Author: Andrew

My Time at the Republican National Convention

As a college student who does off-campus programs as often as possible, I am ecstatic to be doing the program through The Washington Center’s Campaign 2008 Seminar Series: The Republican National Convention.  The program is one week of class work and seminars, and then the next week is during the convention where I do fieldwork and do my best to get credentials to get inside the convention.  I’ve been assigned to do my fieldwork with CNN so I’ll be able to provide many insights and great stories once I start that work on Monday.  My program thus far has been teaching me about general political topics and also about political conventions.  The program has been 100% fantastic.  I’ve gained many insights, had an epiphany, and have become so dedicated to electing Barack Obama that I almost wish I wasn’t doing the program so I could have the free time to register voters for Obama.

First, I’ll say that if I had instead done The Washington Center’s seminar at the Democratic National Convention, I’d be pissing my pants every day out of excitement, guaranteed.  But alas, I’m from Saint Paul so getting to save money on a plane ticket and hotel rooms seemed like an easy decision.  At the Republican Convention, I’m taking everything as a learning experience and as something to put on my resume.  I’m surrounded by Republicans all day every day, college Republicans at that; those who aren’t even old enough to benefit from the tax benefits the Republican Party offers those in the top 1% of the tax bracket.  They are mainly in the pocket of Republicans and they spout off stupid Republican talking points that I cringe at.  I’ve had a really hard time turning off my politics button off and ignoring my political differences with these people so I can interact with them at a friendly level, but I’ve been trying my best to not judge them all as Bush-enablers.

One of the main professors of the seminar is a former Congressman from Oklahoma, Congressman Mickey Edwards, a founder of the Heritage Foundation.  The other is a professor from Hofstra University, Dr. Meena Bose (same school Norm Coleman went to coincidently) who has represented the left in a non-partisan way.  I’ve bitten my lip, made numerous comments underneath my breadth and also comments loud enough for everyone to hear and laugh at.  I’ve been able to learn exactly why I think Republican ideology is complete bullshit and has corrupted the American psyche.

One of the speakers I’ve been able to hear was Jo Anne Davidson, co-chair of the RNC and chair of the Committee on Arrangements, the committee in charge of putting on the convention.  I’ve learned great insight in the purpose of political conventions; to introduce ones candidate and present a message to the American electorate to convince them to vote for ones party’s candidate.  One of the best quotes I’ve heard so far was that everything that happens on stage is scripted.  Every time Obama’s kids did something cute on stage or when Hillary did the move for acclamation, scripted.  Very important thing to remember, the convention is the opportunity for the party to market and brand their candidate.

A lot of the actual class work has been discussions on the Democratic National Convention, who McCain will pick as VP, and other various topics.  One of these various topics was the make-up of the Republican Party, which former Congressman Edwards described as being made-up of libertarians, the former racist Southern Democrats, the religious right, and neo-cons.  One of my inclinations is that the Democratic Party is the reverse and made up of who these groups disenfranchise, labor unions, minorities, and the socially liberal.

I was able to go inside the Excel Energy Center where I got to see the set-up for the Republican National Conventional and I’ll tell you now, it looks good.  I was very impressed and I can’t wait to play the credentials game of getting as far inside as I possibly can.

Nothing that spectacular has happened as pertaining directly to the convention but a lot of build up.  I start my fieldwork for CNN on Monday and I absolutely cannot wait.  The list of duties I may perform that I have been given pretty much indicate that my credentials will allow to me be all over the convention and I’ll certainly write follow up diaries on how everything has been going, of course without too much detail as I don’t want to get in trouble with the Secret Service, ?.  But Saturday I’ll hopefully be attending the huge media party in downtown Minneapolis and also another event with Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Megan McCain on youth voting.  Karl Rove is a complete douche but the bitch knows how to win so hopefully I’ll learn some insight on how organizing college students for Barack Obama.

Redistricting Minnesota

This started out more as a response in the front page blog about the Sarvi-Kline poll and it quickly turned into a diary on Minnesota redistricting.  Minnesota is either going to lose a seat, or maintain our 8, it’s pretty up in the air as of now.  I’ll talk about what we should do in both case.

The current delegation make up is 5 Democrats, 3 Republicans with all 3 Republican seats being at least somewhat competitive, one being open, and all 5 Democrats being safe incumbents for as long as they so please (Walz appears to be on that track after this election when he wins 60%)

more after the jump

This post started from a response about how we can turn MN-2 (Kline) into a district more winnable for Sarvi, with the mention of Carver county, the most Republican county in the Twin Cities metro area and one of the most Republican in the state.  If we can somehow put Carver county (which is on the edge of MN-2) into a neighboring CD, MN-2 would almost automatically become a DFL leaning CD.  

First, the geography of MN-2.  The counties in MN-2 are Carver, most of Dakota, Scott, the southern portion of Washington, Le Sueur, Rice, and Goodhue.  The southern portion of Washington are suburbs that are trending Democrat and are a swing area that should be voting Obama.  Dakota, Scott, and Carver contain the majority of the population of MN-2.  There are a few tier two suburbs in these counties, and all of these suburbs have been trending quickly DFL.  However, there aren’t many of these tier two suburbs.  Carver is mainly all tier three suburbs and exurbs, the areas that have not shown any trending.  Scott county is like Carver in demographics except with a slightly less Republican voting pattern.  Then Dakota is now a swing area with strong trends towards the DFL.  Le Sueur, Rice and Goodhue are rural districts that are swing but have been seeing a swing towards the DFL.

First, I’ll go into how to create a 7-1 DFL advantage.

I would shore up Bachmann’s Republican base all in her district, which would inevitably screw over any chance of ever competing here, but it would guarantee a DFL leaning MN-2.  I’ve mentioned the Bible Belt of MN-6 in a few posts and Carver county perfectly fits into that, as does Scott.  Here are the 2004 Presidential Vote Totals for Carver and then also the bible belt of CD6, Wright, Sherburne, Stearns, and Benton.

Carver- 36.2% Kerry, 62.8% Bush

Scott- 39.5% Kerry, 59.5% Bush

Benton- 43.8% Kerry, 54.6% Bush

Sherburne- 38.2% Kerry, 60.7% Bush

Stearns- 43.2% Kerry, 55.2% Bush

Wright- 38.% Bush, 60.8%

There are 3 counties that gave Bush a higher margin of victory in the entire state, which is pretty damn decent considering there are 87 counties with many many being very rural and conservative at the federal level.

As for more Republican than Wright and Sherburne, there are only another 3 that vote more Republican.

Stearns and Benton is home of St. Cloud, the only liberal area of the exurban parts of the CD and it was the only area that voted for Wetterling over Bachmann except for a few random precincts here and there.  St. Cloud is one of the largest cities in the state with a population of 50,000-60,000.  It greatly improves the vote totals for both of these counties.

Here is the best way to consolidate all the Republicans into MN-6 and create a DFL MN-2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C…

Here is a map of Minnesota with Carver County highlighted.  Scott county it the county southeast of Carver.  The Bible Belt lies directly to the north with the county directly north of Carver is Wright county.  North of Wright is Sherburne, northwest of Sherburne is Benton and then west of Benton is Stearns.  Also add in Scott which is southwest of Carver.  I would take out St. Cloud and put it into neighboring MN-7 just to help shore up the Democrats there for when Peterson retires and because they don’t deserve to be with Bachmann.  St. Cloud was already in this CD prior to 2000.  To add more to the population, start adding in parts of neighboring Anoka county to the east.  Anoka county is made up of two differing areas, the blue trending second tier suburbs, and the red neck stably Republican third tier suburbs.  Throw in the third tier suburbs to the new MN-6.  Bachmann would probably have a CD of about R+10 or maybe more but it’s the price to pay.

This leaves MN-2 without the incredibly Republican areas.  Maintain Dakota, Le Sueur, Rice, and Goohue counties, add in all of Washington county, some of the counties maybe even further north and then the blue trending suburbs of Anoka county (Blaine in particular) and create a CD with boundaries that arch around the Twin Cities, much like MN-3 and MN-6 do.  This should create a CD that is almost D+0 or, after this election with Obama winning every area of the state, a D+3 or something.

Now, if we were to lose a congressional seat, we should still be able to create a 7-0 delegation.  First look at the current MN-6.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I… ,

As you can see, it borders every single CD in Minnesota, even a tiny part of MN-5.  It’d be as simple as smartly dividing out the CD into every other neighboring one.  However, I this would turn MN-2, MN-3, MN-7and MN-8 into more Republican CD’s, especially MN-2 and MN-7 since I’d assume they’d leave MN-3 as all suburban as much as possible.  If we can get our incumbents in place here and shore them up, then they should survive 2012 but any retirements would really put this in the air.  Also, we’d almost certainly put all of Washington county (in MN-6, county bordering Wisconsin) into MN-2 and if we have Sarvi there already and Bachmann is still there, this is where she resides and it would be one epic battle between her and Sarvi with Sarvi the slight favorite since Bachmann is a wingnut.

I think the conclusion I would draw is that a sustainable 7-0 DFL delegation is not possible.  If we lose a CD after the census, we may be able to have the 7-0 advantage but pending any retirements or tier one Republican candidates could ruin this.  Also, creating that 7-0 advantage opens us up to the possibility of losing five seats since only McCollum and Ellison’s seats are safe DFL.  Oberstar leans our way but he’s been there since the 70’s, it’s anyone’s guess how it would go.  Walz would be safe as an incumbent but if he retires, or runs for Governor, who knows.  Plus, lets not be total bitches, the Republicans deserve a few seats here and there, the country will need a constant reminder as to why we made them irrelevant.

I think Minnesota should create a 6-1 delegation, by eliminating MN-2 and MN-6, distributing the blue areas to the CD’s that need them (MN-1, MN-3, MN-7 especially) and then create the one hella Republican CD I mentioned above for Bachmann or whatever crazy would run in it.  I’d be sad to see Sarvi go but well, then if Sarvi doesn’t win and we still have Kline, we can screw over two incumbents a bit.  I wonder if they’d both move to the ultra Republican CD and battle it out in the primary.  Would be interesting.  Oh well, Sarvi can always come back in 2014 in case Coleman somehow wins.