Mark Olson & Friends Cost Republicans a Senate Seat
Officially disgraceful Republican Mark Olson is guilty of another indiscretion of abusing a great woman. Yep, he cost Allison Krueger and the Republicans a State Senate seat. He and his band of self obsessed people in SD16 decided they would run a write in campaign with absolutely no chance of winning.Â
Well guess what, Olson got a lowsy 316 stinking votes. But that’s not the problem, the Republican on the ballot, Allison Krueger, lost by just 89 votes.Â
Yes, that’s right. Mark Olson and his buddies up in SD16 caused the Republican candidate to lose. I hope they are excommunicated from all ties to the Republican party. I hope Mark Olson never shows his face at a Republican event, and if he has the nerve, and I am there, I will not be responsible for my actions. (no violence on my part, but oh boy there will be one hell of a scene)
I hope you are proud of yourselves, Olson, Wilson, and crew. Your little collective tantrum up there is now going to cost us a ton of money next election. You took a Republican district and made it Democrat. Yes, YOU caused the Republican loss. Now we (the Republicans who understand how the Legislature really works) are going to have to spend a ton of money to knock off the Dem in 2010.Â
Way to go asshats, you took out one of our own.Â
Payback is a bitch, but don’t worry, you have yours coming soon.
While your anger towards Olson is understandable, there is a more important point beyond that 316 number.
Considering Kiffmeyer won the 16a side by over 6500 votes, how did Krueger lose? There were over 4500 more votes cast for Republican House candidates in SD16 than were cast for the Senate Republican candidate. Olson write in votes should have been irrelevant in this race. This seems to speak more to the party and Republican caucus support in that race than anything.
I always know that Olson and his band of idiots were self-centered and out of touch, but I had no idea they would stoop to this. For Mark, it’s all about him, and for the BPOU leadership, it’s all about kingmaking and grudges. Olson will be back for the 2010 election trying to get the seat he himself turned over to the Dems. SD16 had better be ready!
3 reasons, Dutch;
1) The long-time incumbent Sondra Erickson LOST in 16a. Krueger carried the “b” side. It was the “a” side where she lost.
2) Kiffmeyer’s DFL opponent was a push-over.
3) Ever heard of “NAME ID”? It matters.
By the way, Kiffmeyer won on the B side, not the A side; get it right.
A, B. Whatever.
Olson is a fool, but if you think name ID gave a 6500 vote swing in one house district, Clef, I want some of what you’re smoking. There’s more to this loss than a crazy guy with 316 write-ins. The bs about someone stealing votes because of another opponent, nuts or not, is a very liberal thing to say. You saying this is akin to what the Democrats will say about Barkley.
Mark Olson did not cost Alison Krueger squat! Olson garnered 1700 votes (not the 316 that you are erroneously reporting) because he out-worked her.
Krueger hardly door-knocked, she had very shabby lit and she refused to engage in a number of candidate forums where Mark was present. These three factors played a large part in her demise (well she still has a slim chance with the recount coming up).
Kiffmeyer and Erickson worked extremely hard to help Krueger in both ends of the district to try to carry her across the line. But all of their effort in the end was not enough.
As to Erickson’s race: she has always had close contests with Kulick Jackson. I surmise that with all the new Obamamaniac voters in the Princeton area and up around the Mille Lacs communities finally pushed K-Jackson past Erickson.
In closing, if Krueger would have done more to establish herself across the entire district in person, she would have easily won the race and Olson would have been a non-factor. Who knows, perhaps she could have won by the 4,000 vote margin (15%) that Wergin did in 2006. So to put any blame on Mark Olson for spoiling the seat for SD 16 Republicans is ridiculous especially when there were over 45,000 votes cast.
I place the blame on the 16B BPOU Chairman Paul Vollkommer. Why is that?.. Well he said he would have ran for senate this year, but he was too bogged down from suing Baldwin Township (which he serves on the Baldwin Township Board until this March when he will surely be voted out)over a water rescue dive team. Paul Vollkommer created himself a perfect storm where he is the hero taking on the state party on the behalf on the grassroots little guy. Yep…Mark Olson was just a straw man candidate in 2008 to clear the way for Paul Vollkommer for State Senate 2010. Maybe Quintin Reece will run for House District 16B since they cleared Sondra Erickson out too. Paul…..you are an ineffective leader. You will be voted out of your chair position. Too bad it has taken this long for people to see what a piece of work you are.
Sorrys….Quintin Reece for State House District 16A in 2010.
Mark and the rest of the BPOU was repeatedly warned this would happen, if Mark ran a write in campaign. The SD 16’s BPOU Chairs should all resign. They’ve
betrayed us. The damage in SD16 Republican party is terrible. It will take a
very long time to fix. This is such a mess.
[...] friend Andy Aplikowski summarizes things in a couple thousand fewer words here. I wholeheartedly agree with Andy’s appraisal. It’s time the GOP started pulling in the [...]
Granted, Krueger could have and should have worked much harder than she did, but remember she go absolutely NO help from her BPOU organization. In fact, she had 2 organizations working against her; one working for Fobbe and the other, the Republicans, working for Olson, which ridiculously endorsed Olson AFTER the primary! Usually you can count on help from the party organization, but Krueger was left out there with none whatsover, thanks to Volkommer, Olson, Dickenson, Kumpula, Reece, Wilson and others.
Olson always was a lousy legislator because he could not play well with others. He put his own agenda ahead of his district’s well-being. It looks like he’s raised up a farm team to carry on that tradition.
I’m not kidding……..Vollkommer and Reece have plans to run for state office. Vollkommer claims that he is looking out for the tax payer…. well he failed to show for the Board of Appeal & Equalization meeting. The one meeting a year where he can actually help Baldwin property tax payers. He skips special meetings, and he shows up to the regular meetings to yell and slam his fists on the table. He has temper….gee no wonder he gets along with Mark Olson. Quintin has to leave before getting ejected because he can’t keep his mouth shut.
If the Republican partky had more principled conservatives like Mark, it wouldn’t be gettng kicked all over the political playing field by Comrad ObaMessiah and his Marxist cohorts.
My guess is that the same folks who voted against Mark also voted for Juan McRINO.
Get a clue, kids.
We’re never going to win shooting our own conseratives and then running moderate, faux-conservatives in their places. You may want to give a listen Jason Lewis; you may just learn something.
Yes, Kberdahl, you are probably right. Most people who voted for Krueger also voted for McCain. Here’s what you don’t understand; THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO HAVE A SHOT AT MAKING A DIFFERENCE!!!! God! Don’t you get it?!?!? How do you not understand that sometimes you have to make small compromises to get big things done?!? This is the exact problem with Olson!!! Always has been! Olson may think he has accomplished things, but he has NOT. Others have gotten it done for him! Olson needs to crawl into a cave where he can be alone and get along with everyone with him.
By the way, Jason Lewis has a LOT to learn! He’s another one that can be thanked for turning SD16 Democratic! Mr. Right, my ass!
I think Ann Coulter has it right (as usual):
“I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities.”
Read the whole thing:
http://townhall.com/columnists/AnnCoulter/2008/11/05/the_reign_of_lame_falls_mainly_on_mccain
I did not vote for McCain at the caucuses. He was not my first or even my second choice. In the general election, there was only 1 choice for conservatives, John McCain, who has served this country admirably his entire life, and who deserves much more respect than he is getting from the likes of any number of big-mouthed, do-nothing know-it-alls who are flapping their lips these days. The kind of fecal matter that you, Mark Olson and others spew against fellow Republicans is very destructive to this party and should be left in the political manure pit where it belongs.
Just what the hell is going on up there….have you people all lost your friggin’ minds?
Mark Olson was convicted of a really shameful crime…no, it’s not a capital offense, but if I wanted to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a candidate, I’d be a stinkin’ Democrat….he’s out. Hell, if I had my druthers, he could keep his vote too.
The day that the GOP starts parsing the meaning of “convicted” I’m out baby.
Olson and his krewe have made the Democrat hall of fame, not only for handing them a seat, but for brazen disregard for any notion of “honorable leadership”.
It’s a damn good thing I don’t live up there, or there’d be some pretty spirited BPOU meetings.
Paul Vollkommer has to go! Does anyone else want acknowledge that? Do you realize how much money it will cost to get SD 16 back from the DFL? Fobbe will get a pass on any tough votes and they will give lots of pork for her to bring home too. Paul Vollkommer propped up a strawman candidate to create infighting amoung the party…..heck this may have cost Norm Coleman his seat.
Volkommer has to go, but so does Dickenson, Kumpula, Reece and all the other self-serving two-bit kingmakers in leadership of SD16.
Olson Brags of Success on Campaign Web Site;
“we have sent a message to St. Paul leaders that our legislative races must come from a grassroots movement.”
Mr. Olson, do you have any idea what your “message” cost the conservatives in your district? Do you know that, for the next two years at least, because of your “success”, the message to St. Paul out of SD 16 will be that of higher taxes and more government? I hope you enjoy your “success”, asshole! You’ve never cared about the people of the district and you never will.
An accurate analysis of the GOP’s current situation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sxAWVa4XXg&eurl=http://www.dailypaul.com/
It’s not the end of the world, kids, the seat will be ripe for the re-taking in 2010, it will not take massive money to accomplish that in the non-Obama election year with its much lower flaky-voter turnout. It’s not going to make much difference in the meantime whether the Senate splits 45-22 or 46-21. The ‘hands off’ message did need to be sent to the state brass and the payback was the Olson write-in effort. Mark’s been very loyal to his constituents’ conservative values, and the local party did the right thing to return that long-time loyalty and continue to back him in the face of the meddling from St. Paul.
So you think the local party did the right thing, backing a convicted wife beater? Conservative values? I guess we just have contrasting values systems……
Sheesh. The disinformation squad got in the door here?? Mark was exonerated on the charge of actual physical assault, and the jury instead convicted on the charge of behaving in a manner that could cause fear, which has resulted in past convictions against [one of two] people guilty of no more than raising their voices in heated discussion. That’s the problem with domestic assault, juries will convict despite a vacuum of any real evidence of any assault, just someone’s say-so in a moment of anger, even if they have a different story once cooler heads prevail. Prosecution has a policy of only pursuing charges against one individual in a domestic disagreement, whether or not they both behaved in a manner that could induce fear, and in some 90% of cases the defendant ends up being the male. Take police forces instructed to arrest and remove one ‘combatant’ from such an incident that results in a call, for starters. Add Sherburne County to the mix, with their no-drop policy, and everything there results in a trial or a plea agreement regardless of actual merit.
Had these circumstances surrounded a more anonymous individual, in a different county such as Hennepin for example where they are too overloaded to pursue every bs charge to trial, typically this sort of thing would be resolved through a continuance for dismissal that required counseling/anger mgmt successfully completed and that would have been that.
In no way, shape, or form do conservative values embrace today’s bloated growth in gov’t authoritarianism that produces a nanny state intent on shaping and directing all aspects of our behavior, and gradually making criminals of the majority of citizens- which is exactly where we’re headed through the use of ‘preventative prosecution.’ We’re enforcing a lot of law today against Minnesotans who have in no way damaged persons or property, and the result is a society filled with convictions, and a bloated justice system that just keeps feeding upon that society and growing larger. That’s a form of involuntary taxation well beyond what’s actually needed.
When I was coming of age in the early seventies 54% of the property tax local revenues went directly to the school districts statewide, today that’s down to 22% and the beneficiary of those funds is county government for the most part. It’s pushed K-12 funding over to the state for the most part, and that in turn has caused every positive thing we traditionally accomplished with state funding to suffer accordingly.
If we simply mandated a return to traditional property tax division of the revenue pie, county government would be forced to return to its traditional levels of expenditure, the court systems and the associated ’services’ funded there would shrink back to an efficient machine that concentrates on real crimes with no time for preventative nanny state garbage. And the state would see nearly a 2 Billion lightening of its share of the K-12 load, erasing deficits there even in these darker economic times. Without that, we’re in for more tax increases, and it stands to reason the income tax will be the next target, since that’s the one that actually got lowered not all that long ago.
It all comes down to the exact stuff Andy’s been talking about all along- Big Gov’t or Small Gov’t, take your pick, this one is a clear choice.
The Olson people DID make their choice!!!! Listen up! They chose to run an impossible-to-win write-in campaign with a guy who, by his own newspaper accounts, was throwing Bibles, slamming knives into family heirlooms, etc! Get this; they did it against a fellow staunch CONSERVATIVE! Either Mark and his comrades were totally and inexcusably disillusioned by Mark’s imagined popularity or their purpose was to take enough votes from Krueger to allow the district to go to into the hands of the Democrats, where they could bide their time and give it another go in 2 years. I tend to believe the latter theory. It was MARK OLSON AND HIS SUPPORTERS who decided this election, and it was them who sent a liberal to St. Paul from a conservative district to do the work that you enumerated in your post! Mark Olson’s actions were all about Mark Olson. If that’s not obvious to all conservatives by now, maybe we don’t deserve to lead. However, I know you won’t find most conservatives lining up at Mark Olson’s Kool-Aid stand.
The state brass stepped in to denigrate and smear Mark late-hour, and to fund multiple literature mailings and drops against his candidacy and in support of another who wasn’t running. They did this to a staunch CONSERVATIVE! I can’t say ‘fellow’ staunch conservative because there is little conservative value in people like Carey, Coleman, and the MN Senate Victory Fund membership. And while I’m extremely hesitant to get drawn into a discussion about allegations concerning events I did not witness, I feel obligated since your misinfo on the allegations is so very skewed. It was the Mrs. that was alleged to have the interest in furniture carving, not the MR. At least get the scuttlebutt right if you’re going to delve into that personal crap.
Ken,
You make some true and valid statements, and, by the way, my apologies for not getting my story right, it WAS the MRS who was the woodworker in the family. According to Heidi Olson’s own testimony, however she “testified that Mark Olson physically assaulted her three times before the November incident, once bruising her arms by repeatedly throwing two Bibles at her in a rage. The jury was shown pictures of bruising on her arm.” (source, WCCO News 7-12-07). This is ASSULT, sir! This goes far beyond “raising one’s voice” as you alleged earlier.
As far as the Senate Victory Fund stepping into the situation, yes, it is unfortunate in a way, but remember that these people have the Constitutional freedom of speech and the press as you and I do. Mark Olson, his campaign, and the local BPOU organization should have been able to neutralize a couple of simple lit pieces IF Rep. Olson were a viable candidate and IF the BPOU were a viable organization. Carey and Coleman? I’ve had my disagreements with them, but by and large, along with Governor Pawlenty, they have done more to advance conservative movement than you, I, or any number of folks reading this will ever hope to achieve. These people are “in the arena” as Teddy Roosevelt said so eloquently.
All that aside, here is what is REALLY important about the SD16 sutuation if you care about values; so post-primary, we are left with 2 people on the ballot, a liberal and a conservative. Rep. Olson and his cronies, because they had a personal score to settle, worked hard enough to throw the election to the liberal. They did this with no regard for the advancement of conservative ideals, only to avenge a personal grudge. If this is not absolutely obvious to you, please push yourself away from the Kool-Aid stand at this time.
Get off the kool-aid remarks. Its only two years to fill a vacancy. The margin is overwhelmingly DFL right now regardless. 2010 is another year, and it should be interesting. Let SD16 make their own decisions, if you’re not a resident there.
And the previous posters were correct in the assessment that an actual vigorous campaign from Krueger would have likely prevailed, and to put the blame on the Olson effort is telling only part of the story.
We’ll simply have to agree to disagree re Coleman & Pawlenty and the directions they advance. Not going to turn this into a lengthy discussion about many of their chosen directions of record. But there are many in the GOP less than happy with either of those two attorneys, if you’re not picking up on any of that you might want to consider whether you may just a bit out of touch with the grassroots around the state.
So your sentiment, then, is “what difference does my Senate seat make, who cares? The DFL is in control anyway; my district’s representatives are useless”. Great motivational pep talk for 2 years from now!
As to Coleman and Pawlenty; I am fully aware that the party is controlled by the extreme fringe of the right wing whose views sometimes are not shared by “Everyday Joes”. I understand that among that group, some are upset that our Governor and Senator are not on the extremist wing with them. Let’s try this; you tell me how much power to stop the liberal agenda the GOP would possess if we had a liberal as a Senator (which could still happen if the Dems are allowed to keep cheating) and Governor. Here’s the scoreboard right now;
Majority of Congressional Delegation * * * DFL
Majority of US Senate Delegation * * * Tied
Majority of State House of Reps * * * DFL
Majority of State Senate * * * DFL
Governor * * * Republican
Secretary of State * * * DFL
Attorney General * * * DFL
State Auditor * * * DFL
Now, take out the Senator and Governor. Where are you now? I’ll tell ya …. you got NOTHIN’!
Well Ken… Paul Vollkommer must be feeding you Kool-aid. Maybe you can be a part of the “Paul Vollkommer For Senate 2010 Committee”.
Mark Olson was just a strawman candidate that Paul Vollkommer used for his own gains. You wait….Paul Vollkommer will throw Mark Olson under the bus when it is in Vollkommers interest.
Who is Paul Vollkommer?
I can answer that. Paul Volkommer is the chair of the Sherburne Co. Republicans, which is basically the same thing as HD16b. He was a lot of the wind behind Mark Olson’s sails to run against the Republican on the ballot, Alison Krueger. General consensus is that he is a very incompetent BPOU chair, as he really does NOTHING that’s contained in the GOP BPOU manual. Just look at the finances over in HD16b; they don’t even really raise money for their candidates! His motivation to be a BPOU chair is the power that goes along with the job, that of “kingmaker”, which he is not afraid to wield. He and a few other eccentrics (read; Quintin Reece) were the ones who helped Olson collect the 1462 votes (3%) votes for Mark Olson, which was way over the mere 85 votes that it took to hand the seat over to the Dems. Some think he did this to set himself up to make a run at the Senate seat in 2010.
The damage is done. They are content with destroying the conservative movement in Sherburne County. All that matters is that they get their own way. They complain about the state party trying to force the grassroots into obeying them. Well, the 16B BPOU is guilty of the very same thing. They chose to ignore the voters, who chose Allison in the Primary Election. They endorsed Olsen after the election. They went against the will of the grassroots and forced their own will on the election. This cost the Republican party a Senate seat and a house seat. The BPOU from 16b will try to spin the truth and manipulate the numbers in order to ease their guilty minds. Just like they did with the endorsement. They found a loop hole and exploited it. They said. “we will only support the endorsed candidate”, because that’s what the state constitution for the party says. The law says, the person who wins the primary is considered the party nomination and will be the person listed as the REPUBLICAN candidate. So, what is the difference between the terms ENDORSED or NOMINATED? These guys will cheat, lie and guilt their way to get anything they want. Shame on all of them! The BPOU leaders from SD16 and especially hd16b should all be thrown out of the party. They pushed through a candidate who was thrown out of the party. Their candidate, Olsen, was listed as a independant write in. He was not listed as a Republican. The 16b leadership all chose to leave the party when they did this. They are not REPUBLICANS anymore. Do not call them Republicans. They are RINOs!
HD 16B RINOs, RINOS, RINOS, RINOS, RINOS, RINOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY ARE THE BEST THINGS THAT EVER HAPPENED FOR THE DFL !
Ramone brings up an important fact; that of post-primary endorsement. A post-primary endorsement is designed to endorse the winner of the primary election, had that person not been endorsed previously. Anybody who would even think of endorsing a write-in campaign over the conservative Republican who won the primary either A)has ulterior motives, B)has an enormous ego with a bruise on it the size of Alaska which will not allow him/her to do the right thing, or C)has no common sense whatsoever. In any event, yes absolutely the “leadership” needs to go. Their actions are beyond the pale.
As far as the comment about the “grassroots” are concerned, ego has a lot to do with this. The convention delegates and leadership view themselves as the “grassroots”. They dismiss the primary election voters (people who do not get involved to the level the delegates are) as ignorant, stupid, and uninformed. As a rule, I think that people who are going to get involved to that level are generally more informed than most people. However, when you have a circus act take over the process, this is what you get…… a conservative district in the hands of the liberal Democrats, and those responsible taking no blame for it.
Like it or not, the post-primary endorsement went to Olson again, and this time by a much stronger margin of over 3-1. It wasn’t even close. Paul didn’t command that local delegate loyalty to Mark. It was already there, and it was earned over time. Mark was not listed on any general election ballot with any designation of any kind, the write-in line was blank as it was for any other office on the ballot. The people who wrote him in chose to write him in, their prerogative. Whoever the endorsement goes to in SD16 in ‘10, I’d strongly recommend those outside the district just let it be. It’s the choice of those delegates. Plain and simple. The actual Olson write-in numbers will go over 1500 if the remaining two precincts that haven’t separated the Olson write-in ever get around to doing that. From there it’ll be interesting to see how many Mark Olson write-ins went uncounted due to being simple write-ins without the filling of the circle to tip off the scanner. Word is there is are a good number of those as well, though I don’t know if the recount will choose to recognize those or not. I’d also be curious as to how many write-ins were placed by mistake in the race for his present office rather than the senate seat- there are about a half percent write-ins there and that’s an unusually high percent even when there is a publicized write-in, which there wasn’t in that 16B race.
Bottom line, though- write-in efforts in a multi tens of thousands race almost never garner even a half-percent, not being on the ballot; over a full percent is almost unheard of. This was a pretty remarkable effort by a lot of dedicated volunteers, and my best wishes out to Mark, Heidi, and all of their supporters in their future endeavors.
One last thing- there has been some personal mud slung about here, and Quintin Reece has caught some of it. Now I’m probably as guilty as anyone of getting a chuckle or two out of this man’s extraordinary zeal but there are a couple things that need to be said: First of all the man is one smart cookie as his pair of masters degrees imply, even if knowing when to speak up and when to hold the peace might not be right atop his list of personal strengths. Nevertheless you can’t help but admire the guy’s zeal and appreciation for what it means to be an American citizen. Wish I could bottle up a bit of what Quintin has (I said a bit, mind you-) and pour some of it into each and every complacent American who takes their country and their rights for granted despite their ongoing erosion. We’d all be better off for that.
In fact if I had to make a stand in a political dogfight with the country’s future directions on the line, reaching into SD16 I could do a whole lot worse than having gentlemen like Mark & Quintin on either side. They’re not the sort of men you’d have to keep an eye on or worry about in the face of prevailing political winds. You know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they’ll stand their ground in the face of the storm.
Ken, The whole thing was a joke. It was kicked off by 20 minutes of Paul Vollkommer telling one of his tales of hear say. No facts, Just Bull!
Quintin? Two Masters? Doesn’t he paint for a living?
From (Princeton Union-Eagle,2008):
Looking at business, Reece, a painter himself, said he favors new business in Baldwin, so long as it is the right type of business, one that will come and keep Baldwin’s identity.
“The people must decide what to preserve in Baldwin,†Reece said. “Do they want section eight housing? No they don’t.â€
Reece said he won’t support any business that leads to section eight housing, nor will he support any business that leads to increased crime or diminishes Baldwin’s identity.
Ken, if I were Mark Olson, I’d be ashamed of every one of those 1500 or so votes he got in the general election. Those were, by and large, Republican votes; votes the Republican on the ballot needed to win! They, like you, seem utterly unconcerned SD16 is under DFL control. I don’t understand that! Then again, my motivation for political involvement is conservative representation. I know it’s not the same for everyone.
I’m sure then you’d also tell each of those voters they should be ashamed of those votes. I’m telling you where the shame lies- It lies in telling any voter or candidate they should be ashamed of their votes. Shame on you, Clef.
footnote: Quintin holds a masters degree in business administration from Easton College and a masters in missions and intercultural communications from Wheaton College. Source:
http://unioneagle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=894&Itemid=5
for what its worth, such things in no way prevent an individual from preferring to make their livelihood as an entrepreneur in any sort of business, successfully or not- or even driving a bus for the elderly & handicapped while dabbling in independent politics as in the case of Mr. Barkley, despite holding a JD. To each his own.
Ken,
I’ll tell YOU where the shame lies; it lies in putting words in other people’s mouths! Nowhere did I say that voters should be ashamed of their votes! The voters have to live with the consequences of their actions, as those Republican voters will have to be represented with the Democrat they put in office, but I never said they should be ashamed! Mark Olson should be ashamed of duping people into believing he had a chance to win this thing when he knew he didn’t. Mark Olson accomplished his goal; that of derailing the Krueger candidacy and being able to throw his had in the 2010 ring. Mark Olson had no regard for the good of his district or the conservative cause. Mark Olson did this for Mark Olson, plain and simple, and he should be ashamed of it. Don’t put words in my mouth again, asshole!
……and another thing; who gives a crap about how many ba’s, masters or doctorates someone holds? Just look at American academia today; who’s it run by? Who holds and is giving out these degrees? I’ll tell you; the hard left! The holding degrees is a poor reflection of a person’s judgment, and Quintin’s judgment has been found lacking in many circumstances. However, I will say that house painting, or whatever honest endeavor a person chooses to involve himself with is an honorable endeavor. Only the very insecure would criticize that.