The Degausser

Norm Coleman: Follow the Money - or lack thereof

2009-01-10T20:01:00.012-06:00

Dovetailing on Coleman's eyebrow-raising links with wealthy financier Nasser Kazeminny (the guy who buys Norm suits), the Star Tribune highlights another odd piece of financial info on Minnesota's most recent Ex-Senator.

Appears that Norm and his wife have over-mortgaged their condo in St. Paul, which has risen almost a half million in value over the last 10 years.

Ramsey County property tax records indicate the Colemans have assumed greater and greater debt, increasing from a 30-year $172,900 mortgage in 1994 to a 30-year $775,000 mortgage the couple took out in March 2007.

Their house on St. Paul's Osceola Avenue has a 2009 estimated market value of $615,000, according to property tax records, suggesting they may owe substantially more than the property is worth.

I understand we've all got money issues, but a debt-to-value ratio raises some big questions:
Who was granting these loans to the Colemans?
Why was a public official/US Senator so cash poor as to need to overmortgage his property?
How did the Coleman's property value increase by 500k in 15 years - was it due to permanent improvements on the property?
How did the comparable worth of neighboring properties increase (or not) during the same time period?
What connection or signal does this send that adds to the legitimacy of the lawsuits filed by an investor against Nasser Kazeminny for allegedly, and inexplicably, diverting $75,000 of his company's cash to Laurie Coleman for dubious "services rendered"?
The press seem to be just scratching the surface on the Coleman's personal finances. But this info suggests that were Norm Coleman treated like an average person, he would undoubtedly be seen as a sub-prime borrower. That said, it certainly raises legitimate questions about preferential lending practices on the basis of his status as a US Senator.

Chart Pr0n

2008-12-03T21:41:00.056-06:00

In advance of the MN economic forecast, here is a chart of the state's annual expenditures since 1960.

The blue line is the nominal dollars. The green line is inflation adjusted or expenditures based on the value of 2008 dollars.

More analysis will come after the forecast is released. Just wanted to prime the pump a little.

Annual MN State Govt Expenditures, 1960-2008

Duluth Set to Fill At-Large Council Seat, God Help Us All

2008-12-03T14:18:00.025-06:00

NOTE: Because of this post I am adding a new label, Duluth Needs Help. Unfortunately, I think that I will be using this label more and more.

View Larger Map

Some of you might know (but maybe not care) that due to the retirement of long-time State Representative Mike Jaros there will be a new face representing Central/West Duluth in the Legislatures. This new face is Roger Reinert, a current, soon to be former, Duluth City Councilman.

Since Reinert is vacating his seat, the City Council has to appoint somebody to fill his vacancy until the regular election for the position is held in 2009. The normal way for an open council seat to be filled in Duluth is for the city to solicit applications from community members and have the City Council chose whom they would want to work with.

The open application period ended last week. In total, 35 people applied for the At-Large council seat.

Today, I stumbled on a partial list of the applications for the job. There are about 3 good candidates. Take a look if you want further disappointment in people's ability to make logical arguments.

Rule #1 for a job application is to list accomplishments in your resume. Rule #2 is to write a cover letter that lays out ideas for action. I read about 30 applications and only found a few professional accomplishments and ideas that the candidate would implement. Sadly, most of the ideas were either completely ill-advised (doing away with taxes) or misguided (stopping all bonding projects).

If one looks at the applications, one will notice the citation of nonprofit board experience as a significant reason for consideration. Having been on and worked with boards in Duluth, a person who solely lists board experiences should be automatically excluded. Many of the organizations in Duluth have boards that don't do anything but hold onto the status quo and look inwards. Now, if somebody cited some new innovations that they headed while a board member, that would be a different story. But they didn't, so move on.

I don't know what to think. The candidates with good experience have screwy politics. And the passionate candidates are mostly clueless about creating good policy. I could get behind somebody if they could present ideas, but apparently that's too much to ask for these days.

Showdown: 2012

2008-12-01T20:59:00.008-06:00

Minnesota's state demographer came out with a rather unsettling assessment of the State of the State - no, it wasn't that the country is in a recession - its that Minny may lose a Congressional seat if current population trends hold up in the 2010 Census.

I'm not interested in the reasons for it, they are relatively straightforward: Baby Boomers, snowbirds, Sun Belt, retirement, the reason all major Minnesota politicians fundraise in Florida and Arizona.

I'm interested in who its going to take down. Which leads to the first Degausser prediction for the 2012 race - one that is based almost entirely on caveats.

Fact: MN has 8 Congressional Districts now.

First Assumption: All current occupants run for Re-Election in 2010; all then-sitting Congresspersons would be Incumbents, beyond their first term - arguably the second toughest electoral fight for a Congressperson after their initial election (or scandal).

**The First Assumption obviously faces the fact that 2010 will certainly bring a slew of Democratic challengers to Pretty Boy Tim, who may come out of the MN House Delegation**

Fact: The US Census Occurs in 2010 and applies to Redistricting in Minnesota in 2012.

Second Assumption: The Census shows Minnesota losing population enough to yield a net loss of one Congressional District.

Fact: Redistricting Plans are drafted in each house of the Minnesota Legislature, must be reconciled, passed then signed by the Governor - OR - Passed by Each House of the Legislature, Reconciled, Vetoed by the Governor, then a Veto Override Occurs.

Third Assumption: DFL maintains majorities in each of the state houses at least through the 2010 election, and a GOPer retains the Governor's manse.

Think about this for a minute .... so many plausible scenarios.

Prediction: The MN 6th and 2nd Congressional Districts are the Fastest Growing Districts, and any reallocation of territory will have to be ceded from these two to the 5th (Minneapolis - Ellison) and 4th (St. Paul - McCollum). This makes Demographic Sense and Political Sense given the DFL's obvious interest in Weakening the 2nd (Kline) and 6th (Bachmann) districts.

But there won't be enough political capital available for the DFL to run roughshod over the two remaining GOP Congressfolk from MN, so they will shoot for the most delicious victory.

Bachmann is the mark and gets redistricted into the 8th - when the DFL redistricts her Stillwater home into a now very longitudinal Northeast 8th.

Oberstar v. Bachmann - 2012

- He will only get older;

- She will only get more batshit crazy.

Get your tix now.

New Toy

2008-11-28T15:28:00.003-06:00

I just stumbled on this new gadget created by Doug Beeferman. It ranks Google search terms by state popularity and shows correlations of the search term with different variables. If you're curious about regional differences it is kind of a fun deal.

Here are a couple of interesting searches with a high MN ranking:

unemployment - MN ranked 7th in the USA for volume of people searching about unemployment.

quality of life - MN ranked 9th

ice fishing - the stereotype holds, Minnesotans are 2nd in searching about ice fishing.

You really can't draw large conclusions about the relationships, but it's a fun time waster.

Check it out: http://statestats.appspot.com

2008-11-20T11:06:00.001-06:00

Mator RT unveils a program that provides free parking under Gaviidae Commons during the weekends this Holiday Season. Talk about a bailout. No word if overnight parking is available. If so, I predict my car staying there many Saturday night. Just doing my part to keep the economy rolling. Everybody has to sacrifice.

Facebook is the New Rasmussen (in 2-4 years)

2008-11-18T11:37:00.011-06:00

Just before the election for MN Senate, the Degausser pointed out that Franken had a handy lead in Google Search trends in Duluth that could translate to a win for him in the area. After doing a little bit of research into the emerging world of political analytics, I have seen the future. And man, is it scary/fascinating/scary.

Just a quick primer: analytics is the process of using internet data such as searches, page views, and unique visitors to identify trends. These data are being refined in the business world to better market products to buyers. In the political realm, these data will become the new polling numbers.

In 2006 mid-term elections, researchers looked at candidates Facebook entries and created models that equated supporters to voters. They found that challengers were more likely to use Facebook as an organizing tool and that it could potentially add 1%-3% to the candidate's total vote.

Analytics are just beginning to be used by political scientists and campaigns. Most of the data is scattered and more research needs to be done to discover total impacts, but in a few election cycles, the internet will become (or maybe it has already) a 24/7 polling place.

Just for fun, let's look at some data collected from Al Franken's and Norm Coleman''s web presence over the course of 2008.

NOTE: Data presented here are from January 1, 2008 to November 2, 2008.

I collected Google Search trends, Facebook supporters, Youtube Channel subscribers, and basic website visitor stats collected from compete.com to see if there were any interesting patterns happening.
Throughout the course of the election, search trends were pretty similar between Franken and Coleman. However, right before the election, more people started searching for Franken at rates far beyond Coleman's. The graph above represents average search volume from Jan - Nov. 2. Anything above 1 represents larger than normal search volume for this period. So, by Nov. 2, there was a 24% larger search volume for Franken than Coleman. It is unclear what affect, if any, these searches had on voting outcome.

Looking at the top 8 MN cities by search volume, Franken lead in each except Prior Lake.

Election Results

	Franken	Coleman
Rochester	48%	51%
Minneapolis	69%	19%
St. Cloud	54%	42%
St. Paul	61%	25%
Hopkins	57%	38%
Mankato	60%	39%
Prior Lake	38%	57%
Duluth	62%	37%

There appears to be a relation between final election results and the volume of searches.

Looking at search trends through the election season and comparing them to the average of the polls conducted through the same time show even more relation. The last data point for the poll line is the final election result.

One interesting point however, is that there is a statistically significant and positive relationship between search volume and poll results. The more search volume, the higher the poll numbers.

It's obvious that Franken had a larger web presence than Coleman, but it is unclear how this presence translated into votes. For now, look at the data and make your own conclusions.

All of the Floridian Drama, Without the Warm Weather

2008-11-10T23:51:00.000-06:00

Minnesotans have backstage passes to one of the greatest political dramas since the 2000 Presidential race. Interestingly, this drama is seemingly more a product of weak candidates than a great partisan split. Recent articles in the Strib and on MPR suggest that many people who voted Obama did not cast a vote for any candidate in the Senate race. This non-decision means that either there was a mistake made in the marking of the ballot or there was simply no vote made. Either way, election officials are determining the intention of each ballot. Here’s some map pron via the AP that shows the concentrations of people that opted out of voting in the Senate race. St. Louis Co. leads the way. Way to go Northland, we’re finally #1 in something.

A good portion of the attention from this ‘no-vote paradox’ is being focused on St. Louis County. Coleman’s campaign recently challenged 100 ballots coming out of Mt. Iron that all went for Franken. Coleman’s campaign manager also called the recount results from the Iron Range ’statistical dubious’. Is there some trickery going on up north or is there some other explanation? Let’s do a cursory analysis (insert cheers or jeers).

Last week The Degausser wrote about how the Northland delivered heavily for Franken. St. Louis County, the County that the Coleman campaign is questioning ballot totals from, went to Franken by 22 points. However, the totals from last week to today have changed as election officials are certifying results. Look at how things have changed. Franken has gained 395 total votes from Lake, St. Louis, and Carlton Counties. Coleman actually lost 2 votes.

Votes Gained or Lost Since Nov. 5
	Franken	Coleman	Barkley
Aitken	-5	-2	0
Carlton	54	0	0
Cook	0	0	0
Itasca	0	0	0
Koochiching	0	0	0
Lake	246	0	0
Saint Louis	100	0	0
TOTAL	395	-2	0

We can see how Coleman’s campaign manager would be upset, but what are the probabilities of evil shenanigans?

The precinct in question is Mt. Iron P1. According to the MN Secretary of State, there were 891 registered voters on Nov. 4 in this precinct. Here are the breakdowns:

Mt. Iron P1	Franken	Coleman	Barkley	TOTAL
New	506	211	95	812
Old	406	211	95	712

New %	62%	26%	12%
Old %	57%	30%	13%

The election was never in doubt for Franken in this precinct, he was up nearly 2 to 1 before the re-count. Also it appears that that the 100 vote gain was simply human error in totalling rather than lost votes being found, which changes the probability of fraud.

For arguments sake, however, let’s assume the new votes were found votes. What would the probability that they would all be Franken votes? Here is what we need to know to do the calculation

The number of votes left (179) = Total registered voters (891) - Total votes cast (812) + 100
Changed votes = 100
Probability votes going to Franken = 57% (original win percentage)
Probability votes going to Coleman = 43%

The expected score out of these assumptions, according to a binomial probability equation is 102. This means that the 100 votes Franken got is actually less than the statistical expectation.

One thing to be aware of is that this assumes that the Mt. Iron P1 district has a normal distribution of partisanship. Considering the heavy Obama vote and long standing DFL affiliations in the area, partisanship is not split 50/50. Although the 100 vote windfall was a calculation error and not found votes, numbers suggest Franken would have fared better if the ballots were found in the trunk of somebody’s car and entirely within the realm of possibility given the political make-up of the precinct. So, yes, the 100 vote appearance is strange, but surprisingly, it is statistical aberration that did less damage to Coleman than odds would suggest.

The Duluth News-Tribune is Wrong OR Why Forrum Communications Cannot be Trusted

2008-11-06T23:12:00.000-06:00

I was reading my hometown paper just now and they are saying that Northland Dems dissed Franken. In it, they posit that the Northland didn’t deliver for Franken and that Barkley played spoiler. They also say that if just 600 more people would have voted for Franken, everything would be different. I disagree with their assesment.

The DNT suggests that because 77% of St. Louis County went for Obama and only 55% went for Franken that Franken failed. Comparing Obama to Franken is like comparing a Ferrari to a Yugo. No way is this an apples-to-apples comparison. Franken’s campaign never really got its shit together and is lucky to be where they are now. As the Degausser showed yesterday, he still managed to destroy Coleman in the Northland. This shouldn’t have happened and it is more a testament to people hating Coleman more than liking Franken.

If the DNT wants to blame somebody, which is retarded because Coleman shouldn’t have made it such a close race, they should blame Hennepin or Ramsey County voters. They voted less for Franken, had less turnout, and have a higher concentration of voters. There were more opportunities to win in the Metro-Area than in the Northland. Franken didn’t pull it out, even in a heavy DFL/Dem year.

If Ciresi was the DFL Senate candidate, he would have pulled more votes up North and probably would have won the election outright.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this article in the DNT is Forrum Communication’s way of saying that the Northland is moving more into a Republican/Independent mindedness. This has been Forrum Communication’s stated mission for the newspaper ever since they took control of it. Forrum Communications endorsed Coleman and owns 22 papers in MN. Moreover, their endorsement was made on the basis of one man’s (Steve McLister) opinion and forced onto the opinion pages of all affiliates. Could it be that Forrum Communication’s endorsement swayed enough voters for Coleman? Instead of blaming the Northland, the DNT should look at their own.

Why Franken Should Kiss Duluth’s Ass

2008-11-05T23:08:00.000-06:00

Yesterday on the Degausser we suggested that MN’s Arrowhead region could tip in favor of Franken. Boy howdy did it.

Because of the impending recount, all results reported here are technically unofficial, but Franken carried the region by 18 points (33,560 votes).

For those of you metro-centric folks who refer to anything outside of Minneapolis/St. Paul as outstate, here’s a map of the Arrowhead region (shaded in red). The counties that make up this region are Aitken, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Koochicing (Kooch for those in the know. Or, if you want to get fancy, combine it with Itasca to get Kootasca), Lake, and Saint Louis. The major city here is Duluth (my home town, woot!).

Anyway, this region is reliable DFL territory. However, due to Franken’s rocky start and lack of strong ties outside of the metro-area, it was up in the air as to how he would perform in the North Country. Apparently, Franken went over well. Here are the numbers:

	Franken	Coleman	Barkley
Saint Louis	64,319	38,267	14,275
Lake	3,304	2,434	863
Cook	1,620	1,206	458
Carlton	9,517	6,099	2,555
Aitken	3,897	3,617	1,770
Itasca	11,544	9,264	3,182
Koochiching	3,091	2,845	721
TOTAL	97,292	63,732	23,824
Percent	52.6%	34.5%	12.9%

In Duluth, Franken won by more than 20 points and St. Louis County had the highest percentage of Franken voters than any other county in the state, including Hennepin. Duluth also had a whopping 85% turnout rate, which will probably be one of the highest in the country.

The Arrowhead region provided Franken with over 8% of his total votes. Given the turnout and wide margin that he beat Coleman by in this area, Franken owes his recount to Northeastern MN, and specifically to Duluth.

The Importance of Being Analytic

2008-11-04T23:03:00.000-06:00

Web analytics, the use of internet search traffic and page visit data, is just beginning to be used by campaigns to determine marketing efficacy. This practice is still in its infancy and the data is a little sketchy, but compiling data from the internet will be huge in future elections.

The candidates that can effectively use web analytics in the next election cycle (or this one, for that matter) will have a huge advantage over an opponent that cannot use the data. After the election, the Degausseer will attempt to unravel web trends of the MN Senate race to see if there was anything happening on the internet that could have evidenced the final outcome.

In the meantime, here is some quick info pr0n.

Charts show the google search indexes of Franken and Coleman through Oct 4 to Nov 2. Higher index means more searches. Again, since there is an error associated even with this data, searches are statistcally tied. Franken leads in internet searches by city, with more Duluthians searching for him (per capita) than any other city in MN.

Is Franken going to carry the Arrowhead region?

Could Coleman Eke One Out?

2008-11-03T22:53:00.000-06:00

The final round of Senate polling before the election was completed over the holiday weekend. While little kids were learning the finer points of bartering and Halloween tricks were being played (or turned), the rest of MN was getting sampled.

The results of the these final polls show a shift toward Coleman. There have now been a total of 49 polls conducted since last year. Although the results of the final few polls show that there is a statistical tie between the two candidates, there are a few data points that suggest Coleman may eke out a victory tomorrow.

First off, here is the line graph of all polls.

Coleman has come back from mid-October lows. Franken has hovered around 40% pretty consistantly.

Looking at the overall trends, Coleman has taken a minute lead, but because of variation in the data these trends are too close to call. The take away point, however, is that Coleman has made a come back and Franken has stagnated.

Looking at spread advantage (the difference between poll numbers), the trend line has broken in favor of Coleman for the first time since mid-September. Again, this is too close to call, but trends have shifted in Coleman’s favor.

Finally, looking at average highs and lows for all polls, Coleman has a 3-point advantage. This advantage is again within a statistical margin of error, so the race is still a toss-up, but considering the overall data trends, Coleman appears on the verge of eking out a victory.

Poll Averages .......High .....Low .....Total
Coleman..................48....... 40......... 44
Franken.................. 45....... 37......... 41

In races this close, campaign organization become the key to winning. The election will be decided on who has the best behind the scenes operation. Who knocked on more doors? Who had the most face to face contact with voters? Was it the GOP or DFL?

If you’re a Franken fan, you hope to God that Franken has hitched his wagon onto the organizational juggernaut that is Obama. The GOTV effort from that campaign may push enough DFL minded folks out to the polls to vote for Franken giving him the edge.

If you’re a Coleman fan, you hope that the storied GOP voter mobilization efforts of the last few presidential election cycles still work. MN is clearly going to fall in Obama’s favor, but will the GOP mobilize enough people to come out for Coleman? We will know shortly.

If you’re a Barkley fan, you are justifiably bitter. The political egos of Franken nd Coleman dominated an election season that should have been a policy wonk’s wet dream. Instead of measured responses to very serious issues, you got a high school pissing contest.

Last Stop on the Straight Talk Express…

2008-11-02T22:51:00.000-06:00

… is New Hampshire! (At least before the campaign does the obligatory return to the home state for photo-op vote and Election night party.)

As the Presidential Campaign winds down into its final 48, this bit of news struck me:

Tomorrow, McCain spends part of the day in Pennsylvania before heading to New Hampshire, where he’ll hold his final town hall of the campaign in Peterborough, a place that McCain regards as something of a lucky charm. He held his first town hall meeting there during his 2000 campaign and wound up there on the eve of his comeback primary victory earlier this year. It’s “where our campaign has been rescued and resurrected many times before,” Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, told reporters yesterday.

Ah yes … you know they call it the comeback.

Q: Will it work?

A: Not a chance.

Despite the grand symbolism McCain is evoking with the return to the resurrection of his campaign during the 2008 GOP primary - which led to the splintering of the fundamentalists between Romney and Huckabee, and let McCain steal the moderates from Guiliani - but even his advisers aren’t buying the prospect of a sequel:

… privately, McCain and his aides are unsure if it will be as lucky this time around. Down by 13 points in the state according to poll released yesterday, McCain and his aides view his stop there as more nostalgic than game changing. Indeed, a senior McCain aide says the candidate and his advisers have gone back and forth in recent days about whether the stop was time well spent in the final hours of the campaign.

The best analogy I can come up with to explain the McCain campaign’s decision is to explain my own decision to draft Tom Brady of the Patriots in my fantasy league this season. The reason: Nostalgia. While the Patriots have become the Evil Empire of the NFL, I’ve had Brady on my team each of the past two seasons - both to my benefit as I performed admirably…nay, heroically with his help. As such, when he was an available late first round pick this year, against good logic, I took him because he’s been good for me. But this is no way to gamble - Brady went down and out for the season during the first game. It’s like betting money on the Vikings on the first game of the twice annual Vikings-Packer matchup, and even after they get trounced in the first game, going back to the trough and betting on them to win the second game - possible even going double or nothing out of state pride.

But it’s no way to run a Presidential campaign, and it leads me to believe that the McCain camp knows it’s over. This is for pride now. To re-visit the battlefield of bygone campaign victories, and be able to leave the field with your chin up. When McCain goes to New Hampshire, where he is 13 points down the day before the election, while Obama tries to run up the score in the West is as obvious a signal as they come.

For me, I’ll have the good fortune to be in Chicago on election night; gotta work my way down to Grant Park to catch a glimpse of history.

-Jeffrey Oak

Studs Terkel - A Man For History - (1912-2008)

2008-11-01T22:48:00.001-05:00

I have to use this forum to recognize an icon of contemporary American culture, literature, history, activism, etc., etc. Louis “Studs” Terkel died yesterday at the ripe age of 96.

Terkel will largely be remembered for writing contemporary accounts of historical events through the use of oral histories or interviews with actual participants. Such a style offers a refreshing contrast to historical interpretation offered by more academic or pop authors. Indeed, I was drawn to Terkel’s works by their ability to rip much of the romanticism and nostalgia from mainstream versions of historical events and recognizes events by how they affected, and were affected by, the many people that lived them. It also reduced the tendency to see individual participants as heros or otherwise to aggrandize the acts of an individual when reality, and legitimate historical analysis, begs for more context.

I first was introduced to Terkel via my grandfather’s bookshelf, where The Good War captured my interest in all things World War II. The Good War recognized something that historians had traditionally, and willingly, ignored in their approach to writing about history - that the further we remove ourselves from the time, events and people who make up the setting for historical events, the more we lose the ability to capture the human experience. And what is history, if not a recollection and retelling of the human experience?

More recently, pop historians have begun to emulate Terkel’s oral history style. Most notably Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation essentially re-packaged The Good War, slapped a high profile name on the cover, and was published with the backing of a billion dollar publisher. The success of Brokaw’s Greatest Generation was buffeted by the fact that it came on the scene at a time when many of the subjects of the book were reaching their twilight years, and as many Baby Boomers sought a way to re-connect with dearly or soon-to-be departed parents. The same is essentially true of Ken Burn’s 2007 documentary The War.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trashing Brokaw or Burns here. In fact they confirm the importance of Terkel’s contribution - he legitimized of oral histories as a pedagogical method and established a mainstream art form that society craves.

Terkel’s personal story is also impressive for what it tells us about the values of our society and how they have changed in his lifetime. For example, in his Chicago Tribune obituary:

He attended the University of Chicago, where he obtained a law degree and borrowed his nickname from the character in the ” Studs Lonigan” trilogy by Chicago writer James T. Farrell. He never practiced law. Instead, he took a job in a federally sponsored statistical project with the Federal Emergency Rehabilitation Administration, one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies. Then he found a spot in a writers project with the Works Progress Administration, writing plays and developing his acting skills.

WPA, New Deal, FDR - cornerstones of the foundation for LBJ’s Great Society and a fundamental change in the shape of government and society. Yet, imagine a politician of either party standing in Congress to support the creation of a “writers project” funded by a WPA-like institution today. The disdain with which many popular decision-makers have towards arts and academia is palpable. There are fewer and fewer avenues for a future Studs Terkel to develop her craft with the resources to support a family available to them.

Studs Terkel didn’t achieve literary respect and fame until much later in life. In fact, his first major work wasn’t published until he was 55.

The result was “Division Street: America,” published in 1967 to rave reviews and best-selling success. It told the stories, in their own words, of businessmen, prostitutes, Hispanics, blacks, ordinary working people who formed the unit of America and also the divisions in society, using Chicago’s Division Street as a prototype of America.

And only after that did Terkel get to the works that will be the hallmarks of his legacy:

It was a theme that Terkel would explore again and again, in “Hard Times,” his Depression-era memoir in 1970; in “Working,” his saga of the lives of ordinary working people in 1974; in “American Dreams; Lost and Found” in 1980; and “The Good War,” remembrances of World War II, published in 1985 and the winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

In the chronology of his life, it’s interesting to examine how he didn’t achieve his greatest personal and professional success until later in life. It may be debatable, and I hope I can participate in the debate, but Terkel’s work and contributions must be considered something akin to genius, in the same way other literary giants are credited for their works.

A recent New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell provides an interesting and analogous study of genius - Late Bloomers - and why some achieve greatness early in life, such as T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock” at age 23, and some later in life, Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” at 42.

What Gladwell concludes that those who reach success later in life:

his or her success is highly contingent on the efforts of others. … Late bloomers’ stories are invariably love stories, and this may be why we have such difficulty with them. We’d like to think that mundane matters like loyalty, steadfastness, and the willingness to keep writing checks to support what looks like failure have nothing to do with something as rarefied as genius. But sometimes genius is anything but rarefied; sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after twenty years of working at your kitchen table.

Terkel certainly wasn’t toiling away at a kitchen table before he published at age 55, but his written works, the works that will have the greatest lasting impact were produced in the latter half of his life. But much like the history he wrote, his life success can be traced to the contributions and participation of others. The writing skills he developed in the federally subsidized New Deal programs, the interviewing skills he honed in thousands of interviews on his long running radio program, and what he learned from each of people he interviewed, and infinite unknown experiences, all contributed to his success. To this extent, Terkel’s approach to analyzing history - a history that is is complete only when it views events through the eyes of all the participants - is similar to how his own history would be written - it wouldn’t be complete without a review of all the perspectives.

Lets hope that Terkel’s death reminds us that much of the greatness of man cannot be attributed to rugged individualism, but a manifestation of the collective greatness that a committed society can produce.

-Jeffrey Oak

WTF, MSM?

2008-10-31T22:46:00.000-05:00

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Well, it has happened again. Forum Communications, a Fargo based company that owns 22 MN newspapers has endorsed Coleman and McCain. Sadly, these endorsements are only evidence of the rising irrelevance of the current corporate structure/strategy/ethos of print media. Get a load of what passes for editorial logic in the age of media conglomerations:

John McCain is not the perfect presidential candidate.
But he’s a better choice than Barack Obama.
-Forum Communication endorsement as printed in the Stillwater Courier, October 22, 2008

Flawless.

Let’s deconstruct Forum’s arguments for endorsing these candidates. The following is a bullet point list of the main issues given for each.

McCain

* Embodies traditional conservative values
* Streak of independence
* Experience
* Obama has socialistic platform with unlimited government control
* Obama would plunge the country into an economic hole
* Obama not jingoistic enough
* McCain will be a check to a Democratically controlled Congress

Coleman

* Coleman will be better able to work across the aisle
* Franken is hard-edged liberal
* He was there for MN when the 35W bridge collapsed
* He voted in favor of the bailout
* He is not a Bushie; He voted against ANWR drilling and the farm bill
* Franken will shame the state like Ventura did

Any level of thought past the purely partisan would show that all of these arguments are red herrings. Forum Communications is simply giving credit to McCain and Coleman for having the tools to get us out of the situation they put us in.

The entire argument for endorsement is a farce. Are we not already in an economic hole? Did Coleman go above and beyond by securing Federal funding for the 35W bridge or was he just doing his job?

Not to say that Obama is entirely blameless nor has all of the answers, but to call him a socialist when Coleman and McCain presided over and supported the greatest period of government expansion since FDR is an insult to their readers. Moreover, they both recently pushed for the US government to take equity stakes in private companies as a part of the economic bailout. If that isn’t socialism, then I have an efficient private health insurance plan to sell ya.

There are many reasons Forum had to endorse Coleman and Franken. And I understand it’s a scary time for print media and they are looking for a predictable hand at the till. Sadly, however, I don’t think any of these reasons are based on coherent logic or sense of progress. The Forum Communications endorsements were based on short-sighted fear.

Really??

2008-10-29T22:24:00.000-05:00

Taking a page from the Democratic playbook of the mid-1990s, the Republican National Senatorial Committee has enlisted the help of some stars from that era to urge Minnesotans not to vote for Franken.

Maybe this video was meant to be funny or ironic. It is neither. Minnesota is so much more than ice fishing and the Vikings. It’s also about drinking like Wisconsinites and testing the boundaries of what qualifies as proper public attire.

The coasts tend to view Minnesotans as Jack Pine Savages. This ad treats us as such. Having Cliff Claven tell me who to vote for will not work. Everybody knows he was always full of bull shit anyway. Now, if they got Woody, that would be a different story.

Former GOP Senator joins the “Flight to Quality”

2008-10-26T21:57:00.000-05:00

Politico and Talking Points Memo reported today that former South Dakota Republican Senator Larry Pressler voted by absentee for Obama.

It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, this will have on the vote outcome in So Dak. I travelled there last week, and outside of a scattershot of yard signs in and around the rapidly expanding Sioux Falls, there was scant evidence of any non-GOP support between there and Mitchell. SoDak is going to go Red, but things like this would suggest that it will be, as in North Dakota, much narrower than local pols are used to.

It seems in this case Prairie Populism, as much as anything, drove this vote.

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), who was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the United States Senate, is the latest Republican to back Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, Politico learned Sunday.

Pressler, who said that in addition to casting an absentee ballot for Obama he’d donated $500 to the Illinois senator’s campaign, cited the Democrat’s response to the financial crisis as the primary reason for his decision.

“I just got the feeling that Obama will be able to handle this financial crisis better, and I like his financial team of [former Treasury Secretary Robert] Rubin and [former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul] Volcker better,” he said. By contrast, John McCain’s “handling of the financial crisis made me feel nervous.”

The former senator added that he hoped the next president would help place restraints on executive pay, and said: “I don’t think [McCain] will take action in that area, or he’s as likely to.”

Pressler was out of the Senate before I really started paying attention, but he seems to fit the mold of a Chuck Hagel. Unless I missed it, Hagel hasn’t suggested who his vote will be for this election. He has certainly given ample indication that he wouldn’t be a surprising swing to Obama.

-J. Oak

More Polls, Please!!

2008-10-26T21:28:00.000-05:00

New shit has come to light…man. - The Dude

There have been seven new polls since our last post on MN’s Senate Race. People apparently have a lot of money to spend on these things. Anyway, instead of me telling you about them, just look at the pictures (after the jump).

Notice anything? Franken is trending higher. Looking at the graph of candidate’s spread advantage (the difference between poll numbers) Franken is trending an easy five points ahead. Many pundits (make spitting sound here) pick the state as a moderate Franken victory. I would get behind that, but now that we see the mighty Star-Tribune backing Coleman we will see what effect, if any, that has. I suspect little to none.

The polling methodology is missing cell phone only households and individuals with limited voter histories. In short, poll numbers are missing the youth which, as a group, are less likely to be swayed by mainstream media.

If pollsters want to maintain relevance in a world of web 2.0 they must devise ways of accounting for increasingly active young voters. Uncovering the political sway of this perennially ignored voting bloc is the key to getting at more accurate data. More importantly however, it would bring increased gravitas to a generation that is proving itself as one that values pragmatism over partisan affiliation. Something, I would say, this country (and state) really needs.

Star Trib Endorses Coleman for Senate - The Reason?

2008-10-25T21:10:00.000-05:00

What happened at the old fountainhead of Yellow journalism, liberal bias - the old Red Star as conservatives liked to call the Minneapolis Star Tribune

Apparently it was his ability to stick his moistened finger in the air and check the direction of the wind that captured the Editorial Board’s collective heart:

Coleman didn’t begin his Senate service as an agent of bipartisanship. But that’s the note on which he wound up his six-year term and which he has sounded repeatedly in his reelection campaign. We like the trend we’ve seen and believe Coleman is capable of taking it further.

Aaron at MN Publius suggests a mildly conspiratorial, though certainly not implausible, reason for the endorsement:

The CEO of Avista Capital Partners, Thompson Dean, not only owns the Star Tribune, but is also on the board. His contributions indicate he only sends to Republicans, including to Rudy Giuliani’s PAC. Coleman is the only Senate candidate to receive money from Giuliani’s PAC this cycle.
Thompson Dean also fundraises for John McCain.
This, mixed with their right-wing editorial positions this cycle and knowing that their primary investments are in oil companies and health care firms, who could possibly be surprised by a Coleman endorsement?

Money - or the promise of making more of it - is certainly a reliable predictor of behavior. MN Publius has catalogued a significant number of out-of-character Editorial positions the Star Trib has taken in the past year, which, in addition to personnel changes on the Editorial board, provide several indicators that this may be a permanent shift to the center-right by the traditionally liberal newspaper.

I don’t disagree with MN Publius - newspapers are a dying medium, and the Star Trib’s continued existence depends on making a fundamental reorganization of its business model. Avista Capital Partners wouldn’t have come onto the scene in the past year if they didn’t have a plan to do so. The only question that remains is what the Star Tribune will look like, as a media outlet, when this transformation is complete. I think we can expect to see the Star Trib follow the PiPress’s lead in trimming the page size to Tabloid-size, more Katherine Kersten, AP wire news, an overall look akin to USA Today and less original reporting like what can be found at MinnPost.

- J. Oak

If not for the coffee, then come for the bellwether??

2008-10-21T17:52:00.000-05:00

Could North Dakota be the new Missouri?

Maybe this is an outlier poll, and I don’t mean to step on the toes of the professional Poll Smokers on this site, and maybe its sample size is all wrong or someone is reading the compass backwards, but this appears to be a significant poll giving the State of North Dakota to Sen. Barack Obama in the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

While there certainly isn’t an overabundance of Presidential polling on North Dakota, it isn’t the first time Obama came out on top:

“The last publicly reported North Dakota presidential poll, taken Sept. 16-17, showed McCain led Obama 53 percent to 40 percent, the latest in a string of surveys this year showing the Republican was ahead in North Dakota. But an early poll, in February, surprised many politicos when Obama was shown leading 46 percent to 42 percent.”

But this is important primarily for what it says about a state that hasn’t gone Democratice since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 (over Goldwater), and has only gone Democratic three times since 1916, when it helped Woodrow Wilson squeak past a Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes and being big fans of term limits NoDak voted for FDR in ‘32 and ‘36 but not in ‘40 or ‘44. (***The Charles Evans Hughes candidacy really strikes me as bizarre and totally implausible today - SCOTUS Justices have personalities that only legal junkies and wonks can appreicate - I could however imagine a fiesty Ruth Bader Ginsburg appearing at an endorsing convention in the Midwest and discussing the difference between herself and a pit bull.)

While the conventional wisdom suggests that this poll likely overstates support for Obama in NoDak, it certainly underscores the problems McCain is having here, and elsewhere, sollidifying his base. Here, more than self-identified “Independent Republicans”, or “WeakRepublicans”, 17% of “Strong Republicans” identified themselves as likely Obama Voters. For their part, 73% of “Strong Republicans” identified as McCain voters, with 10% of “Strong Republicans” as Undecided. This is a BIG problem for McCain.

I think its fair to say that 4 years ago a campaign surrogate the level of “The Todd” (or First Dude or whatever) would not be heading to Moorhead, MN to stump 3 weeks before election day. This would be one of the largest cities (a whopping 32k individuals) in Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District, who can boast the Bluest of Blue Dogs Rep. Collin Peterson (D), and an otherwise reliably Republican Congressional District that voted for Bush over Kerry in ‘04, 55 to 43%, and Bush over Gore in 2000, roughly 55 to 41%.

“Todd Palin, the self-described “First Dude” of Alaska, is a familiar figure among snowmobile buffs and other outdoorsy types, said Tom Steward, the St. Paul-based regional communications director for the John McCain-Sarah Palin campaign.”

Clearly, the Palin-McCain campaign is trying to replicate previous success with local Joe’s Six Pack: “Steward said Palin was a hit at September’s Hay Days Grass Drags, a Forest Lake, Minn., event marking the kickoff of the snowmobile racing season. “Hundreds of people flocked to him because they know him as a champion snowmobile racer and an outdoors guy,” Stewart said.”

Good Luck, Todd; by the way, we don’t call them “snowmachines” in the Red River Valley, FYI.

Link: “Obama Leads in ND,” http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=218215&section=news.
Link: “Palin’s Husband to Visit Moorhead,” http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=218216&section=news&CFID=101921012&CFTOKEN=71511221&jsessionid=8830fa1b78191ca3fa69

-Jeffrey Oak

The Most Competitive Senate Race in the Country is Right Here (with graphs)

2008-10-21T11:16:00.000-05:00

With only a few weeks left until the election, many of the races are hotter and nastier than Tila Tequila’s MySpace page. In Minnesota, the premier showdown is the Senate race between Norm Coleman, Al Franken, and Dean Barkley.

Although Coleman is the incumbent and has generally enjoyed comfortable approval ratings over the last six years, his Republican brand and association with the Bush Administration are heavy weights on his campaign.

Al Franken comes to the race with high name recognition and a large war chest. However, his campaign has been plagued by staff turnover, criticisms of his failure to pay taxes in 19 states, and his racy satirical background.

Dean Barkley, the Independence Party candidate, served a short stint as MN Senator in 02-03 when Jesse Ventura appointed him after the death of Paul Wellstone. Barkley, the veritable dark horse in this campaign, does have the real potential to play spoiler for either Coleman or Franken.

From the latter part of 2007, public opinion polls have been released tracking the electability of both candidates. In total, 35 polls have been taken from February 2007 to October 2008. Can these polls tell us anything about the possible outcome of the election in November? In a run of the mill race, these polls usually show the general sway of the electorate. But this isn’t your daddy’s senate race. The economy is crap and Beverly Hills Chiuahua spent multiple weeks as the highest grossing movie in the US. Quickly put, people are acting jittery, which is putting the Senate race up for grabs.

From May 07 to October 08 Coleman has experienced rocky approval and ultimately polls lower now than he did late last year. Franken rose in the polls early on, but stumbled in June when his tax issues came to the fore. Since that time however, Franken seems to have rebounded and through October has been leading Coleman. The latest Quinnipiac poll has Franken ahead by 2 points and several pollsters put Franken winning the race by 4+ points. Let’s look into this further.

The polls reported in this analysis come from multiple sources. Each source uses a different methodology and has different margins of error. The methodological discussion is one best saved for another day. For now, let’s just say each has their own issues and assume the random sampling conducted for the polls was sufficient.

The reported numbers stated in the media from each poll are simply estimates. To get the full story, you have to look at the margins of error calculated for each poll. The margins of error in these polls range from +/- 2.8% to 4.5%. In addition to the margins of error is the associated confidence interval or the reliability of the estimate. For most polls, this interval is 95%, which means that 95% of the time the estimate will be within the margin of error. For more on these topics go to:

http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Info/polling-faq.html

Adding the margins of error from the Senate race polls and graphing them on top of each gives us a deeper level of analysis.

According to poll data, Coleman had consistently outpaced Franken until September. The points on the graph where the lines do not intersect are points where each candidate could have a clear victory. Coleman, has 10 of these points. Franken has just one, occurring a few weeks ago in October.

Alright, so we’ve looked at all of the polls. Let’s look at data from one poll source. Since Rasmussen consistently conducts polling, they provide the most data points. Using Rasmussen only polls we get a consistent survey methodology and more comparable data across time. This time we see that Franken opened up a wide lead in October. The interesting thing to note is that both candidates are descending.

If we again look at all polls, Franken has never sustained a spread advantage. That is, he has never pulled ahead of Coleman and held it over time. Franken has come on strong in October, but the trend line suggest that lead is slipping. Why is this happening?

Considering the current state of things, there are many reasons why polling data would show that the major party candidates are losing ground. Where are they going? It appears people are turning to Barkley. Barkley has been included in the last 10 public opinion polls. Pulling these points out an interesting trend appears. Barkley’s ascension has come with Franken’s decline. Even more interesting, Franken is falling faster than Coleman, who has seemed to level out.

The wild card in all of this is the rising level of support for Barkley. Given the blow back of the negative ads Coleman has run against Franken and the sinking ship of the GOP party in general, people are looking toward other choices. The strength of the Independence Party candidate, Dean Barkley, and the 30% showing for Priscilla Lord Faris in the recent DFL primary election evidence that neither Coleman or Franken have this wrapped up.

Throwing even more data onto the pile, favorability ratings for Franken suggest that he has a lot of work to do in order to shore up some votes to win the election. His very unfavorable ratings are 8 points higher and his very favorable ratings are 6 points lower than Coleman’s. It seems, however that voters are unsure of what to make of both candidates since somewhat favorable and unfavorable ratings are opposite.

So, with all of this data all we are left with to make an educated guess are trends. Combining all poll data and doing some fancy month the above graph represents the trends of public opinion. If you trusted in the polls, Franken has a good shot of winning. Coleman is descending and Barkley has topped out. As we all know, however is that elections are won on the intangibles. The biggest key to victory for either Coleman or Franken is if they can get a few more people to believe them. This will be difficult for Minnesotans to do however, between a satirist and a carpet bagger, who can you trust??

-Allen Springvale