Sunday, August 20, 2023

A link to an online site cataloging 2024 candidates for federal office. With Minnesota declared candidates, as of today, quoted as an example.

Ballotpedia keeps an online database of House and Senate candidates for each state, this being its data for MINNESOTA

 

The dates in this table refer to when candidates were added to our database.

Minnesota Senate Candidates - 2024
candidatepartyofficestatusdate
Democratic U.S. Senate Minnesota Candidacy Declared Oct 21, 2022
Republican U.S. Senate Minnesota Candidacy Declared May 30, 2023
Republican U.S. Senate Minnesota Candidacy Declared Jan 6, 2023
Republican U.S. Senate Minnesota Candidacy Declared May 17, 2023

The dates in this table refer to when candidates were added to our database.

candidatepartyofficestatusdate
Brad Finstad Incumbent
Republican U.S. House Minnesota District 1 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023
Angie Craig Incumbent
Democratic U.S. House Minnesota District 2 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023
Republican U.S. House Minnesota District 2 Candidacy Declared Jun 6, 2023
Democratic U.S. House Minnesota District 3 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023
Democratic U.S. House Minnesota District 4 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023
Ilhan Omar Incumbent
Democratic U.S. House Minnesota District 5 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023
Democratic U.S. House Minnesota District 5 Candidacy Declared Jul 14, 2023
Tom Emmer Incumbent
Republican U.S. House Minnesota District 6 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023
Republican U.S. House Minnesota District 7 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023
Pete Stauber Incumbent
Republican U.S. House Minnesota District 8 Candidacy Declared Jul 16, 2023

 

Reps Craig and Omar are the only HOUSE incumbents challenged, so far. Omar being primaried, Craig drawing a Repubican challenge.

The link is one readers might wish to bookmark. If Dean Phillips is really hot to primary after a higher job, there is Klobuchar's job which he could seek. He'd have better luck there than bothering Biden. 

____________UPDATE____________

The Phillips - Klobuchar suggestion has infirmities. First, Phillips has no ageism nor slumping polls argument against Klobuchar. Also, Phillips might like Klobuchar where she is and have no desire to primary her. The donors Phillips sought out back east might have been lukewarm to Phillips as a presidential candidate, and could be even more lukewarm to a Klobuchar challenge. There, we do not know who Dean sought out, so we have no way to even guess donor mood or preferences.

Dean is unlikely to primary Biden. Equally, he is unlikely to primary Amy.

He has not specifically indicated any worry some of the Hunter Biden Republican attack effort out of GOP House folks would reach to entail anything really wrong by Hunter (beyond tax delinquency which Hunter, with help of a Hollywood lawyer benefactor, has remedied). Aside from that and the firearm thing, there has been nothing of any fraudulent nature which would be criminal. Hunter made money in business. As did Phillips.

Hence, nothing there that would stick to Joe, to in fact discredit his Presidency in any manner.

If Hunter were in business relations with Chinese, Ukrainian or Romanian firms, doing arms length dealing and not doing any representation of such foreign firms as a lobbyist, there should be no FARA dimension at play. 

If foreign firms were not being sanctioned, and he sought lawful profitable generic business opportunity, where's the beef?

If Hunter urged foreigners to believe his kinship mattered, Cindy Crawford in her business touts her being beautiful and that it matters, Microsoft touts its software as better than Linux as something that matters, and nobody in business makes much headway by disparaging their own product in business dealings. It is always a sale.

So, far there is no there, there, in House Republican shame throwing. They speculate. They structure rhetorical possibilities. They bring in witnesses. And they lack any hard evidence of anything Hunter did unlawful aside from personal tax delinquency, much less anything reaching the White House.

Moreover, if Phillips has a worry about what might arise from House GOP witch hunting, he's not made that a major talking point. 

And, so far, there is no real proof that the GOP huff-and-puff is anything of substance.

Were it roping Joe Biden into some provable wrong-doing, we'd have heard of that long ago. They reach. They murmur. They have proven not one truly material thing.

They know it. Phillips knows it, so slumping early polling and ageism are his twin anchors. Neither has much heft. 

Biden has proven wiser and more progressive in getting things done than many expected; but Phillips is not arguing policy. He does not denounce infrastructure passage after years of talk without action. He is not a fossil fuel trumpet. It is as if he suggests a worry that is not really there.

FURTHER: For those in the nation seeking a reset, great or lesser after the Covid panic/pandemic, and ultimately envisioning a world order based on global internationalism, the business Hunter Biden did with firms from other nations leans in that direction.

That he had a cocaine and womanizing period of his life touches his at-the-time being in business where firms nonetheless decided to hire him on corporate boards and otherwise. They saw value. If there was no selling of influence, and none has been shown despite much noise and innuendo, then it is no crime beyond possession while using a controlled substance. Taxes and weapon being already in the record, Hunter's record, independent of the Presidency.

If Hunter projected the illusion of influence, without any, and foreign businessmen bought, then that was their private-sector decision making, and bless them. 

Selling the sizzle and no steak is a cliche because it happens. Hunter was offered money and accepted, and there is no Republican whine about fraud or misrepresentation against adult business people making judgments which more sagacious people might have avoided. The Republicans want so hard for it not to have been a misrepresentation that they pee in their pants over a possibility - to where weighing otherwise is not on their radar. Absent from their agenda. Not contemplated. Counterproductive thinking. A likelihood they'd rather dismiss from the start of their thinking and not a fitting part for their story. Possible misrepresentations towards foreign businessmen is not considered. Not to be pursued nor even mentioned. Do it the rabid Republican way. Sling mud.

Business judgment can come in a range of expectations, and be free of crime. Or fraud might be at play.

BOTTOM LINE: If there was selling of influence, prove it or shut up. That is the understanding House Republicans seem to lack, so that they need to be told. If the press will not tell them that because the press loves their feeding innuendo upon conjecture; that is a fault of the press for which no one in the Biden family bears responsibility.

The media wants to sell advertising, so viewership is lured by the lurid. That is not the best of worlds for the public. But it is the world the public faces.

A huckster press keeps the Republicans going. So far, they have gone nowhere, but with much noise getting there.

If the norm in situations of tax delinquency is to not press charges against businessmen who pay up, then Hunter Biden being delinquent during a messed up part of his life merits the norm. Extra punishment because his father holds high office seems unfair - making a show, outside of normal practice.

So far, that is how things square.