Well, this ought to seal it for Romney in Minnesota in November. Brian Bakst of the AP is reporting, “Minnesota’s House speaker and majority leader planned Friday to endorse Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney days ahead of the state’s political caucuses, according to a leading state Capitol Republican familiar with their intentions. The official told The Associated Press that Speaker Kurt Zellers and Majority Leader Matt Dean will headline a list of Romney’s legislative backers. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the roster wasn’t due for public release until later Friday. The endorsements signal a desire by high-level Republicans to close ranks around Romney before next Tuesday’s caucuses. Other top Minnesota Republicans in Romney’s corner include former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Erik Paulsen and former Sen. Norm Coleman. Zellers earlier supported Pawlenty, but he dropped out of the White House race in August. Dean had endorsed Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann before Iowa’s caucuses.” These fellows know a winner …
According to Jon Collins’ MPR story, both parties are doing outreach to Minnesota Somali voters … sort of: “As Minnesota’s Feb. 7 caucus approaches, both the state DFL and, to a lesser extent, the Minnesota Republican Party, are pushing the state’s immigrant communities to get involved in this first step in the political process, where planks will be proposed to party platforms and delegates will be chosen for county and district conventions. … State DFLers set up a video center at their headquarters in St. Paul where volunteers shoot videos explaining the caucus in Somali and Spanish. Those videos are making the rounds of websites, and finding traction on Facebook pages. The videos also target the elders in the community who may not be able to read or speak fluent English. … Minnesota Republicans are pursuing the same groups by posting ads and explanations of the caucus process in publications like Latino Midwest and the Hmong Times. Local Republican groups like the Republican Liberty Caucus are also organizing on the ground, said Minnesota Republican Party Communications Director Heather Dodgers-Rubash.” I expect Messers Zellers and Dean to host an open-house for Somali voters, perhaps at The Minneapolis Club.
The Susan G. Komen Fund’s mind-boggling PR fiasco was still building in the hours before the group’s change of heart. A couple of dozen U.S. senators — almost all Democrats — signed a letter Thursday. Today Amy Klobuchar has sent over one of her own. Says Brett Neely at MPR: “Critics of the decision say Komen gave in to pressure from groups opposed to legal abortion that have sought to weaken Planned Parenthood’s funding in the past year. Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the United States. ‘I believe this decision is counter to the goals of Komen’s mission of protecting women’s health and I urge you to reconsider your decision,’ wrote Klobuchar to Komen CEO Nancy Brinker.” The correspondence to Ms. Brinker over the last two days would make a book.
I missed the part where Rick Santorum’s sweater vests are made in Minnesota. He hasn’t. FoxNews reports: “On Sunday, sweater-vest-loving GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum will visit the Lake Bemidji, Minn., manufacturing plant that makes his famous sweater vests for sale on his campaign website. …The sweater vest has become a signature fashion item for the former Pennsylvania senator who has donnned one frequently on the campaign trail. Earlier this month the campaign began offering them to supporters who donated $100 or more to help fuel the Iowa caucuses winner’s presidential bid. Bill Batchelder, fourth-generation owner of Bemidji Woolen Mills, told The Bemidji Pioneer last month that the plant was rushing to fill the influx of orders. ‘We’re not exactly sure what our daily capacity is, but all hands are on deck. Our employees are extremely excited to be a part of this,’ Batchelder said.”
Who are they calling “tick-infested”? An AP story by Holly Ramer says: “Researchers who dragged sheets of fabric through the woods to snag ticks have created a detailed map pinpointing the highest-risk areas for Lyme disease. The map shows a clear risk across much of the Northeast, from Maine to northern Virginia. Researchers at Yale University also identified a high-risk region across most of Wisconsin, northern Minnesota and a sliver of northern Illinois. … The map was published this week based on data from 2004-2007. Researchers say the picture might have changed since then in the emerging areas, but the map is still useful because it highlights areas where tick surveillance should be increased and can serve as a baseline for future research.”
If the Joel Maturi hiring of beknighted U of M football coach Tim Brewster needed a finer point put on it, the Strib’s Patrick Reusse applied it: “The football crowd was celebratory over the news of Maturi’s pending departure. Asked the source of their Maturi acrimony, many fans would have cited the AD’s hiring of Brewster … yeah, the same decision they were applauding on signing day four years earlier. The difference between misguided fans and a misguided AD, of course, is fans are allowed to be naïve, while Maturi had to have the acumen to see Brewster for the shallow blowhard that he was, and if not, to watch his football program pay the consequences. The Brewster hiring overshadows several other Maturi gaffes, the greatest of which was signing Mason to a five-year contract on Dec. 31, 2005, and agreeing with then-President Bob Bruininks to fire him exactly one year later.”
A warm winter is cutting into Xcel’s profits. Dave Shaffer at the Strib writes: “Xcel Energy toned down its profit forecast for 2012 Thursday, citing weaker-than-expected energy demand and other factors. The Minneapolis-based electric and gas utility reported fourth-quarter results that fell a penny per share short of Wall Street’s expectations. CEO Ben Fowke said Xcel had an excellent year but faces challenges in 2012, including regulators’ denial of an interim electric rate hike in Colorado, sluggish electric natural gas and electric demand, a warmer-than-normal winter and higher property taxes than expected. Electrical demand in the fourth quarter fell 0.4 percent across the company, after gains earlier in the year.”
The Trevor Cook Ponzi scheme continues to keep lawyers and courts … and Dan Browning of the Strib busy: “The receiver rounding up assets for the victims of Trevor Cook’s Ponzi scheme filed a federal lawsuit this week seeking at least $48 million from a Chicago-based futures broker and currency dealer alleged to have facilitated the fraud. Peregrine Financial Group’s (PFG) pursuit of profit caused it to turn a blind eye to ‘overwhelming red flags of fraud or insolvency’ in the trades Cook and his associates had executed through the firm, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday by receiver R.J. Zayed. … Cook, his associates and various business entities they controlled held at least 26 accounts at PFG, the suit says. The trades placed by Cook and his cohorts made them important customers for PFG, which had about $203 million in customer equity in 2006, the suit says. In addition, one of his entities, UBS Diversified, acted as an ‘introducing broker’ and was paid to refer investors to the firm. PFG knew or should have known that Cook had previous regulatory sanctions over alleged dishonesty, yet it took no special steps to scrutinize his transactions, according to the lawsuit.” In PRG’s defense, they probably assumed Cook was an entrepreneurial job creator.
And on the Susan G. Komen controversy, you really owe it to yourself to read Steve Hayward’s spin at Power Line. But if you’re busy re-sorting your spice cabinet, here’s the essence: “Any institution that is not explicitly right wing will become left wing over time. Good examples include such seemingly anodyne institutions like the League of Women Voters, PTAs, National Public Radio, most professional associations like the American Bar Association, the Pew Charitable Trust (which actually was intended to be explicitly conservative, and still got captured by the left), and so forth. This week is seeing a good example of the logic and action of O’Sullivan’s First Law at work. We noted here the other day how the leftist climateers are pressuring the American Meteorological Association to submit to climate orthodoxy. But an even more revealing case is the way the left is reacting to the decision of the Susan G. Komen Foundation to discontinue most of their funding for Planned Parenthood. The left has gone into full denunciation and outrage mode. Feminist organizations went directly to DefCon1. The Komen Foundation’s website has been hacked. Board members are being pressured to resign. The Komen Foundation, which focuses exclusively on breast cancer, decided to stop most of their funding because Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer mammograms in most of its locations. Komen said it will continue funding some PP clinics that do offer mammograms. Instead of respecting the foundation’s fiduciary decision, the left attacked the organization’s chair, Nancy Brinker, because she’s a Republican, and a friend of the Bush family.” A simple “fiduciary decision.” Who knew?
