Luke Hellier Out, Andy Post and Ryan Lyk in at Minnesota Democrats Exposed

Former John Kline staffer Andy Post is one of two new bloggers for MDE.

University of Minnesota alumnus Andy Post and Ryan Lyk, currently a student at U of M-Duluth, took over the blog yesterday, succeeding former author Luke Hellier.

Hellier, a former Bachmann campaign staffer who took over the site from Michael Brodkorb last year, made his mark early by posting court documents detailing domestic assault charges against Democratic blogger and former Al Franken campaign worker Dusty Trice as if they were news, which they weren't; and without pointing out that the charges were reduced to to disorderly conduct. (More on that fracas here.)

In late October, as Election Day drew near, he landed in the mainstream media spotlight again for teasing an "active investigation" from an anonymous source into an alleged relationship between gubernatorial hopeful Mark Dayton and a former female staffer.

We did a little digging and figured out that the smear job was a bunch of crap. Fox 9 was so appalled with Hellier's effort to legitimize a story with no hard evidence that they yelled at him about it on TV.

Post and Lyk have already authored a story about the mass exodus of DFLers from their offices following a "crushing, nationally recognized defeat of Minnesota Senate Dems." So they're off to a flying start in the spin cycle.

Post served as a volunteer for U.S. Congressman John Kline and Norm Coleman. He was also a columnist at the Minnesota Daily newspaper (click here for a Daily column).

Lyk was an intern for Michele Bachmann and is currently the Chairman of the College Republicans at U of M-Duluth. He also works for the Statesman, Duluth's student paper (Statesmen column here).