by Tony Petrangelo

Sep 14, 2013, 10:00 AM

The Weekly Wrap 9-14

Last week I didn’t do a Wrap™, instead I wrote over 1,000 words about Minnesota’s congressional delegation and the pending congressional vote on Syria and how people voted may or may not affect them in 2014.

So, I did that, and then everything changed and Congress didn’t end up voting on the Syria resolution after all. I suspect that this is just the Universe’s way of telling me to do the Wrap™. I get it Universe; I get it.

Anyway, I was reminded of the above cartoon when reading about Al Franken’s recent comments that were strikingly similar:

In his ABA speech, Franken noted how the more that “average Americans depend on Google and Facebook daily, “the less incentive (the companies) have to respect your privacy,” he said. Both of these “free” services make the bulk of their money via user profiles, allowing third parties to target ads using the extensive personal information stored there. “You are not their client, you are their product,” he said.

I, of course, use both services. Hello there NSA.

♣ Here it is:

That is, as they say in the business, an Instant Classic!

♣ The big news this week, for me at least, was a poll(!) of the publicly released variety. During the course of the week KSTP dribbled out the results of their most recent SurveyUSA poll of Minnesota. Yesterday I covered the part of the poll dealing with Mark Dayton’s favorables. Here I’m going to highlight a few of the other questions that were put to Minnesotans.

SurveyUSA (9/6, no trend lines):

The state legislature will hold a special session to provide disaster relief for several counties. While in session, should the legislature also consider repealing several “business-to-business” taxes, including taxes on the repair of farm and business equipment?
Yes 46
No 32
Not sure 22

Should the legislature also consider repealing a tax on warehouse services?
Yes 43
No 31
Not sure 26

Did the governor and legislature do enough to learn more about the New Jersey case before entering into a deal with Wilfs? Or did they need to do more?
Did Enough 23
Needed To Do More 58
Not sure 19

Should the state re-open the stadium legislation and re-work the deal with the Wilfs, the Vikings, and the National Football League? Or should the legislation and deal be left as it is?
Re-open 51
Left As It Is 39
Not sure 10

Who deserves the most blame if the Vikings deal falls apart? The Wilfs? The NFL? The Governor? The Legislature? Or all of them equally?
Wilfs 26
NFL 4
Governor 9
Legislature 10
All Equally 45
Not sure 7
(MoE: ±4.5%)

There are a few different strains of questions in the poll; it leads with a couple about Syria, but, well, that’s taken a whole new path now and so our elected congress people won’t be forced to take a vote on the issue after all. So I’m not bothering with those questions.

Next come a few questions, excreted here, about repealing different taxes that were passed last session during the special session for storm relief that came and went. It’s not a huge surprise that a plurality supports repealing a tax. Repealing taxes is a popular thing out of context. What’s a little bit surprising is the softness of the support for repealing the tax.

Only 57% of self-identified Republicans support repealing the tax. And independents break down very similarly to Democrats, with only a plurality in favor. Same is true for the following question on repealing the warehouse services tax, only 49% of self-identified Republicans support that. This is not, by any means, an overwhelming mandate for repeal of these taxes. Not only that, I’m pretty sure if you framed the question as a choice between the taxes and the services they are funding, the results would swing against repeal.

The next strain of questions in the poll are about the Vikings stadium.

By a pretty good margin the public thinks the Governor and Legislature should have learned more about the Wilf’s finances and a majority even thinks the whole deal should be revisited. But they are not putting the blame solely on the elected officials. I’m actually a bit surprised that only 9% blame the Governor most, although, 45% blame him partially.

What’s interesting is that the blame everyone mentality permeates all three party affiliation groupings by roughly the same degree, with Republicans at 46%, Democrats at 43% and independents at 45%. Not surprisingly Democrats don’t really blame Dayton at all, while 16% of Republicans do.

There are a few issues floating around in the state right now, the outcomes of which will have a big impact on the upcoming race for Governor. The Vikings stadium is certainly one of those issues.

♣ United States Senator Albert “Al” Franken (for those averse to brevity) got himself a new challenger this week in the form of an old challenger of a previous occupant of his seat. Already into the breach are Mike McFadden, Jim Abler, Julieanne Ortman and Chris Dahlberg. The new (old) recruit is one Monti Moreno, who, like one Chris Dahlberg, appears to enjoy referring to himself in the third person.

America is still the land of the free,” Moreno said standing before several supporters gathered at park on the west side of St. Paul. “It is the home of the brave and I believe a candidacy of Monti Moreno running with the Republican Party will help change America back to what the founding father’s original intent was — restore your freedoms, restore your liberties and not destroy our country and not destroy our jobs.

Boiler plate!

But that’s not the good part.

At tonight’s news conference Moreno was much less animated than he was at the 1996 Republican state convention. He was seeking the party endorsement to run against then U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone. Moreno took to the podium wielding a musket to emphasize his opposition to gun control.

“You see if you can’t do it by ballot, you’ve got to do it by bullets,” shouted Moreno. “Do you think these guys who wrote this Constitution and the Bill of Rights wrote it so they could go deer hunting? Do you think they did it so they could go duck hunting, man? They did it so we can take out country back.”

Awesome! This guy was talking about taking the country back in 1996! I can only hope he captures the hearts of conservatives across the state.

♣ WATN: Ted Lillie, last seen losing his Senate seat to Susan Kent in 2012, has a new gig, well, besides from being a newspaper baron that is.

Ted Lillie, who is publisher of the Lillie Suburban Newspapers, is the new president of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota.

…

Lillie takes over leadership of the conservative advocacy group from Phil Krinkie, who resigned to run as a Republican for the 6th District congressional seat where incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann is not seeking reelection.

♣ The StarTribune’s Hot Dish Politics blog posted a cool info-graphic on Minnesota legislative special sessions over the years.

♣ I was on AM950’s new show, The Daily Report, yesterday, Friday. This is going to be a regular thing from what Ian tells me. So that’s every Friday from 5ish to 7sih. the show itself is every weekday though, so you can check it out even when I not on it.

Artfully embedded below are hours one and two from yesterdays show.