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Sunday, July 24, 2016

Freedom Club backs Jason Lewis. A marriage made in Heaven wherever.

Galt is my hero. Galt is a fiction. Go figure.
Many in the area of North Metro constituting SD 35 may remember Freedom Club as the folks that monkey-wrenched Andy Aplikowski's first foray into elective office seeking. They did it by publishing a string of mailers into the district during the special election for the SD 35 seat that had been vacated mid-term. Specifically a scurrilous anti-Abeler item was their first to hit the credibility fan, with Aplikowski having at debates to disavow any connection with the mailing. It was so bad and deceitful that everybody saw through it and regarded it as both amateurish and offensive.

Now, amateurishness and offensiveness return. Not in North Metro this time. In the CD 2 contest for the seat the phony university advocate abandoned; leaving it without any incumbency. ("Phony" modifies "university" not "advocate." There was nothing phony to the advocacy. They contributed, the retired Col. advocated big time, but the "universities" themselves where the phony part, not the advocacy from the U.S. House, on their mischievous behalf. But I digress.)

One screenshot is worth a thousand words. (Or in terms of valuing it in Jason Lewis Galt Coins, it would be in the millions, since you put in real cash to get Galt Coins from galt.io, and then your cash is gone and you have dumb toy stuff to dither with; Jason Lewis apparently being happy with your doing the dither. But I digress).


-from the candidate's website-

Run Angie run. Win Angie win. Freedom Club has put its ham handed thumb on the scale, the Jason Lewis side, and it cannot but work to your advantage, Angie, since everyone knows who Robert Cummins is and how he operates. His brand of "Freedom Club" koolaid being clearly of the "Don't drink, or drink at your peril" variety.

Yes, that screen capture does list a number of Republican politicos who were elected because of, or inspite of, the Freedom Club - Cummins kiss.

Is there a giant among them - that pack, or PAC? Even a fictional one, a Galt?

WWARD? What would Ayn Rand do? Would the maven of "objectivism" (and a gold standard advocate) embrace a Norm Coleman? A Col. Phony Universities? In the several thousand pages of "Atlas Shrugged" I recall her hero pack as above and against sleazy politics as usual. As I recall the tome, it included a different character Jason might well identify with, if he really is not a Galt, that being Wesley Mouch. Back to that screenshot, that list of federal elective office holders having the Cummins kiss from Freedom Club - what besides a pack of Wesleys? Or is it a PAC of Wesleys? Not sure on that. In any event, Lewis is not without a GOP mentor-in-spirit figure, a one term Wesley wonder and talk showman, Rod Grams:

Grams attempted a political comeback in the 2006 U.S. Senate campaign. He sought the GOP nomination for his former US Senate seat, facing Mark Kennedy and Gil Gutknecht. However, after a poor showing early in the endorsement process, Grams dropped his candidacy. Grams switched his political plans and ran in the 2006 U.S. House election, challenging the incumbent Jim Oberstar in Minnesota's 8th congressional district. Oberstar defeated Grams handily.

Grams remained active in politics and interested in running for public office. In 2008, Grams shared he considered challenging incumbent Norm Coleman for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination but was too busy in his private life to make a run, stating, "And my wife (Chris) would have killed me if I would have, because of some things that we're doing." However, it became unclear whether Grams would run as a Republican. In an interview, he expressed disappointment over the perceived failings of the Republican Party, going as far as to ponder whether he can call himself a Republican or vote for party candidates anymore.

Grams considered a 2010 run for Governor of Minnesota stating, "I'm so damn unhappy with the Republicans right now ... I’m so unhappy with the candidates that we have I could puke. I wanted to get out there and mix it up." However, Grams endorsed Republican Tom Emmer in the 2010 campaign for governor.

Yep. A role model for Jason Lewis. Defeated by Dayton for the Senate seat; whining afterwards about his party and his developed disaffection for it; and then urgent to beat the Emmer drum - likely out of emnity toward Dayton after being unhorsed by Dayton, in DC.

So, reader decision time: As talk show hosts and then subsequently as politicians; are Lewis and Grams in the same league, or with the bar set low does one prevail as the better of the other?

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Being fair to Grams; one House term; one Senate term; so one could say two term wonder. His winning the Senate seat makes some people wonder. I am told there was insufficient DFL cohesion that cycle, but I was residing out of state at the time so I only know hearsay.

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UPDATE: Previously closing the post with a lingering uncertainty; websearch shows Cummins was a Grams donor; at least twice; e.g., here (for Congress) and here (for Senate). One can only speculate why the screen capture's parade of names omits Rod Grams. Possibly because of how Grams got hammered by Oberstar when he carpet bagged into CD 8. That, and Grams having been a talk show host of modest talent might have had Lewis wanting to avoid a painful analogy.

But if you really want a defining Cummins moment, a divisive candidacy supported; this link. Check it before it is taken down. Like the folks at the Trump convention said; "BOO."

In anticipation of a site scrub, a screen capture for posterity - Cummins and the quality of company he keeps:


FURTHER UPDATE: If racetrack handicappers, the Freedom Club bunch might be fired. Besides Cummins/Club for Cruz as noted, how about the good folks there inviting campaign-imploder Walker to strut his stuff:

The conservative group, whose political action arm spent $1.4 million on Republicans during the 2104 election cycle, will host Walker at a private dinner event.

“It was quite an honor that he chose us,” said Alex Kharam, the Freedom Club’s executive director. “We certainly had a lot of folks that wanted him. He is probably running for president.”

[...] Commenting on whether is was difficult to get an A-lister like Walker, Kharam noted, “If you want to run for president as a Republican, certainly the Freedom Club is the place to go to in Minnesota.”

Uh-huh.

Perhaps they should had aimed at instead getting Melania Trump to attend and deliver an original speech. Given that group's self-annointed top quality presidential positioning savvy, in Minnesota.