, according to Joe Bodell. And David Dillon’s camp says the poll is a re-do because the Survey USA left the Independence Party candidate’s name off last time.

Video: Star Tribune squeamish over reporters asking Coleman about lawsuit in Dem ad

An editor’s note in today’s Star Tribune is the latest sign of the newspaper’s squeamishness about its own reporting of what are now two lawsuits alleging back-channel payoffs to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman:

EDITOR’S NOTE
The Democratic Senate [sic] Campaign Committee is running TV ads featuring a Star Tribune reporter questioning Sen. Norm Coleman about a lawsuit noted in this report. The video in the ad was filmed without the knowledge or consent of the Star Tribune.

The original video shows Strib reporter Paul McEnroe trying to ask Coleman about the first lawsuit filed in Texas this week as Coleman left a St. Cloud cafe Wednesday. (See the video here. See the DSCC’s ad after the jump.)

Sign season: Obama sign with red star now ’socialist’ red meat

Barry Clegg wanted to irritate Republicans who had scheduled an offshoot event from their national convention a couple blocks from his house on Nicollet Island near downtown Minneapolis. So he ordered a large Obama banner to hang in his yard from an Iowa-based vendor he found online. Now the banner’s decidely unofficial red-star design (which the vendor, not Clegg, came up with) has taken on new meaning in the context of Republicans taunts that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama is a “socialist.”

Terrorizing Dissent: New documentary highlights police and protesters at RNC

The Republican National Convention. For many, that week in September brings back memories of the acidic smell of tear gas and pepper spray, police in riot gear on every corner and thousands of protesters in the streets. A two hour documentary by the Glass Bead Collective and Twin Cities Indymedia, features disturbing, never-before-seen footage of the RNC and police actions against protesters in the streets of St. Paul. The entire documentary is available on the Terrorizing Dissent website.

A clever trailer puts Sen. John McCain accepting the Republican party nomination in front of images of tear gas and protester arrests.

Chamber of Commerce funnels money to Norm Coleman to protect banks, thwart unionizing

National businesses and banks have been feeding Norm Coleman major sums of cash this last quarter, despite the fact that corporations and, especially the financial sector, are withering in a crippling economy and asking taxpayers for bailouts. According to a story in L.A. Times last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent $30 million on lobbying in the third quarter of this year, more than twice as much as it spent for the same purpose in the previous quarter. And a chunk of that change is going to Minnesota senator Norm Coleman.

Religious Right Watch: Obamageddon is nigh!

The religious right never goes down without a fight, and given the dwindling chance that their candidates, Sarah Palin and John McCain, can win the White House, they’re taking the fight to extreme new levels. Prominent figures are comparing supporters of Sen. Barack Obama to the Nazis, warning that God will condemn Americans if they don’t vote for McCain, accusing Obama’s family of witchcraft and foretelling a future when Christianity is criminalized by an Obama administration. Are you prepared for Obamageddon?

Recurrent Republican recession symbols: baby outfits and socks

Maureen Dowd’s column in the Sunday New York Times linked two Republican shopping trips. The first, a 1991 George H.W. Bush photo-op run to the mall, was intentionally symbolic, meant to inspire Americans to repress their tightwad instincts during the early-’90s recession. The other — recent high-fashion expenditures by the Republican National Committee on behalf of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her family — only became symbolic by accident. Dowd then moved on (so much to mock, so little time) without fully exploiting the delicious details of this political parallel.

What’s the word? Tinklenberg!

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s moment of infamy on Hardball has now been immortalized in song. Huffington Post’s Paul Hipp created this infectious ditty. “Let’s do all we can for the man whose name sounds like peeing in the snow!!!” Hipp writes. Everybody sing along: