In 1994, when he realized he couldn't get the endorsement, he threw his support to state Sen. John Marty against his chief rival for the endorsement, Mike Freeman. A Star Tribune article at the time said Hatch believed Marty would be easier to beat in a primary than Mike Freeman. It worked, as far as knocking off Freeman, who kept his pledge to drop out if he lost the endorsement, but Hatch lost in the primary anyway.

In 2006, after Hatch's protégé Lori Swanson had entered the race for the DFL attorney general nomination, Hatch encouraged former state Rep. Bill Luther to get into the primary field. Luther, who had a previous reputation as a relentless fundraiser and campaigner, entered the race but didn't raise much money and didn't campaign very hard. He received just 21 percent of the vote in the three-candidate field. Most DFLers to whom I talked about it subscribe to the belief that this was another clever but devious Hatch trick. Swanson, who was clearly Hatch's chosen successor, was able to win a close primary over DFL endorsee state Sen. Steve Kelley. The widely accepted theory is that Hatch believed if Swanson was the only woman against two men, she could win. If so, it worked. Swanson was nominated with a 42 percent plurality.

Hatch certainly has friends, allies and admirers. (How else, in spite of his critics, could he have handily won both the DFL gubernatorial endorsement and primary in 2006?)

His work ethic is legendary. No one, not even Hatch, denies the temper, but his friends see it as an excess of populist zeal. They believe Hatch has accumulated critics and enemies because he is a tough fighter...Because so many of the sources I interviewed for this series have developed a dim view of Hatch's tenure as attorney general, I sought out someone who had a lot of dealings with Hatch and was an admirer. I was referred to Jim Bernstein, a former Minnesota commerce commissioner.

He said Hatch had been an outstanding AG and he maintained "nothing but the highest admiration" for him. (In the interest of full disclosure, Bernstein pointed out that he has a contract with the attorney general's office.)

Another source, who worked under Hatch as well as Hatch's predecessor, Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III, put it more bluntly: "Mike Hatch is the last person in the world whose **it list I want to be on. Even when he's out of office, just his presence on the planet. He's a very nasty person. I don't have enough interest in the truth being known to risk anything professionally."

The office of attorney general carries with it enormous discretion to mete out benefits and pain. On the plus side, for example, the attorney general can appoint private lawyers to represent state interests. This includes not only the lucrative state bond work that was referred to in the first installment, but also appointments to handle big cases for the state...On the other hand, the attorney general has near-total discretionary power to prosecute, sue or investigate people, companies and organizations.

Many of those who have left the AG's office express a clear concern that Hatch and Swanson (most of these sources believe that Hatch still has enormous influence over Swanson) will sue or investigate their company or organization, even retaliate against the clients of their law firm, in order to punish them.

They speak as if Hatch (and Swanson) is the kind of junkyard brawler who will do whatever is necessary to make them pay. They speak as if the circles of their acquaintance are littered with the ruined lives of those who crossed Mike Hatch.

So I've been pushing them: Tell me the names of those whose lives or careers were destroyed so I can confirm the details...But the actual damage done to the targets of Hatch's wrath seems minor compared to the level of the fear. Many who left the AG's office unhappy and bitter have gone on to bigger and better jobs and lives. In the most famous cases in which threats of retaliation were made, the threats were not fulfilled. There is a serious disconnect between the facts and the fear.

One of my sources, who also testified to Legislative Auditor James Nobles about his experiences in the office, said that even Nobles encouraged him to think hard about whether he wanted his identity to be disclosed in the auditor's report that will soon be published.

He never yelled at her, although she did witness one of Hatch's screaming, cursing, table-pounding tantrums, and was mostly puzzled by it. "The banging and red-faced crap was all pretty unnecessary," she said. "We were all on the same side" on the matter under discussion and everyone was doing the best work they could. She didn't believe that such displays were the best way to motivate the troops.

She was often puzzled by the Hatch team's insistence on the "lazy staff" explanation for the problems of the office. The people who worked in the office were "hardworking, bright, committed and they were treated as if they were just the opposite," Brendmoen said.

After Swanson's election, Hatch informed Brendmoen that she wouldn't be kept on either as spokeswoman or be offered her old investigator's job back. He offered her a demotion with a 25 percent pay cut. She assumes she was supposed to quit over that, but when she indicated she would think about it (because the mother of three couldn't afford to be unemployed), Hatch told her she really needed to leave.

The first call was to her, at work, from a young man claiming to work for Lois Quam, wife of Hatch's political foe, Matt Entenza. The caller asked Brendmoen to write a post for "the family" on a blog that the union organizers have created. Brendmoen took that call to be an effort to trick her into confirming Hatch's and Swanson's theory that Entenza is behind the union movement. (As far as Brendmoen knows, Entenza and Quam have nothing to do with it, and the answers she gave to the caller would not have confirmed the suspicion.)

The next call was a message left for her new boss. The message, claiming to be "on behalf of Matt and Lois," thanked her boss for allowing Brendmoen to spend company time helping her former colleagues with their union drive. This one, she assumes, was designed to undermine her in her new job. She can't say for sure that Hatch and Swanson were behind the calls, but she found them "threatening and unsettling, but also immature and unbecoming."

On Wednesday, after the first installment of this series had been published, I got a call from another former official of the office who was willing to speak for attribution.

Bob Stanich of Minneapolis was an assistant attorney general for 19 years, spanning the Humphrey and early Hatch years...The two big differences between the two administrations was the "climate of fear" that Hatch brought to the office and the increased level of politicization...
Hatch was the kind of boss who wanted things done a certain way, but didn't want to tell you what it was, Stanich said. "You were supposed to guess," he said, and if you guessed wrong, it could easily blow up in your face. That management style makes everyone jumpy.

This parting anecdote comes from a former department head in the AG's office who was involuntarily transferred out of his supervisory position in late 2006. He was told it was because he wasn't working his staff hard enough. But the woman who took his place told him that she had been sent in to "manage [a particular employee] out of the office." The woman said she was chosen because she had some experience at getting people to leave whom Hatch and Swanson couldn't easily threaten with dismissal.

This particular employee fit that category because he is a former policeman who lost one of his legs, at the knee, in the line of duty. Because of his disability, he has special protection from arbitrary dismissal.

The former cop's injury had been acting up and he had missed a lot of work, although his absences had been approved under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. The leaves were unpaid. When the ex-cop was able to work, the quality of his work was excellent. My source concluded that the bosses were concerned that the absences could create an embarrassment for the office.

He was outraged. Scheming to get rid of a disabled person violates civil rights law, he said, "and bear in mind, this office is responsible for enforcing civil rights laws."

I mentioned yesterday, that the Mengler Report (on AG Swanson's office) was released. For those that have been in a cave for the last few months, AG Lori Swanson hired Thomas Mengler (Dean of Law at St. Thomas University) to investigate the charges of ethics violations in the AG office that had been raised by Amy Lawler (among others).

The Star Tribune touts the report saying it had "cleared" AG Swanson of the charges, but is that really the case? If you actually read the report, the answer is not nearly as clear as the Star Tribune would have you believe. The 3 page Executive Summary goes to great pains to specify that the report only covers one of the charges raised by Ms. Lawler. On that one charge, Mr. Mengler states that he could not find proof that there were ethical violations and that Ms. Lawler was wrong for disclosing "confidential communications" and doing so "diminished the ability of the AG's office" to represent the people of Minnesota . However, it is how Mr. Mengler addresses the other issues that I find to be of greatest interest. Mr. Megler goes out of his way to indicate that he is offering no opinion on any other charges that have been raised by Ms. Lawler and others...that these other charges were "beyond the parameters" of his investigation.

The remaining 16 pages detail out who was interviewed and when and details of the findings. To be sure, Mr. Mengler raises doubt about some of Ms. Lawler's claims, but he does not address any of the other claims that were raised by named and anonymous sources in the Minn Post series of reports. It is apparent that there is much, much more to be said about this story in the days and weeks ahead.

While I certainly meant this to be a series, I never expected it to be a DAILY series....

Today's lesson comes to us from the great state of Florida where they have found a way to make health insurance affordable for the 3.8 million Floridians who do not have access to insurance.

But the Florida reform, which both houses of the legislature approved unanimously, renounces Mr. Obama's favored remedy: It nudges the government out of the health-care marketplace. Insurance companies will be permitted to sell stripped-down, no-frills policies exempted from the more than 50 mandates that Florida otherwise imposes, including for acupuncture and chiropractics. The new plans will be designed to cost as little as $150 a month, or less.

Emphasis mine. The Florida Legislature has figured out something that the Minnesota Legislature needs to figure out. Mandates make things cost more! It's really that simple!

Mr. Crist observed that state regulations increase the cost of health coverage, and thus rightly decided to do away with at least some of them. It's hard to believe, but this qualifies as a revelation in the policy world of health insurance. The new benefit packages will be introduced sometime next year and include minimum coverage for primary care and catastrophic expenses for major illness.

Of course, the defenders of government interference are not happy with this development.

Critics are already saying that, without mandates, the plan won't guarantee quality of care. That's purportedly why the states have imposed more than 1,900 specific-coverage obligations.

However, the WSJ writers give that objection the slashing it so richly deserves.

These government rules are imposed without regard for how much they will cost and who will bear the burden. In practice, the costs are disproportionately carried by lower- and middle-income workers, who already on average have more limited insurance coverage as part of their compensation, or none at all. When prices rise because of mandates, the less affluent are often forced to make an all-or-nothing choice between "Cadillac coverage," which involves just about everything, or going uninsured. In other words, they're prohibited from buying the lower-cost options that might be better suited to their needs.

A great example is from the Logical Household. No one in the Logical Household will EVER need treatment for Tay Sachs Disease or Sickle Cell Anemia. However, because of Minnesota state mandates, our insurance company is required to provide it to us! Now if we were to adopt a Jewish or African American child, that coverage would indeed be necessary, but as free people we should be ALLOWED to make that decision for ourselves! Not have the government decide it for us.

The people of Florida should be proud that their legislature took the biggest step to date in making insurance affordable to those who need it. Will the Minnesota Legislature be the next to make this bold decision? We can only hope!

As I stated in my previous post, Former AG Mike Hatch did send a written response to Eric Black's request for an interview. MinnPost has it posted here, I wanted to pull a couple of exertps out for your review.

I had misinterpreted my secretary's message, and thought that you were with the Rochester Post. I checked around about you and your blog last night. While I am sure that your blog will not publish the report of Dean Mengler, his report raises significant issues not only about Ms. Lawler but also, based on my review of your blog last evening, your own objectivity. At any rate, it is my policy not to interview with bloggers. While I should stop right here, I feel chagrined in having agreed to a telephone interview with the Rochester Post, finding out that in fact you represent a blog called the Minnesota Post, and having raised your expectations of an interview.

So we shouldn't expect to see Mike Hatch granting interviews to Minnesota Monitor anytime soon? It should also be noted that the Former AG's initial accusation (that MinnPost won't publish the Mengler report) was incorrect - they not only published it, they tied it to the string of articles on the subject so that both sides of the story COULD be told! Well, you know what they say about assumptions, don't you...

It was not after I left office, when a small cabal of attorneys attempted to organize a union in the Attorney General office, was any issue raised about my management style. As Attorney General I faced budgetary pressures which resulted in the reduction of the office from 250 attorneys to approximately 160 attorneys. I recognize that, having laid off over 75 attorneys, there are people very bitter with me. This is inevitable. Your cabal of union attorneys, however, does not speak for the Attorney Generals staff. Indeed, over the years I found that the vast majority of attorneys I served with are talented, hardworking, and mission-driven. Most importantly, we got the job done for the people of Minnesota.

The union organizing committee, however, is so weak that it has to resort to anonymity in an effort to give CPR to their comatose effort. Instead of putting their names by their accusations, they hide in the cloak of anonymity looking for any scribner to serve as their hand maiden.

Emphasis mine. Can you really imagine if Joe Business Owner had tried to use this defense if he had been accused of union busting? This is a rhetorical question as I do know the answer....they get taken to court by organizations like the Attorney General's office or the NLRB! Also as much as it pains me (as a card-carrying member of the "vast right wing conspiracy") to do this but I simply must come to the defense of Mr. Black (not that he needs it mind you). Eric Black is not just "any scribner". Black is a 30 year veteran of reporting (mostly politics) for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

This letter is a look at the hubris that lies at the root of the matter. It all comes back to this quote from the main story...

A long-serving attorney, still in the office, said that, under both Hatch and Swanson, "it's a cult-like atmosphere. They demand blind obedience. Nobody's criticism is tolerated."

Nobody's criticism.....not even a 30 year veteran of Minnesota political reporting...is to be tolerated...

MinnPost, more than any other media outlet in the Twin Cities, has come out with yet another bombshell report on the continuing scandal in the Minnesota AG's office.

The recent agonies of the Minnesota attorney general's office under Lori Swanson (an alarming turnover rate in the office, a futile unionization effort blocked by Swanson, a series of allegations that lawyers in the office felt pressured to do things they considered unethical and a preliminary investigation by the legislative auditor, which may be released any day now) are really the latest symptoms of trauma that goes back nine years and starts with two words:

Mike Hatch.

One former assistant attorney general said that when people ask him what he thinks about the turmoil of Swanson's first year, he replies: "Are you kidding me? None of this is new. All of this has been happening since Hatch took over."

Hatch, who is Swanson's mentor, ran for governor three times and was elected attorney general twice as a hard-charging populist. He made his name by his willingness to take on corporations that he felt were victimizing Minnesota consumers. Although his temper was legendary — and may have cost him the governorship in 2006 — his admirers see it as a symptom of his crusading zeal.

But as attorney general from 1999 to 2007, Hatch traumatized the AG's office. His bare-knuckled style tested the boundaries of acceptable conduct, stretching across matters of law, politics and especially the norms of Minnesota niceness. Attorneys and other subordinates describe working for Hatch and Swanson as hellish, featuring verbal abuse and pressure to do things they believed were unethical, and to put Hatch's political needs foremost.

Author Eric Black (formerly of the Minneapolis Star Tribune) interviewed current and former employees of the AG office who were more than willing to "spill" office secrets.

As attorney general, they told me, Hatch was a foul-mouthed screamer and a bully. Some of the former employees described scenes of Hatch yelling, cursing, turning red, calling his subordinates names, pounding his fist on a desk. They said that any reluctance to unquestioningly implement an order could lead to a sudden loss of status with the management, an unwanted transfer, or being called into a meeting and offered a choice between resignation or dismissal.

The sources describe Hatch as quick to suspect political motives behind any disagreement. He also seemed to assume that any small setback, a small mistake made by someone in the office, might spell his political demise. Said one source, who worked with Hatch for years and has now moved on: "Several times I heard him say, 'You may have just ended my career.'" He believed that any mistake could turn into negative publicity from which he could never recover politically."

He also attempted to interview both Hatch and Swanson.

MinnPost had requested interviews with Hatch and Swanson a week and a half ago. Swanson never offered an interview. Hatch, after much delay, agreed to an interview that was to occur this morning. Publication of this article was delayed to meet his schedule, but then Hatch canceled the interview this morning.

Former AG Hatch did, to his credit, send Black a written statement which was posted in it's entirety (which I will comment on in a later post). However the stories of forced resignations and bully tactics are a tale of a pair addicted to power and who feel that they are somehow "owed" the power that they have and crave.

A former deputy attorney general under Hatch recalls getting summoned to the Capitol for a meeting with the boss... As the deputy walked up the big marble stairs (to the Capital Building), he saw Hatch...Hatch was in a rage (my source didn't know why at the time) and started screaming.

"Hatch berated me like I haven't been talked to since my drunk old man did when I was a kid," the former deputy said. "He's poking my chest with his finger. I almost hit him, I almost popped him."

Hatch used the f-word and the mother-f'er variation. He called the deputy and his entire division the "biggest bunch of [f'ing] losers" he'd ever seen. He accused the subordinate of some unspecified betrayal. My source knew not what it was.

He later learned from one of Hatch's top deputies what set off the tirade. Hatch was in the midst of one of several significant purges of the staff. The former deputy had picked up word that one of his subordinates was in danger of getting axed. He confidentially warned the woman to watch her step..the woman confronted Hatch...Hatch...considered the warning to the woman to be a personal betrayal...

...A long-serving attorney, still in the office, said that, under both Hatch and Swanson, "it's a cult-like atmosphere. They demand blind obedience. Nobody's criticism is tolerated."

Black, in his piece, likens the former AG employees who still gather to compare stories to victims of physical abuse. You really need to go read the whole thing. It is eye-opening to say the least.

It's no fun to kick a state when it's down – especially when the local politicians are doing a fine job of it – but the latest news of Michigan's deepening budget woe is a national warning of what happens when you raise taxes in a weak economy.

Her tax plan raised the state income tax rate to 4.35% from 3.9%, and increased the state's tax on gross business receipts by 22%. Ms. Granholm argued that these new taxes would raise some $1.3 billion in new revenue that could be "invested" in social spending and new businesses and lead to a Michigan renaissance.

Officials in Lansing reported this month that the state faces a revenue shortfall between $350 million and $550 million next budget year....Six months later (after the budget was enacted - ed) one-third of the expected revenues have vanished as the state's economy continues to struggle. Income tax collections are falling behind estimates, as are property tax receipts and those from the state's transaction tax on home sales.

Michigan is now in the 18th month of a state-wide recession, and the unemployment rate of 6.9% remains far above the national rate of 5%. Ms. Granholm blames the nationwide mortgage meltdown and higher energy prices for the job losses and disappearing revenues, but this Great Lakes state is in its own unique hole. Nearby Illinois (5.4% jobless rate) and even Ohio (5.6%) are doing better.

The tax hikes have done nothing but accelerate the departures of families and businesses. Michigan ranks fourth of the 50 states in declining home values, and these days about two families leave for every family that moves in. Making matters worse is that property taxes are continuing to rise by the rate of overall inflation, while home values fall. Michigan natives grumble that the only reason more people aren't blazing a path out of the state is they can't sell their homes. Research by former Comerica economist David Littmann finds that about the only industry still growing in Michigan is government. Ms. Granholm's $44.8 billion budget this year further fattened agency payrolls.

We are faced with some sobering realities:

* Between 1990 and 2007 Utah experienced a 47.5 percent increase in population growth.

* During that same period of time, travel on Utah roads, measured in vehicle miles traveled on our roads (VMT), increased 78.5 percent.

* During those same years the State added only 4.2 percent more capacity to the highway system to accommodate this explosion of growth.

So what does this mean? In a word: congestion.

To exacerbate the problem:

* Since 2000 UDOT construction costs have increased 91 percent. In fact, recent reports show that steel has increased again by another 30 percent in the past few weeks alone.

* Funding for transportation was raided beginning 2001 when we experienced a downturn in the economy in order to keep public education funding whole. It took the legislature several years to bring funding levels back to pre-downturn totals. But demand for roads and the cost of construction outpaced our capacity to meet the demand several times over leaving us far behind.

So what steps have we taken without raising taxes?

* We looked internally for other funding options within existing budgets. We found that between 10 to 20 percent of the revenue from sales tax within the state came from auto related sales (car sales, tires, oil changes, etc). Many of us in the Legislature felt that these tax dollars should be earmarked for roads and so we pushed legislation through to capture this money. It is in place today.

* We are looking at ways to focus economic development in areas where the transportation system in unbalanced. In Northern Utah I-15 is a log jam southbound to SLC in the AM and the opposite in the afternoon leaving half the system underutilized. When placing incentives for economic development we, as a legislature, need to be conscious of balancing the transportation system and encouraging job growth closer to where people live.

After spending most of the month trying to paint John McCain as having a lobbyist problem, Barack Obama’s chief strategist David Axelrod may have been hoist by his own petard. His consulting firm turns out to do lobbying as well, and in some shady ways:

When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a “California-style energy crisis” if the rate increase wasn’t approved—but without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. “It’s corporate money trying to hoodwink the public,” the state’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice then—but may soon get more scrutiny—is that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama.

Barack Obama continues his quest in demonstrating just how feckless he can be on foreign policy. Once again, he talks about how terrorists should be isolated in one breath while demanding presidential-level engagement with their financiers in the next.  Jake Tapper had a difficult time keeping pace with the shifting rhetoric over the space of just two days:

More recently, Obama as he traveled through Florida seemed to give some contradictory statements about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and the Colombian terrorist group FARC.

On Thursday Obama  told the Orlando Sentinel that he would meet with Chavez and “one of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about.”

OK, so a strong declaration that Chavez is supporting FARC, which Obama intends to push him on.

But then on Friday he said any government supporting FARC should be isolated.

“We will shine a light on any support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments,” he said  in a speech in Miami. “This behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional isolation, and - if need be - strong sanctions. It must not stand.”

So he will meet with the leader of a country he simultaneously says should be isolated? Huh?

First off, I hate to correct a man who ran the Harvard Law Review on vocabulary, but the proper word is fomentation, not fermentation, unless one wants to start marketing Anti-American Sentiment Beer. Imagine if George Bush had used fermentation in such a context. The media would have a field day pointing out that Bush once belonged to a fraternity! And that he had a drinking problem! It would end up at Slate’s “Bushisms” column within hours.

So one of the many "mom" things I have been dealing with this week is the Junior Logician's viewing of "An Inconvenient Truth" in his 8th grade Science class.  Their science class has been talking about "global warming" for a few weeks now.  Today, the Junior Logician brought home two sheets - one a page for the kids to calculate their carbon footprint and the other a sheet entitled "Reflections on 'An Inconvenient Truth' What Am I Willing To Do??"  I have to admit that I was curious as to how he was going to answer.  While we have never directly talked about the issue, he has heard my radio programs talking about it from time to time.  While several of his answers were spot on, there were a couple of things that I do need to work with him on - mostly taking shorter showers....sewer and water charges being what they are and all.  The one answer that I did get a chuckle out of was his answer to the suggested action "Eat Less Meat".  His simple answer to that was a very emphatic "NO!"

While filling out the carbon footprint calculator, he had to ask about certain energy saving appliances that we have in the house.  It was nice because it gave us the opportunity to talk about ALL the reasons for having low-flow toilets and Energy Star appliances (cost savings and energy savings).  It also gave us the opportunity to talk about the pros and cons of things like compact fluorescent bulbs and the like.

Yeah, I could have complained about the propaganda as many conservative parents do.  However, I prefer to use these moments to teach the Junior Logician how to apply critical thinking to the propaganda.  It is a skill that will serve him well over the next few years.

Then, in 2002, dissatisfaction with President Bush and Republicans on the national and local levels led to a Democratic sweep of nearly every lever of Illinois state government. For the first time in 26 years, Illinois Democrats controlled the governor's office as well as both legislative chambers.

The white, race-baiting, hard-right Republican Illinois Senate Majority Leader James "Pate" Philip was replaced by Emil Jones Jr., a gravel-voiced, dark-skinned African-American known for chain-smoking cigarettes on the Senate floor.

Jones had served in the Illinois Legislature for three decades. He represented a district on the Chicago South Side not far from Obama's. He became Obama's ­kingmaker.

Several months before Obama announced his U.S. Senate bid, Jones called his old friend Cliff Kelley, a former Chicago alderman who now hosts the city's most popular black call-in radio ­program.

I called Kelley last week and he recollected the private conversation as follows:

"He said, 'Cliff, I'm gonna make me a U.S. Senator.'"

"Oh, you are? Who might that be?"

"Barack Obama."

I am not surprised then to see this:

So how has Obama repaid Jones?

Last June, to prove his commitment to government transparency, Obama released a comprehensive list of his earmark requests for fiscal year 2008. It comprised more than $300 million in pet projects for Illinois, including tens of millions for Jones's Senate district.

Shortly after Jones became Senate president, I remember asking his view on pork-barrel spending.

I'll never forget what he said:

"Some call it pork; I call it steak."

On the stump, Obama has frequently invoked his experiences as a community organizer on the Chicago South Side in the early 1990s, when he passed on six-figure salary offers at corporate law firms after graduating from Harvard Law School to direct a massive voter-registration drive.

But, as a state senator, Obama evaded leadership on a host of critical community issues, from historic preservation to the rapid demolition of nearby public-housing projects, according to many South Siders.

Harold Lucas, a veteran South Side community organizer who remembers when Obama was "just a big-eared kid fresh out of school," says he didn't finally decide to support Obama's presidential bid until he was actually inside the voting booth on Super Tuesday.

"I'm not happy about the quality of life in my community," says Lucas, who now heads a black-heritage tourism business in Chicago. "As a local elected official, he had a primary role in that."

Emphasis mine.  Let's just say that reality is much colder...

Obama's aloofness on key community issues for years frustrated Lucas and many other South Siders. Now they believe he was just afraid of making political enemies or being pigeonholed as a black candidate. Lucas says he has since become an ardent Obama supporter.

Obama has spent his entire political career trying to win the next step up. Every three years, he has aspired to a more powerful political position.

He was just 35 when in 1996 he won his first bid for political office. Even many of his staunchest supporters, such as Black, still resent the strong-arm tactics Obama employed to win his seat in the Illinois Legislature.

Obama hired fellow Harvard Law alum and election law expert Thomas Johnson to challenge the nominating petitions of four other candidates, including the popular incumbent, Alice Palmer, a liberal activist who had held the seat for several years, according to an April 2007 Chicago Tribune report.

Obama found enough flaws in the petition sheets — to appear on the ballot, candidates needed 757 signatures from registered voters living within the district — to knock off all the other Democratic contenders. He won the seat unopposed.

"A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career," wrote Tribune political reporters David Jackson and Ray Long. "The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it."

Emphasis mine.  That has long been the local conventional wisdom on Obama....the ruthlessness with which he dealt with anyone who challenged him.  We have only seen glimpses of this during the primary...the RNC would be wise to learn from this - as should the McCain Campaign.  This candidate will talk the talk, but when it comes to "playing nice" he will not walk the walk.

Three years later, in September 1999, Obama was already preparing his first national campaign. He ran for U.S. Congress against veteran incumbent Bobby Rush, a former co-founder of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party.

Rush painted the largely unknown freshman lawmaker as an out-of-touch elitist, and won the 2000 primary by more than 30 percentage points.

You know....when Bobby Rush calls you an "out of touch elitist" you are in deep water.

If you want to know how Barack Obama will handle any dissent from the Democratic ranks during this campaign all you need to do is read the closing paragraphs....

A week after my profile of Obama was published, I called some of my contacts in the Illinois Legislature. I ran through a list of black Chicago lawmakers who had worked with Obama, and was surprised to learn that many resented him and had supported other candidates in the U.S. Senate election.

"Anybody but Obama," the late state Representative Lovana Jones told me at the time.

State Representative Monique Davis, who attended the same church as Obama and co-sponsored several bills with him, also did not support his candidacy. She complained of feeling overshadowed by Obama.

"I was snubbed," Davis told me. "I felt he was shutting me out of history."

In a follow-up report published a couple weeks later, I wrote about these disgruntled black legislators and the central role Senate President Emil Jones played in Obama's revived political life.

The morning after the story was posted online, I arrived early at my new offices. I hadn't taken my coat off when the phone rang. It was Obama.... He said the black legislators I cited in the story were off-base, and that they couldn't have gotten the bills passed without him.

I started to speak, and he shouted me down...I asked if there was anything factually inaccurate about the latest story.

He repeated that his former colleagues couldn't have passed the bills without him.

He asked why I wrote this story, then cut me off when I started to answer.

He said he should have been given a chance to respond.

I told him I had requested an interview through his communications director.

He said I should have called his cell phone.

I reminded him that he had asked me months ago to stop calling his cell phone due to his busier schedule.

Today I no longer have Obama's cell phone number. I submitted two formal requests to interview Obama for this story through his Web site, but have not heard back. I also e-mailed interview requests to three of his top staffers, but none responded.

Maybe he'll call the day after this story runs. I'll get to the office early just in case. And this time I'll have my recorder ready.

Todd Spivak has seen the "real" Barack Obama up close.  The real Barack Obama is a product of the Chicago political machine.  He is a man who quickly figured out how to use the political machine to his advantage.  However, as a product of the machine, you have to realize that the "empty suit" that most people see is not what it appears to be.  It is all part of the chameleon like nature that is necessary to "win at all costs".

Spivak's story is a cautionary tale of what Republicans can expect this fall from the candidate of "Hope and Change".

Gary Gross has a post up on this Doug Grow MinnPost column.Gary does a great job tearing the base premise of the column apart but I do have to add to one comment.  Gary remarks:

...Here’s how Grow finishes his post:

As November approaches, Republicans are trying to understand who they are. Meantime, DFLers are bouncing around the state more robust, and unifed, than they’ve been in a quarter century.

There isn’t any doubt that DFL legislators are unified....

If you watched the floor debates from the last month of the session you would know that the claim of unity is patently false!  Whether the subject was Education funding or property tax relief, there were countless speeches on the House floor from outstate DFL'ers about how the leadership (who are all from metro cities) were overlooking the needs of outstate townships and giving everything to the metro.  If there was any unity in that caucus, it was the unity of fear of the leadership.  The DFL leadership made it clear, through out the session that there would be consequences to voting against them.  When Rep. Mary Ellen Otremba voted initially against the Transportation bill, rumor has it she was told that she would lose her committee chairmanship if she voted against the over-ride.  

Here's a little more from Grow on the "dis-unity" that he says is afflicting the GOP.

Like Tingelstad, Rep. Neil Peterson, a Republican from Bloomington, has felt the wrath of his party for joining the Override Six. He was not endorsed at his district convention, meaning he’ll have to run against a more pure, endorsed candidate in a September primary.

“The leadership in the party has become very conservative,” said Peterson. “It’s caused quite a rift. Next week, they have a (district party) monthly meeting that we’ve always been invited to to discuss how the session went. This year, I’m not invited. Neither is Ron Erhardt. They don’t even want to hear from us.”

Erhardt, from Edina, is another of the Override Six. He’s been representing his moderate district for 18 years but now is pondering whether to try to continue his job by running in the Republican primary or as an independent.

“I’m not sure if this is Ron Paul people or what,” said Peterson. “I just know I don’t pass their test.”

Mr. Grow...shall we talk about Reps. Joe Muellery and Willie Dominguez?  It seems that your unity meme does not apply to them.  You see, like Reps. Peterson and Erhardt, Reps. Muellery and Dominguez were not endorsed by their respective BPOU's this year.  Do you suppose the Ron Paul people infiltrated those BPOU's as well?  Or do you suppose that maybe, JUST MAYBE is it because, like Reps. Peterson, Erhardt et al, these representatives are no longer "representing" their district?

This idea of strict party unity is one of those memes (media themes) that just does not wash when put through the scrutiny of reality.  The reality is that the local party unit decides if their representatives are really representing them and if they are not, it is the local unit's choice whether or not to endorse!  In the case of Representatives Muellery, Tinglestad, Dominguez, Peterson and Erhardt the reality was that the BPOU did not endorse because the member in question was no longer "representing" the district.  It has nothing to do with "party unity" and everything to do with "local representation".

Then again, I realize that local representation is a foreign concept to reporters and elitists like Doug Grow.

An Inver Grove Heights charter school must take "corrective actions" to address concerns about how it handles Muslim prayer in school and after-school religious instruction, the Minnesota Department of Education said today.

In its report, the department raised several issues with Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a public school with many Muslim students, which came under fire this spring for allegedly blurring the line between church -- or in this case, mosque -- and state.

Friends and Neighbors,

 The biggest news item from the State Capitol this week was that the projected budget surplus remained well above the $2 billion mark, even though it dropped a fraction of a percent from earlier forecasts. Earlier this session I explained how "a fraction" in state budget terms can actually be a huge amount of money, and that is true in this case. State economists lowered their surplus projection by $7 million,which to any of us is a fortune. But in terms of a $31.5 billion state budget, it's relative pocket change.

 How will this affect the rest of the session? Probably not a whole lot. The forecast is that we will have just shy of $34 billion to spend, and that is the number we will use to set the state budget. The economists warned that there is still an amount of uncertainty in the economy (witness this week's unexpected fall in the stock market) and we need to be prudent with spending and not leave ourselves in a tough situation if the economy takes a sudden downturn.

May 15, 2008, Anonymous, Minnesota
Katherine Kersten should lose her job because her column is extremely poorly researched, completely lacking any criticism of those in power who hold her narrow and intolerant views, and is invariably divisive to the community. It takes advantage of the Right of Freedom of Speech to perpetuate oppression --time and time again. The Star Tribune can certainly find a conservative columnist who is not so one-dimensionl.(sic)

In response to questions prompted by Katherine Kersen's recent columns on Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy (TIZA), I decided to visit the school myself.

What I learned during a tour late last month is that none of Kersten's concerns that the charter school is promoting religion in violation of a state law that prohibits public schools from doing so is valid.

What I did see was excellent teachers hard at work in the classroom focused on improving student achievement. I saw engaged students of different religious and cultural backgrounds learning reading, math, government and science. I spoke with parents, teachers and administrators who all stressed their high standards for TIZA students.

While an outsider, or someone like Kersten who is trying to validate a predetermined conclusion, might be tempted to brand Tarek ibn Ziyad as an "Islamic School" because it leases space from the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, the school, like other charter schools in Minnesota that lease space from churches, is a separate entity. It does comply with federal law that requires all schools to accommodate a student's right to practice his or her religion. And unlike other charter schools that have faced financial and other administrative challenges, the school was recognized with a 2008 School Finance Award from the Minnesota Department of Education for its "sound fiscal health and financial management policies."

Kersten's reckless journalistic standards have diminished this paper's credibility. Worse, they have threatened the safety of the children and staff at the school, which has been forced to take extra security measures in the wake of recent death threats. While I value a broad range of opinions from a variety of perspectives, I value the facts even more. Kersten's gross distortion of the facts in this case should compel Star Tribune management to ask for her resignation.

REP. MINDY GREILING, DFL-ROSEVILLE; CHAIRWOMAN, HOUSE K-12 FINANCE DIVISION

He says he won't rule out running for U.S. Senate and he repeatedly ripped Franken and Coleman with some very harsh words. He said he lives in Minnesota more than Al Franken and when he wrestled for 30 years in different states he knew he had to pay taxes where he earned the money. He wondered why a Harvard grad like Franken wouldn't know that. Moving on to Coleman, he was angry the Republican Party was using an old wrestling image of him in ads and said he'd like to see some images of a long-haired war protestor from years ago who was Norm Coleman.

This story gets worse and worse every day for Team Franken.

HT MDE