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Saturday, June 13, 2015

One win. One loss.

And the win is still uncertain. TPP, e.g., this link. Also, here.

Special session Daudt/BAKK/Dayton took everything on the table while the environment takes a hit.

Things happen. The sky hasn't fallen. The earth's daily axis spin is still spinning, no faster, no slower.

Thissen for Governor in 2016. Who else? Bakk? No way. So, who?

What's his name, the former Mpls mayor? Well --- Thissen would be my choice, if he again runs. Let us hope.

UPDATE: If I already posted this link, I apologize for repeating myself. If I did not already post it, I apologize for not doing it sooner. And the situation is so ripe one cannot easily avoid reempahsisis:

Bakk has not been very visible during these last days - probably because he would have to be continuously explaining why he gave tacit approval to the House GOP's agenda.

In the grass and not visible?

You want more? Here, saying:

Senator Bakk holds a position that can serve Democratic progress. If he had stood with the Governor during the session....if he had not circumvented his own caucus in making deals.....if he had not wasted political capital on an ambush of the Auditor's office...if he had not, in the dark of night, patched that sulfide waste amendment into the environment bill....maybe, just maybe, we could have accepted some of his dealings.

But he just went too far.

I appreciate rural issues. I grew up on a farm. I understand Greater MN's need for broadband. I understand how the MNSure rules actually benefited farmers unable to get insurance at group rates. I understand how the buffers that Gov. Dayton has requested need to have a lot of farmer input to be acceptable. I understand how rural hospitals and rural nursing homes are in need of more than the average state help. And I understand how roads and bridges and transit are just as important in rural areas as they are in the metro.

But I never saw very many of those rural needs addressed by the House GOP that pledged to do so....promised to do so.

[highlighting and image added, not in original]

FURTHER UPDATE: On reflecting about those posts being spot-on about Bakk, I get a feeling that the authors are willing to cut Dayton more slack than I do. He is the governor, and could have kept telling Bakk/Daudt no, and told Bakk to consider the message his caucus has for him. That mining business is going to have many DFL candidates in 2016 begging for contributions with donors saying, "Do something about Bakk first, I don't fund that kind of stuff and never will, nor do I care much for those that shrug and tolerate it."

The man really hurt the party and I see Dayton playing a plausible deniability game for his own image upkeep, while too attuned to what Daudt/Bakk did. As in, you do it, I will huff and puff, but will deliver and verbally arm twist the caucus in calling a special session; but the spending is all okay with me and with the constituencies I care about most. Least, that way, environmentalist sentiments; as in screw the future purity of Minnesota's nature in a trade for Bakk's stinking few hundred several few five-year-long Ranger jobs.

I do not give Dayton a passing grade on the mischief. That is harsh, perhaps, but he approved the numbers and did not halt the mining overreach. Nor did he critique the way it was done. If you don't fault and ambush, then it means you tacitly approve it.