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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Why does this also not surprise me?

Brad Blog is a good site, with one long running focus on voting reform, with Brad Friedman having written for Guardian about the virtue of Minnesota having a paper trail to recount ballots so that the election day claim Coleman had won was disproved, by the facts, proving Franken had won AND that the paper ballots allowed a recount showing the Franken victory. This link.

And prior to that, Guardian carrying Friedman's op-ed expression of hope for integrity and discernibility in recounts prior to the Minnesota recount's beginning; this earlier editorial opinion.

Then, Google helps me find, this link on Brad Blog. With this link over about KOS, something I'd felt a bit of, dislike of the smugness and superficiality and self-back patting. And well said.

This link, it's highly insightful prognostications did not surprise me either.

And things such as ins and outs of New Hampshire politics are no surprise although I do not know exactly what to think, a chief of staff's early exit; here (search "Houle" since there's other stuff), here (neighboring state press coverage), here (all from inside the KOS tent but not aimed outside - and the thread post itself to which this sub-thread attached is purile and unimpressive), and perhaps most expressively, some stood firm when others cut and ran, here - all on the same story with implications in some links on what to make of it.

While I was not there and do not know any of the players, one thing, there was something short of consistently strong party unity then, with Houle a part of the disunity, but party disunity has been known to happen in Minnesota's DFL on occasion, and friendships vs. vendettas a thousand or miles more away, again I have no actual knowledge.

It is arguably baggage to him, then he hones in on Tinklenberg who arguably had baggage, and then onto Mr. Lois Quam [aka Matt Entenza] who only two years ago dropped an AG bid in shame and has spousal and family wealth dependent upon past ties to UnitedHealth Group; called by many one of the most (if not the most) rapacious, disliked and disrespected health insurers - one of the worse of the worst - with such ties being deadly political baggage during these times of seeing the for-profit commercial insurance pack doing all it can whenever it can and wherever it can, to kill publicly wanted and necessary health care reform.

It is interesting that Houle was posting anonymously on KOS in attacking Brad Blog back then - anonymous as to his official position in New Hampshire politics when Brad Freidman was criticizing vote counting methodology there in New Hampshire -- and upon taking the Tinklenberg assignment Houle, this time, conspiciously and publicly severed authorship ties at KOS.

That shows a learning curve, and I am uncritical of people making that kind of change. But it's nonetheless interesting.

Little about Dana Houle surprises me.