SWP Presidential candidate Róger Calero

Róger Calero, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for U.S. President, probably envisions a future of America not unlike this. The one-time Dakota country meat-packer, with his working class credentials, is knocking out his second presidential campaign for the Socialist Workers Party, one of the three socialist candidates vying for the U.S. presidential seat, (there are also two more well-known pseudo-socialist candidates running for President — the Green Party’s Cynthia McKinney and, of course, independent Ralph Nader. All five will be vastly ignored). Earlier this week, while visiting the University of Minnesota, Calero attempted to update the socialist message but still reiterated the basic message carried by Guevara, Castro, Trotsky, Lenin, Marx and Engels and all the rest of them.

August Nimtz, a Marxist historian and political science professor at the University of Minnesota, invited Calero to visit his Wednesday night lecture, which is a course comparing race and class relations in Cuba, South Africa, and the U.S.(in all terms of fairness, I am a student enrolled in this class). Calero, a native Nicaraguan and resident alien (he holds a green card) stepped to Nimtz’s podium wearing a dark suit and a cheap, working class tie and spoke to a crowd of about 60 students and socialist activists.

He started with the current Wall Street bailout crisis, arguing that the nature of the capitalist system caused the banks to make risky investing.

“Instead of returning their investments, [the bankers] have been investing in the stock market to get a quicker return,” he said. Nimtz asserts that Calero’s political party, the SWP, was first to predict the current Wall Street financial mess. In 2004, when Calero ran as the SWP candidate for president for the first time, he said he spoke of the coming financial disaster. “Everyone looked at me like I was crazy, and here we are. It’s only at the beginning right now. We’re only dealing with the mortgage side. Just wait until we get to student loans, Medicare, social security … “

Then, he trumped it all and said something radical: “The historical needs of society cannot be solved under capitalism. Sexism cannot be solved under capitalism in crisis. It took a massive war to get us out of the Great Depression, and that’s where [the capitalist’s] are taking us now, if we let them.”
And while many criticize Marxists for embracing an idea they believe was maybe relevant in the industrial age, tested out in the twentieth century, and ultimately realized as a miserable failure, Calero did his best to argue that the principals of revolutionary socialism still apply to today.

Calero at a demonstration talkin’ up the issues (He, like John Edwards, speaks of “two Americas”)

A socialist stance on free trade? “There is nothing free about it.” Hurricane Ike? “What you’re seeing there is not a natural disaster, it’s a social disaster.” Hurricanes in New Orleans (Professor Nimtz’s home town)? “Three years after Katrina, adequate levees have not been built because it infringes on capitalist profit.” Social security? “They want to do away with it. They say baby-boomers are the ones to blame because they are living too long.” Calero also cited the danger of the coal mining industry, which got a lot attention during the Nevada coal mining disaster last year when six workers who were trapped in a collapsed mine tunnel suffered to death (Remember? It happened a week after the 35W Bridge collapse). “Sixty-three miners died last year [in total], and they make it seem like it’s an act of God,” he said. “It’s really an act of the working conditions that bosses create to maximize their profits.”

Of course many students in the crowd were skeptical. Despite whatever the right-wing criticism of academia may be, hard-line socialism is not used as a theory in the mainstream college political science class. When one student said that capitalism motivates people to work, Calero quickly rejected her claim and argued that capitalism “detracts from development.” “I don’t buy the idea that you have to be special to become a doctor,” he said. “Imagine a society where everyone could get that chance.” Another student made the point that because everyone doesn’t work equally, communism can’t work. Calero agreed with the first point of it: “Some of us work really hard — I work like a devil! — and I get less in return than my boss!”

Calero made the case that a socialist bias skews toward working class interests and then attempted to redefine the layers of society. According to Calero, the working class is compromised of workers like teachers, mechanics and miners while the middle class contains a smaller amount of professionals like lawyers and small business owners. The third and smallest class (“So small that you can identify them by their last name!”) is the capitalist class, or the richest five percent, who control society. These are the Buffets, the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Clintons.

He also made a cold prediction for the college students: “The school encourages you to break the barrier and rise up in class. The truth is most of you will have to work in the working class.” And most of us will face exploitation.

But there is hope after all. It doesn’t have to be this way. We can have a working class alternative. Or so the party line says. But, with the $700 billion bailout to Wall Street in the process, is it possible were already in a socialism of a different kind? Earlier this week, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, perhaps the leading socialist voice of the early 21st century, had this to say about the bailouts:
“I nationalize strategic companies and get criticized, but when Bush does it, it’s OK. Bush is turning socialist. How are you, comrade Bush?”

Flash back to Thursday, Sept. 5. I’m inside the Xcel Energy Center trying to catch John McCain’s acceptance speech, walking in the hallway upstairs from the arena. The cool breeze of outside air from open doors makes the setting feel like I’m at a Wild hockey game. Code Pink dissenters who creeped into the building and shouted disputes during McCain’s speech are being escorted out (“Please don’t be diverted by the ground noise and the static, heh heh heh heh!”).

As journalists and bloggers skewer after the Code Pinkers, I make my way down the stairs and get about two feet away from the floor. Delegates and partisans aliek are chanting “USA! USA!” as an eldery woman to my right leans over to her husband with a disgusted look on her face. “How did they get past security?” she asks in a disgruntled voice.

Code Pink attempts to crash the convention one last time

At this point, I’m close to the floor in the stairway trying to watch the speech in peace. “Get out of the way! You have to keep moving!” an ABC photographer says to me. At first I’m intimidated and start to move, but then realize that the photographer has no real power over where I choose to stand. I make a quick note in my notepad; “The photographers are bitches.” McCain, talking about Sarah Palin, just got done saying, “I’m very proud to have introduced our next vice president to the country, but I can’t wait to introduce her to Washington.” Then, taking queue from his major opponent, McCain says something to the effect of, “Change is coming!” Alaska delegates start chanting the inspirational lines, “Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!” All are aware that the U.S. is too great a country to change its satisfying consumer habits.

From there McCain’s speech barks a lot of familiar yawns and splices an evocative retelling of his POW years in Hanoi somewhere in the middle. A woman affiliated with the Republicans sees my notes on the ABC photographers and chuckles. “They are, aren’t they?” I say to her.

When the speech is over and a rousing applause follows, it’s clear that the crowd represents a minority of the country’s voters. After all, 80 percent of the RNC delegates approve of Bush’s job while 28 percent of the public thinks the same.

With that nod in my mind, I sneak to the floor without proper credentials and see half a dozen students chanting, “Students for McCain! Students for McCain!” Then three Jews respond by shouting, “Jews for McCain! Jews for McCain!” MTV’s Sway is in the middle of the floor trying to mack on some younger female Republicans. CNN, BBC and PBS all have booths, but course most people crowd around Fox News, where insider-turned-pundit Karl Rove is being interviewed.

In retrospect, nothing out of the ordinary happened, at least inside the convention. So it’s hard to figure out why the RNC helped McCain/Palin become as popular as Obama/Biden. Maybe I shouldn’t underestimate “the Sarah Palin phenomenon,” but the Strib poll says that more than 66 percent of the state believes Joe Biden is prepared to take on the role of vice president, compared to the 43 percent that said the same of Palin.

We’ll just have to wait and see if the poll corrects itself.

“I must tell the people of Iraq that I’m sorry for participating in the war,” Viges said to a mostly high school-aged crowd in front of the Capitol Thursday afternoon. Viges’ appearance — clad with brown sweatshirt, partially frayed jeans and an American Spirit dangling from his mouth — could easily make any local gutter-punk mistake him for a West Bank burnout rather than the veteran-turned-Christian that he is.

Viges isn’t shy to point to his faith as a chief motivator for getting himself out of the army. “In 2004 I saw ‘The Passion of the Christ’,” he said, “and realized I could not be a Christian and in the military at the same time.”

Viges also readily admits that he, under orders from his superiors, fired mortar rounds into crowds of civilian Iraqis during his stay in Iraq. He contends that the atmosphere in the military featured U.S. soldiers proudly counting their casualties as if they were trophies. Here’s his testimony:

Hart’s Testimony

Viges is one of the hundreds of Iraq War veterans that came to St. Paul last week to protest the war as the Republican National Convention was underway in the Xcel Energy Center. I also caught up with Mary Horgan, a Minneapolis resident and 20 year veteran of the Minnesota National Guard during
Monday’s March on the RNC, which gathered at least 10,000 activists. Horgan served in Tallil, Iraq for five months in 2006.

“McCain has a terrible record on veterans,” she said, perhaps alluding to a 2006 Senate vote against an amendment that would have provided $20 million in health care aid to the troops.

“I’m concerned about the veterans,” Horgan said. “[The government] needs to make sure we have jobs when we get back.” When Horgan got back, she couldn’t find work, she said, but now has a job in a Minneapolis art gallery.

When I talked to her, she echoed words similar to what’s been constantly said for the past five years: “We were lied to go into war. We’ll probably attack Iran.” It reminded me of a sign I saw two teenagers carrying during Thursday’s protest that read: “I can’t believe we’re still protesting this shit.”

Yesterday I attended the Minnesota State Fair, the famous annual festival full of deep-fried Twinkies, chocolate-covered bacon, and alligator on a stick, among many other strange foods. It had been ten years since my last visit, and I nearly forgot how Minnesota politicians of all kinds use the Fair to their advantage during election seasons. The first stands I saw on entrance (after buying an $8 ticket from a scalper — the regular price is $11) were for the Minnesota Farmers Union and the Minnesota DFL. The right wing radio station AM 1280 The Patriot had a broadcasting booth just across the street, complete with T-Shirts that read “Nobama” and “Liberalism is a disease.” Yes, politics at the State Fair can sometimes be just as deep-fried, bloated, and authentic as the food it serves.

During mid-morning, after buying a $5 bratwurst covered in sauerkraut, I stumbled upon Darryl Stanton, an unknown running for Norm Coleman’s U.S. Senate seat as an independent. It looked like he was his own campaign manager — he was the only person at his booth, which was small and filled with many campaign signs and a dry-erase board that said, “Darryl Stanton has been at the Fair talking with people about the issues for over 200 hours.” Stanton’s big and husky frame looks like it could belong to a bodybuilder, but the minute he opens his mouth he won’t stop talking about the issues regarding his campaign. From what he told me, he grew up in Washington D.C. and came over to Marshall, Minn., to work in the public education system, which he did for a long time. Now he’s a self-described entrepreneur and small business owner. Evidently, adequate education funding and small business rights are cornerstones of his platform.

Darryl Stanton

Judging from his campaign card, education runs in his blood. Part of it reads: “I am a proud graduate of K-college public education and my brother who was a dedicated school teacher died in his classroom while teaching his students.”

And while these political stances — plus an added disdain for the Iraq War, free trade agreements, and diminished labor rights — would lead one to paint Stanton as a liberal, it doesn’t change the fact that he spent a whole lot of time telling me about the need to correct wasted tax dollars. His position on the environment is one of personal responsibility; his campaign literature reads: “Let us do our part to stop global warming: 1) replace 3 frequently used light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs 2) keep your car tires properly inflated and check them monthly, and 3) change your car air filter. By taking these three easy steps will take out 1,350 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the air and put back in your pockets $1,100.” He also argues that the changes Americans made in their transportation habits helped lead to lowering gas costs from $4 a gallon in June to the $3.65 or so that they’re currently at.

Stanton’s biggest message of the day was to encourage people to vote in the primary on Sept. 9th. “Most of the people have been brainwashed by the Presidential race,” he said. “They think they only have to vote on Nov. 4th.” For those who consider their votes and opinions important, I would suggest taking Stanton’s advice.

Sure, Stanton’s an independent and yes, we can always cynically cite that tired, thoughtless, brainwash-inducing argument that voting for one is metaphorically equivalent to throwing your “voice” in the dumpster. I’ve always ascribed to the view that anyone who thinks that way has been intellectually, morally and perhaps spiritually raped - most likely by the Democratic Party - but that’s just one opinion.

After downing the bratwurst while listening to Stanton talk my ear off, I headed over to Al Franken’s booth, and was surprised to see the candidate actually there, shaking hands, smiling, and taking pictures with people. It turns out that’s all he wanted to do. When I went up to shake his hand and talk about the issues, he didn’t seem very interested. I tried to confirm whether or not he was still supporting an increase in the federal gas tax. He said he never did and that Norm Coleman was lying about him, then, in the middle of his explanation, he trailed off, turned around and silently stared at something else. A few seconds later, I tried to ask him when his next debate was, but he shook my hand again, probably thinking I was a new person, and ignored my question. At that point the awkwardness was too intense — I had to get out of there. How could such a witty, enjoyably obnoxious comedian turn into such a wooden alien? Why is he attempting to be such an unenthusiastic, mainstream politician? His political route has resulted in a constant lead in the polls by Coleman. Franken knew his run for office would lead to controversy which — as funny as it sounds — he could have capitalized on. After all, this is a state that gets easily tired with mainstream politics, as Paul Wellstone and Jesse Ventura proved.

Al Franken’s Booth

One thing’s for sure; Franken’s not using his god-given natural talent and is suffering from losing his edge, and perhaps, at worst, his personality. All this suppression and renunciation of comedy can’t be healthy. If he wins or loses in November is beside the point — by then his mind will probably be scrambled and shot.

I forgot to mention that I got his autograph in the brief moments we exchanged uncomfortable words. It reads: “Joey - Help!”

So far, the S & V blog features an extended interview with Cecil Otter from Doom Tree (who mistakably picks 2pac over Biggie — but we can’t blame him), a review of the Jungle’s recent showing of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and various highlights of the local Twin Cities music scene. Jack’s dedication to his blog reminds me that I definitely gotta start posting more, which I’ll be doing next week as the RNC swarms Pig’s Eye.

I also want to point people to an obscure art blog called Staticalaska, powered by my old friend Charlie Bevis, aka Megacat, aka MC Bev MD. It’s an art blog where various people gather to show posters, drawings, and whatnot. Much of the art is political, but it certainly stretches beyond ideological boundaries. It’s usually updated every Saturday. Check it out.

When the new law left all these clauses out, Green Party council member Cam Gordon tried to add them back in amendments, and finally succeeded — at least partially — to pass them Friday. Now rubber bullets are again banned and all camera confiscation must hold up to the First and Fourth amendments of the Constitution.

Gordon was pleased with the final result. As for activists and future RNC protesters, many of whom followed the bill and were present at every vote, the response is more of a lukewarm relief. Michelle Gross, the president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, recently e-mailed me her group’s thoughts on the reformed bill:

“[We're] gratified that the Minneapolis City Council was forced by the
community to acknowledge their mistake in stripping away needed protections for
protesters contained in the 2000 resolution. We are especially pleased that
the City Council voted unanimously to reinstate the ban on rubber bullets.
However, we remain frustrated that other important protections from the 2000
resolution were not reinstated. We are striving to understand why the council
felt the need to overturn the 2000 resolution in the first place, along with
adding a burdensome permitting process for people who wish to protest in
Minneapolis.”

Right before an important vote concerning protest protection at the upcoming Republican National Convention, an early morning attempt to speak out at a Minneapolis City Council meeting against the resolution led to the forced removal of an activist from the council room Friday.

Jude Ortiz, a member of Coldsnap Legal Collective, stood in front of City Council members and read a “Reprobation for the City of Minneapolis” criticizing last week’s committee passing of a resolution promising to ban police use of rubber bullets and confiscation of recording devices at the upcoming Republican National Convention “except when the use of force is necessary.” Ortiz only got a few sentences in before police removed him outside the building and into a squad car. Council President Barb Johnson was first to jump on Ortiz, repeatedly telling him sit down, but Rybak’s attempt to do the same was more somber, as he wore an expression of sympathy — complete with puppy dog eyes —and politely asked Ortiz to stop whatever it was he was doing.

After the brief ruckus, the City Council voted in favor of the resolution, this time with more amendments from Ward 2 council member Cam Gordon tacked to it. They prohibit:

• Plastic and rubber bullets fired from “traditional firearms.”
• Camera confiscation that doesn’t meet “First and Fourth Amendment Constitutional protections.”
• Targeting “law abiding persons not engaged in demonstrating, including journalists, camera people, and legal observers, for enforcement actions.”

“I think we were successful in getting resolutions,” Gordon said. “The fact that we got this much passed should reconcile some folks that protection from the police is better.” Citing that the final bill doesn’t address protesters’ medical attention, Gordon admitted it has “probably fewer protections” for protesters than the laws put into place in 2000. But that won’t cut his optimism. Gordon contends that medical attention to protesters are “addressed in other ways” separate from legislation.

It can’t hurt to mention that each of Gordon’s added amendments begin with the clause, “In concurrence with MPD policies.”

Representatives from Coldsnap and Communities United Against Police Brutality — two organizations likely to oppose the final language of the bill —have not yet commented.

A handful of activists and future Republican National Convention protesters attended a Minneapolis City Council committee meeting Wednesday to support Green Party council member Cam Gordon’s June 20 proposal banning police use of rubber bullets at upcoming RNC protests this fall. Unfortunately for those planning to protest in St. Paul this September, Gordon’s reformed motion was vastly different from what he proposed last month, which, among barring rubber bullets, would have limited police use of pepper spray and prevented the targeting of activists.

Gordon’s June 20 proposal was supposed to be added to a resolution that set new rules for Minneapolis police to follow during public assemblies and mass demonstrations. These new policies superseded those made in 2000 after a protest at an International Society for Animal Genetics meeting that resulted in more than 65 arrests. Gordon’s added clauses were essentially the same as those that were already in law before June 20 but left out of the resolution that superseded them.

Last month, City Council sent Gordon’s proposal down to the Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee, where it was unanimously passed Wednesday.

But instead of sticking its original provisions, Gordon’s new resolution added three amendments:

— That MPD presence at public assemblies will be based on legitimate public safety concerns and not be based upon intent to chill First Amendment rights.

— In concurrence with state law, and city ordinance, MPD officers will not use pepper spray, tear gas, or similar substances, or projectiles except in situations where the use of force is necessary.

— That MPD officers shall not confiscate, destroy or tamper with cameras or other recording devices being used to document public assembly activities or MPD enforcement actions. This shall not apply to situations in which a) cameras or recording devices are to be used as evidence, or b) MPD officers arrest an individual in possession of cameras or recording devices.

When the committee moved to vote on it, the dozen or so activists attending the meeting — silent but stern and unable to speak out because of the closed public hearing — held up signs with various anti-brutality phrases (one of them read, “Youth Against a Police State”) and pictures of a woman covered with cuts and wounds from rubber bullets.

Future RNC protesters couldn’t describe the final product as a victory. In the words of one activist, the proposal was a “bullshit compromise that doesn’t even begin to address” the likely police brutality that will ensue in St. Paul this fall. “I’m really pissed,” added Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality. “That’s not the same as a ban – not even close.”

In a crowded hallway exchange with Gross and other activists after the vote, Gordon contended that his proposal wouldn’t have had any support without the added amendments. “It would have gotten voted down at committee, then it also would’ve gotten voted down at Council – I guarantee that,” he told Gross and the others. Gordon said that the best bet now is to get other council members to bring initiatives forward and “pick up some of the pieces that got dropped between now and next Friday (July 25),” when the full Council plans to vote on it.

“This is maybe the fifteenth time he’s pulled this shit,” Gross, who used to like Gordon, said of him. “He’s getting tired of being beat up by reactionaries on the committee, so he’s decided that he will just join them. If you can’t beat them, join them, right?”

Minneapolis police don’t use rubber bullets and aren’t planning to, according to a statement made by police spokesman Sgt. Jesse Garcia in a recent City Pages story. But this doesn’t calm the nerves of many future RNC protesters.

“Since the clauses protecting protestors were taken out of the law, there’s every reason to suspect that the police will start [using] those things to get us,” said Nathan Clough, a U of M geography graduate student. Clough, who’s concerned that the RNC is being used as an excuse to develop laws that “limit our ability to express ourselves,” agrees with Gross that Gordon’s final bill was watered down. “We should have these protections in place before the abuses happen again,” he said, citing the police brutality that occurred at the 2000 International Society for Animal Genetics protests. “The majority of the City Council is so firmly on the side of the police that they can’t see the flaws right in front of their faces.”

Many of the activists who attended the meeting plan to lobby council members to vote against the final resolution next Friday. “These are Democrats, they’re supposed to be for the people,” said Michael Lefkowitz, a member of Anti-War Committee, Minnesota and Youth Against War and Racism planning to lobby on behalf of his groups. “They let us down.”

So what’s the point of impeaching a President who has only half a year left in office?

Perhaps it’s because the Bush administration is in the process of committing the US military to Iraq for the next administration - unconstitutionally and without congressional approval, of course - in a treaty that bleeds an all too real resemblance of the Platt Amendment - which passed in 1901 and gave our government the “right” to intervene in Cuban affairs at any given moment and establish military bases in Cuban soil (with all that the Cuban government has accomplished to reverse this law, Guantanamo Bay is still a vivid legacy of its lasting effect on Cuban affairs). Or maybe it’s because of statements he’s made in regard to the War in Iraq like, “I don’t care if I created more enemies.”

Either way, Kucinich is acting on what he thinks is best for protecting the Constitution. It’s too bad his Democratic peers - Barack Obama included - are sticking it out for the remainder of Bush’s term and focusing all their attention on January 2009. Although so many of them are in favor of ending the War in Iraq, they seem to forget that it’s difficult to stop an invasion when the last administration just forged a treaty that locks Iraq as our responsibility for the years to come.

*sniff* *sniff* Smells like another forced puppet government is here to stay.

It must be noted that this isn’t the first time Kucinich has tried to impeach the Bush administration. Last year he introduced a bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, but his fellow majority Democrats weren’t having any of it.

*Update* - According to CSPAN, the House just voted to send Kucinich’s bill to their Judiciary Committee. We’ll have to just wait and see how they define “constitutional justice.”

Obama in St. Paul

It certainly was refreshing to see the never-ending Democratic Presidential candidate contest come to an end, but the most refreshing part of Obama’s Tuesday victory speech was seeing him declare it in such a localized fashion at the Xcel Energy Center. Best of all, he didn’t slip in referring to St. Paul as Minneapolis in the same way that so many Republicans are bound to this Fall.

Obama’s St. Paul Speech

Because he was acting on one of his greatest strengths, Obama’s victory speech was characteristic of the candidate at his best – echoing a stalwart voice that immediately went from praising Hillary (for doing “what no woman has done before”) to focusing on the positives of this long, dirty race for the Presidency (“Because of this primary, there are millions of Americans who have cast their ballot for the very first time”).

I couldn’t help but notice his careful mannerisms to reassure the audience that he knew who he was talking to and where he was talking at, from “That’s the change we need, Minnesota!” to “Maybe if John McCain spent some time in the schools of South Carolina, or St. Paul, Minnesota,” [crowd applause] “he’d understand that we can’t afford to leave the money behind for No Child Left Behind”. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate this name representation of my hometown.

Hillary Steps Down

Although everyone’s been waiting beyond patience for Hillary to drop out of the race, I must say that after almost a year and a half, it’s sad see a woman go. Now the dream of seeing feminism come to its political conclusion in the U.S. capitalist system in 2008 won’t be realized. And we’ll no longer hear bites of a Hillary supporter like Jack Nicholson say, “There is nothing on this Earth sexier than a woman you have to salute in the morning.”

Hillary’s Concession Speech

But as sad as it is to see Hillary go, it’s sadder to see Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer drop out of the race for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota. Today, in spite of previous tax confusions and a reputation for a big mouth, Al Franken won the DFL endorsement as candidate for U.S. Senate. I only hope to see Jack continue to run for public office in the future.

They’ve done it again: MinnPost is raiding former Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch’s political image as a public servant for the down-trodden, or, to put it another way, reaffirming Hatch’s public reputation as a hot-tempered, hypocritical bastard.

Here are some excerpts from Eric Black’s old-fashioned investigative report that give us an idea of Hatch’s would-be DFL-minded personality:

Hatch took over an office that had been known, under his predecessors, as a national model among AG offices, for striking an appropriate balance between the political needs of the elected official and the obligation of public lawyers to do high-quality, non-partisan legal work, and turned it into an office driven by Hatch’s political ambitions.

Attorneys under Hatch (with Swanson as one of his top lieutenants) felt pressured to skate on ethical thin ice. They also felt that if they pushed back, they would face consequences from verbal abuse to a sudden loss of standing in the office, up to and including being forced out.

And, of course, my favorite part of Hatch’s demeanor:

Hatch used the f-word and the mother-f’er variation. He called the deputy and his entire division the “biggest bunch of [f'ing] losers” he’d ever seen.

All of this Hatch news comes in light of his protégée and current Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson’s similar top-down iron hand approach to her office. Like Hatch, Swanson continues to refuse the unionization of her staffers and pit them in unethical positions.

Sure, if Nick Coleman is calling Gov. Pawlenty “Tim the Terrible,” then Pawlenty’s certainly not Minnesota’s ideal leader. But a Gov. Hatch would have been worse than a Gov. Pawlenty in the same way that a Hubert Humphrey Presidency would have been worse than a Richard Nixon Presidency in ‘68. Hatch and Humphrey are very similar in the two-edged sword retrospect. One minute Humphrey’s speaking against the Viet Nam War to a rally of college kids, the next minute he’s talking about “staying on course” in front of Big Labor leaders. One minute Hatch and Swanson are running pro-labor campaigns, the next minute they’re refusing labor support for their own staffers. But fuggit - life’s a bitch and soon we’ll all be dead.

As for Hatch’s response to Black’s report, he blames the current controversies on a “small cabal of attorneys” who are trying to unionize the office. According to Hatch, these attorneys hide behind anonymity to “throw mud at their bosses and look for any scribner to serve as their hand maiden.” Bravo, buddy, bravo.

Note a young, sleazy Bill O’Reilly at the 1:00 minute mark

It’s easy for any white person to call Jeremiah Wright’s recent actions egotistical. For whites, Wright is an easy Black target, as media coverage has proved this past week. Wednesday’s New York Times editorial claimed Wright’s recent statements were full of “racism” and “paranoia.” Both it and a Star Tribune editorial praised Sen. Obama’s moves to distance himself from his former pastor as much as he could. Steve Perry at Minnesota Monitor called Wright’s media tour a “selfish move.” In fact, I’ve only seen one positive commentary of Wright, which was published in Insight News, the Black community newspaper of the Twin Cities. Something’s not right with this picture.

While most of the press continues to play the Jesse Jackson card against Wright, I’ll offer yet another critique of the situation. Most mainstream commentary has put Wright’s statements on a political level, noting that it’s negatively affecting Obama’s campaign – which is true. But let’s not forget that Wright is a pastor and that his reason for stepping back into the spotlight was to defend the Black Church, which goes beyond traditional politics. After Wright saw his 30-plus years of preaching summed up in 30-second sound bites, who could blame him for re-addressing the issue publicly? More importantly, how many Americans were under the impression that these 30-second sound bites summed up the Black Church?

Whether he was being selfish or not, Wright’s decision to come back into the public sphere was motivated by the still-fractured race relations that exist within the U.S. We all know it’s an issue that’s going to outlast Obama’s campaign and potential presidency. And while the media moguls have repeatedly underlined Wright’s recent statements concerning AIDS, Farrakhan and U.S. terrorism, if you watch his appearances at the National Press Club or on the Bill Moyers show, you’ll see that these pseudo-controversial comments are buried underneath his main concern, which is clearing the name of the Black Church. The fact that the press focused only on these statements proves they have overtly sensational, and yes, sometimes racist tendencies.

I’d argue that Wright’s recent actions are wrongly justified not by his political views, but by his unconditional faith in God. In a Q & A at the National Press Club, Wright said (at the 3 minute mark of the video):

“If God intends for Mr. Obama to be the President, then no white racist, no political pundit, no speech can get in the way, because God will do what God wants to do.”

This type of justification assumes that God is guiding this election rather than the delegates, the superdelegates and (to a much smaller extent) the voters. Although I’m not qualified to make psychological assumptions, this is where I think Wright is blindsided. He assumes that no matter what is done or said, God will decide the overall outcome of the election. It’s not that Wright should care about Obama’s campaign, but he should at least be aware of the repercussions of his statements. But perhaps they couldn’t wait.

After a week of speculation, the rumors are true: according to the Star Tribune, the Minnesota Vikings have acquired defensive end and human wrecking ball Jared Allen. As this YouTube clip of the now-former Kansas City defender knocking the shit out of Jaguars QB David Gerrard illustrates, this sonofabitch Allen means business.

But the drunk-drivin’, mullet-sportin’, No. 69-wearin’ mammoth comes with a price: the Vikes’ first-round draft pick and two of their third-round picks. That’s too much, if you ask me. Allen, best known for leading the NFL in sacks last season, will also become the highest-paid defender in NFL history, racking up around $74 million in a six-year contract. It’s certainly a calculated risk for the Vikes, one that’s pretty damn big.

But hell, at least all their offseason holes are now filled (assuming the old, antiquated and unreliable Gus Frerotte is acceptable as a backup QB). What excites me most is how Allen will be a pass rusher playing for last year’s worst passing defense in the NFL. Still, I predict that Madieu Williams, a new Vikings safety who used to play for Cincinnati, will play the biggest role in turning this one-dimensional rush defense into a more well-rounded threat on both the run and pass. We’ll see how things develop.

While next Fall will be a dramatic election season, its football season will probably show more favorable results. And for the record, U.S. politics are as testosterone-induced and barbaric (if not more so) as American football. I get the same unhealthy satisfaction from downing a six-pack and watching football as I do from following the political process.

But what really puts the aches in my back is how Hillary recently denounced the “activist base” of the Democratic Party at a closed-door (meaning uber-wealthy guests only) fundraiser right after Super Tuesday. She said, and I will quote:

“We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn’t even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that’s what we’re dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and it’s primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don’t agree with them. They know I don’t agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me.”

Listen to an audio version of her statements here.

As my first post on this blog made clear, I am no Obama fanatic; he’s probably as likely to talk shit about Democratic activists to superdelegates as you reading this. I understand, it’s the nature of the system. But Hillary, it’s clear you’ve fallen off the wagon and will do anything, including alienating the last and dying democratic core of the Democratic Party, to get elected. I just can’t take it anymore.

Word to the wise: stop wasting your time following this unhealthy, blasphemous circus of an election.

While most Minnesotans have stuck comedian Al Franken in their minds as the next Minnesota DFL Senate candidate, St. Thomas peace studies professor Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is still vying for the party’s upcoming June nomination. Despite barely being mentioned in the local media, Nelson-Pallmeyer surpassed Mike Ceresi in the race and is slowly but surely winning over the most liberal sectors of the DFL. After looking into his campaign, I found out that Nelson-Pallmeyer is a more progressive, less elite alternative to Franken. Although Franken often mentions the late Sen. Paul Wellstone as his role model, Nelson-Pallmeyer’s grassroots campaign, stances on the issues, and intellectual demeanor (he’s an educator) resemble Wellstone much more than a comedian running for office does.

I stopped by Jack’s campaign office and briefly chatted with him about what he’d like to get done as Minnesota’s next U.S. Senator.

Most people describe you as the activist candidate. Let’s say you get the endorsement and you’re elected in November. Are you afraid that Washington bureaucracy will limit what you want to get accomplished as an activist?

It’s certainly difficult arena to work in on many levels, but I think the approach I’m taking to the race really helps – and that is that I see my role as helping to build the citizen movement that we need. The stronger that movement is, the stronger my voice is in Washington. I also think that by electing Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, an activist, we’re going to shake up politics in this state and country in ways that are really important. I recognize [Washington’s] a difficult arena, but I think having an activist and candidate that gets there in the context of building a citizen movement will really help.

Sometimes it’s tough to find your name and campaign mentioned in the media. Realistically, how are you doing on delegate support?

We’re doing very well on delegate support. It’s still an open race. I think for a long time the media was focused in exactly the wrong spot, which is money. They assumed that because Al Franken and Mike Ceresi had millions of dollars, they were the two candidates they needed to watch. And that’s really unfortunate, because what they need to be watching is which candidates are resonating with people. Now that Mike Ceresi dropped out – and he dropped out because he was behind in the delegate count – that at least opened up some space for people to look much more seriously at my campaign.

Some of my friends have stated that a lot of your stances synch up more with, say, the Green Party rather than the mainstream Democrats. So why, specifically, are you seeking the DFL endorsement?

Well I think the issues that are resonating with people that I promote are held in a really wide spot in Minnesota. Everywhere I go, people are worried about health care. People want a national solution to the health care crisis. Now is absolutely the time to work for a single-payer health care system. It’s a similar with Iraq. People want to end this war. Now, they may share a concern that we have some ethical responsibility for helping a country we’ve destroyed, but people want to end the war. That’s an issue that’s very broadly held. I see my campaign as opening up the possibility of unifying a lot of Democrats, hopefully bringing in some Greens, some independents, and even some alienated Republicans around the agenda we need to do.

You’ve stated that you’ll support whoever gets the DFL endorsement. Why is that?

Both Al Franken and I, and Mike Ceresi when he was in the race, stated that we wouldn’t buck the DFL endorsement process. The reason that’s so important is because I believe Norm Coleman has been a cheerleader for the worst administration in U.S. history, and that that administration has led us to the edge of a cliff. So it’s very important that we beat Norm Coleman. If the Democratic Party had a fight that extended into a primary in September, we’d just be taking away time and money away from the core task, which is to beat Norm Coleman.

Ceresi’s out, and it’s down to you and Franken. What makes you the better choice?

I’m a candidate that’s had a lot of experience. I’ve lived overseas working in Central America for a number of years. I’ve engaged in hunger and poverty and economic issues. I’ve tracked environmental concerns for 30 years. I know the climate change issues – I understand what the science is going to require in terms of solutions. My history of being a critic of the militarized foreign policy of this country is extensive, and I think even people who may have disagreed with me at times would probably look back now and say, “He was right.” And that’s true with the Iraq War as well. I was an advisor to Paul Wellstone. I also debated Congressman Jim Ramstad before the Iraq War vote. I warned him that this was a disaster, that we were being manipulated by politics of fear. I think all those things make me a very good candidate to address those problems.

Hypothetically, again, say you get the nomination and you’re elected in November. Which Senate committees would you like to serve?

I think I would be happy on almost any committee that they put me on. Let’s say they put me on Human Services. There we could address issues of hunger and poverty and inequality and health care issues. If they want to put me on foreign policy issues, I have a lot of ideas about how we get this country transitioned from a dominant military superpower to a global partner that will help solve pressing problems. Put me on transportation and I’ll work to build the rail lines we need to connect our cities and the windmills we need to power them. Put me on an energy committee and I’ll resist nuclear power and stand up to oil companies and promote alternative energy. All these issues in my view are connected and I would be making those connections.

You’re running with a very strong message to get the U.S. out of Iraq immediately. You’ve called it the worst foreign policy disaster. What do you want to see done with the War in Afghanistan?

I think Afghanistan has also been an enormous blunder and I was opposed to the very metaphor of the War on Terror. As soon as I heard that metaphor I knew we were in deep, deep trouble, because you don’t defeat terrorism in a war. We have to address the roots of [terrorism], the anger that leads to it. In my view, the attacks of 9/11 should’ve been treated as crimes against humanity. War is a very, very dangerous instrument. By militarizing [Afghanistan], by having spilling casualties, we are creating a disaster. I know the common terminology is “Iraq is bad, Afghanistan is good, and Iraq took attention away from Afghanistan.” I think our approach in Afghanistan was wrong.

So you’d like to see troop withdrawal from that area?

Yeah, and I would like to see a fundamentally different approach. If you look at the history, any country that has tried to occupy Afghanistan has been bankrupted or defeated. You don’t occupy other countries and win. [Afghanistan has] issues, for sure, but they’re not going to be resolved by bombings that kill civilians, they’re not going to be resolved without a willingness to actually sit down and listen to people who don’t want us there. This notion that there are military solutions to this problem needs to be fundamentally challenged.

You have lots of international experience. You and your wife once lived in Nicaragua running an Augsburg study abroad program. Given all this international experience, what would you do domestically for the state of Minnesota if you’re elected?

Here’s where some of my priorities are: We need a national health care system. No other industrialized country allows the insurance industry to determine their health care system; we do. It’s ridiculous. So I would really work hard towards a national single-payer health care system, which has profound implications for back here. I would cut the U.S. military budget and use 10 percent of that cut to have a universal preschool program for 3-5 year olds, which we desperately need to help give kids a good start. I would take away tax breaks for the richest one percent and make college and university education affordable for any student who wants to attend and is qualified. I would work on establishing a progressive tax system instead of our regressive one, because we have the highest degree of inequality in any industrialized country and we’re probably at the highest level of inequality in the history of our country. It’s one of the reasons why our economy isn’t working. We have allowed the richest one to five percent to garner almost all the income and wealth in this country for the last 25 years. So, these all have domestic implications.

As a professor of peace studies, I’m assuming the student vote is important to you.

Absolutely.

A lot of my peers still haven’t heard of you. What are you doing to reach out to students in this campaign?

I will be, over the next number of months, trying to get to each college and university in this state at least once. I also have a lot of young people involved in my campaign that know a lot more than I do about things like YouTube, so I hope there’s a lot of outreach taking place at that level. This is very much a grassroots campaign that spreads word of mouth from person to person and through a lot of these networks.

In a recent Minnesota Monitor interview, you talked about your spiritual mentors. Who are some of your political mentors?

I had a lot of respect for Paul Wellstone. I knew him, I really liked his first campaign. In it, not many people gave him a chance, he was an outsider, he didn’t get a lot of institutional support, but he kept working and took a very grassroots approach. Outside of this country there are lots people I’d call mentors, including Gandhi, Oscar Romero in El Salvador, some of the Jesuit priests I met in El Salvador who had this incredibly progressive vision of what a university should be, that it should be about training people to transform their society. But my mentors have also tended to be common people who do extraordinary things. Those are the people I get my energy from.

To be fair, it’s quite an assumption to single out this one event as costing Hatch the election, but let’s not forget this was a man notoriously known for his bad temper. His bad temper was his public image, and he lost because of it. A similar argument can be made for why Sen. John Kerry lost to George W. Bush in a year when the Democrats should’ve won the Presidency by a landslide. Kerry’s public image was simply too dull to win an election of such magnitude. Now the Democrats are blessed to have Barack Obama, a man whose skills at speaking well and looking good has placed him in the lead of delegate support. If he were a white man, I bet he would’ve already locked the nomination up by now.

A lot of my friends are attracted to Obama because of his superb speaking skills. My roommate told me one of the reasons he likes Obama is because “we need a President who’s a good speaker.” The fact is we’ve had plenty of lousy Presidents with gifted speaking abilities. Bill Clinton’s public figure was as sharp as a fox and as delicious as rhubarb pie, but as President his greatest accomplishments were enacting NAFTA and limiting public welfare. And let’s not forget that he passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which lead to increased monopolistic ownership of the media (which Constitutionally belongs to us, the people). But he could give one hell of a speech.

As long as we’re on the topic of good public speakers, Ronald Reagan cannot be ignored. Is it an irony that Reagan, who to many is one of the worst U.S. Presidents in recent memory, was known at the time of his tenure as the Great Communicator? No one can deny Reagan’s awesome ability to hold an audience in his hands. Check out this video and see if you can’t stop yourself from smiling at how cute he is:

What a jokester.

I remember when one of my former political science professors, an old fashioned gun-lovin’ bureaucracy-hatin’ libertarian known as Sam Stanton, cynically blamed the televised 1960 Kennedy/Nixon Presidential debate for shifting the political conversation from “What’s his stances?” to “What’s he wearing?” I don’t know if that instance was the beginning of the public’s image-over-substance mentality, but I’ll bet Stanton was on to something.

I’m not going to argue that crafty speaking skills and a likable public image aren’t essential qualities in a politician, but when image clouds policies, it’s more than an issue. It’s a democratic problem.

In the letter, which started circling around the Web last month, Wright addresses Times reporter Jodi Kantor and an article she wrote titled “Disinvitation by Obama is Criticized.” The article, written in March 2007, a year before Rev. Wright came into public conscience, is about his alleged disinvitation from Obama’s Febraury 2007 campaign kickoff, in which Wright was supposed to deliver the event’s invocation. His letter claims that he spoke with Kantor for two hours about Obama’s credibility as a candidate and found none of it in the article. Wright also calls the article “one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen.”

LETTER FROM REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

March 11, 2007

Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
9 West 43rd Street
New York,
New York 10036-3959

Dear Jodi:

Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.

For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he was. For two hours I shared with you what a genuine human being he was. I told you how incredible he was as a man who was an African American in public service, and as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or the other whether or not she was going to run.

I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how idealistic he was. We talked about how refreshing it would be for someone who knew about Islam to be in the Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn’t I think it would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval Office who not only knew about Muslims, but had living and breathing Muslims in his own family? I told you how important it would be to have a man who not only knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to 9/11/01 in the Oval Office, but also how important it would be to have a man who knew what Sufism was; a man who understood that there were different branches of Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed Jews; and a man who was a devout Christian, but who did not prejudge others because they believed something other than what he believed.

I talked about how rare it was to meet a man whose Christianity was not just “in word only.” I talked about Barack being a person who lived his faith and did not argue his faith. I talked about Barack as a person who did not draw doctrinal lines in the sand nor consign other people to hell if they did not believe what he believed.

Out of a two-hour conversation with you about Barack’s spiritual journey and my protesting to you that I had not shaped him nor formed him, that I had not mentored him or made him the man he was, even though I would love to take that credit, you did not print any of that. When I told you, using one of your own Jewish stories from the Hebrew Bible as to how God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?,” that Barack was like that when I met him. Barack had it “in his hand.” Barack had in his grasp a uniqueness in terms of his spiritual development that one is hard put to find in the 21st century, and you did not print that.

As I was just starting to say a moment ago, Jodi, out of two hours of conversation I spent approximately five to seven minutes on Barack’s taking advice from one of his trusted campaign people and deeming it unwise to make me the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print? You and your editor proceeded to present to the general public a snippet, a printed “sound byte” and a titillating and tantalizing article about his disinviting me to the Invocation on the day of his announcing his candidacy.

I have never been exposed to that kind of duplicitous behavior before, and I want to write you publicly to let you know that I do not approve of it and will not be party to any further smearing of the name, the reputation, the integrity or the character of perhaps this nation’s first (and maybe even only) honest candidate offering himself for public service as the person to occupy the Oval Office.

Your editor is a sensationalist. For you to even mention that makes me doubt your credibility, and I am looking forward to see how you are going to butcher what else I had to say concerning Senator Obama’s “Spiritual Biography.” Our Conference Minister, the Reverend Jane Fisler Hoffman, a white woman who belongs to a Black church that Hannity of “Hannity and Colmes” is trying to trash, set the record straight for you in terms of who I am and in terms of who we are as the church to which Barack has belonged for over twenty years.

The president of our denomination, the Reverend John Thomas, has offered to try to help you clarify in your confused head what Trinity Church is even though you spent the entire weekend with us setting me up to interview me for what turned out to be a smear of the Senator; and yet The New York Times continues to roll on making the truth what it wants to be the truth. I do not remember reading in your article that Barack had apologized for listening to that bad information and bad advice. Did I miss it? Or did your editor cut it out? Either way, you do not have to worry about hearing anything else from me for you to edit or “spin” because you are more interested in journalism than in truth.

Forgive me for having a momentary lapse. I forgot that The New York Times was leading the bandwagon in trumpeting why it is we should have gone into an illegal war. The New York Times became George Bush and the Republican Party’s national “blog.” The New York Times played a role in the outing of Valerie Plame. I do not know why I thought The New York Times had actually repented and was going to exhibit a different kind of behavior.

Maybe it was my faith in the Jewish Holy Day of Roshashana. Maybe it was my being caught up in the euphoria of the Season of Lent; but whatever it is or was, I was sadly mistaken. There is no repentance on the part of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times. You should do well with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my face and told me a lie!

Sincerely and respectfully yours,

Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., Senior Pastor
Trinity United Church of Christ

Upon NAFTA’s inception, major trade unions were immediately against it, arguing that it would result in a loss of U.S. jobs as corporations moved to cheaper countries. By 1995, economists at the Institute for Policy Studies concluded that NAFTA had already cost a loss of 10,000 U.S. jobs. Today, since NAFTA has been enacted, America’s deficit with Mexico has climbed from $10 billion to $74 billion while the U.S. has lost 3 million manufacturing jobs.

In the February’s Ohio Democratic debate, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spoke out against NAFTA, promising they would at least renegotiate the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico if elected to the White House. Soon after, CTV News reported that Obama’s chief economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, told Canadian ambassador to the United States Michael Wilson this:

“Don’t worry. It’s just campaign rhetoric. Don’t take it seriously.”

While the Obama campaign claimed the story wasn’t accurate, Goolsbee refused to affirm or deny its authenticity.

What’s true is that as recently as last October, Obama was supporting a NAFTA expansion to Peru known as the United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, stating:

“The Peruvian agreement contains the very labor agreements that labor and our allies have been asking for.”

Unfortunately for him, nearly all major labor unions opposed this expansion. Some of them included the Change to Win labor federation and its affiliates, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Oxfam and plenty AFL-CIO affiliated unions. In his 2004 Illinois Senate campaign, Obama stated that NAFTA was beneficial to the U.S. and claimed it brought great benefits to his state.

Similarly, during that same year, Hillary Clinton said NAFTA had been “good for New York and America.” It’s actually a logical statement coming from her perspective, since her husband saw it as a big accomplishment of his presidency when it was first passed. In those days, Hillary’s support of the trade agreement was evident in how she hosted a pro-NAFTA meeting, helped the White House block labor and environmental opposition, and held meetings to brainstorm means for its congressional approval.

The message from this is all too clear : Obama and Clinton are Washington politicians, nothing more, nothing less. Corporatized interests in Washington are just too great to allow a candidate like Dennis Kucinich, whose pro-labor voting record actually matched up with his pro-labor rhetoric, anywhere near the White House. My guess is that we’ll continue to see more and more decreased free trade regulations as time goes on. But if the recent booing of President Bush at a Washington Nationals game tells us anything, it’s that people are discontent with Washington. Or maybe they went to the baseball game to briefly forget about the troubles of the world and saw the last person on Earth they wanted to see. Regardless of the reasoning, I can only hope this booing will broaden out and soon greet every dishonest politician. But that’s probably just wishful thinking.

And it looks like some politicians in Washington are continuing to poorly execute what are otherwise decent ideas. Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sent a letter to President Bush calling for an end to the Iraq War. Of course, it’s a futile to assume that after all of his unwillingness to end the war, Bush will finally cave in this time. And it must be noted that Pelosi and Reid’s letter calls for refocusing on (or escalating) the War in Afghanistan. But that’s why we elected Democrats in ‘06, right?

In local news, the State House and Senate approved a $925 million state bonding bill. Much of this money would go to the state’s public universities, the Central Corridor light rail (with $4 million to study the idea of rail that goes all the way to Chicago), an anti-terrorism center at Camp Ripley and Como Zoo renovations of their bear and gorilla exhibits (some Republicans refer to that last part of the bill as “money for gorilla cages”). Since state economist Tom (Tommy?) Stinson recommended that the bonding bill be no larger than $825 million, many are expecting a possible veto, or at least line-item veto, from Gov. Tim Pawlenty. But in truth no one really knows how he’ll handle this one, since he completely vetoed a similar bill last year. He’s got until Monday to decide.

DFLers aren’t waiting in silence. Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL – Virginia), my favorite obstinate Iron Range politician, took the opportunity to direct some shots at Pawlenty:

“It’s hard to negotiate with a ghost. The governor thinks there are three branches of government and they are ‘me, myself and I.’”

Meanwhile, our old friend Jesse Ventura appeared on Larry King and called for a revolution against the “Democratic and Republican dictatorship that’s going on in this country.” He even compared the two parties to street gangs, calling them the “Demo-crips” and “Re-blood-licans.” The ironic thing is that at best, Jesse delayed this revolution and at worst, prevented it from ever happening. Which is really too bad.

In a time when consumers’ views of the economy are gloomier than they’ve been in five years, the Presidential candidates are devoting more and more rhetoric to fixing our stalled economy. While the Democratic candidates announced government remedies to help heal the situation, Republican candidate John McCain got more specific about his solution to the pending recession than ever before: let the market figure it out. Here’s an excerpt from his Tuesday speech in front of Latino businessmen:

“I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers.”

But last week, the Federal Reserve and JP Morgan Chase & Co. bailed out investment bank Bear Sterns Cos., which lost billions of dollars after investing in securities backed by pools of subprime mortgages. Wasn’t Bear Sterns acting irresponsibly by investing billions of dollars in risky mortgages? “They had the least-diversified earnings stream of all of Wall Street securities firms, and as a result, they’re paying the price today,” said Andrew Wilkinson, senior market analyst at Interactive Brokers Group, in a Huffington Post article.

So naturally McCain would denounce the Federal Reserve/JP Morgan bail out of Bear Sterns, right? When asked whether it was a bad move, McCain said it was “a close call, but I don’t think so.” Remember that this is a man who once admitted he really doesn’t understand the economy.

I’m curious to wonder how a McCain administration would have handled this mess. As an alternative to government intervention, McCain politely asked the mortgage lenders to voluntarily step forward and “help their customers.” Anyone smell a little wishful thinking? What’s surprising is that McCain is less willing to take steps and intervene than President Bush. To revitalize sagging housing sales, Bush, along with the Federal Housing Administration, is looking at lowering required mortgage down payments. McCain, however, opposes this idea.

If the defective economy is the biggest issue on the voter’s mind and McCain isn’t willing to do more, but less than Bush to fix it, then the Democrats have no excuse whatsoever to lose this November. As Ralph Nadar said on Meet the Press, “If the Democrats can’t pull a landslide victory over John McCain and the Republicans this year above all then they should just pack up and go home.”