Minneapolis / St. Paul Blog

A spate of endorsements for the congressional candidate

As Coleen Rowley creeps ever-so-closer to respectability in this campaign season, a number of folks are suddenly comfortable throwing their weight behind her. The latest round of endorsements this week features a retired general and homeland security expert, along with a host of veterans and families of 9/11 victims.

SCARY CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Jim Walsh recalls his discussions of the ghosts of First Avenue with a few staffers at the Walsh Files.

Sonny Rollins, Velella Velella, and Faggot are just a few of the acts playing this Halloween. Check out Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

What happens if a werewolf bites a vampire? If you have sex with a zombie are you at risk of becoming one? Cecil Adams is the man with the answers at The Straight Dope.

THESE SCARY DAYS

The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007, which was signed by President Bush on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows him to declare a "public emergency," station troops anywhere in America, and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to "suppress public disorder."

An Idaho animal shelter has banned all black cat adoptions from mid-October through Thursday for fear they could be mistreated in Halloween pranks or sacrificed in some kind of ritual.

SCARY MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Max Sparber and Courtney Mault dive into Hollywood make-up artist Dick Smith's how-to book and photograph the results at Max and Courtney Make Monsters.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

SCARY TIME WASTERS

You'll run from the room screaming: Pop tart Mandy Moore singing XTC's Senses Working Overtime [via Shot in the Dark]

Humiliated animals in Halloween costumes

SCARY FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"It's an absolute monster! Maybe I shouldn't have said that. How uncouth of me!"

— Dame Judi Dench, discussing Casino Royale co-star Daniel Craig's penis

On Wednesday--that's tomorrow night for online readers--the CP cover story will be Britt Robson's pre-season interview with the remarkably candid Glen Taylor. Here's a short excerpt, on the subject of last year's trade of Wally Szczerbiak to Boston.

City Pages: What about the deal with Boston? Because I heard different things. I heard Banks was the key to it. Some people were saying the key was Ricky Davis because of his quickness and his ability to play defense and get up and down the floor on offense. But the one that really got to me is that you were trading a center who had an expiring contract, Michael Olowakandi, for a center who has a lot of money owed him for a lot of years down the road, Mark Blount. And Blount's skill set is such that it seems you are going to be asking Kevin Garnett to do a lot of the dirty work of rebounding and interior defense.

Glen Taylor: Yeah, I would say that the trade with Boston was pretty complicated. Even the reasons for doing it.

CP: You mean the friction between Garnett and Szczerbiak?

Taylor: I'm just saying there was probably more to it that had to do with Wally that we have chosen not to talk about--that Kevin has never said and we have never said. I am just going to say that no matter what I say, people are going to deny it. But I would say some things came to a head that forced us to get into something we didn't necessarily want to do. I think it would have been pretty dangerous for Kevin McHale not to do the trade. That kind of thing. And that's all I'll say about that.

Scott Howell, the man behind many of the television ads run this campaign season by U.S. Senate candidate Mark Kennedy, is once again the source of controversy for a spot he produced that many believe is in questionable taste. Specifically, Howell produced the attack ad shown below against Tennessee senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. The supposedly satirical spot includes a scantily clad white woman claiming she met Ford, who is African American at "a Playboy party," and closes with her saying conspiratorially, "Harold, call me." You don't need a poli sci degree to divine the odious racial backlash the spot is designed to stir: Even Ford's opponent, Republican Mayor Bob Corker of Chattanooga, has denounced it. (Text continued following jump.)

Minneapolis novelist Ann Bauer today has a column in the Washington Post describing her efforts to help her 19-year-old son, who is autistic, get a job. It's a fine, bittersweet commentary on trying to navigate life's milestones with a child whose world is ordered a little differently. In one of the most gut-twisting passages, Target rejects the young man because his handicap isn't "visible."

For the curious, here's the result of an internal calculation we do every few months to track our all-time most read web features. (Blog entries aren't counted here, just print features as posted on the web.)

On Saturday the St. Paul Pioneer Press corrected its endorsement of incumbent Rep. John Kline in Minnesota's second congressional district, saying that the endorsement had mistakenly blamed Kline's opponent, former FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, for producing a misleading negative video about Kline. Turns out the video was made by a local liberal blogger, Mike McIntee, who offered it to the Rowley campaign. He says Rowley declined to use the piece, saying she didn't like negative campaigns. The editorial was penned by a conservative blogger, Craig Westover.

The PiPress correction is here. McIntee's account is here. And Westover's blog is here. All three add up to an interesting glimpse into the paper's endorsement process.

Then again, maybe it's a simple case of a couple of partisans going overboard in favor of their causes.

CITY PAGES BLOGS AND NEWS

Read about Mac Hammond's latest endorsement at American Idle.

Lousy traffic, tweaking piemakers, crappy tippers, drunken fratboys, and explosive diarrhea combine to engineer one of the worst nights Pizzaman has experienced on the Streets of Pizza.

Ward Sutton and the GOP try to scare up some votes at Sutton Impact.

GWAR, James Blunt, and Meg Tilly are just a few of the acts around town tonight. Check Chuck Terhark's City Planner at Culture To Go for a complete itinerary.

Timberwolves open thread at Balls!

THESE DAYS

A Kansas woman was cited in connection with campaigning illegally for having an anti-GOP bumper sticker on a car she parked near a mall that doubles as a polling place during elections.

For the first time, women in India have legal protection against sexual, emotional, or verbal abuse in their own homes under a law that went into effect last Thursday.

MINNESOTA BLOG OF THE DAY

Liz is a St. Paul school teacher blogging about Iowa, enormous bunny statues, and alley flowers, using a plethora of photos at Liz-On-Line.

[Minnesota-based blog directory]

TIME WASTERS

This cat is the crappiest DJ I've ever heard

Family Guy spoofs Law & Order

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

"I think it will traumatize the United States more than it will foreign nations who, to some extent, don't have a centuries-old concept of equating black with negativity."

— Rev. Cecil "Chip" Murray, longtime leader of L.A.'s First African Methodist Episcopal Church and a producer of the film Color of the Cross, which features a black Jesus

Students of Minnesota politics may remember that state Rep. Matt Entenza and his wife, healthcare exec Lois Quam, made headlines during the 2004 election season for shelling out some $600,000 in political contributions. (Serious political junkies will also recall that $300,000 of that went to a Democratic political action committee that was subsequently fined $317,000 for not having it's t's crossed--a little dustup that drew attention to the donation, which was on the up-and-up.) Entenza, of course, was then positioning himself for a run for state Attorney General. That effort collapsed in July after Entenza admitted conducting a background investigation on current AG and gubernatorial hopeful Mike Hatch.

It's easy to make sport of Michele Bachmann, the state legislator who says God told her to run for the U.S. Congress, remains skeptical about global warming, and is best known for her opposition to gay marriage. By contrast, Bachmann's opponent, Patty Wetterling, entered political life as a powerfully sympathetic figure who had a son go missing nearly 20 years ago and has worked tirelessly to prevent the same from happening to other parents.

One would think Wetterling and her supporters would favor an honest, positive, issues-driven campaign. Nope. Apparently a sterling personal resume and fortuitous circumstances aren't sufficient. The ways in which Wetterling and her supporters have campaigned over the past six weeks stink to high heaven. Last week, a field organizer attempted to infiltrate the Bachmann campaign with a deceptive email, and was properly fired. Back in September, Wetterling produced an ad that took Bachmann's tepid support for a national sales tax totally out of context, not mentioning that the tax would replace many other taxes, and closing with the snide comment that Minnesota can't afford a politician like Bachmann.

More recently, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ran another ad that, if anything, was more cynical and deceptive than the sales tax attack. Using a single vote Bachmann made on an omnibus crime bill in the Minnesota Legislature (credit to Eric Black's blog, The Big Question, for that reportage), the DCCC ad paints Bachmann as soft on sex offenders and meth production near children. In fact, as Black reports, Bachmann had earlier voted for Republican-sponsored crime bills that provided tougher penalties on sex offenses than the bill that eventually passed the Minnesota House and also voted to criminalize meth production in places near children. Bachmann voted against that final bill because the DFL majority had laden it down with so many non-crime spending items.

Michele Bachmann's candidacy is likewise a textbook example of political nastiness and distortion--but Wetterling and her supporters are certainly doing their share when it comes to debasing the political discourse. If Wetterling can't beat Bachmann without unfairly labeling her opponent a big spender who is soft on crime and punishment issues, then she's just another pol willing to say or do anything to get elected.

Here's the DCCC ad, and below it a link to the Wetterling campaign's ad.

See Wetterling's national sales tax ad