Pat Anderson’s departure from the MN Republican Governor’s battle for 2010 is not surprising. Right now you have 2 people managing to stay in front of the (announced) pack with Reps.  Emmer and Seifert. Add to that the specter that the powerbrokers, establishment, and careerists don’t seem to be comfortable with a rock ribbed conservative being selected from the grassroots process, and well, the draft Norm movement is enough to make people like me lose faith in the whole system.

Anderson is going from the crowded Guv field to the cozy Auditor race. She’s up against 2 others in that one now. One with experience in the Auditor’s office, albeit not top watchdog as Anderson has, and Rep. Severson. [Correction: Severson is running for Secretary of State. Jeff Wiita who works in the Auditor's office and Randy Gilbert are also in the Auditor mix] [[UPDATE: Tom Conlon emailed to point out I had left him out. Maybe the Auditor's race is as messed up as the Guv one is. ]] As the former incumbent she’s going to become the instant front runner. But again, she did lose this seat in 2006 badly. She wasn’t alone, but losing an election statewide is not easily forgotten. (more on that in a bit with Norm )

I’m guessing that the fundraising wasn’t going as planned and that Anderson’s support will be going to Emmer. As for Sen. Hann, well, it is probably a matter of time. I think Hann is a great voice for conservatism, has done heroes work in the minority Republican Senate group, but his name ID and reputation are not there yet. it is a great reputation, but not widely known yet. Another term or two in the Senate, hopefully as Minority Leader and who knows, retaking the majority in the Senate would be a fantastic feather in the cap of a 2014 or 2018 candidate for GOP Guv. Hann has a future in the party, I just think he is a role player in this one. I hope he takes a run at Leadership for the Senate GOP and helps polish the messaging and effectiveness of that group with new fresh faces and passion.

Unfortunately the 800 pound RINO in the room is now Norm Coleman. What many had feared is playing out. The 6 figure country club donors and power brokers of the MNGOP loathe a principled limited government conservative like Emmer or the grassroots aware Seifert. They can’t control those guys, well one for sure. They can’t make a call and put an end to the no new taxes or fees, as they see it, “non-sense”.

2010 is going to be he battle for the heart and soul of conservatism in Minnesota. It is going to be the big government liberal populist squishy fair weather Republicans vs the working men and women in the GOP, the principled conservatives who are Republicans because of the issues.

Norm Coleman was not the worst Senator out there, and not the enemy of conservatism. The problem was that he was not a reliable ally for conservatives. Far too often we found our selves having to work to keep Norm honest to the base. We had to sweat out the 80-20 Republican-conservative test. You know, if you agree on 80% of the issues, then why can’t we get along….. Well, when the 20% that you don’t agree on is the agenda at hand, well, that ends up being weighted far more then the 80%. That is something the lemmings and I will never see eye to eye on.

If Norm is vain enough to think that politics can’t possibly go on with out his face in the spotlight it will be a death blow to the Republican Party this cycle. Norm Coleman lost the 2008 …. sorry – Norm Coleman had the 2008 US Senate election stolen from him because he abandoned his base. Had he maintained his “80%” credentials, he would have not seen so many conservatives vote Barkley or none of the above. More importantly, they would have worked for his reelection. His margin would have been outside the margin of ACORN … sorry – “absentee counting error” and he’d still be Senator Coleman.

He has yet to accept that part of the defeat. that it could have been avoided. If it isn’t close, they can’t cheat. I think some guy wrote a book n that once. And until he does accept and embrace that, he will never regain the trust of the machinery that gets Republican campaigns off the ground and ready for the battle to the finish line at the ballot box.

That is the error in thinking of the MNGOP leaders and elites. They think dollars drive campaigns. They think smarmy ads, quota based voter IDs, and following poll trends is all that is needed. They think paid interns and staffers are more important than passionate volunteers (and that may because volunteers have been fewer and farther between of late).

Over the culmination of this blog I have gone into that flawed strategy many times, so I won’t get long winded ( I know, too late) now. But the key is that the Republican party needs people out there spreading the message and highlighting our policy advantages over the left every moment of the day. Not a top down go make this many calls and follow this scripted gameplan approach. I know that is against conventional and professional wisdom, but how have those professional’s advice been working out?

The key is a passionate, engaged, and satisfied army of activists who proudly support the party and candidates every waking moment of the day. Not just when we do those dreadful and annoying phone banks, but when we are at the grocery store and hear some lefty talking points being floated as virtue or at a city, county, or school board meeting where the question of how much is enough is not even considered. I used to live and breathe politics, I never backed down from a debate or opportunity to educate a stranger, but I have lost the desire to defend this party for a number of reasons. And I know I am not alone.

The perfect example of why Norm Coleman will be a 3 time loser (if he chooses to enter in 2010) in Statewide major elections is the Amnesty debate a couple years back. Bush, McCain and the Senate Republicans (don’t forget they had the majority) were going to pass “Comprehensive Immigration” Amnesty, and Norm Coleman was on board before he wasn’t. It was thousands and thousands of conservatives and proper thinking independents that had to melt the switch board to his office to pull him back from the edge of the Potomac insanity.

He was never truly humbled by that and when the TARP vote came up, and he refused to listen to the advice that if he voted yes that not only would he lose, but he’d take other lower ticket Republicans with him, long story short, Norm Coleman lost the race because he lost his base.

Now that is something that top of the ticket Republicans and the party higher ups have been foolish enough to pay someone to tell them in the past. Tony Fabbrizio is a highly paid moron – I mean pollster – who helped craft that losing strategy the last few cycles in MN. As far I as know, the attitude of take your base from granted is still the modus operandi down on Park Street and RNC. I mean look, Norm clearly hasn’t learned a damn thing. If you heard his response when questioned in St. Cloud by an activist who told him to stay the heck out. Well, Norm is still not listening to the base, but rather lecturing us.

If Norm Coleman gets into the GOP endorsement battle and fails to drop out after fairly losing the endorsement, it will counter all the overreach, power grabs, and out of control spending by Obama and the DC Dems which woke up the public to exactly what kind of change this change was. It would also be a wedge between the tea party movement and the MNGOP. The advantage for the right in MN due to the ill will towards the incumbent party will be erased singlehandedly by Norm’s refusal to accept that we don’t need Norm as much as he needs us.

Movement conservatism and the notion of American government in general is supposed to be about the people not the individuals. The ideas are supposed to matter more then the face on the lit pieces. 230+ years ago, they wanted to make George Washington King of America and he said no.

He said no because he knew that the country was not about a person, a single person could not make this American Experiment work, the people could. It wasn’t what the government could do, but what the people could do. Now if Norm was a guy who would champion getting Government out of the way and let free men and free markets decide, a Government that unless specifically laid out in the Constitution, is powerless to rule over its citizens, with state’s rights, not string laden federal matching funds and mandates …… well, that ain’t Norm’s bag now is it?

If Norm Coleman is stupid enough to think that he needs be made king, it will cause a fissure in the MN right and there will be a 3rd party candidate who will get a majority of the conservative vote. I don’t mean that as a threat, but rather as a statement of fact. Norm will play the role of Roger Moe from his last failed gubernatorial bid, that is 3rd place.

Sit down and enjoy your family and life Norm. We appreciate the 80% from the past but just can’t get past the 20%.

We have 1 hell of a fine candidate in Tom Emmer who is exactly what we need right now to save this state. What the career politicians, bureaucrats, Democrats, and big government liberal Republicans want to do is move this state even closer to the California model. More spending and government take over and control of people’s lives. Well, it doesn’t work. The proof of that philosophy is already being proven a failure by Arnold in California.

Emmer is a guy who understands that. We don’t need to make him understand that, he knows it.

Please Norm, for the sake of the 80%, just say no and at least pretend to support the real conservatives in this party. All your waxing poetically about how you choose not to listen to your critics is not helping you, but more importantly you are undermining the entire Republican Party and conservative movement in this state. You should be ashamed to be that arrogant, but then again, I know the kind of people that you take advice from and what they think of people like me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under 2008, 2010, A.R.O.R.A., Coleman vs Franken, Franken, It's The Spending Stupid, Know Thy Enemy, Lunacrats, MN Governor, MN US Senate, MNGOP Reform, Minnesota, Minnesota Attorney General, Minnesota Secretary of State, Minnesota State House, Minnesota State Senate, National, National Obamanism, Politics, Redistributor In Chief, T.R.A.P, Take Your Cob and Shove it, War on Terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.