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Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Brad Lehto was chief of staff for the Minnesota AFL-CIO at the time Wardlow was in office. He said the freshman legislator received a rare “0 percent” rating from the organization, which rates state lawmakers on whether their votes align with the AFL-CIO’s stances. “He was definitely anti-labor. In fact, he was difficult to talk to,” Lehto said. He said Wardlow would have to “change immensely” to manage the office in the manner he is promising. “I can’t imagine him being nonpolitical running the office. ... No, I just don’t believe it,” Lehto said.

The headline is quoted from Strib, Sept. 29, this year. Next, quoting the Strib item as it was headlined, and in opening paragraphs:

Doug Wardlow says he'll set aside partisan past if elected attorney general -- The Republican candidate's staunchly conservative past has some doubting campaign promise.

It has become a campaign trail mantra for Republican Doug Wardlow: He will take politics out of the attorney general’s office.

But a deeply partisan past has left some questioning whether he would live up to that vow. From his recent work at the Christian nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom to his term in the Legislature, Wardlow’s staunch conservative values have guided his work, his opponents say. But Wardlow said he would leave behind policy advocacy if he gets the job.

“I understand that the attorney general’s office is an office that is not a policymaking position and we need to have a separation of powers,” Wardlow said. “I’m going to be very careful not to do anything, in terms of policymaking, that is legislative in scope.”

Wardlow faces U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison in the Nov. 6 election. Wardlow frequently describes his Democratic opponent as too far left to be Minnesota’s next chief legal officer. But Ellison’s campaign has argued that it’s Wardlow who is extreme, claiming he would use the office to push President Donald Trump’s agenda and oppose President Barack Obama’s health care law.

That’s not true, Wardlow said. He would not join other Republican attorneys general who sued to overturn the Affordable Care Act, he said.

And, same item continuing,

“I’m going to be focusing on the problems in Minnesota and addressing needs in Minnesota, and restoring the rule of law, and law and order in our state. And I’m not certain that is a good use of the resources of the office,” he said of the suit.

Wardlow said the trend of state attorneys general using the court system to push policies is troubling and often their legal standing is “tenuous.”

Said more distinctly, Wardlow, if elected, would abandon the insulin price gouging suit Swanson filed this week after around a year of investigation and preparation; as "pushing policies" favorable to the people of this State and unfavorable to big money corporations with power over the health of the people.

Then in the story the headline quote of incredulity appears about Wardlow saying he'd go non-partisan, that quote being by a man who's seen Wardlow on labor organization rights.

Within two weeks, FOX9 was kind of trying to defend Wardlow's extreme politization of what he told Republican insiders he'd do if elected:

Wardlow said if elected, he’ll appoint assistants and deputies who believe in the rule of law and the Constitution.

But a number of former public attorneys cite a recording of Wardlow in which he apparently states he would fire all 42 DFL attorneys in the AG’s office and replace them with republicans.

“It is a very bright red line not to employ line staff attorneys based upon party affiliation,” said Prentice Cox, a former attorney in the AG’s office.

“To purge or politicize that office for a personal agenda is wrong on more levels than I can stand up here and count here today,” added Carla Hagen, former attorney in the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.

But the Wardlow campaign fired back Monday against what they call “DFL hyper-partisanship.”

They say a DFL employee replied to an Instagram post about taking back the country on election day with the comment, “bring them to the guillotines.”

The DFL issued its own statement this afternoon saying “the comment made by William Davis on social media this weekend was absolutely unacceptable. The DFL offers its apologies and assurance that these types of remarks by our employees are not the way we conduct business.”

All of the incidents unfolded during a contentious season in politics.

“I’m sure you’re thinking it’s naïve to say that politics has nothing to do with it …but there are lines and then there bright lines, and this is a bright line,” Cox said.

Typical FOX non sequitur is to feign seeing no difference between a candidate who'd publicly posed as intending non-partisan steps if elected and who then promises his party faithful he'd give them jobs he'd take away from others if elected, and hyperbole by a minor DFL person who was chastized by his party for being extreme. Have any Republicans chastised Wardlow? Not the ones wanting the post-purge jobs that might be there with Keith Ellison standing in their way and in the way of Wardlow's clearly partisan intent.

The man flat out lied, the question being was it to the public, or to his party insiders. Which time was Wardlow lying is not the kind of question which defines as credible one promising an intent on walking the talk over an "only the high road" character and motivation.

THIS IS THE CANDIDATE FOR THE STATE'S LEAD LAWYER FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS, AT A PARTISAN EVENT PROMISING EXTREME PARTISANSHIP. Not some inconsequential functionary shooting off his mouth hyperbolically. To deliberately confuse such a distinction is the essence of FOX, and why it annoys thinking people so much.

Yet FOX9 does publish:

Statement from DFL Executive Director Corey Day:

"The comment made by William Davis on social media this weekend was unacceptable. The DFL offers its apologies and assurance that these types of remarks by our employees are not the way we conduct our business.

Nothing like that from the Republicans over Wardlow's blood bath promise. They must be salivating in hopes of the GOP spoils system delivering.

Does anyone on that side have the courage to disavow Wardlow and his disdainful actual view toward propriety in office?

If so, let's hear it.