As a "Mark Kennedy Supporter", I receive his usually lousy periodic e-mails. Today I saw something that I just had to blog about, and it brought me out of hibernation (I started a new job out in DC and I have very little free time).



Mark Kennedy claims that 60 percent of his first quarter contributions were under $25. Well, let me quote it exactly: "Did you know that nearly 60% of contributions in the 1st Quarter were under $25?" This I did not know! What I did know about Kennedy was that he raised $1,478,433 in the first quarter of 2006. Now, 60% of that would be $887,059.80, meaning that that he raised a maximum of $25 from at least 35,482 people! That's a lot of people; Mark must be a pretty popular guy! But then I started thinking, he raised $304,256 in PAC money in the quarter, meaning he had literally thousands of PACs and contributors writing him tiny checks! Or so we would think…

Now I'm not stupid nor do I think that Mark Kennedy is the world's worst CPA; he's just using misleading statements, like that 60% of his contributions were under $25. What he really means is that he could have potentially taken the maximum contribution from 195 people (@ $4,200 a pop) and 290 people gave under $25 (this is an extreme example, I'm sure he had at least 300 contributions under $25...).

I don't think Kennedy will ever be mistaken for being a populist, so why try to stretch the truth to convince them otherwise?

Now I go back into my hole.

The Strib is saying that Ciresi is not running! Huzzah for Amy!

Hopefully I'll have some more time soon to start posting again. Just had to take a second to do this though.

Michael "MDE" Brodkorb listed his e-mail address at Weber Johnson Public Affairs as his media contact address. This has nothing to do with Brodkorb, but I thought it was interesting that their client list includes both the United Nations Foundation and the GOP's anti-UN cheerleader, Norm Coleman. I just don't understand why the UNF would hire a firm that represents the politicians from the party that despises everything they do.

No, no, no, I don't mean that MDE is gay. You should know by now, all Republicans are straight: every single one.

No, MDE confirmed his identity today. Faithful DFL Blog readers would know that MDE was Michael Brodkorb back in October of 2005. I was reluctant back them to expose him because I have no problem with anonymous blogging, as long as it is an individual working by him or herself, and not taking pot shots for another group. Brodkorb was under the employ of the Republican Party of Minnesota while he was blogging. After he left/lost the job, he came out with a vague disclaimer which I believe was what I like to call a "Clintonesq Truth." He then worked for the Republican backed pro-Randy Kelly group with some stupid name, then posted his own press releases. I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that most of the tips that he got came from his old colleagues at the MN GOP research department, putting out the stuff they didn't want to release themselves. He sure reprinted all of their press releases.

I also disagree with all of the spinning going on by Brodkorb and his supporters that he was sued because the DFL wanted his identity exposed. MDE never said in his melodramatic unmasking why this Democratic consultant had filed suit against him. While I will for the time presume Brodkorb's innocence, there plenty of legitimate reasons to file lawsuits. Until MDE or the litigator says what the case is about, I will doubt that their motives are what MDE claims them to be.

If there is one thing that I admire about Mark Kennedy, it is his consistency. He consistently votes in line with President Bush and he consistently wears plaid. The former has been clearly documented (well, we know that Mark Kennedy's mother would vote in lock-step with President Bush). So I decided to set up a little game to play. The point of the game is to see where Kennedy is more consistent, in his love of plaid or his allegiance to the Bush agenda. I've given you a head start on the plaid portion of the game below, you can view all of the photos on his campaign site here. As for Kennedy's voting record, you'll have to do some digging. He doesn't have a that information (or even a link to it on his House site). Even Norm Coleman has his voting record up on his Senate site (and I never compliment Normy). There is CQ.com if you have a subscription, or the Thomas roll call votes to sort through for free.

So to be clear, the rules of the game are simple. See which number is greater: the number of times Mark Kennedy is photographed not wearing plaid or the number of times that Mark Kennedy voted against George W. Bush's wishes. Young kids can play this game too because it will teach them to count to numbers as high as 12 or even 13!

Please leave your totals in the comments for this post.

One wonderful thing about 2006 is that Dean Zimmermann will no longer be on the Minneapolis City Council (He was narrowly defeated in November).

If you don't know about Dean "Zimmerpersonn" Zimmermann, he's a crazy Green party member. Not like your every day semi-crazy Minnesota Greens, but way out there. This is the guy who thinks the way to end hostility between the Minneapolis police and city residents is for the police to go out on hug patrols. He also wanted his name to have Zimmerperson as his nickname on the ballot, but the city elections office wouldn't let him. He also supports Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) along with that sexy fox Michele Bachmann. That and he was investigated by the FBI for allegedly taking bribes (Remember: "Money, Money, Money"). What I don't understand is how stupid someone would have to be to bribe Zimmermann to get something done in the council. The man had no power, was on the fringe, and from what I hear, was not liked by the other council members.

DFL Blog is going to call the state House and Senate race for the DFL Candidates. With 34 percent of State Rep. district 15b reporting, we are going to call the election for Larry Haws. In State Senate district 15, with 50 percent of precincts reporting, we are going to call the election for Tarryl Clark.

Way to go! The DFL has great momentum, look out TimPa and Screech Kennedy come November 2006!

Get the final results here for the Senate and here for the House election.

E.J. Dionne -- a wonderful columnist for the Washington Post -- has a column today that sheds quite a bit of light about our Junior Senator, Smilin' Norm Coleman.

This is an exceprt from Dionne's column, The Washington Post, December 27, 2005:

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) opposed the original, milder Senate budget bill but turned around and voted for the final, harsher bill. According to Congress Daily, Coleman backed the final budget "after negotiators took out cuts affecting his state's sugar beet growers." Coleman told the paper: "Karl Rove called me and asked what I wanted. A few hours later it was out of the bill."

I guess Normy's motto is to cut anything you like, just don't hurt him politically.

I am getting so tired of these Kennedy apologists and shills toeing the campaign and party line to the ends of the earth. KvM is by far the worst offender.

Let's take the ridiculous line that Bush, Kennedy and their toadies are taking on the USA PATRIOT Act. The idea that Democrats are blocking its renewal for partisan reasons is -- pardon my French -- bullshit. First of all, Democrats don't want to kill the whole act, they want to eliminate some of the offending parts (otherwise they wouldn't be making a big deal out of it). I want to know if Mark Kennedy supports every single word and provision in it. What, if anything would he change about it, if he could? The idea that come January 1st, 2006, the terrorists will come crawling out of their holes, killing every man, woman and child in the country, and the government is powerless to act because the Democrats are being partisan, is, again, bullshit. Let's have a read debate about the PATRIOT Act; extend it for 90 days, stop the terrorists for the next three months, while we work it out. Do the Republicans want actual compromise? I'm guessing no, but while the filibuster goes on, the ball is in their court.

Screech must also now stop saying that he opposes drilling in ANWR, I think that he's voted for it three times already. It's one thing to claim that he's an independent guy from Bush, but when it comes down to it, he's just a rubber stamp. He and other ANWR foes could have voted against the defense bill, it isn't the end of the world. If it failed another one would come up, and I'm guessing it wouldn't have the ANWR language in it if they want it to pass. Republicans like to do this sort of thing, like Pawlenty and tacking the pro-life thing to his tax hike to get it passed. The Republican party leadership is shameless to do something like this, to exploit the troops and the war effort to open ANWR for their oil buddies to drill. Kennedy has no spine, he won't stand up to the President or his party leadership. That's exactly what we want in a senator from Minnesota.