I look forward to seeing what UnitedHealth reports to Waxman's committee on Ms. Lois Quam's compensation, 2003 onward, when/if over half-a-mil a year, the threshold level Waxman set in posing the compensation question. That's quite some figure, while so many of the little people [ones Entenza says he cares about] are uninsured or facing coverage difficulties of one kind or another.
So what do you guess Houle will be doing?
Spending all day on the blogs touting Ms. Quam's spouse, or following Mike Hatch around town, on behalf of the Entenza-Quam couple? Seeing where Hatch-owned autos show up parked, that kind of grassroots stuff [or more blacktop than grassroots - depending on where the Hatch family members park]?
Perhaps the Quam-Entenza spouses have given up following Hatch and his hatchlings, this go-round. Will they then have Houle shadowing someone else? Or would he need a license to take campaign money for such employment, and lacking the license, be assigned different things to do?
Dana Houle picks them, he does, and as with Tinklenberg, the first thing he does after going on board is he KOS's them.
Go Dana. Links here and here.
Like Jimi Hendrix and being experienced, this is Dana Houle and being KOSed.
My bet, one thing in this I feel comfortable betting on, Houle landed the job without help from Tinklenberg's main contributors, Jim Deal and family.
Yet, that's only a guess.
I'm not privy to insider info.
I like Mike Hatch. I think there are a lot of good DFL people seeking the endorsement along with Entenza. Several of them will probably abide by the endorsement process. Those primaries dragging onto the eve of the general election - they can hurt whoever it is that wins them - and consume cash best spent unhorsing the GOP this time, as was almost closely done by the Hatch-Dutcher team, but not, with the Hutchinson-Reed ticket drawing votes, and other stuff --- if only ...
_______UPDATE_______
From the Entenza campaign website, here, one brief paragraph among much else, it reads like this, with quite a gap between the quote parts the context at first, then the meat of things:
[...] After graduating from law school with honors, Matt took a position at the Minnesota Attorney General's office. [...]
In 2006, Matt decided to leave the legislature to run for attorney general. In preparation for his campaign, he hired a firm to provide background information on the inner workings of the AG's office. Unfortunately, the campaign became focused on this and other side issues. In the spirit of party unity, Matt withdrew his candidacy.
I suppose hindsight is 20/20 when explaining things, but, the inner workings of an office he'd served in during the 1990's, distinguishing himself, the bio says?
Working there, bringing the lunch pail daily and all, co-worker contact and sharing insights among the lawyers and paralegals, shouldn't that have been enough of a window into "inner workings of the AG's office?"
For an observant person?
Nothing in the bio says he was a slow learner.
And then, exactly what nature of business, what licensed activities were involved, when "he hired a firm to provide background information on the inner workings of the AG's office."
Here's how MDE enjoyed the story the first time around. Can you imagine how the GOP will handle that website bio version? Entenza would have been better leaving it all off the bio, but did not, and the second best thing would have been the unvarnished truth, if any "truth" about the situation was felt necessary for the web page.
If Entenza is the ultimate DFL general election candidate, I will vote for him over what I see in the GOP field, thus far, but a lot of people on the fence will be looking at that "explanation" and stepping off the fence on the other side. Dana, know who you are dealing with.
It's how it is.
__________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Paul Demko, Minnesota Independent, reported,
Houle says that Entenza contacted him within 90 minutes of the announcement that Tinklenberg was shutting down his campaign. In addition, Houle didn’t see any other House races that looked particularly enticing.
“In a sense I’ve done that and I wanted to look for a new type of challenge,” he says. “This is the only race I’d consider running, but for some reason I thought that Matt already had a campaign manager. So things worked out nicely.”
________FURTHER UPDATE________
Entenza hired an out of state firm [from Chicago] but I erred in recalling it as a private detective firm - it apparently calls itself or holds itself out or Entenza held it out as an "opposition research" specialist organ. MPR at the time reported extensive detail (still online) with this sub-headline blurb as a lead-in summation:
DFL Attorney General candidate Matt Entenza says he's horrified and embarrassed by revelations that a Chicago firm he hired dug for dirt on current DFL Attorney General Mike Hatch. A day after Entenza acknowledged he hired Gragert Research to look into Hatch's office, Entenza said he found out the firm also looked into a parking ticket Hatch got three years ago.
Entenza says he didn't authorize the parking ticket request, and will apologize to his fellow Democrat, the party's endorsed candidate for governor. Entenza's Republican opponent says the whole thing undermines Entenza's credibility.
photo from here, not part of MPR's post
......................
MDE back in Sept. 2006 pointed out Entenza misstated the truth when saying the shadowing of Hatch had cost a few hundred dollars, by publishing that it cost the Entenza-Quam spouses $40,000 - with it unclear to me from memory or reporting I could find online whether it was Entenza-Quam personal money or campaign funds used to hire The Shadow.
Lest there's any doubt whether an elephant ever forgets, MDE more recently posted:
MN GOP PRESS RELEASE: “WILL THE REAL MATT ENTENZA PLEASE STAND UP?”
By Ryan Flynn | April 23, 2009
Republican Party of Minnesota Chair Ron Carey today released the following statement after Matt Entenza launched his campaign for governor.
“Matt Entenza’s announcement and rehabilitation tour across the state serve as a mere sideshow to distract from a checkered history of blind ambition culminating in his withdrawal from the 2006 attorney general campaign in disgrace. This record of dishonesty, lack of transparency and power-hungry politics and his inability to be truthful about them makes him completely unfit to serve as our state’s top elected official.”
FLASHBACK: The Record Matt Entenza Wants You To Forget
Entenza Forced To Withdraw From 2006 AG’s Race After Controversy Surrounding His Truthfulness About Opposition Research He Requested. “Democratic state Rep. Matt Entenza dropped his campaign to be Minnesota’s attorney general on Tuesday, one turbulent week after revelations that he paid a researcher to gather information on a fellow Democrat. .. Entenza’s campaign was thrown into turmoil with the revelation that he had hired a Chicago researcher to get information on current Attorney General Mike Hatch, a fellow Democrat.” (Brian Bakst, “Entenza Drops Out Of AG Race,” Associated Press, July 18, 2006)
That's just an excerpt from the fairly harsh GOP screed. You and Dana Houle can read the entire thing at MDE, link again, here.
Finally, and Dana Houle take note of this, from the earlier noted MPR item, italics emphasis added:
Entenza says he didn't know about the parking ticket request until someone showed it to him on the blog MinnesotaDemocratsExposed. He says he doesn't think his campaign manager told him about it a year ago.
Entenza says when Hatch found out about Entenza's research last year, Hatch told Entenza that he should have simply asked for the information instead of using the Chicago firm.
"In retrospect, the right thing for me to do would have been to go into Mike's office and ask to sit down and talk to his budget person and what have you," said Entenza. "I thought it would be easier just to get some copies of reports. Apparently it would have been better to do it differently. But such is life."
Entenza says he hired Gragert Research to do a data request because he hadn't worked for the AG's office for a decade and wanted to get up to speed on the inner workings of the office. He says he wasn't trying to dig up dirt on Hatch, who at that point hadn't announced whether he was running for governor or another term as attorney general.
I recall having seen speculation but cannot find it again online, that Entenza's hope at the time of the "opposition research" was to encourage Hatch to seek another term as AG and leave the race then for Governor for Entenza; although such speculation is inconsistent with the above quoted Entenza explanation, one for which MPR published how it would have made more sense, if finding out about current operation of the AG office were the sole intent, for Entenza to have saved forty grand and simply asked Hatch. If brushed off, certainly then other ways and means would have been sensible; but ask first, find out, save cash.
And using a Chicago firm? It seems an effort intended to lessen the likeihood of Minnesota hirelings being used, and letting the cat out of the bag.
It's smarmy.
And Dana Houle, read please that italicized part about blaming the campaign manager. No wonder Entenza did not have a campaign manager when he called Houle, having used one as a cutout between personal responsibility and paid-for actions; working for a man who would say he "doesn't think his campaign manager told him about it a year ago" is putting personal credibility at risk for someone who's arguable history is a quick willingness to throw a campaign manager under a bus to lessen the impact of the bus hitting him. Dana, wisdom might suggest putting someone on the campaign staff to watch your back.
_______FINAL UPDATE______
The Sept. 2, 2006 MDE item indicates it was campaign money used for The Shadow:
When a Republican-oriented blog, MinnesotaDemocratsExposed, first reported in July 2005 that Entenza had hired someone to investigate Hatch, Entenza dismissed the report as 'just absolutely absurd.'
This summer, when the allegation resurfaced, Entenza said he paid only a 'couple of hundred dollars' for his research on Hatch. He said some research the firm conducted, including an investigation of a Hatch parking ticket, went beyond anything he authorized.
On Friday, Entenza filed an amended campaign finance report, disclosing that he paid the $40,000 to Gragert Research, the Chicago company that conducted the research.
In a four-paragraph statement, Entenza apologized to Minnesotans for not being forthcoming.
'I made a mistake in the handling and the release of information to the public regarding the research,' he said, 'and I apologize for that mistake and take full responsibility. … Once the research became public, I should have been more forthcoming and open about it. For that, I am very sorry.'
This is a candidate for AG, the top lawyer for the state. Demonstrably he was shown as splitting hairs over an "investigator" vs an "opposition researcher" as grounds for an initial evasive if not disingenuous response. He wrongly stated the cost of things, publicly, and then after apologizing "for not being forthcoming," how does the sincerity of the apology and the weight of the lesson square with how on his current website biography he characterizes the entire affair, again, evasively?
Either there is a flat learning curve problem that would make one think twice about wanting him as the State's chief executive, or a dissembling "spin doctor" cynicism problem, making one even more cautious in lending support. I wonder if when shopping, whether Dana Houle buys damaged goods, shirts with buttons not all there, dented canned goods, etc.
If anything else is to be posted, it will not be by update, but in a new post.