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Political Agenda

Emmer stresses that he's not a 'career politician'

By Joe Kimball | 01/08/10

State Rep. Tom Emmer, one of the 20 or so people running for governor, took an interesting campaign tack this week in Albert Lea by stressing that he's not a career politician.

(I'm betting we won't see any candidate in this campaign coming out in favor of career politicians.)

The GOP hopeful said he's been a trial lawyer for 20 years and has coached hockey, with five years of experience in the Legislature, said the Albert Lea Tribune. 

“This [politics] has not been my career and it will never be my career,” Emmer told a group of 12 at a restaurant Thursday.

A main goal of career politicians, he said, is getting re-elected. But he said the next governor must know what it's like to run a business in Minnesota, the paper said.

“You need to have sat at both ends of the bench ... so you can motivate everything in between,” he said.

The next governor also needs to reduce the size of government, he said, as it has grown 20 percent every two years since the 1960s. Minnesota needs to get back to where it’s working from the person up to the government, not from the government down to the person.

He asked, why is [there] a Minnesota Department of Health and a Minnesota Department of Health and Human Services? It was one example he cited where the state government could reduce its size.

Comments (3)

Submitted by John Olson on January 10, 2010 - 9:25am.

Mr. Emmer, you have been in the Legislature for five years now.

If you do not know the difference in functions between the Department of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services by now, you either do not comprehend it, or choose not to do so. You sit on both the finance and policy divisions in the House for Health and Human Services.

All this seems to be is throwing out a tube of Sam's Club ground beef and seeing who comes to take the bait. You are going to have to do a lot better than 12.

Submitted by Leslie Davis on January 11, 2010 - 10:17am.

Mr. Emmer is the epitome of the career politician. He has held elected offices for 13 years so far (Delano, Independence, State) and he will likely go for more if he's not selected for governor. At least he hasn't said he wouldn't. Sheesh!

Submitted by Tom Rees on January 13, 2010 - 10:25am.

Oftentimes it is instructive to see the choice of people a politician surrounds himself or herself and counts as “friends.” Next to Representative Emmer’s choice for Lieutenant Governor, his selection of a Campaign Chairman is important. Who is Representative Emmer’s Campaign Chairman?
According to the Emmer for Governor website, it is another politician. The Chairman is a person that made his living primarily as a public employee! He is quoted in a May 2009 MinnPost article as saying, "I'm more a libertarian than a Republican."
This is a man who may be fairly characterized as a “career politician” now serving his sixth term in the Minnesota House after serving on a city council prior to his election. Don’t get me wrong – there is nothing inherently wrong with serving in public office; on the contrary it is an honorable and noble pursuit. However, the Chairman of the Emmer campaign may be unique in American history when in 2009 he introduced legislation to freeze state government expenditures while he increased his legislative daily pay by more than 16%! And the Chairman as an honorable public servant concerned about taxes is currently delinquent paying his property taxes for his St. Paul investment property. Does this demonstrate the kind of government appointee that we may expect from Representative Emmer?