9 posts tagged “politics”
What happens when you ask Minnesotans to weigh in on an issue like the reopening of the I-35W Bridge? You get some pretty good stories.
For a few years now, Minnesota Public Radio news has gone
out to hundreds of you and your neighbors, asking for help to report and
understand issues in the news. It’s called our Public Insight Network.
We’re asking a fairly straight-forward series of questions around the opening of the new bridge: How did you use the span before it collapsed… and how might you use it now? We’re also trying to find out if alternate routes (or means of travel) during the construction of the new bridge have become permanent.
Add your two cents by clicking here for a short survey.
Some in the Public Insight Network have already weighed in – and it’s hardly a surprise that many plan on resuming use of I-35W when the bridge opens. Others who used the bridge before the collapse say they will pass on it now, like a Roseville law professor who will stick to her new bus routine.
Others are uneasy about the span. A Minneapolis man said he’ll use the new bridge only after it’s been in use for “at least a week to a month.” A Minneapolis woman who was a first responder to the tragedy said she’s not sure if she’ll drive across it. “I cringe each time I see the work trucks on it,” she told us.
Then you have your unique views. A commuter by bike and one who prefers strolling to work say they look forward to safer, saner car-less commutes as the new span reduces traffic on other roadways. Then there is a man who said he was initially inconvenienced by the detours… until he started to learn about the Twin Cities during his travels on alternate city roads. “It expanded my personal map of the Twin Cities,” he said.
We should all be so open to new experiences.
So what’s your take? Let us know.
You came to us in May... that big bounty from our government. You were to find a home in the purchase of, say, video cameras and iPods, maybe Gameboys for the kids.
But we didn't find those things in our house. And we began to worry. Where was ol' economic stimulus check? Were you lost? You had come into our home with such high hopes and a promise to keep the good times rolling. Now we couldn't find you.
Imagine the relief when we finally figured out where you had gone. A note from the bank that told us that our escrow account didn't come close to paying off the local tax bill -- that's where you were you sneaky little eco-stimulus check.
The little trickster.
You were in there in the taxes that pays the city that has complained about being starved by the state's cutback in funds and the federal government's indifference. And those taxes that pay for the schools, which have been ordered by the feds to make sure the kids pass those tests (you know, No Child Left Behind and all).
This was the second time in the last six months that escrow had to be bumped up to cover such things. But eco-stimulus was now around, able to help.
Now you were found, or at least most of you. Pieces of you could also be spotted in the 40 percent increase in a pound of apples, the nearly $4-dollar-plus gallon of milk, not to mention the gas. Oh that's where a lot of your eco-stimulus brothers and sisters are tucked away, huh.
It's funny, the folks in Washington who gave birth to you and your buddy checks thought you'd be in shiny new toys and trinkets, maybe even part of new car down-payments... you know, boosting the economy.
But that's just like a kid... they have their own mind don't they.
Instead of big time purchases, little eco-stimulus check, is hiding in the places that are keeping us afloat.
We appreciate it.
I wonder if the Washington folks feel the same.
Man, has the phrase "there are no guarantees" ever been more true?
Each day comes a new story about jobs that are going away - and that our comfortable lives are in a bit more in peril. From airline workers to barristas to health insurers.
Does this feeling of economic quicksand under our feet make us want to call out for help, stretch out our hand for the sure grip of someone with the power to pull us free, brush us off and send us on our way.
Are we gravitating to some hero to save the day?
Look at our presidential race. Sen Barack Obama, some believe, is an orator who will inspire us all to join hands and provide comfort and a boost to lagging economic fortunes. His speaking skills will urge us to find solutions to these perilous times and drive us to pick up our faltering brothers and sisters when the axe falls.
Yeah, right say the anti-Barack-istas. This is just a glib, slick-talking politician with a sharp-looking mug who will dazzle us enough so he gains enough votes to get into the White House. And, they'll pose, hasn't Obama proved that with his campaign finance pledge change-up.
We need a seasoned steady hand who has endured before and will help us endure now, say the backers of Sen. John McCain. He's a war hero, a POW who held up under years of confinement at the hands of the enemy. And, by God, say the McCain-ites, he's bucked his own party from time-to-time.
Really, counters the un-McCainiacs. He's embraced his party's platform like a mama hugs her college boy at Christmas break. And, if McCain were really secure in his military credentials, would he get so steamed when asked if they qualify him for the presidency.
And yet, the times they are a straining... and someone out there has got to right the wrongs?
If not those guys, what do we do?
Maybe we put out an ad in the paper... seek someone who can fill the bill and be the savior.
Just watch out for the stampede of applicants, looking for some kind of job.
If you live in the Twin Cities
– and those harsh winters – you feel
some gratitude for the skyway system.
In St. Paul, they are vast and can get you around a fair chunk of the downtown area.
And there are plenty of places around these skyways to get a bite to eat, a haircut, a cup of coffee, a last-minute gift for a spouse (not that I’ve ever done that mind you… no).
But these skyways of St. Paul – as colleague Bob Collins of NewsCut put it a few months back – are not exactly screaming “vibrant.”
Not by a long shot in some sections.
Collins wondered then what the Republican convention-goers might think of the vast unused space. Apparently he’s not alone.
Another colleague, MPR reporter Laura Yuen reported last week, that city business leaders are coming up with a plan to give short-term leases (as little as a week) to house their business in an empty space. Matt Anfang, president of the Greater St. Paul Building Owners and Managers Association, told Yuen that the plan will help make downtown look more alive during the convention.
But another Chamber of Commerce official bristled at the notion that the effort is an attempt to make it look like downtown is more bustling that it really is. Some in the story said maybe this would be the entrée some business owners need to stick in the skyway space long after the convention has left town.
No one doubts that the idea to have these unused spaces
filled for the convention makes sense.
But do we really need to have any other justifications (it could get the skyways more business, for example)?
Should city business leaders really feel aghast that one
might suggest the effort is simply away to dress up the very dormant
skyways?
At least those spaces can be worked on.
Other spots in the skyway leave you wondering.
How, for instance, could city leaders possibly explain the atrophied escalators in the Town Square area of the skyway complex.
They once led to an indoor park, a great idea for those
winter months, but one that couldn’t be sustained by city.
How do you dress those up?
Maybe an answer is forthcoming.
But there should be no reason for anyone in St. Paul to runaway from the idea that we want to make the downtown look as presentable as possible for the Republican convention. And if five-day leases in the skyways helps, fine. No need to make them out to be anything more than a quick makeover.
You most likely won't know the name, unless you hail from New York (upstate NY in particular).
But you will recognize the makeup of the man. He's the CEO who tries to corner the market, the weekend softball player who slides into second with his spikes up, the political operative who views a victory as everything - whatever the cost.
Let me tell you a little more about this man - Steve Minarik, who has just been ousted from his long time position as the Republican political leader in Rochester, New York.
He grew up a Rochester, New York guy, in the old Polishtown side of the city. His dad dabbled in a number of businesses and was described by the son as stubborn... driven. Steve was an unathletic, overweight kid who compensated by being loud and brash.
He got into politics and, straight out of college, worked for the Monroe County N.Y. Republican Party (Rochester's county). He rose fast because the party was scuffling. By age 32 he was effectively in charge of the party. That was 1992.
He built a fundraising maching at the county GOP headquarters. And he used a hammer to get contributions.
He used the money to demand loyality from Republican candidates, and eventually GOP officeholders. He built winning Republican candidates on the county level -- often by spending plenty on ads. And those ads could be hard-hitting.
On the local level, last-minute mailing would arrive that would often aim at Democratic candidates and the party, like the one on immigration late in Minarik's career.
He cultivated an attack dog image, he seemed to revel in it.
I was a poltiical reporter for Rochester's newspaper during many of the Minarik years. The paper assigned me to write a profile of him about seven years ago. (I can't find a link, sorry). The article was steeped in Minarik's brashness -- he idolized Dale Earnhart (the intimidator)... he had posted in his office a quote from basketball coach Pat Riley - "There's winning and then there's misery."
The article started like this:
Stephen J. Minarik III reclines on a coach in his living room and talks about winning. "It's not about how you play the game. It's whether you win or lost that counts," the chariman of the Monroe County Republican Party said matter-of-factly.
As his wife, Renee, plays on the floor with their 2-year-old daughter, Minarik shifts from political elections to board games.
"I don't lose in Monopoly. I beat the kids," he say referring to Stephen IV, his 9-year-old son from a previous marriage.
"I told him 'Couldn't you let your son win once?' We're talking about Candyland here," Renee says, referring to the preschool board game.
"And what happened with him?" he asks. "Is he competitive or what?"
"He has the same attitude," she says.
"The same drive," he replies.
Frankly, at the time, I could relate. I had a rough-around-the-edges dad who loved me ... but wanted to make sure he prepped me for getting ahead. He played sports like a man possessed -- out to win. I picked up on that. It built my drive.
But as time moved on, I began to question the win-at-all-costs mentality in myself. But you saw it all the time in the politics of the day. Minarik wore it like a shiny suit of armor. And the party won in Rochester and Monroe County beating a Democratic Party there that had no coherent message regularly.
What to what end? The hard principles were obscured by the hard politics. Why strive when it only amounts to a chalk mark for the winning team. What else was there. Minarik called himself a conservative, but it was hard to see governance that put this into play.
What about waging a principled battle - and going down to defeat.
That would mean failure. Oh sure, we're all told that failure is nothing to shy away from - it gives us valuable lessons. And we're told that it's the journey, not the finish line. But American culture has shunned the loser, the failure. So what are we left with? Just win baby (right Al Davis).
Minarik did fail, however. He took over the New York State Republican Party just as their standard-bearer, Gov. George Pataki, was getting out. Minarik applied his style to the state level. It did nothing to stop the slide. He was shoved aside just two years on the job (holding down both the county and state rolls).
His ouster this past week as chairman of the Rochester region Republicans was predicated on the need for a softer, more collaborative Republican Party.
And, of course, my first thought was softer and collaborative is not Steve Minarik.
Then I thought about how Minarik suffered a stroke in 2001 (soon after that profile of him ran actually). I recalled the lesson of his life I had begun to learn -- winning at all costs is no life at all.
But here's the thing about this man. He also freely talked about how his kids meant everything to him back then. He did soften up -- at least for a moment. And then I looked at that profile again and there was this line. He said political foes took him too seriously and that they knew nothing about him. "I'm not the hard-edged, son-of-a-bitch they make me out to be."
I could believe that. He probably wasn't. He just played an SOB on TV (and the papers, and the radio and anywhere else that would get an audience of more than two).
He played the role because it solidified power, even if he was more than that attack dog.
But maybe now Steve can take off that suit of armor, stop playing the heavy and get something more out of life than just winning.
Let's hang onto to that lesson a bit.
Al Franken should take a seat with someone about the recent poll numbers that came out of Quinnipiac University.
It says that here in Minnesota, the man heading the Democratic ticket, Barack Obama, is up by 17 percentage points while Franken is losing his Minnesota Senate race by 10 percentage points.
Not so good. Franken needs counsel, someone who can relate.
He needs a coffee... maybe a lunch... perhaps an all-night bull session with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Why just nine years ago, it was Clinton trying to break into the Senate. Hillary soft-launched her bid n New York on the farm of then-Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Of course,she had to move into the state. She held a listening tour. Then found out Rudy Giuliani would oppose her. Then she learned he wouldn't. Then she got a little-known congressman named Rick Lazio as her foil.
And through it all, Ms. Clinton had one undeniable fact - people knew her and had their minds made up about her. And there were those who were never, ever going to vote for her. Plenty.
No name-recognition building needed for a sitting First Lady. So she spent her considerable campaign money on two things: Maintaining her appeal to those who liked her ... and trying to attract the meager few who were still on the fence.
Clinton spent plenty of time in Upstate New York (read, places outside of the Big Apple). She embarked on trying to show she was no doctrinaire liberal hell-bent on socialized medicine and unwilling to hear from Republicans. No, she would get things done... and do it by working across the aisle.
And it wasn't going to be easy. People forget that when Giuliani was the Republican candidate it was a nip-and-tuck affair. And that was before Rudy became "America's Mayor." Clinton got a break when Giuliani stepped away and a second one when the clearly not-ready-for-prime-time Lazio entered the race.
She won by winning over the more conservative hearts of those outside on NYC, at least as many as could be swayed. It was a remake of sorts.
Franken has clear name recognition. And he clearly has many more people in his state who have made up their mind about him. The poll shows that nearly one in five Democrats jump the aisle and go with Republican Norm Coleman. Can they be swayed?
Franken better find out. He has money - just as Clinton did. What should he do with it. Clinton would probably tell him -- shore up the base. And then remake yourself to appeal to those on the fence.
Clinton could probably tell him what her strategy was to get the centrist, the fence-sitters -- talk about working to get things done. Coleman's already doing that, so Franken's climb might be steep.
And maybe the senator from New York could talk about learning from her own recent strategy misfire. In her 2008 presidential run, she rode the experience horse. And Clinton was overtaken by Obama's message of change by comity.
She could relate that recent lesson, if Al would just pull up a chair at a table with Hillary.
But hurry, Al, get on the former first lady's calendar, before it's too late.
Mr. Lucky's signs (written about in my last post) got me to thinking ...
Just what signs have you seen that stand out... that make you wonder... that say something more about who we are?
American Public Media, my employer, produces everything from news stories for the statewide Minnesota Public Radio network to national programs like Marketplace and Speaking of Faith.
And APM likes to reach out to the public for story ideas and angles. The effort - Public Insight Journalism - is where I toil. We do it a number of ways including survey forms on topics.
So how about this topic - what signs do you see in your day-to-day life that make you pause. We're looking for signs that give not only their overt message, but maybe tell us something more about our current state.
Mr. Lucky's sign surely says something more about our world (especially after the Supreme Court has begun changing gun rights)
So what about you? What are the signs with meaning in your life?
Why not share the story ... maybe to a large audience, and help us get at the state of our society through unique storytelling.
If you're game just click this link. The survey you'll see starts like this....
Sometimes it's the messenger. Sometimes, the message.
But here might be one of the rare times when it's the company messages keep. A sign touting cheap divorces next to one offering to help women get gun training. A sign blasting GUNS at the reader in the middle and a sad tribute to slain officers on the end. And strangely shoved in the middle is a solicitation to find out how "Senator Coleman keeps promises..."
I blocked the number because I'm not into advertising here (feel free to visit if the mood hits you - the signs are in view as you exit I-94 onto Dale Street in St. Paul).
Call the number and you hear a message from "Mr. Lucky," who tells you that the "police can't be everywhere" and offers to help arm you and train you.
Okay, so this relative newcomer to the Twin Cities needs to know who "Mr. Lucky" is.
A quick Google dance explained that this is Maryland "Lucky" Rosenbloom, is a social studies teacher, a paralegal who has run for state office. He's also a conservative African-American with a radio program who also pens newspaper columns locally and, apparently, has written a book.
Perhaps the best accounting comes from Gov. Tim Pawlenty announcement of Lucky Rosenblooom and four others to the Council on Black Minnesotans done last May. Maybe others with a longer MN background know more about him.
Five signs on a chain-linked fence pulled me in. "Mr. Lucky" indeed.
Some of them carried a message. None were subtle.
Just in case the Obamacons or Obamites or Obam-bams (or whatever they're called) think they'll have a cakewalk this November, remember the red side
And now for the "avert-your-eyes-if-easily-offended" alert.
There was plenty of the who is more macho sentiment flowing at the car show. From the garb to the slogans on said garb. And there were plenty of devils or skeletons with middle fingers raised.
But the tail-end of this car below truly wanted to convey the spirit of,well, testosterone. If there were a doctor in the house, surely he would have made the vehicle cough, no
And just for kicks, one more shot of the kid in the gleam of the day. Honestly, for all the excess, the two of us did have a pretty good bonding moment.
