Plowing through my call list for the MNGOP Chairman’s race. The team and I are working hard and not taking anything for granted. If I haven’t reached you yet, I will. Proud to have earned the support of – this is a partial list with more to come – Joe and Cindy Westrup, Kurt Daudt, David FitzSimmons, Ted Lovdahl, Phil Krinkie, Ben Golnik, Harry and Jen Niska, Bill Walsh, Linda Runbeck, Rhonda Sivarajah, John Gilmore, Andy Aplikowski, Derek Brigham, Bill Guidera, Mark Kennedy, David Strom, Mike Osskopp, Mark Giga, Tom Emmer, Randy Gilbert, Barbara Malzacher, and many more who I’ll name soon!! Stay tuned.
Minn Progressive Project noted the Enron connection. Ditto, Mnpublius, here.
You can Google = pat shortridge enron
From the extended Google return list, and from Residual Forces, you get that he was a Mark Kennedy campaign boss, both successfully for the MN6 congressional seat, and otherwise in the Klobuchar Senate landslide victory.
He had a hand in Marco Rubio's Florida adventures. Etc. Etc. A warm and fuzzy little Enroner. But apparently not an insider-fraudster. Nothing stuck to Shortridge.
A well-traveled political operative, but what else did you expect?
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| layers of the onion image, this source |
The Shortridge situation seems less curiously and compellingly influenced hither and yon, involuted and convoluted, than the ongoing state Senate saga, GOP side. Hit squad, or outraged pro-family men? I would not gamble on that hummer of a question, either way. Indeed, do you gamble that gambling was a factor?
Interesting Minn Post stuff, here and here.
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UPDATE -- RECOUNT MAN: Shortridge has this in the portfolio - he was a Dino Rossi man in Washington, and Rossi lost a closest-recount-in-Washington-State-history recount in the past to Democrat Christine Gregoire. Then he was a Norm gnome (e.g., here, paragraph 4) when Norm lost a closest-recount-in-Minnesota-history recount to Democrat Al Franken. That and Mark Kennedy's burial by Klobuchar for the Senate seat, he's got a track records of bridesmaids, not brides. Not wholly so, but ...
And - some say the Emmer recount was ill-advised; and costly on borrowed cash; so are they turning now to a recount junky? Can't give it up, can't kick the recount habit? Just wondering.
In passing: Doesn't Dino Rossi sound like a brand of vermouth? Just wondering.
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| Get a bigger wheelbarrow. For hauling waste, raising cash. |
Once a Norm gnome, always a Norm gnome.
This link.
Perhaps, just perhaps, might he, Shortridge, also have ties of some sort to -
Nasser Kazemini ?
________________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
Here and here are two early 2010 campaign items from Washington State on the "aggressive" (dirty) campaign run against Dem. Sen. Patty Murray (with reciprocity in kind apparently), the Enroner being fingered as such early in things. What actual role besides flak and schmoozer Shortridge played in the Enron pileup is unclear. But it seems certain Shortridge will be an aggresive SOB for the GOP, an unkind thing for the DFL. Where he is on the NFL (aka "Wilfare") and gambling intrigues will be an interesting thing to see developed.
From those two items it appears Shortridge was a Marco Rubio braintrust player, but not lead-man as he was for Dino Rossi. Dino Rossi's pattern has been losing campaigns to Democratic women, with/without Shortridge. (I.e.,I might have been wrong in previously assuming Shortridge was affiliated with Rossi in the failed run for Governor, but he led things in the failed Patty Murray challenge and clearly was a Norm gnome in the failed Minnesota reelection attempt - but cut him slack, his dog in the hunt was Norm, who only made the Senate because of the Wellstone death on the eve of the prior election - Norm being Norm - all Shortridge's effort reduced to putting lipstick on the pig - make that lipstick on the dog in the hunt, I guess, to avoid mixing old sayings.)
As always, we wait, we see.
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| photo source (Shortridge mentioned) |
Neglect, surely.
Yet that seems an unfortunate widespread neglect in the GOP-slanted coverage of the Shortridge story - a largely unopposed candidacy for lead elephant.
I am certain that Shortridge must be quite proud of his Enron service and will be more than happy to discuss it among all the friends at the get-together where he is expected to be formally nominated and appointed to be the new Ron Carey of Minnesota.
SO - The ascendancy of Enron Man. The tale of the Scarlet Letter.
GOP stories have bite. And what, the Dems in turn have Dayton saying, again and again going into the new year and next legislative session, "Tax the Rich."
While "Tax the Rich" is one hell-of-a good idea, it's not lurid at all.
Lurid does get coverage.
How about -- Occupy the Press?