Harold & Urdahl Go To White Castle – MN2010 Getting Nasty – With A Correction
Harrold Hamilton’s Anoka County Watchdog has been a great tool to expose the corruption that is Anoka County Government and the various tentacles in the area. I mean no slight to the broader work done, but I do feel from time to time it is worth pointing out it is not just a straight laced unit, and there’s a lot of Hamilton’s own desires brought to public in his alerts.
This week’s leaves no doubt. In his “Caucus wrap up”, he makes sure to get some Seifert talking points in to tarnish Emmer in regards to fundraising. Now long story short, yes, Emmer didn’t have nearly as good a 2009 in fundraising as Seifert. BUT, and oh boy is this a huge but, Emmer took his, as Hamilton put it, “paltry” $19,000 and put it up against Seifert’s $130,000, and guess what. Emmer managed to close the gap from last year’s straw poll and pulled away from the rest of the pack. Now Seifert needs people to believe Emmer can’t possibly pull this out, and wants fundraising to be on people’s minds, because Emmer clearly has the momentum and Seifert may in deed be peaking. Look, if Emmer can garner 40% of the vote with just 1/6th the money as Seifert’s that got him only 50%, that shows a whole lot more organization and momentum then people like Hamilton are giving Emmer credit for.
But I digress. Later in this week’s update, Hamilton tries to take a shot at an Emmer endorsee. (emphasis mine)
REP. URDAHL RESPONDS
Last week, we reported that sources told us that state Representative Dean Urdahl (R-Grove City) agreed to endorse Tom Emmer for governor because Urdahl thought such an endorsement would appease conservative elements within his BPOU who were unhappy with his moderate voting record and might move to deny him re-endorsement.
We asked Urdahl for a comment on his endorsement of Emmer. Here’s what he said:
“The rumor is not true. I had many reasons to endorse Tom, the prime one being that he would make a good governor.”
It will be interesting to see how Urdahl’s voting record this session will match Emmer’s. We’ll be watching.
What would be really interesting to know is how Urdahl and the other 5 RINOs would have voted on the veto override if they had to answer to Minority Leader Emmer instead of Seifert. (Correction: And emailer pointed out my good. Urdahl did not vote to override. I had him confused because of this little outing he had with Keliher. I believe the spirit of my counter to the Hamilton attack is still valid. Hamilton took a shot at Urdahl for note being a reliable conservative voter, which did take place under Seifert. )
I wonder if Hamilton knows that the really big vote that made Urdahl a well known name in GOP politics happened under his darling Marty Seifert who was Minority leader? Just saying, sometimes when one throws some mud, they hit their allies too.
So in closing, be careful in using your Anoka County Watchdog for your own personal campaign preferences Mr. Hamilton, you may just end up making people lose faith in your broader work. Of course, I am speaking from experience with my own blogging mixing with political opining. 
